FIRE - Year in Review

After an unexpected summer vacation, we're back in October - and thinking about 2026.

Regardless of your FIRE phase (learning, accumulation, retired) or FIRE path (Slow, Coast, Barista, Lean, Fat) - most of us like to take a moment each year (or each week!) to look at the numbers, evaluate our progress, and recalibrate moving forward.

This group often works best when we're learning from others, so I thought we could have a contemplative discussion on our learnings from 2025 to better prepare for 2026. An example discussion might look like this:

What you did well: I doubled the gigs performed, thus earning 2x as much from my side hustle
What you could improve on: I didn't make my side hustle a priority, therefore I earned 1/4 of my goal
What you will do differently in 2026: I'll dedicate 3x more time towards my side hustle; booking 1 gig per month at a minimum
Other thoughts?

This isn't an MBA program so not all of your goals have to be SMART; in fact sometimes the best goals are visionary or metaphysical (see also: Rick Rubin). But we'll get our hive mind together and see if we might inspire one another as we ponder 2026 in the context of FIRE.