Top Things We Learned in 2025

Similar to what we experienced in 2024, each year is packed with moments that teach us something new and 2025 has definitely kept that streak going.  Sometimes the takeaways are crystal clear, but many times the biggest lessons end up catching us totally off-guard.

The Squire

2025 was full of fun and learning that also came with a realization that we will likely be working well into our 50s before becoming financially independent. Listed here are some items I’ve found worth noting from the past year.

• People are curious about my thoughts. When I’m at work and around family, I don’t always start conversations about personal finance (though sometimes I do). But when there is a conversation happening about finances, I tend to insert myself into it. I try not to take over, judge, or give out recommendations/opinions, but rather I tend to get an idea of what’s important and mention resources or something I’ve heard from others who were in a similar situation. Because of this, I’ve had people actually ask me outright about my feelings regarding different financial questions. I recently was asked for my opinion on spending money on a trip with kids. A couple other people asked me what I thought about contributing to the new ROTH retirement account we will now have access to at work, or whether I thought it made more sense to stick with the pretax option. It’s fun to help people navigate through their personal finance questions.
• More travel, more fun. We took a few more trips this year, and it went really well. The kids now do well on trips that last even longer than a week. We typically have a home base and sometimes do only one or two things a day; sometimes even zero. Spreading activities out and giving everybody some decompression time seems to keep everyone engaged and happy. We’ll see if this next year is any different.
• The personal finance community is fun and welcoming. Okay so I’ve mentioned before how amazing the Financial Independence community is, but after attending FinCon with Scout this year, I think we can lump in the Creator space of finance too. The place was full of people who just wanted to help each other out, and learn too. Yes, many people were there to increase their audience, add revenue sources, and look for collaborators. As a whole, people are interested in sharing their passion, and making a living doing so makes it that much more worthwhile.
• It can’t be just about the goal. Our journey to Financial Independence is going to take awhile… and that’s okay. Our wages and the costs we’re living on and plan to live on means that we just can’t leave work for a while. As nice as it would be to have the option to leave, we’re just not there yet. Rather than just put our heads down and invest as much as we can, we’re starting to take our time and maybe even enjoy the ride along the way. We don’t know how our health will be in the future or what interests the kids may pursue. So we’re looking for ways to stop, take on experiences, and take the kids with us. This may delay our FI journey even more, but we’ve got to have fun along the way. Luckily we both enjoy our jobs for now, and hopefully that will continue for the foreseeable future.

Scout

Another year, another set of lessons learned.  My main takeaways have come from some of the experiences I’ve worked through recently and even some of the ongoing issues that I’ve observed over a longer period of time.

• We all have unique financial journeys.  As with most things in life, everyone has a distinct perspective & way of doing things which are based on both their inherent personality as well as actual, lived-experiences.  None of this is new to me, so it may be surprising to learn that I still need to constantly remind myself of this fact.  Over the years I’ve encountered so many different ways to invest and manage my money that it makes my head spin just thinking about it.  Through much self-education and even some trial & error, I’ve finally settled on a stable financial path that has worked well for me, which is investing primarily in index funds during accumulation and using the 4% rule as a guide during drawdown.  Because I found an effective strategy (with almost 20 years of real-life data to back it up), there have been many times when I find myself unwittingly thinking that my path is the “best” or the “only right one”.  This notion has reared its ugly head a lot recently as I’ve met many new people at FI events, particularly over the past couple years.  While I love hearing everyone’s unique stories, my mind subconsciously drifts to comparing it all to my own financial journey.  I intellectually know that there is no single “correct” way to get to FI, rather the most important thing is that everyone finds what works best for them.  I need to personally do a better job of being open-minded and perhaps more importantly be more supportive of others, so that I can share my knowledge without being inadvertently judgmental (which is not my motive by any means).  As the old saying goes “personal finance is more personal than finance”, which at the end of the day means that what works well for one person may not work well for another.  My goal is to help everyone find what specifically works best for them.
• It’s okay to get help.  Like most people in the FI community, I’ve been a long-time DIYer and I’ve managed my own money for the past couple decades.  While I may have not made the BEST (aka optimal) choices, I think I did a pretty good job of accumulating wealth and made it to early retirement.  However, after a couple years of being retired I started to have some self-doubt about my financial situation moving forward – along with the mathematical complexities of actually withdrawing money, I still constantly wrestled with the psychology & emotions of actually having to spend.  In fact, I’ve written numerous times about how I think about money & worry about money way more now in early retirement than I ever did when I was working.  Although I had previously tried to avoid professional financial advice like the plague, I thought there could be some benefit, if only to give me peace of mind about the future.  So with a little hesitation my wife & I decided to work with a fee-only planner to 1) tackle the nuances of drawdown and lay out a solid strategy for the rest of retirement and 2) have an objective 3rd party review our financial circumstances to make sure we weren’t missing anything.  The experience turned out overwhelmingly positive and we came away with a clear roadmap and a much-needed neutral perspective of our situation.  Of course, due to my frugal nature I still winced a bit at the seemingly high fees ($300/hr), but the emotional relief of having a solid plan in-place has already proven to be worth every penny.  After almost two decades of being a staunch DIYer and viewing financial advisors as little more than “evil” salespeople, I can say that I’ve definitely changed my tune.  While I still believe that most people can handle their own finances, I’ve also come to realize that a lot of people do need help whether it’s due to lack of knowledge, lack of desire, or just needing another person to objectively collaborate with.  While there are still pitfalls to avoid (i.e. high fees, advisors without their client’s best interest in mind, etc), there is no shame in seeking help and it could potentially turn into a very positive experience.

• We can’t take our health for granted.  I’ve always known that taking care of myself was important, but oftentimes as a younger adult I took health for granted – I wasn’t careful of the foods I ate, I didn’t get enough good sleep, I only visited the doctor if I had an urgent issue, and I’m embarrassed to admit that at one point I didn’t even go to the dentist for over a decade.  Up until this point I’ve been very fortunate to avoid any major problems, but I know this can change at ANY moment, with increasing probability as I age.  I know that the day will come when my health will start to decline and this thought has become more concrete recently as I’m starting to see both my parents and my in-laws deal with increasing medical issues.  As a result I’m starting to become more attuned with what I should be doing in my own life such as getting regular checkups, more exercise, better sleep, and being receptive to health advice & recommendations.  Although declining health is inevitable, I’d rather not worry constantly about an unknown future, but instead try to be as proactive as possible to increase my own healthspan, which is the number of healthy & functional years someone experiences (compared to lifespan which is just total years lived until death).  The good news is that there is so much information out there nowadays that it’s not too hard to find.  Similar to personal finance though, not all data is beneficial and everyone’s health is unique, so it’ll be very interesting to learn what works & what doesn’t work in other people’s lives.  At the moment, simply being aware of how important health is has been an important first step to making necessary changes in my life.

Links/Resources

• FinCon
• Definition of “The 4% Rule”
• Definition of “Healthspan”

Reader Questions

• What lessons did you learn this past year?

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