Hey Everyone! I’m still here. The Retire by 40 blog is on life support, but I’m committed to posting at least once per month this year. Did you know Retire by 40 will be 16 years old soon? Wow, that’s a long time to be blogging. Interestingly, I was an engineer for 16 years as well. Maybe 16 years is the longest I could keep something going… Anyway, I will continue blogging this year. I don’t know about next year, though. It’ll be tough to keep blogging when it turns into a negative cash flow hobby. Thank you for your support over the years. We wouldn’t have lasted this long without you.

Alright, on to the FIRE update. Mrs. RB40 retired from her job last year, and 2026 will be the first full year of FIRE for both of us. We will need to draw down our savings for the first time. I prepared by modifying our asset allocation to be more conservative and padding our accounts with cash (VMFXX.) Our burn rate is pretty low. We should be able to ride out the market volatility for a few years. I will need to figure out a good system to replenish our cash cushion. I also need to figure out if it’s a good idea to do a Roth IRA conversion to help optimize taxes.

Financially, Q1 2026 was okay. Our net worth dropped a bit due to the Iran war. Unfortunately, everything is getting more expensive. Trump has been very unsuccessful in controlling the cost of living for regular people. It’s a tough time to retire. Fortunately, we have plenty of cushion so I’m not too worried about the Sequences of Return Risk. We’ll try to keep our lifestyle inflation under control. Our cash flow looks fine so far.

2026 New Year Goals

Below is the spreadsheet for my 2026 goals. It’s helpful. Try it out if you can’t keep up with your New Year’s goals. The key is to review the spreadsheet monthly to track your progress. That way, you can see which goals need extra attention and work on them.

Financial Goals

Sell Rental Condo

We purchased this condo in 2011 for my parents to live in. We live in the same complex and thought they could move there. However, it didn’t work out. Instead, my mom moved in with us, and my dad lived in Thailand. It has been a rental ever since.

Our tenant moved out at the end of 2025. I fixed the place up and put it up for sale. The condo market in Portland is pretty slow. Portland has a bad reputation since the COVID pandemic. Things are slowly improving, but the condo market is still very slow. Also, the interest rate is over 6%, and the economy is uncertain. We cut the price once and might need to reduce it again to generate more interest.

Optimize withdrawal and taxes

2026 is the first full year that Mrs. RB40 won’t have active income. Our taxable income will be pretty low, probably around $40,000. I need to figure out how to replenish our cash cushion and optimize for taxes.

For example, the long-term capital gains rate is 0% for AGI up to $98,900 in 2026 (married filing jointly). I should sell some stocks in our taxable account to take advantage of this rule. I should also do some Roth conversions to reduce future RMDs.

Help Mrs. RB40’s mom file for Social Security Benefits

Mrs. RB40’s mom applied for social security benefits years ago, and they told her she didn’t qualify. She was a teacher in California and had a pension. She didn’t pay into Social Security. Her pension also offset any spousal benefits. However, the rule changed in 2025, and she can appeal the denial. She should be able to get the spousal benefits now. She was reluctant to do it because she got rejected previously. I finally convinced her to appeal.

I cajoled Mrs. RB40 and her mom to talk to the Social Security Office, and they are planning to do it next week. This shouldn’t be that difficult. Her mom doesn’t need the money now, but it will be helpful when her healthcare expenses increase in the future. (Mrs. RB40’s dad is paying a ton for long-term care.)

Track net worth and hope for 10% gains

I’ve been tracking our net worth since 2006. It’s great to see the progress over the years. This year, I’d like to see 10% gains. At this point, it’s all dependent on the stock market, and there isn’t much I can do to influence this goal. I’ll track it and keep my fingers crossed.

The stock market was doing quite well before Trump started an ill-conceived war with Iran. Now, Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, and the global economy probably will go into recession soon. Our net worth is down only a bit so far, but I think it’ll get much worse soon. I don’t understand why people believe this war will be over in a few weeks.

Health Goals

Lower my triglyceride level

On the last annual physical, my triglyceride was 486 mg/dL. That’s very high. I had this problem for a long time, but the medication helped keep it under control. My new primary care physician told me to go on a low-carb diet, and we’ll see what happens next time. My goal is to reduce it to around 150.

I replaced white rice with brown rice and cauliflower rice. I also need to stop purchasing chips and other junk foods. I’m making some progress on that front, but lifestyle change is tough.

Help move Mrs. RB40’s dad

Mrs. RB40 successfully moved her dad into an assisted living facility. He couldn’t live at home anymore because he lost his mobility. We hoped he could regain his ability to walk with physical therapy, but it doesn’t look good. It seems to me that he isn’t making the effort.

