Anonymous Monthly Report - January 2026: Fine-tuning annual goals, improving asset management apps with AI, Wealth Ladder book review, the eldest child learning to ride a bike, etc.

Well, Happy New Year, and we are now fully back into our normal daily routine. I would like to continue writing these monthly reports again this year.

Fine-tuning annual goals and reviewing minor lifestyle habits

Fine-tuning annual goals

First, this.

I set my annual goals above, but I have already fine-tuned them to match reality.

Regarding jogging, I initially assumed I would run 4 km at a pace of 5 minutes per kilometer. However, entering the new year, when I actually ran 4 km at 5 minutes per kilometer, my breathing became completely disordered and elevated, and I realized it was too fast for me. After trial and error, I understood that running 4-5 km at a pace of about 5.5 minutes per kilometer is appropriate for my actual ability—it doesn't disrupt my breathing but provides a suitable load—so I decided to go with this for 2026.

When I showed the above goals to my spouse, they said that while it's good to have various positive goals, they suggested creating a break for the parents, a 'day per month to be completely away from work and childcare'. They suggested that perhaps both of us as parents are exhausted from working and childcare almost full-time without breaks. For example, even during the year-end and New Year holidays, we took time off from work and went on trips to Ishigaki Island or visited our parents' homes, but it wasn't really a time for the parents to relax because we were fully engaged in childcare with the kids. I certainly felt the same way, and I felt that having a goal to rest was necessary. For that reason, I decided to include it. In addition, my spouse suggested that the habit of 'every night, having the whole family list at least one 'good thing that happened today''' would also be good, and since I felt it was indeed a good habit, I decided to add it.

Regarding investment work, come to think of it, last year I created a full-scale IPS (Investment Policy Statement), determined target returns, risks, maximum allowable losses, etc., and set guidelines for stock/cash ratios. I decided to properly do investment as a personal side job in line with those contents.

Regarding the use of time in the early morning or after putting the kids to bed, even so, in reality, due to work and childcare circumstances, it is difficult to keep bedtime constant, such as going to bed at 9 PM. On the other hand, cutting sleep time and trying to wake up at 5 AM no matter what led to sleep deprivation, which was a problem last year. In the midst of this, I suddenly came up with the system of 'a flex system with 8 hours of sleep, with 23:00-5:00 as the core sleep time,' so I decided to put this into practice. Also, I decided to take a break with caffeine-free herbal tea when using the night for study, etc. Since it's going well so far, I decided to go with this this year.

Reviewing minor lifestyle habits

In connection with the fine-tuning of the goals above, I am also reviewing the details of my lifestyle habits.

I suddenly found the book mentioned above that had been piling up on my bookshelf. I skimmed through it, and added some things that looked good to the stretching I do every day before going to bed, and started doing them simply during breaks at work. I had been stretching in my own way, but I discovered areas that were stiff but neglected, and I was able to improve the stiffness a little. I think to myself that maintaining health in middle age is hard...

At an X izakaya, it was mentioned that doing calf raises while brushing teeth can train the calf muscles, which are the second heart, so I decided to start this as well. If it's while brushing teeth, I can do it every day no matter how busy I am with work and childcare. And personally, I have been suffering from calf swelling and have been going to foot massages frequently, but I am starting to be able to reduce the number of times I go. I feel that it is quite effective and is leading to an improvement in QoL.

I also bought new shoes. When I was young, I was highly conscious of my appearance and wore leather shoes that cost over 100,000 yen because I felt that if my feet weren't properly dressed... However, as I reached middle age, I stopped wearing them because the soles were hard and the clicking sound made me worry about the burden on my knees when walking (it's age, you know 💦). However, I also felt that something too cheap wouldn't do, so I was looking for something that felt right. The Asics leather shoes mentioned above brought me the gospel. Should I call them the shoe version of Uniqlo's 'Kando' pants? I felt like I had reached a destination that a middle-aged person arrives at after going around in a circle, thinking, 'Isn't this good enough?' They aren't exactly luxury, but they are made of genuine leather and don't look cheap, yet they embody a comfort close to athletic shoes, and I was moved by how easy and practical they are for commuting and dropping off kids at nursery school. I liked them so much that I bought multiple pairs in different colors. I think to myself that I realized that I am essentially not interested in fashion, etc., and that practicality comes first.

I also updated the photos on my treasure map. Please refer to the books mentioned above for treasure maps, but to summarize in one word, the content is to the effect that 'if you turn your dreams into photos and decorate them, look at them daily, etc., your dreams will actually come true.' For example, if you want a wonderful house, if you look at a photo of your ideal house every day, it will actually come true. Applying the treasure map-like thinking mentioned above, my Notion diary is filled with photos of self-images that are my dreams, and I can see them every day. For example, I have already forgotten where I got it, but it is a photo like the one below.

I had been posting and looking at the photo above since my twisted middle-aged bachelor days, dreaming of building a fresh and wonderful family with a dad, mom, one boy, and one girl, and I had been doing twisted bachelor marriage hunting in my late 30s for a long time. It's pathetic, even to me. I also had a history of making photos of cars, mechanical watches, etc., visible as 'things I want'.

