Posted by From a personal finance perspective, the past four years have been significantly impacted by my pregnancies and maternity leaves. Instead of growing our investment accounts, we were socking away money to prepare for 30 months worth of parental leaves (18 months for our first child, 12 months for our second). Of those 30 months, we had corporate top ups for 14 of those months. Still, we were left with 16 months of single income life.
In 2026, we are finally back to 100% in our earning power. I was excited to see how our financial position accelerates! But then we found out a new minivan will be added to the family …
Macro Outlook: Markets will keep chugging along
From 2020 to 2025, 2022 was the only year when the equity markets declined. Every year, I wonder if this is the year where the music stops. Every year, the markets keep chugging along. Maybe 2026 will be the year? But I’m not going to bet on that. Perhaps the market euphoria has gotten to me.
I am keeping a close eye on interest rates. Our mortgage is coming up for renewal in December of this year. We’ve been enjoying (and at certain times suffering) with our variable mortgage at Prime minus 1.19% rate for the past 5 years. Today, this is equivalent to 3.26%.
If I were to renew right now, the rates are closer to 3.8-3.9% for either fixed or variable mortgages. It’s not great. I’d expect interest rates to stay relatively flat, fluctuating between a small band of +/- 25bps based on the rate today.
Personal Outlook: DI2K life is hard
The Double Income 2 Kids life is hard. It’s difficult to balance two working parents, especially when I have stressful job with long hours. We have been lucky to have grandparent support 4 out of 7 nights in the week. There are still the odd times when hiring an extra person to help would be great from 4pm to 8pm. It would just be prohibitively expensive and derail our savings plans. Instead, we will just push through it and re-evaluate at a later time.
Asset Allocation: No changes
Similar to prior years, we will remain with 100% equities with the same asset allocations by geography:
- Cash/Bonds: 0%
- Canadian Equities: 27%
- US Equities: 44%
- International Equities: 29%
2026 Financial Goals: First Draft
In January, I drafted the following financials goals for the year, but didn’t end up publishing the post:
- Contribute ~$7,500 to each RESP ($2500 for CESG, $5000 extra): stretch goal
- Max out both TFSA accounts with $14,000
- Invest $10,000 of the emergency funds within TFSA: with my return from maternity leave, our emergency fund balance can come down and be reinvested into equities
- Maintain <20 year mortgage amortization: continue to make extra payments against the mortgage
- Max contributions on company plan top-ups: unless we lose our jobs, this should be an easy goal to reach
In February, we found out that the new Toyota Sienna mini-van that we’ve been on a waitlist on since August 2024 will be ready in March! After trading in our existing vehicle, it will still cost us $44,500. With unattractive financing rates at ~6% from the dealership, we will draw from our HELOC at ~4% for the balance.
2026 Financial Goals: Take 2
So an updated set of financial goals for 2026 will be:
- Contribute $5,000 to the two children’s RESPs to max out the CESG grants: this was a planned contribution at the start of 2026 and has been completed. We will also contribute their birthday or Christmas gift money from our relatives into their RESPs too, but it shouldn’t total more than $1,000 per child.
- Fully repay HELOC: we will suspend all extra mortgage payments and all contributions to non-employer investment accounts until the HELOC is fully repaid. I expect this to happen around September.
- Invest $15,000-20,000 into Ms. LJ’s RRSP: after September, we can resume our initial investment plans. I’m planning for $2,000 per month of contributions into RRSP, with an extra $8,000 contribution to come from the sale of my employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). The ESOP is in a taxable account and I have always sold my company shares to re-contribute into my tax-advantaged accounts.
- Maintain <20 year mortgage amortization: once the HELOC is repaid, we will resume our usual extra mortgage repayments. Temporarily suspending the repayments for 6-9 months shouldn’t impact the mortgage amortization timelines too much.
- Max contributions on company plan top-ups: no change
With our mortgage renewed at the end of the year, I want to evaluate whether to start using Smith Maneuver to invest in a taxable account. With still some contribution room left in our tax-advantaged accounts, we will likely prioritize investments there first, but the Smith Maneuver is an attractive option to explore.