He is pretty antisocial. He stays in his room and watches TV all day. Mrs. RB40 is spending a lot of time in California to help with taxes and various appointments. He let a lot of stuff slip through the cracks last year. His tax refund is still on hold because he needs to verify his identity with the IRS. Now that Mrs. RB40 is retired, she has time to fix all the problems. Unfortunately, this means she has been in California for most of Q1. I’m looking forward to having her back at home soon.

Fun Goals

Pottery profitable

My pottery hobby is pretty expensive. I spend about $150/month on it. This year, I’d like to sell some pieces and break even. We’ll see how it goes. That’s actually a tall order. I don’t see how I can sell that much pottery. I’ll try…

My latest pieces…

Meandering toward full retirement

This year, I plan to retire more and work less. This means less blogging and delivery driving.

I committed to posting at least once per month. That’s been good so far. As expected, the blog traffic declined. Let’s finish off this year and figure out the rest later. It’d be tough to continue blogging if it cost over $100/month to maintain. Thank you for your support over the years. I truly appreciate it.

I also cut way back on delivery driving. Now, I deliver only a few times per week. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze, but it’s hard to quit completely. I gotta pay for my pottery hobby somehow, right?

Happiness level > 8

Q1 was tough for me. Mrs. RB40 was gone most of the time. The RB40 household was much less lively without her around. RB40Jr was good, but he’s a teenager now. He is more independent, and we don’t have much in common anymore. He always says no whenever I ask him to do anything. That’s alright. I kept busy and had fun with my hobbies – pottery and ukulele. However, current events made me quite unhappy in Q1. ICE running rampant, Iran War, tariffs, birthright citizenship fight, and a lot of other bullshit from Trump and his cronies. I’m bracing myself for a few more years of this craziness.

Also, my dad had radiation treatment for prostate cancer. It worked out well, and he is recovering nicely. I’ll go visit him this summer.

All in all, Q1 wasn’t great, but I guess it could have been a whole lot worse. The gloomy weather didn’t help.  

Net Worth (-3.7%)

I’ve been tracking our net worth since 2006. It is very motivating to see our progress. The power of compounding is incredible.

2026 was going pretty well until Trump bombed Iran. Now, the Strait of Hormuz is closed and everything is more expensive. I don’t see how energy price will come down as long as the situation spiral out of control. We already modified out asset allocation to be more conservative when Mrs. RB40 retired last year. We’ll stay the course and rebalance as needed.

***Important*** If you’re young (under 50), my best advice is to stay the course. Do not stop investing. You should keep investing whether the stock market is up or down. You might think stocks are too expensive, but it’ll look cheap in 10 years. Keep investing and you’ll achieve financial independence someday. Don’t try to time the market. However, you need to be more conservative and diversify more if you’re retired.

This is a chart of our net worth from Empower. Sign up for a free account at Empower to help manage your net worth and investment accounts. They have great free tools for DIY investors. This chart looks suspiciously flat. I think you have to log in more often to get a more accurate picture. I haven’t been paying much attention to our net worth lately.

Q1 2026 FIRE Cash Flow

This FIRE cash flow chart includes Mrs. RB40’s pension, my online income, side gigs, and taxable passive income.

This year, the main goal is to keep our expenses below $80,000. This is a 25% increase from 2025. We’re doing well financially and we’ll try to loosen up a bit.

Q1 FIRE Income: $10,630

• Pension: $3,273. Mrs. RB40 has a small pension from her job.
• Real estate crowdfunding: $963. RE crowdfunding is doing okay. One project is failing, but the rest are good. Overall, we are doing okay.  
• Dividend Income: $4,397.
• Online income: $145. My blogging income is disappearing. I’ll keep blogging for now, but I’ll lose motivation once we start losing money at this gig.
• Odd jobs: $950. My other side gig is catering delivery. I delivered 20 orders in Q1. I don’t get out of bed for less than $35. This means I rejected many orders.  
• Misc income: $902. This is the reimbursement for Mrs. RB40’s expenses from her dad.     

Spending: $16,938

Previously, I updated this chart monthly. Now, I’m doing it quarterly, and it’s harder to compare the numbers. It’s a different format, so I can’t see the trend. Generally, things look fine for now.

• Housing: $4,971.   
• Transportation: $503. Gas, parking, and insurance. This one was pretty good. Our car is paid off, and we don’t need a new one yet.   
• Groceries: $1,573. Groceries are more expensive than ever. I try to stock up when things are on sale and keep it under control.
• Entertainment: $2,382. This includes eating out and other fun activities. This one was higher than usual because I splurged on an expensive Sumi ukulele ($1,000).              
• Health: $1,008. Our health-related expenses are increasing as we get older. I guess that’s life.   
• Kid: $1,024. This wasn’t too bad. RB40Jr grew a lot this past year, and we spent quite a bit to replace his clothing and shoes. He had plenty of activities as well – debate, racquetball, Ultimate frisbee, Jit Jitsu, etc…
• Personal spending: $887. Hobby, clothes, haircuts, gadgets, and more.
• Travel: $4,417. We purchased flight tickets for our summer trip to Thailand and Australia as soon as the Iran war started. I still need to book rooms and activities.     
• Rental Loss: -$3,593. That rental condo is vacant and really needs to go.           

