I know, I know. We’re almost into March, and here I am talking about New Year’s goals. But it’s honestly taken us this long to nail down what goals we want to try to achieve this year. I seriously can’t believe it’s 2026 – it seems like yesterday I was graduating from high school…which I did in 2004…so yeah, dinosaur over here. But anyway. I can’t obviously predict what 2026 will hold for my family, but we do have a few really big changes coming up for our family. And I know that setting financial goals can be tricky, so I thought that by sharing my family’s specific goals, it might help others set up their own financial goals for their family for the year. So here are all of our 2026 goals:
Financial Goals:
- Sell our paid-for home. Yep, you read that right. We’re actively looking to move in 2026, and by God’s grace, we’ll be able to. For years, we had planned to buy property and build a house on it, but that never worked out, despite making several offers on various properties. But in November, it became very clear to my husband and me that it was time to let go of the sweet little home that we’ve loved for nearly 15 years. We have no idea where we’re moving to – we’re just trusting that God is going to put us where we need to be. And if you’re a new reader, yes, our home is paid off. We paid off our mortgage in 2019, so we will most likely have to take on a new mortgage, unfortunately, in order to make this goal a reality.
- Buy a new home. Obviously, if we’re selling our current home, we’ll be buying a new-to-us home. My husband is a builder, but as of right now, we’re not trying to buy property and then build. If that ends up being the best option, then obviously we’ll go that route, but right now the plan is to buy a fixer-upper and then sell our current home.
- Increase Our Emergency Fund back to 6 Months. 2025 was a doozy for our Emergency Fund. It worked overtime this year, and so our goal is to get our EF back up to 6 months. Right now it’s the lowest it’s been in years!
- Max Out our Roth IRA Contributions. We’ve been able to do this for the last three years, so we’re planning to do it again this year. And the best news? The IRS upped the limits on contributions, so we’ll be able to contribute more in 2026!
Education Goals:
If you’re a new reader, I homeschool our children and like to share what I do and use to homeschool all three of them while living on a budget.
- Sign up for Acellus. Our oldest will be starting high school in the fall of 2026, so we’ve decided to try Acellus online for his freshman year. I think he needs a little more of a challenge (or rather a challenge that isn’t coming from mom, if you know what I mean), so we’re going to give this online school a try.
- One Day a Week Co-op. After a LOT of prayer, we’ve decided to try a brand-new to us co-op that’s 45 minutes from home for next school year. If you follow me on Instagram, you know our current co-op, which is right down the street from my house, has been a nightmare. This new co-op will require me to teach a class.
- Write and Teach a Personal Finance Homeschool Class. Since this new co-op will be free, I will have to teach a class. As of now, I’m planning to teach a basic personal finance class to middle and high schoolers, and I’m currently writing the curriculum.
- Buying a non-running truck. So we aren’t 100% sure we will do this one, but our oldest has mechanical aptitude off the charts. So my husband and I have talked about buying a truck that isn’t running and letting him fix it. If he can fix it (and use his own money from cutting lawns), then he can have the truck when he gets his driver’s license.
Vacation Goals:
We are only really planning to take a few camping trips and, hopefully, a beach/fishing trip with my brother and his family this year. Since we’re going to be selling our current home and most likely taking on a mortgage again, we’ll need to be hyper-vigilant about planning vacations in the future. Many years ago, we used to vacation for only $1,000 on Tybee Island, and we loved it. But last year we went on an epic vacation with my brother’s family, and we decided we’d like to try to do that again this year if we can save enough. Our goal for that trip is $3,500. (If you want to see how we plan and budget for family vacations, head here to this blog post.)
Business Goals:
For the last two years, I’ve been attempting to get another book published. However, since my social media platform hasn’t grown since Getting Good with Money was published, I’ve been unsuccessful in getting a publisher to want to take on my next book project, despite every publisher really loving the proposal. So my goal is to self-publish my next book by the end of the year. Unfortunately, this is proving more challenging than I expected, as I’ve been doing bookkeeping work on the side to help my family’s budget and keep my business afloat. (If you’re interested in doing bookkeeping work as a side hustle, I highly recommend this course – I took this as a refresher before starting to work with clients.)
Okay, so that’s really it for our family’s goals for the year! What goals are your family setting for the year?
