2026 Looking Ahead

Happy New Year, everyone! 

Can you believe this decade, the 20s, is halfway over? It’s also hard to believe that both of my kids are no longer little babies anymore. In fact, Kid 2.0 will turn 10 later this year, meaning both kids are inching closer and closer to becoming teenagers! 

Geesh! Please slow down! 

Compared to 2024, I didn’t travel nearly as much for business or pleasure. In early 2025, we spent three weeks in Taiwan to attend my nephew’s wedding and celebrated Chinese New Year with extended family members. It was a fun experience for both kids to experience CNY in Asia. For work, I had the opportunity to check out Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for the first time in my career. It was an eye-opening experience, since over 109,000 people attended the show. In October, we spent over five weeks in Denmark and stopped in Iceland for four nights on the way back home. 

In case you’re wondering, I had the opportunity to visit the following countries and cities throughout 2025. 

• Taiwan: Taipei, Yilan, Taoyuan, Taichung, Kaohsiung
• Japan: Tokyo, Osaka, Nagano, Nagoa, Kobe
• Denmark – Copenhagen, Ribe
• Spain: Barcelona
• Germany: Munich, Nuremberg
• USA: San Francisco, San Jose 

(Notre to Bob – seems like a fair bit of travelling to me!!)

Throughout 2025, I put a lot of focus on health, personal well-being, and personal fitness. Thanks to signing up for the local recreational annual family pass, I was able to go to gyms, attend fitness classes, and go to pools regularly to take full advantage of the annual pass. Multiple times in 2025, I went to the gym more than 15 times a month (I usually spent an hour to an hour and a half each gym session). I also joined three curling teams and spared on a few other teams, slowly improving my curling techniques and abilities. Curling is something I plan to continue doing.

What I was most proud of was how I looked in the mirror. I reduced my body weight from just over 77 kg or 170 lbs in early January to about 73 kg or 161 lb. When I looked at the body fat percentage, thanks to our Renpho Smartscale, I went from 17.7% body fat at the beginning of the year down to 15.5%! It’s cool to start seeing a 6-pack in my midsection. 

One thing I wish I could improve is increasing the number of steps each day. On average, I did over 11,700 steps per day. It would be nice to raise this stat in 2026. 

We reached many key personal finance milestones in 2025. Both our liquid net worth (i.e. cash plus investment portfolio) and total net worth reached an all time high. We ended the year receiving over $64,000 in dividend income. Although it was not quite enough to cover our total annual expenses, our dividend income covered more than 100% of our necessities spending. Hopefully in the near future our dividend income could cover 100% of our total expenses.

I was pleased that I kept up the weekly publishing schedule – publishing a new post every Monday. I also started a new podcast called DIY Wealth Canada with Nelson from Canadian Dividend Investing. 

I’ll admit, though, between this blog, the new podcast, work, volunteering for Scouts, curling, working, and family life, sometimes it was hard to find the optimal work-life balance. One thing I was more conscious of throughout 2025 was my phone usage – keeping my phone out of sight and out of reach when I was having quality time with family or friends. I’m nowhere near being perfect though. It is very much a work in progress, but I’m getting better. 

Work-wise, 2025 had its ups and downs. Returning to the office three days a week was challenging when both kids have so many activities and we only have one car. To avoid having to plan for car logistics every single week and feeling frustrated, when we came back from our Denmark trip, I started taking the bus to and from work every Wednesday so Mrs. T could have the car. Taking the bus meant around 1 hour and 20 minutes of commute time each way, compared to a 40 minutes commute time by car. To my surprise, I found taking the bus quite refreshing, because I could relax, think,  and not have to worry about traffic.

In 2026, work now has a four-day return-to-office mandate. This isn’t ideal, but it’s nice to know that we have the flexibility to show up to work a little bit later (since I have a lot of calls in the morning) and leave work a little bit earlier (since I have a lot of calls in the late afternoon/evening with people in Asia). Hopefully, such flexibility will continue…

So, what does 2026 hold for us and what are our plans? 

For the most part, we plan to continue doing what we have done since we started our financial independence journey in 2011:

• Continue the earn-save-invest strategy
  • Increase our household income whenever possible
  • See if we can increase our savings gap further
  • Continue building our dividend portfolio by adding new capital regularly and generating $69,000 in dividend income. 
• Grow our cash wedge and build up some savings buffers 
• Enjoy life while we can – spend time with my family, travel, and explore the world when the opportunities arise
• Enjoy what’s available in our local community
• Continue setting annual goals and resolutions for myself – and monitoring them

Some of the “new” additions and tasks for 2026 are:  

• Stop dripping dividends in our non-registered accounts and RRSPs to build up a cash reserve. We plan to continue drip dividends in our TFSAs to take advantage of tax-free compounding
• Max out the $14,000 RESP room available for each kid without sacrificing the Canada Education Savings Grant 
• Maintain a body weight of around 72kg and a body fat percentage of below 15.5% by focusing on eating whole foods, reducing the consumption of highly processed foods, and continuing with my gym workouts (ideally, it would be great to hit below 15% body fat but I’m not sure if that’s sustainable long term.
• Increasing daily step counts. It would be nice to average 12,000 steps a day
• Research about extended health coverage in early retirement
• Consider applying for a home equity line of credit (HELOC). It may be harder to get approval when we are in early retirement

When it comes to financial independence and retiring early… we are not too worried about the “end date” or so-called finish line. I’m not planning to quit full-time employment in 2026. However, there are a few things that are completely outside of my control:

1. I may get fired. If that were to happen, that might expedite my early retirement timeline
2. There have been talks of company divestiture. In the latest company quarterly earnings call, both the CEO and CFO admitted the divestiture plan. The CEO went as far as stating that divestiture is one of his top priorities. In the latest company quarter all hands meeting, the CEO confirmed the plan to sell off part of the company. To be more specific, the part that I belong to. There’s no timeline yet but it sounded like negotiation is already underway with potential buyers. So who knows what will happen when the sale is finalized? 

But it’s silly to worry about something outside of my control. The nice thing is that we have established a solid financial foundation over the years. At this point in our financial independence journey, we can live off our investment portfolio if we really want to. We can live off dividends and tap into a small percentage of our principal (say ~1%). We wouldn’t need to tap into our principal if we could generate some part-time income. What we are really doing in 2026 is building up our margin of safety so we can truly live off dividends. 

Mrs. T has been asking me what my plans are once I quit full-time employment. I want to avoid having work define who I am, so it’s important to find meaning outside of work. In early retirement, I need to keep myself engaged and occupied. After much consideration, I believe some of my plans are:

• Continue work on this blog and  the new podcast
• Maybe start a YouTube channel if there’s an opportunity… I’m still undecided since having a YouTube channel is a lot of work
• Focus on personal wellness and health – work out regularly, get back to swimming, and continue with curling in the winter. It would be nice to go skiing more regularly 
• Get back to photography by taking landscapes and cityscapes
• Continue volunteering with Scouts and giving back to the community
• Spend more time with both kids on their home school journey

One last thing on 2026… since Kid 2.0 is turning 10 later this year, we are secretly planning her birthday celebration. Some of you may recall that we surprised Kid 1.0 by going to Disneyland for his 10th birthday. We have booked something for Kid 2.0’s 10th birthday celebration but we need to finalize our plans. We also need to decide whether we tell her the plan or wait till the last minute. It will be fun to reveal the plan to both kids. 

Here’s to an excellent 2026!  

What are your plans for 2026?