Well, first of all, if you haven’t updated your 401k contributions for the new $24.5k limits, now is the time!
My goals are pretty simple, I think. Max the 401k, and add at least $60k to brokerage. I’m going to remodel the guest bath, and tackle some landscaping, it’ll cost a bit but my years of spending $40k+ every year are over.
I’ll go in with the max 401k and +100k new money on the brokerage. I feel like I could easily miss that by 50% though.
My focus over the last year has shifted from FIRE (financial independence; retire early) being a distant possibility, to FIRE being my goal.
Realistically, I’m probably looking at about 10 years left. We won’t continue getting 15% market returns in perpetuity.
So basically,
Dialing in around $2.8M for FIRE.
Yeah, I used to feel conservative assuming 4.5% real returns, back when I was 100% in equities. Now I’m bang on 25% bonds, and I’ve dialed it back to a 4% real return. Assuming ~3% inflation that’s 7% nominal. Which… if you assume 10% average S&P and 4% bonds, would put me at 5.5% real returns, but given how hot the markets are, I’ve dialed it back to 4% real returns. I’m tempted to dial it down more but that feels at least sane.
I really need to start a spreadsheet and figure out my number, based on some really crude mental math I think $3M is probably enough, but I think I’ll push through to like $3.3M or $3.5M.
Our credit card spending is probably 95% of our expenses, except for some ACH transactions like my mortgage.
So, I found it relatively easy to go through each card’s history and total my expenses off that. By going through my 12MTD bank statements I was able to get a pretty good set of assumptions for things like my scheduled mortgage and other large unscheduled checks written. This gave a decent lower bound for my history. Then going forward, I just make sure any significant non-CC expenditures are properly recorded, and record the monthly CC payments.
I should be able to do this in 2026, my prior spend is inflated by home improvement spending. I can back out the really big checks easily enough (hello, fifty thousand dollar porch) but I spend a lot on my CC buying materials, fixtures, and I sometimes pay contractors with a CC so that’s many thousands of dollars hidden somewhere in my CC history.
I added a tab to my retirement spreadsheet and started sketching things out. I know I’m missing a lot because the number is too low but it’s a start!
So, getting your retirement Sheet together???
As we’re looking at FIRE, and early last year we took in our now 21-yo “kid”, we’ve also started thinking about caring for them. We spend perhaps $4k on them per year right now.
But - she is truly family. Partner and I are on the same page here. We still plan to adopt, and questions of inheritance will become meaningful. If we die when we’re in our 80s, inheritance hopefully would matter little for Godkid. But if we die with a minor child and Godkid an adult, it matters much more. If we knew that Godkid will or will not get any inheritance money from their parents, it would help our thinking. Ultimately, I think their mother will run their finances into the ground and they’ll end up destitute, despite their prior wealth. However, this doesn’t greatly matter today. TBD.
We aren’t looking to “die with zero” and provide nothing to our kids after a nice, long retirement. Neither do we plan to leave enough that our kids don’t need to work - but ideally could, with work, choose to FIRE themselves.
Partner and I - completely separate from Godkid - have also been talking about contribution to a potential wedding, and maybe even down payment assistance on a home. Future things that will get discussed more if they become more real.
Today I sold off $44K of the gold I bought in an investment account in December 2024 after just realizing my year-long wait was over, at a gain of 75%. I’m certainly not the best buy and hold investor out there, but I’m learning to be a bit more patient and not pay taxes on short-term gains..
posting my goals are on hold for a bit. too much shit going on to focus on this
My main goal for 2026 is getting back into tracking expenses. 2025 was unusual because we moved and it took us 5 months to sell our old house. We just closed on it last week so want to take a look at where we’re at now that the dust has settled.
I’m trying to focus on building my ROTH balance. My portfolio was 80% traditional a couple years ago and now it’s 70%. In 2025 and for the last few years my new contributions have all been ROTH and last year I converted about $ 10,000 Amazon stock from traditional to ROTH. I’m not going to do wholesale conversions, just selective ones to build some strong growth positions within the ROTH. I plan on keeping the traditional balance growing but for ROTH to grow faster. Ultimately I’m thinking that I can get close to a 50-50% mix.
I probably need to step up my tax modeling, but I can’t seem to justify the 11%+ tax hit (35% vs 24%) on putting more into Roth’s, The flexibility of having a portfolio in a taxable brokerage account would outweigh any of the remaining tax benefits elsewhere, IMO. If you are piling money into growth stocks, the benefits are even lower as unrealized gains will just sit there.
I recognize there is tax policy risk, but I am unsure if there is any clear indication that ROTH mitigates that. Any money anywhere will have tax policy risk.
My desire to put more in my ROTH bucket is mostly about future flexibility. I’m pretty firmly in the 22% bracket and I’m not converting enough to move up.
For a long time I didn’t see any benefit in ROTH but I’ve been able to grow the portfolio significantly with consistent contributions and favorable markets so that RMDs in my 80’s can move the needle.
Doing really well with my investments (2025 and 2026) so mostly looking to continue putting in the same contributions every month. Total £60k/year.
Still haven’t been able to really reduce travel expenses (had kind of given up on this as just too much to see and do).
Only stretch goal this year is to put £30k into educational fund this year for the little one. Have been modelling future educational costs (IB school, undergraduate, postgraduate costs) and it looks like prices are increasing faster than my assumptions last year, so will need additional buffers.
goals are lighter and easier than last year.Last year’s major failure was a construction project that got over budget. Has impact on this year. Second impact on this year is comp stagnation at work. Third is the funds being redirected to pay for food and rent of people in my community. this whole year will be like a holdover year where very little big picture progress is made.