Retirement Savings Withdrawal: –$9,901

• Our withdrawal is pretty low so far. Our taxable account should be able to support this until we can withdraw from my retirement accounts, in 2033.

Q1 2026 wrap-up

Alright, Q1 is over. It was a tough quarter for me. The gloomy weather, Mrs. RB40 gone, and craziness in the news. They all weighed me down psychologically. However, the weather is finally nicer. It was sunny and warm in Portland when I wrote this blog post. I can already feel my mood improving. Keep at it, everyone.

Disclosure: We may receive a referral fee if you sign up for a service through the links on this page.

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Hey everyone! Have you seen Alysa Liu’s Gold medal cinching performance at the Olympics? It was carefree, joyous, and inspirational. She glided over the ice and won the heart of everyone watching. Words can’t do it justice—go check it out if you haven’t seen her programs. I haven’t watched figure skating in years, but I tuned in at the right time this year. I’m a huge fan now.

The Burnout

How is this related to FIRE? Well, she retired from figure skating four years ago, when she was only 16! At the time, she had already won two U.S. National Championships and numerous other prizes. But Alysa was burned out.

She was discouraged by the total lack of autonomy. Coaches controlled every aspect of her life: what to eat, when to practice, and who to see. At 16, she didn’t yet know how to advocate for herself. She stopped enjoying the sport, and her performance declined. In 2022, she announced her retirement and went off to find herself.

Finding Yourself

After retiring from figure skating, she tried to be a regular teenager. She enrolled at UCLA to study psychology, trekked to Mount Everest Base Camp, got her driver’s license, and hung out with friends. Okay, maybe that isn’t exactly “normal,” but good for her!

In 2024, she went skiing at Lake Tahoe and rediscovered the “need for speed.” If you’ve ever gone skiing or snowboarding, you know how addictive speeding down the slope can be. It reminded Alysa of how skating used to feel, and she wanted more. She went to a rink, tried a double Axel, and realized she still got it.

Alysa decided to try for a comeback, and this time she will control her destiny. She picked a coach who let her be herself, Phillip DiGuglielmo. She skated for her own joy, rather than for the prize, and the result was Olympic Gold. That’s what autonomy gives you (and a world-class talent.)

The FIRE Lesson

Regular folks like us don’t have Alysa’s talent, but that’s where FIRE comes in. Financial Independence can give us that same autonomy.

Alysa was 16 when she hit her wall; I was 16 years into my engineering career when I hit mine. Burnout has no age limit. Whether you’re an elite athlete or a Senior Engineer, the symptoms are identical. You feel like you can’t continue, and you need to GTFO. Many people hold on and become miserable because they have no choice. However, FI gave me a chance to step away.

I retired from engineering and became a blogger/SAHD. The last 14 years were awesome. However, life changes. My son is older now and doesn’t need me as much, and blogging is almost dead. But I’m fine with that because FI is still here for me. I’m looking forward to the next chapter.

Even if you love your job today, I encourage you to prioritize financial independence. You never know when life—or your feelings about your career—will change. Alysa loved skating when she started at five years old, but she still needed that “retirement” to find her way back to the joy.

Are you working toward FIRE as an “exit strategy,” or are you looking for the autonomy to redefine your current role?

Bonus: Her short program.

image credit: Wikimedia common

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Hey everyone! If you haven’t heard, the New York Federal Reserve concluded that U.S. consumers and businesses are paying 90% of Trump’s tariffs in 2025. Thanks Trump, for making everything more expensive. Fortunately, relief might be on the way. The Supreme Court struck down Trump’s “emergency” tariffs. Or maybe not… Trump hit back with a 10%, no 15% Global Tariffs. Who knows what it’ll be up to by the time you read this blog post? One thing we know for sure is that U.S. consumers will pay more and more to enrich Billionaires.

We can’t control trade policy, but we can control lifestyle inflation. Lifestyle inflation is a key factor to FIRE. Most U.S. workers (64%) live paycheck to paycheck. The more they make, the more they spend. If you can keep lifestyle inflation under control, you’ll be able to save more and achieve financial independence sooner. That doesn’t mean freezing your lifestyle forever. Some upgrades are natural, even healthy. The key is intentional spending, not mindless upgrades to “keep up with the Joneses.”

