Gosh it’s nearly the end of the month and I’m only just getting round to this.
Work has been busy and the days have just been whizzing by.
I’ve not felt focused or motivated to look at my spreadsheets but anyway, here we are, I have a day off work tomorrow and feel relaxed enough to work on this.
So, here are with my Goals!
Usual *Spoiler Alert* – there’s nothing radical or wildly different here. In fact, many are pretty much the same as last year.
They’re just simple annual goals, ones which have some meaning to me and which provide me with some focus while I get on with the humdrum day-to-day stuff.
2026 Financial Goals:
£5,500 Total ISA Dividend IncomeÂ
Building up my dividend income is only part of my overall investment strategy – my intention is for dividends to cover a small chunk of my monthly bills, not my entire retirement income.
My original goal when I started building this dividend income part of my portfolio was to get average £400/month in income (£4,800 pa) but somehow, I smashed through the £5k barrier last year.
So, let’s see if I can push this up to £5.5k income from my investment trusts and shares in my ISA. I toyed with the idea of making the goal £6k but that would be a 20% increase from last year which is too much of a stretch considering I’m only reinvesting dividends and not really adding that much capital to this portfolio – £6k can be next year’s goal! £5.5k is still a jump of 10% more than what I received last year, and hopefully there won’t be too many/any dividend cuts or cancellations.
It’s only a small increase but I’m being realistic.
Why do I have an income portfolio while I’m still accumulating? Well I want to see dividend income being paid now, see it working, get used to the lumpy payments. Imagine waiting to find out if it works (or not) when I retire and for it to not be as I had thought or anticipated.
Charity Goal – Donate £240
Missed out on last year’s goal which was just a arbitrary number. I’ll set it to £240 this year, should be able to manage donating an average of £20/month, won’t I?
Still got my monthly direct debits but probably need to keep an eye on ad-hoc donations – fewer friends and colleagues doing fun runs last year meant I missed out on my target.
The charities I donate to regularly are Age UK, Macmillan Cancer Support and Royal British Legion.
I buy the occasional Big Issue and sometimes donate to ‘TV events’, as well as continuing to fund micro-loans via Kiva.
As I’ve mentioned before, it’s tempting to throw every single penny I can towards my FIRE goal but I want to (and feel like I should) support charities because I can and because it makes me feel like I’m contributing and helping others in a small way.
2026 Non-Financial Goals
Read 20 books – minimum 12 ‘off the bookshelf’Â
Same goal as last year. I still have numerous unread books on my bookshelves at home. However, I realised that of the 12 I did read, I probably only removed/got rid of 3 or 4 of the books! Maybe I need to get better with that!
In between reading my owned books, I will continue to read books from the library as borrowing books is one way I can support local libraries. Also, borrowing books means I don’t have to spend money buying them.
I find reading books relaxing, helps with my concentration and stops me from looking at my phone (or TV).
The bad side of a really good book is that I can end up staying up reading into the wee hours, even on a school night!
I will again aim to read a total of 20 books, which I did manage to do last year but I decided against increasing the goal just for the sake of it. I track my progress via Goodreads.
Read 4 Non-Fiction or Classic books
(This goal is within the above goal).
Four non-fiction books is a stretch for me so again, I’m lumping ‘classics’ in this category.
This worked quite well last year, I was pushed out of my comfort zone reading-wise and I think that was a good thing. Different parts of my brain get a work out.
So, I am only tracking 4 goals this year, two financial, two non-financial.
I was tempted to have a de-risking type goal but there’s no way to really track that, as things could change. I will continue to monitor my investments, adjusting as I see fit when I can but this may change depending on what the markets do.
‘Creativity’ Goals and other ‘goal not goals’
I didn’t make much use of the paints, pencils etc which I’ve started to accumulate to do anything arty! I got a couple of sewing kits for Christmas so will do those for a bit of creativity. I also started to learn how to crochet but having not picked up the needle in a couple of months, have forgotten already so will need to start that again!
After breaking my 971 day streak with Duolingo last year, I’ve restarted and am back up to a streak of 150 days. Still doing my French language learning and the lessons are getting tougher as the words/tenses have gone beyond what I learned at school/uni.
What I should do is to start making notes and going over lessons, in the hope that my old brain can remember and retain! Still enjoying this though, it doesn’t feel like a chore, but I do need to remember so I don’t break my streak again!
What my streak was at and what it is now!
Options, Options
Options trading has no place in a FIRE blog but I’m still doing it on a small scale (trading for 3 years now) as a fun hobby.
I doubled my capital last year, so my next goal will be to treble my capital.
Once I hit that, I will withdraw my original capital so I will be playing with pure profits.
I’ll do an update every 6 months.
Other Stuff
Gym-wise, already this year hasn’t been a great start, have only managed the gym a few times in January. My shoulder has improved after some physio but it’s still not quite 100% so I’m not able to do some of the workouts I’ve wanted to do.
Still, I have upped my stretching so in that respect, I’ve made a good start to improve and maintain my flexibility.
I’m still doing the intermittent fasting (14:10) which seems to work fine with my gut health and as mentioned in my previous post, still making my own kefir, so will carry on with that.
No dry January for me – alcohol consumption is still for weekends only (or holidays). Anyway, I got a couple of bottles of mulled wine to sip through on these cold winter nights!
2025 was another year where I didn’t buy a single bottle of water – it’s been at least 9 years now. I will continue to carry a refillable drinking bottle, which is my own small effort to stop another plastic bottle ending up in the landfill/sea.
