Year 2 update

[surfFL]

Happy holidays everyone,
2025 marks my 3rd FIRE year, it's been fantastic.
I'm going to post an update here in 3 folds:
1/ 2025 FIRE adventures
2/ Money
3/ 2026 look ahead.

1/ 2025 FIRE adventures
a/ Solar panels + Battery back-up solution: I’ve spent the early part of the year (maybe 3-4 months) following what Tesla Energy did for my solar panels + battery back-up solution.
You can read more about it here:

Anybody have a power wall or other battery backup?

ECOFLOW offers a small dual fuel generator to connect to their ECOFLOW power stations that can auto-start when the power station's batteries run low. ECOFLOW is a bit pricy, but a very popular tried-&-true company. I use two Pecron Power Stations (E1500LFP) with three expansion batteries...

www.early-retirement.org

I’m providing couple of figures just for fun:
i/ 9.8MWh generated since 04/2025 (Panels On Line)
ii/ 1.45 MWh exported to grid since 05/2025 (Permission To Operate)
iii/ 420 kWh imported from grid since 05/2025
iv/ 2.167MWh charged to the Tesla MY (39% Powerwalls, 52% Solar, 9% Grid) since 05/2025
v/ Tesla MY is doing 240wh per mile (4.17 miles per kWh), so I could have driven “for free” an extra 4,300 miles [(1.45-0.42)*4.17*1000]. PS. I think I drove 15k miles this year.

b/ Energy efficient home: then I’ve updated the house to make it energy efficient.
You can read more about is here:

This is what $15K in batteries looks like (for my solar panels)...

Life is pretty short and what else are you going to spend money on? I am a big fan of doing fun hobbyist stuff even if it really doesn't check the pure financial return box. I just ordered two more of the 200 watt CIGS solar panels you can roll up. Those bad boys are $400 a pop, but I have...

www.early-retirement.org

c/ AC in the attached garage: I DIY it

d/ Smart Home: I’ve installed a whole lot of devices / Apps (integrated with Amazon Alexa routines) to make the house smart / more automated.
You can read more about is here:

How "Smart" is your home?

My biggest connectivity decision in the last 10 years.... got a new ASUS router for the home. I got a message on my iPhone that the wifi might not be secure. Sure enough, my 12 year old router did not support the new protocols for the best wifi security. Wow, now it's twice as fast as the old...

www.early-retirement.org

I’ve also added Moen Flo Smart Water Monitor & Shutoff valve + 9 Smart Water Detectors sensors (shut off the valve automatically in case of a leak)

e/ Landscaping: the garden is reaching a point where required maintenance is minimal.
You can read more about it here:

Embracing yard work in retirement

No leaves here, ha ha.

www.early-retirement.org

I’d just did a soil test with Yard Mastery to be able to get the right fertilizer type, amount and timing for my lawn for 2026.
The turf looks great, healthy (green and thick) and weed free.

f/ House improvements: besides what’s written above, I think I’ve reached ‘maturity’.

g/ Travels: as planned I’ve spent 4 weeks in Rockaway Beach, NY; 2x trips in Western Europe. Extra were 1 week in Rhodes Island (after NY) and couple of days in the Silicon Valley to visit friends.

h/ (Electronic) Music. I’ve released 4 (mix of commercial and non commercial) synthesizers patch banks and I’ve coded 8 applications (non commercial) to facilitate my synthesizer sound design hobby.

i/ Mountain Biking. I did regular sessions (30 min each) except during the summer (too hot!)

j/ Surfing. I’ve improved quite a lot I think; super happy that at my age (54) you can still make progress as this is a ‘youth’ sport. Still trying to surf every day (I usually do 1 hour session) / swell conditions permitting.

2/ Money
a/ NW is a bit south of $3M (including primary home) and up from last year. But I’d like to use other indicators (see b and c below) to measure financial health (feel free to comment)
b/ Dividends: generated $44,320 and I drew $39,515; so that’s 11% less than generated. So I think this is healthy.
c/ SWR: 2.62% it was calculated using the year end balance and just draws an that account (65/35). I spoke with the human (LOL) robo advisor and they recommended 4.27% (die with 0) and I’ve also subscribed to Maxifi which recommended 4.48% (die with 0). Reminder: I’m 54 years young.
So I think this is healthy too.
d/ Budget (2026) is $71k (approximately the same as 2025) including Federal and State Taxes (and all other property taxes). Please note that with the carry forward law for the solar panel + battery back-up 30% Federal Tax Credit; there is 99% chances I will pay $0 Federal Taxes for quite some years (to be confirmed on 03 or 04/2026); so I may end up with higher discretionary.
Reminder: I also have some rental income on top of b/
e/ Discretionary (2026) is $3,100 per month (approximately the same as 2025). Unlike last year, I’ve tried do use all discretionary budget (I’m like $1,000 shy this year). I’ve also done some BTD / 1-time withdrawal (included in b/ and c/ calculation). I prefer to have a ‘low’ discretionary and draw extra when I need it, rather than draw ‘too much’ and re-invest it.

