First Friday: What 2026 Means for Your Money

0:00Happy New Year! Welcome to 2026. And my first question to you is, what are your financial goals in 2026? Take a moment. Think about it. This is not a rhetorical question. I want you to come up with one primary financial goal. You might have multiple goals, but what is your number one financial goal in 2026? Share it with the community, affordanything.com slash community. Share it with your friends, your family, your spouse, your partner, your dog, your cat. Find an accountability buddy. Schedule regular check-ins. Keep that financial goal top of mind. All right, with that, let's get started on today's first Friday episode.

0:41Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows you can afford anything, not everything. This show covers five pillars, financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship. It's double-I fire. I'm your host, Paula Pant. I trained in economic reporting at Columbia. And if you're new to this podcast, which we get a lot of new community members at the top of the year, people with goals around getting better with money in the new year. So if you're new to this podcast, welcome. We are so excited that you're here. Normally, on most Tuesdays, we answer questions that come from you.

1:18And on most Fridays, we air interviews. But there's one exception, and that is the first Friday of every month in which I host a solo episode in which I talk about the big macro economic trends over the last month. Let's start not with a trend, but with a game-changing piece of financial news. The Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, is officially stepping down from Berkshire Hathaway. He made this announcement back in May at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Conference. But at the end of 2025, he officially handed over the reins. The end of 2025 was the official transition time. He is 95 years old, so I think he's old enough to retire, and has a net worth of$150 billion.

2:07Warren Buffett was born in 1930 and took over Berkshire Hathaway in his mid-30s in 1965. Since the time of that takeover, Berkshire's shares have climbed more than 5.5 million percent. He is now handing over the title of CEO to his successor, longtime executive Greg Abel, whom he has spent many years training. Buffett is a legend in the investing community, not just because he's made money, but because he has shared so much wisdom around how to think about money, how to think about risk, cost, and consequence. how to strike a balance between pushing for growth and recognizing undervalued gems.

2:49He famously didn't get caught up in the dot-com bubble back in the late 90s and early 2000s. And at the time, that was a hugely criticized move. Magazines were taking out cover stories, publishing cover stories, saying he's lost it, he's lost his edge, He's missing out on the opportunity to gain first mover advantage at the very development of the information superhighway, right? The early days of the internet. We're talking Business Week. All these magazines were running cover stories criticizing him for not getting in on the dot-com rush. But he's a guy who never followed trends. He never caved to FOMO.

3:30He never let the criticism get to him. If he couldn't read the balance sheet and understand how a company was going to make money, he didn't invest. He had his principles and he stood by them. Over time, again and again and again, that has proven to be the correct move. Even though in the flurry of the moment, when the next hot thing is capturing everybody's attention, it can in the short term lead to his decisions getting widely panned. He has always had the fortitude to resist the pull of the crowd. And as we enter this new era, the AI era, there is an enormous amount of wisdom that we can take from that.

4:10In the investing world, there's always something hot and trendy. The question is, will you still be holding those assets when you are 95? Because Warren Buffett has a track record to prove, yes, yes, he'll buy something at 35 and hold it till he's 95. Because that's the framework that he uses when he makes his investing choices. So farewell to Warren Buffett. Congratulations to him on his retirement. All of his children run philanthropic foundations, and he has said that he will spend his retirement focusing on giving his money away. The Bureau of Labor Statistics put out jobs data in November, and it was not good.

4:50It showed a modest gain of 64 ,000 new jobs, primarily in health care and construction. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.6%. We're going to talk more about that later in the show. But overall, the major story of 2025 is that the job market is stagnant and showing signs of getting gradually worse. Historically, the unemployment rate has been low. It is now uncomfortably close to the highest that we want it to be. A healthy economy needs some unemployment, but you don't really want it to go above about 5%, and we're getting pretty close to there. In fact, some people would argue that you don't really want it to go above 4.5%, so arguably we might already be there.

5:30The Fed does not have a specific unemployment target, but ballpark 5 % is the rough-ish range. So having transitioned from a stagnant job market where people weren't losing jobs, but they also weren't gaining jobs either. Everyone was kind of staying in place, transitioning from that stagnant market to now a market where that unemployment rate is ticking up. That is creating some worries and painting a case, some might argue, for further Fed rate cuts in 2026. We're going to talk a lot more about this later in the show because there's a lot to unpack there, especially after the Fed's December meeting.