I organized the photos around here. I deleted the cars and watches because they have been realized to some extent. And regarding the dreaming foreign family of four photo above, well, even though I am still a pure Japanese person and not a dreaming foreigner, fortunately, I have now landed on a family structure of a dad, mom, brother, and sister, so I decided to replace it with a photo of my own family. I decided to keep the photos of the ideal form that have not yet been fully realized.

By doing these things, I realized that even if some dreams were realized in a slightly different form, they were actually being achieved quite well. Also, I feel that by looking at the things I have already achieved through real photos and physical objects, while mixing them with the treasure map of unrealized goals, it gives me the feeling that the unrealized goals will also be achieved in some way sooner or later.

In addition, I reviewed various small daily habits in January. For example, I have started habits such as basically not drinking coffee after 1:00 PM, and trying to calm down by drinking caffeine-free herbal tea on nights when the children fall asleep early. Each of these is a small thing, but I feel that when they become daily habits, they have a significant effect through compound interest.

AI: Developing a portfolio management app with Codex

This is my AI & investment activity for this month.

Last year, I created a personal portfolio management app using AI in the way described above. Although it was usable to a certain extent, I was particularly concerned about the following limitations.

After all, I want to build it based on importing transaction history so that changes in the portfolio over time, such as trades and changes in position size, can be reflected in performance evaluation. I also want to be able to take dividends into account in performance calculations. However, I knew from my past work in the HF era that it is quite troublesome to build a system that handles time-series transaction data, position additions, reductions, exits, dividends, etc., rather than just snapshots or cross-sectional data at a certain point in time, so I had put it off.

Now, regarding the OpenAI Codex I used this time, as I wrote in the Note above when I created it a little over half a year ago, there were many cases where 'even if I told it to fix it like this, it wouldn't fix it properly. Or other errors would keep appearing,' so in terms of whether it was very useful, it was at the stage of 'convenient, but still troublesome.' I wanted to know the degree of performance improvement, so I tried working with Codex again this time. I made it so that it could be easily used on VS Code.

The result is surprising. In just over half a year, the performance has improved dramatically. Errors still occur occasionally, but if I point them out, it fixes them properly, and in just a few hours, I was able to quickly create something with the following functions.

* Instead of importing a snapshot of the current portfolio, I can now just plug in the csv file of transaction details obtained from the securities company.

* It can now calculate past performance reflecting transaction history. In other words, it is now possible to measure performance by reflecting things like positions that were cut in the past and are now zero, investments that started in the middle of the measurement period, and changes in position size during the period, as well as reflecting dividend income in performance (see screenshot below).

* Regarding investment performance, it is now possible to calculate using TWR (Time-Weighted Return; see note below) after reflecting the above past trades and dividends, making it easier to compare performance with benchmarks (see screenshot below).

Calculations such as the Sharpe ratio are troublesome, so I simply calculate it as return/σ without subtracting the risk-free rate. I would like to note that since I am not subtracting the risk-free rate while yields are high for both US Treasury bonds and Japanese bonds these days, the above Sharpe ratio and others are overestimated, and in reality, they are lower. I want to clarify that the Sharpe ratio is not actually 1.38 for a long-only operation without hedging, but as a tool for personal use to make relative comparisons with benchmarks, it is more than enough, and I find it very convenient myself.

Modifications to such apps have become stress-free and can be done in just a few hours. I felt that Codex has made a lot of progress in half a year. They say that Anthropic's Claude Code and Claude CoWork are also making wonderful progress, and I feel that these functions will finally take off in earnest in 2026.

(Note: See here for TWR. I have to include elements that make me look like someone in the financial industry in my Note once in a while... I feel like I've only been talking about childcare lately...)

Investment: Introduction to the Wealth Ladder book

While I was thinking about my own life plan and financial plan, I happened to discover the following book. It is an excellent book, and I would like to introduce it to everyone.

In a nutshell, it is an improved version of Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad Poor Dad," systematized in a more granular and realistic way.

In the case of Rich Dad Poor Dad, a great deal of emphasis is placed on entrepreneurship, and the tone is quite negative toward studying and entering a stable company (= the Poor Dad mindset). In addition, I think it was partly to give common people dreams, but it portrayed being rich as a rosy picture, and I don't think it touched much on the worries and potential problems that come with having money.

On the other hand, in the case of Wealth Ladder, the economic stages are divided into six levels on a logarithmic scale (in short, the number of zeros in assets) as shown below, and appropriate strategies are presented for each stage. It can be said that it is more realistic and achievable.