I retired early in 2012. I can’t believe it’s been 14 years! Let’s see how the RB40 household has handled lifestyle inflation since then.

Lifestyle Inflation

Housing: A+

In 2012, we lived in a 2-bedroom condo with an awesome view. It was great, but we outgrew the condo. We wanted a yard and a nicer neighborhood for RB40Jr. In 2019, we moved to our duplex. (We lived in one unit and rented the other one out.) It’s been a big win.

• RB40Jr can walk to school and hang out with friends in the neighborhood.
• We share some expenses with our tenant.
• Rental income covers the mortgage.

Our monthly housing expense is actually lower now than in 2012. We have done really well here and kept our housing expenses under control. Most of my friends have nicer homes and they spend much more on housing.

That said, change is coming. RB40Jr is a teenager, and we need more space. Next year, I’ll ask the tenant to move out, which will double our housing cost. After high school graduation, we’ll probably sell and downsize again. For now: A+.

Transportation: A+

We bought a new Mazda5 right before our son was born. Fifteen years later, we are still driving it. The odometer is almost 100,000 miles, and it’s still going strong. The minivan is full of dents and dings because we park on a busy public street. But I don’t really care about cosmetics as long as it runs reliably. I would like a nicer vehicle, but I’m not in a hurry. Why buy a nicer car when it’ll get banged up on the street? We did really well in this category: A+.

Groceries: B

In 2012, I went grocery shopping at WinCo regularly. They are cheaper than Safeway and other local grocery stores, but it takes 20 minutes to get there. These days, I’m lazier and shop at the neighborhood Trader Joe’s and Safeway. It’s easier, and it gives us a reason to go out for a walk. I still try to buy groceries on sale, but price isn’t a big consideration if I need something specific. We loosen up a bit here: B.

Eating out: C

Today, we eat out or order takeout about once per week. This is way more often than 14 years ago. Back then, we rarely ate out because our son was a baby. Now that our son is a teenager, we go out more often.

I’ve also loosened up on restaurant choices. We still support small mom-and-pop places, but we occasionally splurge on fancy restaurants. Portland has an incredible food scene, and we want to enjoy it while we’re here.

Yes, we’re spending more. But we’re also making memories.

Grade: C (and I’m okay with it).

Clothes: A

Personally, I did a great job keeping my closet frugal. I wore t-shirts and jeans in 2012. I still wear the same stuff, but with more holes. These days, most of my clothes are “clay clothes.” I can wear them to ceramic class and get clay on them without having to worry. Also, Mrs. RB40 is retired now, and she doesn’t need to buy work clothes. That’s great. I think we’re doing quite well in this category: A.

Hobbies: D

I’m spending way more on my hobbies. Back in 2012, I was busy with a baby. My only hobby was blogging – and it generated income. Today, I spend about $150/month on ceramics, and blogging is trending toward negative cash flow. Recently, I spent $1,000 on a nice ukulele. My lifestyle inflation in the hobby category is high, but it really isn’t too bad in the grand scheme of things. I bet most 52-year-old guys spend a lot more on their hobbies. How much do you spend on your hobbies? What do you do for fun? Let me know in the comments. Technically a D here, but I’m okay with it.

Subscriptions and services: B

The only subscription we have is Spotify for RB40Jr. I made a deal with him. He can have 1 subscription. If he wants something else, he’ll have to give up Spotify. Personally, I avoid subscriptions because I dislike recurring charges.

Services are where I’ve softened

• Taking Uber instead of public transit to the airport.
• Paid a plumber to unclog the sink at the rental for the first time.
• Contractors for kitchen remodel and flooring.
• Paying for haircuts instead of buzzing it myself.

I still DIY yard work and minor repairs, but I’m more willing to pay for convenience now. Grade: B.

Travel: B

Our travel style hasn’t changed much. These days, I try to book a midrange hotel instead of the cheaper places. That’s about the only change we made. We still travel independently and don’t buy a lot of stuff to bring home. I haven’t upgraded to flying business class. That’s too much money for a few hours in a bigger chair. I’d rather splurge on a nicer hotel and activities.

Travel spending has edged up, but not dramatically. B feels fair.

Lifestyle Inflation GPA: Solid B

Alright, my lifestyle inflation GPA is a solid B. That’s pretty good, right? More importantly, we’ve kept the Big 3 (housing, transportation, food) largely under control. That’s what matters most for FIRE.

We live almost the same lifestyle as we did in 2012—just slightly more relaxed. Everything will ramp up over the next few years, though. We need more space at home, and we’ll need a new car at some point. I’m glad we held back this long.

What about you? Have you kept lifestyle inflation under control? Or have you loosened up a bit over the last few years?

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