6:11In addition to the jobs report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the BLS, also puts out this thing called JOLTS data. JOLTS stands for Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. It shows how many job openings exist, how many people have been hired, and how many people have separated from their company. They either quit or got laid off. So it's different from the jobs report, but you can see how it rounds out the picture. And the JOLTS data for the month of October was pretty stagnant. It showed that the rate and the number of job openings was unchanged at 4.6 % rate, 7.7 million job openings in October, 2025.

6:55The JOLTS data for November is going to come out on January 7th. Now, when we say this number's unchanged, so the number in October, 2025, 4.6%, that's exactly the same as the number in October, 2024, also 4.6%. Think about it this way. JOLTS data tells a story about flow, job openings, new hires, separations. Like it talks about how people are flowing into and out of jobs, whereas the jobs report shows how many people are employed or unemployed. So the jobs report is a snapshot, and JOLTS tells more of the story of that churn, that volume and churn. And the JOLTS data is always a month behind the jobs report.

7:39Like I said, we have October's numbers, but we're not going to have November's numbers until January 7. whereas with the jobs report, we already have November's numbers. And when you put them both together, the picture that you get at the start of 2026 is that the overall job market, it's not terrible, but it's not great. Overall, this is kind of a meh time to be unemployed. Gold peaked in December. Last month, as we closed out 2025, gold topped 4 ,500 per ounce for the first time ever. and in fact, it reached its highest point,$4 ,549 per ounce on December 26th. As of the time of this recording, it's at$4 ,326 an ounce.

8:27So investors are piling into gold right now, and that typically happens when people are worried. There are a few reasons why, even though the stock market is on a tear and at all-time highs, at or near all-time highs, gold is also reaching all-time highs. A couple of reasons why gold is so strong. One is a weaker U.S. dollar, which means that gold isn't cheaper for foreign buyers. Another, a related point, is that many central banks around the world are accumulating a lot of gold, largely because a weaker U.S. dollar makes that possible, particularly central banks in emerging markets. Another reason, people are worried about inflation.

9:10In inflationary times, physical, tangible assets like gold, silver, commodities, real estate, art, any physical, tangible asset is an inflation hedge. That tends to be where people flock to for safety when inflation is a concern. Related to that, the Fed, of course, made a series of rate cuts in 2025. People are anticipating more cuts in 2026. that fuels further inflation worries, and that leads people to hedge against that future inflation by purchasing gold. So it's an asset class to keep an eye on this year. It's really interesting to watch both gold and the stock market equities simultaneously do well.

9:52That happens. Gold is not inversely correlated to anything. I mean, gold moves of its own accord depending on a lot of geopolitical and macro factors. It sometimes moves inverse to stocks, typically because people often buy gold for safety and pour into stocks when they're exuberant. That's why I keep noting that it's interesting to watch both hit peaks simultaneously. The takeaway is that gold, even though often it can be inverse with equities, gold is not inverse with equities. and we're really seeing that right now. By the way, I should add, a lot of times when bond yields start to suck, that's when people pile into gold because gold doesn't offer any yield.

10:42So if yields are low, then you might as well hold gold, right? Like you're not losing out on any attractive yield by doing so. Whereas when bond yields are high, people prefer that instead. You'll see that pattern play out sometimes. But again, there's no perfect correlation here. And particularly when people are very worried about inflation or if there's a lot of geopolitical pressure in the world, you will see that story start to break. And that's why watching gold can be really interesting. It tells a different story than what both stocks and bonds are doing. And at the start of 2026, the story that it's telling is that it's at an all-time high.

11:25So let's see how this plays out throughout the rest of the year. Speaking of inflation, the annual inflation rate as of December 2025, the trailing 12 months ending in November, that data came out in December and the annual inflation rate is at 2.7%. But don't pop the leftover champagne cork too soon because here's what we're facing as we head into the new year. Inflation's at 2.7%, which is great, but that's still above the 2 % target. Meanwhile, unemployment has ticked up to 4.6%, which is not great. What that means is that there's a case for the Fed continuing to lower interest rates, particularly to spur job creation.

