January 2026 – No more life insurance 3a!

January 2026

January 2026 was quite busy. My wife is doing her German course, so I am doing more driving for my son. This means less time for other projects. And I did a time-consuming collaboration with Qoqa during this month. Finally, we also started looking for solar panels, which means meetings and calls.

This is really my limit. I could not have taken anything else during the month, and it was not enjoyable. Next month will be busy but less so.

One great thing this month is that we are finally rid of our life insurance 3a! The policy was tied to our first house mortgage, and after we sold it, we could cancel it! After sending the letter, it took about a month to get our money back into Finpension 3a. I am happy that this mistake is behind us.

Financially, it was an expensive month. We spent more than usual but had a standard income.

We had a few more expenses related to the house purchase. Furthermore, we got a power inspection (mandatory when you buy a house if it was not done in the last 5 years). This cost us 345 CHF. There are a few things that need to be fixed and will probably again cost the same amount, but nothing drastic.

We also had to pay the notary for the contract. This cost us 5269 CHF. The only large expense that we have left for the house purchase is the land register, which will be much higher. We expect it in the next few months.

Because of these bills, we did not save any money this month. Since these bills are expected with the purchase of the house, we were totally prepared to save less money.

CSV transactions from Cembra / Certo

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It may be late, but I have great news. We can now export transactions from Cembra credit cards (like the Certo One) to a CSV file. This is really useful for people tracking expenses. Before, it was very inconvenient. I used to convert the PDF to CSV to later import. But then, the PDF was only available once a month. Now, you can export at any time you want.

This will save me time every month and will avoid errors doing manual expense tracking.

I have no idea when they added that feature. I have found it by chance. You can log in to Cembra eService. From there, you can see the list of transactions, and at the bottom, there is a button to export the transaction to CSV. And the great thing is that you can do that for either all transactions or based on a filter (like the last week).

Obviously, they could have added this a long time ago, but I am still thrilled they implemented it.

Beware of an ongoing scam

For a few months, many non-residents have been receiving emails impersonating Alpian. These scammers are promising more than 6% guaranteed returns per year to lure people in. This is obviously wrong, and Alpian itself is not even open to non-residents.

I have discussed this with Alpian and they are fighting this, but it will take time. So, meanwhile, be extra careful.

And it does not hurt to repeat a few things to check out in emails:

• Check that the domain of the sender makes sense.
• Check that the links in the email are pointing to the proper domain.
• Remember that if it is too good to be true, it is because it is not true.
• When in doubt, contact the company directly (do not reply to the email; write a new one and look up the address yourself)

If you want more tips about security, you should read our guide about online security.

Expenses

Here are the details of our expenses in January 2026:

In total, we spent 16,697 CHF. Without taxes, this amounts to 11,155 CHF. And without notary and taxes, this amounts to 5,886 CHF.

As mentioned before, a large bill was the notary, which was expected. The OIBT inspection is also expected. We also received the SERAFE bill for the usual 335 CHF amount. We will soon have to vote for a reduction to 200 CHF. I am personally in favor of this because I do not consume any Swiss media, but this is not going to make a difference to our budget.

Another large expense on the last day of the month was buying a bunch of wood to build a strong shelf in our garage. I designed it myself. I first wanted to buy the wood in person, but they did not have anybody to help me in the store, and they were missing several pieces of lumber I needed. So I did it online. The delivery fee is a bit high (75 CHF), but I am not sure whether it would have fit into my car, so it is fine.

But the price of wood is quite insane in Switzerland. I paid about 420 CHF just for the lumber. I probably went a bit overboard on the solidity of the posts and rails, but still, this is a bit shocking to me. A large lumber project rapidly gets expensive. I am still looking forward to assembling that beast and finally getting a clean garage.

Overall, I am fine with our spending this month. Considering the exceptional bills, this is a fine result.

2026 Goals

Here is the status of our goals by the end of January 2026:

With only one month in, the goals are a bit hectic. Obviously, since we did not save any money this month, our savings rate goal is not great. Our income goal is based on average, so it will only pick up in March with my bonus.

We have made some progress towards solar panels this month. This also took quite a lot of my time. Currently, we have contacted people from five different companies. One of them ghosted us after saying twice that they would contact us soon. And we could get the other four to our house. As I am writing this article, we have received three offers. Once we have the last one, we plan to decide early next month.

I started the year very well with workouts. Even when I am going to the office, I manage to go regularly to the gym. On the other hand, my daily steps are lower than I would like. When I go to the office, I almost do not walk. But I do not see what I could do about it.

Overall, given it is the first month of the year, I am fine with our progress. It will take a few months to see whether we go in the right direction.

FI Ratio

Here is the progress of our FI ratio as of January 2026:

We made nice progress this month, but also not much. Let me explain.

In January, we usually receive a large payment on the blog. This is because one of our partners pays up once a year only. So, this increases our net worth (since we account for company assets).

On the other hand, we lost money on our investments. Our ETFs went up a bit in USD, but we lost money in CHF. So, overall, our investments are not doing very well. Our second pillar paid up a very nice interest rate this year, with 5% on the mandatory part and 6% on the extra-mandatory part. This makes a nice increase to our second pillar assets.

Overall, this is all part of the process, so I am happy about it.

The blog – Improvements to FI plannner

Overall, I have not had much time for the blog this month.

I did a collaboration with Qoqa where I would answer questions on their blog. I think it was a nice experience, but it took a lot of time. The timing was not great since there was plenty going on this month.

I updated some old articles for consistency with the blog. This is something I should do more, but I do not have that much time to do it, unfortunately.

Last month, I introduced the FI planner. After some feedback, I have a few improvements. And I am now working on a next version that will be much more complete with features such as:

• Handle two persons
• Handle second and third pillars
• Handle growing incomes

Please let me know in the comments below if you have other suggestions.

Next month, I will not have more time for the blog, I feel. My goal is to keep up with the usual daily tasks and write my four articles.

Next Month – February 2026

Next month will also be busy. My wife is still doing her course, so that means a lot of driving my son and less time for other activities. Hopefully, we will be able to order our solar panel project already.

Financially, I expect February 2026 to be good. We have few taxes to pay in February, and income should be normal. The only exception is if we receive the bill from the land register.

What about you? How was January 2026?