CheesyGoulash – The First Blog Year on Our FIRE Journey

The First Blog Year on Our FIRE Journey

When we started CheesyGoulash at the beginning of 2025 (on a whim), it was still an experiment: writing an update every month or quarter about our Barista FIRE journey, sharing numbers, and at the same time telling personal stories about work, travel, sustainable choices, and investing. Now, about 10 months later, the posts mainly help us stay consistently focused on our goals.

This year, for us, was not just about our finances, but lately more about family and friends.

Our Key Numbers

💰 Passive income

Our monthly passive income was between €350-€400 at the start of the year. Over the course of the year, this increased to just over €700 per month. The amounts fluctuated regularly during the year. In Augustus, for example, we saw a small dip compared to the plan — €646 vs €663 — but the six-month average remained strong. In September, we ended above plan for the first time: €707, above the €680 benchmark we had set for ourselves. This is largely explained by our crypto income (cashbacks + stake rewards), which currently brings in about €200 per month.

💸 Savingsrate

Our savings rate remained steadily above our 30% target. As you can see in the chart, we have become a bit more consistent over the year, so we no longer have negative months. There is, however, still room for improvement. The "bad" months were during the fun summer and vacation months. Without going negative, this still gave us lovely card nights at Lake Balaton, a wonderful sunny vacation in Egypt, and countless weekend trips. We want to continue this balance next year, but the goal is to sharpen it again. So instead of 30%, in 2026 we are aiming for a 35% savings ratio.

☀️ Energy & Sustainability

Monitoring our energy usage gave more insight than we expected. In the summer months, we produced more energy than we consumed — but nevertheless, our consumption over the whole year is still very high. Our gas usage has decreased significantly (only hot water on gas) thanks to two hybrid heat pumps, one from DeWarmte and one from WeHeat. With tips from Henk, among others, we will start in 2026 to explore how we can reduce our standby consumption.

What We Have Learned

📍 1) Everyone follows their own path

A number is just a number, and because everyone’s life, habits, and needs are different, a number actually says little. The story around it provides the context. Many blogs we follow are from fantastic people who are much further along in their journey than we are, make fewer mistakes, and complete the journey with more discipline than we ever could. But we follow our own path and pace. As long as we are making progress, we can be satisfied.

📍 2) A FIRE journey takes a long time

No matter what all the YouTube influencers claim, the FIRE journey takes a long time. And of course, with extreme savings rates, you can shorten it significantly, but we love to travel, can be impulsive, and let’s be honest, sometimes a little spoiled. Because of this, our journey will still take at least 15 years. But probably the journey itself is much more fun than the destination anyway...

📍 3) Focus is difficult

Life can be busy and chaotic. We both have jobs that demand a lot from us. On top of that, we also want to be good family members and friends (and partners), which regularly weakens our focus. We are still learning about maintaining balance — planning, checking against numbers, but also enjoying the beautiful (social) moments.

Looking Ahead to 2026

In 2026, our focus will of course remain on our finances. But our sporty life has been neglected in recent years, so the kilos are plentiful at Huize CheesyGoulash, but we also want to tackle that next year:

🎯 We want to continue increasing our passive income — aiming to increase by about €200 per month. Partly by reducing costs (loans) and possibly reinvesting in real estate (or dividend stocks).

📈 Savings rate of >35% (currently 30%)

🏡 Both of us losing at least 20 kilos... Now it’s on paper ;)

Thank You for Being Part of This Journey

Whether you’ve been following for months or are just here for the first time: thank you. Thank you for your time, your responses, your curiosity. We hope you find it interesting; we certainly enjoy doing it because we learn so much ourselves.

Here’s to 2026 — with even more insights, stories, and warm goulash moments (figuratively and literally).

Until the next update!