In 2015, one of my goals was to complete the Rubik’s Cube (3 x 3) without looking at instructions. After achieving this I found that if I didn’t practice solving it on a semi-regular basis, my old brain forgot how to do it! Well it’s now been 10 years since I learned how to complete it and regular fiddling with the cube means I can still do it! Learning the 4 x 4 should be my next goal but I don’t have the headspace to learn those complicated algorithms right now!
Next Milestone
The next milestone will be when my Future Fund reaches £400k, which might happen in a few months or may not, depending on when this big crash/pullback in the stock markets will happen. And it will happen, just that no one knows when.
The doom and gloom in world news and the despair and pessimism of UK news seems at odds with the booming markets.
I should feel ecstatic that my FF is riding high, yet I just feel anxious more than anything else.
De-risking is on the forefront of my mind, yet I don’t want to move too much to ‘safer assets’ lest I miss out on continued growth. I continue to learn to juggle!
Anyway, all the best to everyone who has set goals for 2026 – good luck with them and here’s to a healthy and prosperous one for us all!
Hey Weenie,
Yes, this month has flown by. Nearly Feb, and once we’re through that month I feel the optimism of Spring. You have some great goals as usual and I really need to take a leaf out of your book (boom-tish) and get back to reading. I read very little last year, and have really felt my concentration decline. I love the “little things” like not buying a single bottle of water for NINE YEARS, which if we all did it, would be a very big thing. I’m very environmentally conscious too and while it might be a tad more expensive I buy all eco, non animal tested, sensibly packaged products. You mentioned stretching, and I can’t emphasise enough the importance of it. I use to think stretching was for “wimps” but now I realise it’s that, plus regular exercise that makes the difference in old age between being in hospital from a “fall” and effortlessly gliding our way to 96 and 100 – I’m glad our goal is roughly the same with that one, it gives me great hope ha ha! 🙂 I hope your shoulder improves, but you’re right to rest it completely. On the exercise front, running is fairly new for me over the last couple of years, (on top of the usual hiking and mountain biking) so find it more motivating on the exercise front to say this year I shall run a 10k, and improve my 5k times to X and be self competitive. Anyway whatever I do, ends with a 15 minute stretch routine everyday, which is quite “zen” so I pleased to see that in your goals.
Right head down, another year to get under our belt and then you will practically be at the finish line. Happy New Year to you and your readers, and let’s see what the year brings!
Hey Starla
It’s cold and wet but the days are definitely getting lighter so yes, Spring is on its way soon! I feel that with the whole eco thing, all we can do is to do our little bit in our normal every day lives. I reuse plastic bags, eg bread bags, vegetable bags and these get used up as freezer bags and ultimately end up as linings for the small bin in the bathroom.
Funny that, I used to think stretching was for wimps too, but now wish I did more in my 40s. Probably need to ramp it up if I want to get anywhere the flexibility I used to have but just conscious I don’t want to push too far and get injured.
I’ve been enjoying a good minimum of half an hour solid reading most nights this year and it’s been great so far.
All the best with your running!
Hi Weenie, great blog, thanks. If you were learning option trading anew, are there any good resources/courses that you know about?
Thanks
Alan
Hey Alan
I found this useful in explaining one options trading strategy (the Wheel Strategy – https://thewheelstrategy.com/), which is what my current strategy is based on (although I’m not doing the complete ‘wheel’). The rest I learned from chatting to others on the beginners options meetups. I focused on one strategy and began trading when I was comfortable in my understanding of it and what the risks were (and also what I needed to do when things went wrong!).
Thanks Weenie! I’ll take a look
I get what you mean about the risk/reward balance with your stock funds. I’ve started to dial back my exposure to Tech too, but I’m not ready or maybe ever going to shift into bonds. Instead, I’m focusing on some middle-ground equities. I still believe the US will come out on top in AI, but it’s wise to stay diversified.
Forgot to say I launched a Retirement Calcuclator, would you like to test drive it https://fijourney.co.uk/retirementcalc/
thanks
Thanks Sean, I shall have a play around with that – had an initial look but need to see how I can add my DB pension and factor other income! I’ll let you know how I get on!
Hi Sean
I’ve probably shifted as much as I want into bonds now and think I can only now, like other investors, wait to see what happens. Still got lots in the US, hopefully diversified enough away from AI/Tech but I think when it drops, it will drop for everything. The key will be how quickly things recover afterwards…if I bit my nails, I’d be chomping them now lol!
Hi Weeine
Just dropping in to say hi! One of my goals this year is to spend a little more time commenting and being involved with conversations both online and off, I find I spend a lot of time reading forums, posts and what not but never really commenting. Im in the same ballpark as you In terms of amounts stashed away, so its always nice to hear your progess. A lot of fire blogs i have bookmarked are already millionares so its nice to read others who are in the ‘boaring middle’ 😀
I know what you mean about the rubix cube, I had a goal a couple of years to be able to complete this. I did it, and I could by last year do it in under 60 seconds, but I find i need to pick it up pretty frequently to or I forget (recomment a guy named jPerm on YT who is really good at explaining some algorythms).
Anyway Good luck with the rest of your goals and shall look forward to hearing about it! 🙂
Hey Chris
Yes, I’m trying to fly the flag for us non-millionaires lol!
Well done on the Rubik’s Cube – I don’t think I have quite managed under a minute to complete, but probably pick it up at least once or twice a week to keep the algorithms in my brain! I should look at learning to solve the 4 x 4 but not felt the urge to learn those algorithms yet!
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. All the best with your goals too!