3/ 2026 look ahead
a/ About the same sport / travel / landscaping plans as 2025. Home improvements should be neglectable.
b/ Music. I’ve started a very ambitious Proof Of Concept with Arduino and coding assistance from Google Gemini (Thinking model). It’s a very complex solution involving hardware, firmware and software; with a hardware frontend (which has the firmware and software modules) and 2 software clients (external to the hardware). We will see where this goes but I would like to realize a Prototype after the (successful, hopefully) POC. This is all new to me and fascinating how this has evolved compared to 6809 assembly coding when I was in EE school.

As I reflect on 2025, it’s been quite a blessing to be able to achieve all this, been healthy and FIREd.

I wish you all a great end of year celebration.

 

[imjustawarrior]

b/ Dividends: generated $44,320 and I drew $39,515; so that’s 11% less than generated. So I think this is healthy.

I think expenses vs portfolio size (WR) or expenses vs total return is more telling.

If all your dividends are from VTI, then you are doing great. If all your dividends are from something paying 20%, then you probably are over spending. Dividend amount in isolation is not very telling.

 

[surfFL]

Hi @imjustawarrior,
Thanks for your comment. I've written the WR in 2/c/ above, here it is:

c/ SWR: 2.62% it was calculated using the year end balance and just draws an that account (65/35). I spoke with the human (LOL) robo advisor and they recommended 4.27% (die with 0) and I’ve also subscribed to Maxifi which recommended 4.48% (die with 0). Reminder: I’m 54 years young.

In addition this portfolio has grown +13% from 2024 to 2025 (including the 2.62% draws).

Regards,

 

[joejetski]

I think expenses vs portfolio size (WR) or expenses vs total return is more telling.

If all your dividends are from VTI, then you are doing great. If all your dividends are from something paying 20%, then you probably are over spending. Dividend amount in isolation is not very telling.

So his NW is $3 million. Even if he only had $1 million in investable assets, a meager 5% yield would result in $50,000. It is unlikely he retired with only $1million in investable assets at 54, but maybe not. Just my observation.

 

[Diogenes]

f/ House improvements: besides what’s written above, I think I’ve reached ‘maturity’.

Very impressive! Your testament speaks to the "right" way to own a house. That is, so many of us are passive occupants, merely owning on paper; might as well rent! But you're an active owner, improving the place, enjoying the improvements, learning as you go, making an archival contribution. I'm envious!

 

[surfFL]

Thanks @Diogenes. Yes I pride myself on having a well maintained house / garden. And I enjoy doing it.
Just to give an update on 3/b. Thanks to Gemini Pro (Thinking model could not solve my problems, I had to upgrade it to the next level. Fast -> Thinking -> Pro), we've completed in 1 month the Firmware for the hardware POC + 2 Hardware Software Modules + 1/2 external Software Client. The 2nd SW client is a very steep learning curve for me... We shall see...
To summarize my experience with AI (I've rarely used it before, just for simple stuff)
1/ You have to provide a very concise prompt of what you need it to do, unless it will not give you the answer you are expecting. I'm guessing everyone has experienced that one.
2/ It helps if you provide an example in your prompt. (out of my context but anyway) I would like you to provide me with an image of a blue cow. But make that blue exactly like this cyan / web blue: #7FFFFF. In my experience, if you provide an example it will much better understands what you need. It's like human thinking (like me anyway, I prefer being provided with an example to understand something new).
3/ It always tries to answer you (which I found annoying), even if you prompt it that you are not sure and request to possibly change / challenge your logic / assumptions. That's very weird to me, because most of the time 'guessing' leads to a bad / out of scope answers.
4/ It's much better at 'widely available' knowledge than niche / limited knowledge.
5/ It still struggles a lot manipulating 'large concepts'. When there are many features, a long history of changes, different pieces of the software being integrated. It often looses track of that feature, that requirements, that use case (and even that bug fix -> regression) we have done 1 day 10 days 30 days ago. So still humans have the upper hand here I guess!
6/ It has no intuition of going back to unitary testing / implementing when struggling on the system integration. Which is really concerning to me. When you face a big integration problem; you are adding a piece (e.g. a new hardware piece or a new software piece), if this integration goes bad, it has no intuition of doing a unitary test (that piece alone, not integrated) to make sure it works, before integrating it in the solution.
7/ It has no intuition of adding 'debugging logs' when something is not working the way you are expecting. It tries to provide countless versions of possible fixes, without being 100% sure of what the issue is! That's also very weird to me. Many, many times, I've asked to 'please add some logs' so we could understand what is really happening in the software. I've even suggested using the 'Arduino built-in Debugger' and it was not willing to do it (we've never used it, but we've used my logs methodology to move / fix complex software issues many times).
That's it. But to conclude, we have now 2350 lines of code which is considered (I've asked Gemini) a professional software (0 -> 1000. Simple App. 1000 -> 10,000 professional software. > 10k OS, CRM, etc...) All this in 1 month is AMAZING to me. Welcome to 2026!
Oh one more thing. Today I've asked Gemini to help me with CAD for 4 pieces for this Prototype (I've never learned or used CAD before). It was able to provide me with the Python scripts that runs in Fusion (CAD software) and in less than 1 day: I have my 4 pieces designed, ready to be laser cut!