12:12And if the Fed lowers interest rates, then that might have an inflationary effect, maybe. So there's a concern going into the new year that further rate cuts might cause inflation to tick up. But a lack of rate cuts might cause unemployment to tick up. And that is the tough job that the Fed faces going into the new year. Now, the Fed, of course, has not finalized its 2025 numbers. Of course, 2025 just ended two days ago. But after their meeting on December 9th and 10th, they published a range of where they expect the final 2025 numbers to go. So they published this in early December. Of course, this is pending December data.

12:59So there are multiple measures of inflation. The 2.7%, that's the CPI number, the Consumer Price Index. There's also a different measure. It's called the PCE. It's a different measure of inflation, according to the Fed, as of early December. The median PCE expectation for inflation is 2.9%, and core PCE is 3%. Depending on which set of numbers you look at, we're right in the 2.7 to 2.9 zone. Now, to get that down, at the December 9th and 10th meeting, the Fed cut rates by another quarter point. The federal funds rate right now is between 3.5 to 3.75%. That was a controversial decision. So they passed that with a 9 to 3 vote, which is the most number of dissents that they have had since 2019, pre-pandemic.

13:49Fed watchers, people who watch, who keep tabs on these things, nobody was surprised by the quarter point cut. That was widely expected. The thing that everyone took note of on December 10th when the Fed announced its rate cut was how much dissent there was. That's an unusual level of division. There were some Fed officials who wanted to keep rates steady. They said, hey, you know what? Our battle against inflation has stalled. We've been hovering in this same zone for too long. We need to keep interest rates high in order to keep inflation down. So that's where the dissenting votes came from. And a number of Fed officials signaled that they would approve this cut in December, the quarter point cut that passed in December, but that they weren't going to be favorable to future cuts in 2026 unless there was some compelling signal.

14:47So seven out of the 19 FOMC members said that they believed that interest rates should not decline in 2026. Specifically, they said that it would take a meaningful rise in unemployment to justify further rate cuts. So that's another way of saying the Fed agreed to cut rates in December, but signaled that it would be a much tougher battle to cut rates in 2026 with a pretty sizable chunk of the Fed saying, we're going to start demanding a higher bar before we do any more of these. While that group is sizable, it is not yet a majority. So the majority of voting members are still in favor of further rate cuts, or at least that's what they've publicly signaled.

15:32But we'll see. We'll see after December's data comes out. The next Fed meeting is at the end of this month, January 27 and 28. After that, they're not meeting again until March. All right, we got great news from the Commerce Department. We're going to talk about that right after this word from the sponsors who make the show possible.

16:00Welcome back. So the Commerce Department, they have their Bureau of Economic Analysis, published a report two days before Christmas that showed that real GDP grew by 4.3 % in the third quarter of 2025. So from July through September of 2025, GDP grew 4.3%. That's way more than economists expected. That is a lot faster than the 3.8 % increase that was seen in the second quarter of 2025. And there were three major things that are attributed to a fuel to this. One is higher customer spending. The second is a shrinking trade deficit, more exports. And the third is higher government spending. So between those three things, consumer spending, government spending, more exports, fewer imports, All of that combined fueled a 4.3 % GDP rate, which is great news, particularly news that sent the stock market climbing again.

17:00The market in December, it was volatile, it had its ups and downs, but overall, December specifically and 2025 in general saw very, very strong gains. All of the major U.S. stock indexes, the S &P 500, the Dow 30, and the NASDAQ, all finished 2025 with double-digit annual gains. That has now happened for three consecutive years. The S &P 500 wrapped 2025 with a 16 % total gain. The NASDAQ finished off the year with a 19 % gain. Dow Jones is up 13 % for the year. So you look at these three years of incredible stock market performance, and you could argue that the stock market is outperforming the economy.

17:48Because remember, the stock market is not the economy. The stock market is influenced by valuations, but also by expectations. And many companies are becoming more profitable without necessarily needing to hire, which is great for productivity and efficiency, but not so great for the job situation and, by extension, ultimately consumer spending and consumer confidence. although we have seen consumer spending stay high. But if I'm going to make, you know, at the start of 2026, if I'm going to make an observation that I would like to revisit 12 months from now when we close out the year, my observation as we're heading into 2026 is that one could make a reasonable argument that the stock market is outperforming the economy.