In the early stages of one's career, it recommends education and career advancement as a company employee to increase income and establish life stability (up to Lv. 2). Next, once there is room and a risk buffer to invest in stocks and other financial assets or income-generating assets, it promotes investing in these (Lv. 3). Once assets exceed $1 million, it suggests starting to explore sowing seeds through side businesses, etc., or becoming an early management team member to receive stock. This is also the timing when you have the experience and risk buffer to do such things (Lv. 4)... that is what it advocates. Also, for Lv. 5-6 (asset scale of $10 million/1.5 billion yen or more, and $100 million/15 billion yen or more), it focuses on "dealing with the risks of having too much money," such as family problems due to divorce or inheritance, lawsuits, and asset protection. It also notes that starting a business and succeeding is very difficult, that there are aptitudes for it, and that one needs to consider whether they even want to be that rich in the first place.

The sense of reality for each level is also very well written. For example, an annual income of 10-20 million yen is about enough to be able to add an egg, miso soup, and salad to a beef bowl without hesitation (Lv. 3, freedom of restaurants), and the typical topics at X izakayas are also verbalized, which was good because it saves the trouble of saying the same thing every time the topic comes up.

Overall, it feels like it brilliantly systematizes the things I felt were the case after going around the capitalist circles of HFs and private banks. There was nothing new to me personally, but it was a very grateful book that took the trouble to systematize the things I felt I needed to verbalize and systematize in order to set my own economic goals.

At the same time, I felt that I had been beaten to the punch... that a book that hits the nail on the head regarding what I had vaguely thought about writing myself, utilizing my past experiences and observations, had already been published.

As for what I initially thought would be my life's work from middle age to old age, in addition to financial planning, there was also ultra-long-term financial history. I actually think I've been beaten to the punch on this as well by the aforementioned books by Ray Dalio.

I think I would like to write a book someday when work and childcare settle down and I have more free time, but as I watch the situation where predecessors have written exactly what I wanted to organize and write, I find myself thinking these days about what I should make my life's work in middle and old age. By the way, both of the above books are highly recommended. If you are interested, I highly recommend reading them.

Childcare: The eldest child learning to ride a bike, etc.

My eldest child is about to turn five. Although I am not that conscious about education, I feel that basic things like how to ride a bike and being able to swim more than 50m using the crawl and breaststroke are the minimum things that parents should pass on to their children.

In that context, I am relieved that I was able to support my eldest child in learning to ride a bike. At first, we trained in a safe place without going out onto public roads, and recently we have been going out onto public roads together as parent and child, supporting them in a form of road training while I run alongside. The child seems happy that the range in which they can act on their own is expanding, and to use an analogy, it seems like the joy of getting a ship in Dragon Quest. As a parent, I have to run to keep up, which is tiring, but it is good exercise.

Come to think of it, I was the same way when I was a child; I remember the joy of the world expanding, like when I got a ship in Dragon Quest, as my range of action expanded: being able to ride a bike, being able to ride the bus alone, being able to ride the train, being able to travel abroad freely with my own money after becoming a working adult... escaping from the countryside to Tokyo, escaping from Tokyo, a regional city in the Far East, to live a tropical life in Singapore while balancing financial work. I felt that one of the joys of childcare is being able to re-experience these childhood days through childcare.

This month's Having Diary

As a mental habit of mine, I tend to think that I "don't have" talent, ability, money, etc., and I tend to focus on the lacking parts, so I want to continue to explicitly verbalize the "having" side in 2026, not so much to send it out to the outside world, but as a correction and rehabilitation of my own thinking habits.

1) Physical condition and state

• Morning exercise (about 4-5km) and HIIT continued, and I had a sense of my mind and body being in good shape.

• Morning baths, coffee, etc., even in the midst of being busy, small recovery habits were effective.

• There were days when my body felt less painful and daily movements felt easier.

• I reaffirmed that it is beneficial to regulate my sleep rhythm (going to bed early and waking up early).

2) Joys of family and parenting

• Even when the children got sick, they recovered, and I felt that the family being healthy itself is a great asset.

• We enjoyed outings (parks, museums, etc.) and play (building blocks, etc.) together, and the time spent together was fulfilling in itself.

• I felt the growth of my younger child and was able to take care of them (feeding, putting them to sleep, etc.), which gave me a tangible sense of being a parent.

• Even when my eldest child stumbled in their studies, they persevered to finish, and it is promising to see their daily study habits growing.

• Even during the peak of my spouse's work, they managed it safely, and there were moments when the atmosphere at home was calm, for which I felt grateful for the stability in our home.

3) Leisure and experiences

• During a family trip (resorts on remote islands, nature experiences, etc.), we fully enjoyed nature, food, and play, and I was able to truly feel 'abundance'.

• I encountered various expressions and ways of life in a large park in Tokyo, which broadened my perspective.

• I had the sensitivity to pick up on 'beauty and deliciousness', such as the scenery and the taste of coffee.

• Through experiential outings (e.g., farming experiences, resting at hot springs), I was able to have time where my mind and body could unwind.

4) Learning, creation, and tool updates

• Through reading and research, I gained insights that can be applied to investment and work.

• The evolution of new tools/environments made it easier to proceed with research, analysis, and tasks.

• I made progress in creating tools that can be used in practice (portfolio management, risk management, etc.), and I had a sense of 'making and using'.

Conclusion:

As always, there is no particular conclusion or punchline. I hope you all continue to have fulfilling days.