HALF OF 2026 IS ALREADY OVER!
Life continues to get more and more expensive ($117 today to fill up gas on our car), but good thing the markets are up so it doesn’t feel as painful.
Here’s my 2026 mid year update. Let’s see how I am doing. I like reading the hopeful message below when 2026 began. We have completed our first trip (it was nothing short of amazing- dividend memories were accrued and will continue paying until I get Alzheimer’s dementia) and our road trip to Yellowstone will start in a few months. We have also booked a trip to Cancun later in the year, I am looking forward to the all-inclusive life (for 5 nights at least)!
I am looking forward to reading the books on my list (especially The Art of Spending Money) and looking forward to the trips we have planned. We are planning to visit Yellowstone National Park for about two weeks and are planning to go to Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan for three weeks. I’m also wishfully planning for a trip to Hawaii or Cancun later in the year but we will see if it pans out.
Here are my 2026 personal finance goals:
Max Out TFSA
The 2026 TFSA contribution limit is $7000 this year.
If you have never contributed to a TFSA before and you were of age when the TFSA was first introduced, you will have $109,000 in contribution room. That is six figures! If you are still using it as a “savings account” please don’t.
It is a powerful investing tool that can supercharge your retirement plans, and the full market value of your TFSA will be received tax free to your estate or beneficiary upon death.
| Year | TFSA Contribution Room |
| 2009 | $5000 |
| 2010 | $5000 |
| 2011 | $5000 |
| 2012 | $5000 |
| 2013 | $5500 |
| 2014 | $5500 |
| 2015 | $10,000 |
| 2016 | $5500 |
| 2017 | $5500 |
| 2018 | $5500 |
| 2019 | $6000 |
| 2020 | $6000 |
| 2021 | $6000 |
| 2022 | $6000 |
| 2023 | $6500 |
| 2024 | $7000 |
| 2025 | $7000 |
| 2026 | $7000 |
| Total | $109,000 |
I plan to move $7000 in my non-registered account to my Questrade TFSA on January 1 (12:15 am haha).
Completed! I think it was 12:15am.
Max Out RRSP
As with other years, I’m not sure what my RRSP room will be. This goal will be done once I find out what my RRSP contribution room is from the Notice of Assessment after my taxes are done.
Last year I transferred US dollars from my margin account, contributed some US dollars, and transferred some shares in kind. It was a hodge podge of contributions.
My RRSP contribution room is usually low because of my defined benefit pension.
Completed! I transferred in kind my Verizon (VZ) shares from my non-registered to my RRSP. It was not a whole lot.
Increase Dividend Income to $45,000/ Year
In 2025 my goal was to reach $39,000 in annual dividends. I ended the year with $42,066.
This year I am going to go for $45,000 in projected annual dividend income for 2026.
I tend to be overweight in Canadian dividend stocks (I try to keep it under 33% of the portfolio) though I suppose I comparatively have a lower home bias compared to other personal finance bloggers out there.
Since I don’t need the income right now because I am still working part-time, I will focus more on ETFs, exchange traded funds like VXC and VTI.
I am scaling back even more on my investment contributions (by about 30%) to build my cash pile up.
In Progress. Work in progress.
Build Up Cash Pile
I still feel uncomfortable with the lack of cash and would like to build my cash reserves back up but at the same time I would like to continue to invest.
It’s not going to be 28% cash like Berkshire Hathaway but I would like to aim for 8% cash allocation for my portfolio.
I planning to reduce my monthly investment contributions by 30% compared to last year to facilitate this cash savings.
The large cash pile I had in 2020 really helped when the Covid circuit breakers were happening and in effect helped me “time” the market quite well I suppose.
In Progress. I am about 84% of the way there if I include all my cash in my chequing and savings account too.
Read 5 Personal Finance Books
Here are the 5 investing and personal finance books that I hope to read and then write about in 2026.
- The Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel
- The Fairfax Way by David Thomas
- How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free by Ernie Zelinksi (I see he frequently comments on Retire by 40’s blog and his book was mentioned in another book I was reading so I thought I would add it to the list)
- Good to Great by Jim Collins
- Quit Like a Millionaire by Kristy Shen
If you are looking for reading inspiration, here are other personal finance books and dividend investing books I recommend.
Completed! They all came from the library pretty quick. My favourite book of the lot is The Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel.
One of my goals that I didn’t publish (but I wrote in my ‘net worth journal’) was a portfolio goal, and amazingly it had been achieved as of May 2026. Compounding really is magical. When will this bull market end? It’s been great so far.
New Year’s Resolutions That I nEver Seem to Get
Non-financial resolutions are difficult for me. I struggle with them. Much less will power.
- NOPE! Sleep before 12 (I was really bad with this the latter half of the year. I think I just need better time management… and more time to myself- pipe dream!)
- YES THIS IS GOOD– Meditate 10 minutes at least 4 times a week (I will put this in my schedule- in the last month of 2025 I was able to do this for 21 days in a row- as James Clear says it is all about the systems in place to form habits)
- YES THIS IS GOOD- Continue with the exercise of running 5km three times weekly, two 30 minutes weight sessions, and one pilates session per week.
- PASS ACCEPTABLE– Stop snacking on chips or other non healthy snacks at night
Have you reviewed how you are doing in the middle of 2026?
GYM is a 40 something millennial writing about personal finance since 2009 and interested in achieving financial freedom through disciplined saving, dividend and ETF investing, and living a minimalist lifestyle. Before you go, check out my recommendations page of financial tools I use to save and invest money. Don’t forget to subscribe for a free dividend yield spreadsheet and the free Young Money Bootcamp PDF.
We’re retiring next year (well, really December 31st (ish), but I’ll likely have to work a month or two into 2027. I have never liked setting cash aside. We have always invested our emergency fund and we have been fortunate to have done so given the past 10+ years of returns.
The hardest thing I have had to do, investing wise, was turning off the DRIPs for our dividends in our RSP accounts. I did this just yesterday. I know we need to start spending the assets next year, but it was such a difficult “lever to pull”. I had already done so for our non-registered accounts last year as we needed the cash flow to bridge a period where I wasn’t earning money – but that was different.
We won’t be get getting anywhere close to 8% cash, although we generate about $85k in annual dividends across all accounts. When combined with my wife’s modest DB pension we should be in good shape with a pool of cash to start 2027 off.
@James R- Congratulations! I think that Bob from Tawcan is recently doing the same thing too, turning off the DRIPS in the dividend. I imagine that must be ver difficult to be spending the assets, but are you not just spending the $85K in dividend income? Would that help you psychologically? That’s a great position you are both in.
We won’t spend the TFSA dividends, we will keep reinvesting them. Our RSPs don’t generate enough dividends to fulfill our income needs so we will be melting them down over 11-12 years. Most of the dividends come from our non-registered account.
@James- Sounds like a great strategy to get rid of the RRSP before the RRIF starts.
We will convert to RIF before the end of the year to avoid RSP deregistration fees. Since we plan to withdraw well over the minimum it’s fine to convert to RIF right away.
The only reason I will change this is if my wife thinks she will work into next year then I would not want to withdraw even the minimum from her RIF.