18:38That doesn't necessarily mean that it's a quote-unquote a bubble, I'm not saying that it is. In fact, I very much believe that it is not a bubble. Bubbles are very specific. And they do not emerge purely from prolonged highs. Bubbles emerge from over-leverage. But the stock market's outperformance tells us that in the investor community, optimism is strong and expectations are driving much of this growth. Let's turn our attention to consumer-facing news. Gas prices have hit record lows. We have not seen gas prices this low since the pandemic. At the end of 2025, the national average for gas prices dropped below$3 a gallon.

19:25And in some areas, gas prices actually dropped below$2 a gallon. We haven't seen that since 2020 and 2021, back when nobody was driving. Specifically, if you're looking for cheap gas, go to Oklahoma and Colorado. That's where you would find stations that were selling gas for less than$2 a gallon. In general, Oklahoma and Texas were some of the cheapest states with averages that dropped below$2.50 a gallon. And nationwide, it's across the board below$3 per gallon for the first time in over four years. Unless you live in California, Hawaii, or a handful of the more expensive states. Now that's great news not just for your personal commute, but also for the cost of goods, because when businesses can stock their shelves at a lower cost, that helps keep inflation down for everybody.

20:16A few reasons why gas prices are so cheap right now. Partially it's because OPEC and U.S. producers have ramped up their output, so there's lots of supply. Partially it's because winter blend gasoline is cheaper to produce than the summer blends. And partially it's reduced travel demand. According to AAA, about 122.4 million Americans traveled during the holidays, which they define as between December 20 through January 1st. That is an increase of 2.2 % as compared to 2024. But according to Deloitte, the average budget for that travel is down by 18 % year over year. So slightly more people are traveling, but they're taking shorter trips.

21:06They're going to closer destinations. They're going to cheaper destinations. People are still traveling, but they're doing so with tighter budgets. That is according to Deloitte's 2025 Holiday Travel Survey. Well, I'm glad you're saving money on gas because you're going to need it to pay your mortgage. As of today, Friday, January 2nd, the average 30-year fixed mortgage interest rate is 6.2%. That's according to Bankrate. Now, there are some banks, some financial institutions that are offering mortgage rates in the five-handle zone. The number starts with a five. The current 30-year average is 6.2%, but there are finally signs of the number five, which we haven't seen in a while.

21:51So that is some good news. But there's a debate as to what's going to happen in 2026. There are some housing economists who think that this is the year. Perhaps these next two quarters might be the quarters in which we see rates dip below 6%. There's a camp of economists who think that. By contrast, the Mortgage Bankers Association is pessimistic about mortgage rates. they have projected that mortgage rates will hold at 6.4 % in the coming year. And this is because of that old adage that good economic news boosts mortgage rates and bad economic news pushes them down. And what we saw with the GDP numbers, of course, is very good economic news, which could boost mortgage rates because investors want to pile into the stock market, which means that they don't need to put their money in bonds, which hurts the mortgage market.

22:46Now, why does all of this matter? Three words, lock in effect. So according to the National Association of Realtors, 80 % of current mortgages carry rates that are below 6%. Four out of every five mortgage holders have a mortgage rate that is below 6%. And what that means is that the vast majority of mortgage holders don't want to trade a lower interest mortgage for a higher interest one, which means they feel locked in, trapped, to their current home. That translates to lower volume, fewer transactions, in some cases decreased job mobility. There are other stats that show that mobility has declined.

23:32Geographic mobility has declined. Fewer people are moving either within their state or interstate. And it also means with fewer people moving that the supply of existing homes on the market is not great. Fewer homeowners are listing their homes. Meanwhile, the ones who are don't have a robust pool of buyers because a lot of first-time homebuyers are priced out of the market with these higher interest rates and with how rapidly home prices have climbed. So you've got the situation that is simultaneously obviously bad for sellers and tough for buyers. I mean, if you have the means to buy, then it's a great time.

24:13There's no competition. But for people who are right on the edge of affordability, the higher home prices coupled with the higher interest rates packs this one-two punch. Now, the NAR stats not only say that four out of five current mortgages have rates that are 6%. But in addition, nearly one-third, specifically 32.1 % of outstanding mortgages have an interest rate that is between 3 % to 4%. I'll repeat that. About one-third of current mortgages have an interest rate that's between 3 % to 4%. So those are people who are not moving, or if they are, they're holding onto their homes and using them as rental properties if they have the means to do So they have the means to purchase their next home without relying on the sale of the current one.

25:03The problem that the housing market faces, it's not just the current interest rate per se, because historically speaking, 6 % is quite normal. The problem is the speed at which it rose and the extended duration of time during which rates were between 2 % to 4%. So you've got this big, big block of time, the Zerp era, when we had historically rock bottom interest rates. And that lasted for a decade. People got normalized to it. And that was followed by rates rising incredibly rapidly. So the speed at which it rose had a lot to do with the situation, the lock-in effect that we're in right now. And 2022 was really the line in the sand because 2022 was the delineating year.

25:52At the end of 2021, in late 2021, the average 30-year fixed rate was around 2.9%. So that was at the end of 2021, average rate 2.9%. One year later, December 29th, 2022, average rate, according to Federal Reserve data, was 6.4%. So the speed at which rates rose created a huge distinguishing line between people who bought homes prior to 2022 and people who didn't. Turning our attention off of housing and onto wages. So minimum wage is rising significantly in 19 states in 2026. So yesterday, January 1st, was officially the day that 19 states implemented big minimum wage increases. that affect over 8.3 million workers.

26:45The state in the nation with the highest minimum wage is Washington State at$17.13 per hour. New York City and Long Island has a minimum wage of$17. And then Connecticut is pretty close behind at$16.94. The federal rate is still$7.25. That has not changed since 2009. the story of the minimum wage increase is the story of states taking charge rather than waiting for the federal government to do something. In fact, a number of states, Washington, Oregon, Florida, and Arizona, have all linked their minimum wages to inflation, which means that those states will now have automatic annual increases, which proactively prevents a problem like the rate staying unchanged since 2009.

27:38Now, if you're hearing these hourly amounts and you're wondering how that translates to annual salary, there's a quick mental math that you can do. For a full-time worker, the quick mental math is to double the hourly rate and then add three zeros at the end. So $15 an hour is$30 ,000 a year. $18 an hour is$36 ,000 a year. $20 an hour,$40 ,000 a year. And the reason for that is because if you work 40 hours a week times 50 weeks a year, that's 2 ,000 working hours a year. So by doubling the hourly rate and then tacking three zeros onto the end, you're multiplying it by 2 ,000. You can also, of course, reverse it if you earn in salary, just reverse that to figure out your hourly rate.

28:23Health insurance premiums are up by an average of 10 % for employer-sponsored plans and 18 % for individual plans. Now, in one of our most recent, And I think maybe our most recent Q &A episode, Joe and I talked about health insurance. It was the answer to question number two. I'll refer you to that episode for a deeper discussion. But very quickly, let's discuss what you can do. First and foremost, if your health insurance plan is HSA eligible, which more and more people are now in HSA eligible plans, sign up for an HSA. In 2026, the maximum HSA contribution is$4 ,400 for self-only coverage or$8 ,750 for family coverage.

29:05And there's an additional$1 ,000 catch-up contribution that's allowed for people who are 55 and older. And HSA gives you triple tax benefit. You get amazing tax advantages, but also a lot of flexibility and liquidity. It is the absolute rock star of tax-advantaged accounts. If you have access to an HSA, please, please max it out to the greatest extent possible. A couple of other options. There are health shares. Health shares are nonprofit membership programs where people pool money together to cover each other's eligible medical expenses. Health shares are not actuarially sound. Joe discusses that at length in the Q &A episode.

29:51There are also fewer regulations, fewer comprehensive benefits, less recourse for denials. So there's no free lunch. But if you find that traditional health insurance is outside of your budget, a health share is a more affordable alternative, although it does come with many drawbacks. As I shared in the Q &A episode, I was in a health share last year. and this upcoming year, 2026, I have decided to switch to conventional ACA-compliant health insurance. And in order to keep my costs down, I opted for an HMO rather than a PPO or a POS. Now, there's also something that's called direct primary care.