Stansell Wealth Planning Podcast

Your 2026 Money Reset

• Cody Stansell • Season 2 • Episode 1

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New year, new leverage. We’re resetting your money with a simple 2026 playbook that trades vague goals for specific actions you can automate and track. We walk through how to crush consumer debt with clear timelines, build an emergency fund that actually protects your life, and fix the silent gaps hiding in your 401k, Roth, and HSA contributions. It’s a practical blueprint designed for busy people who want results without financial jargon.

 Plus, an annual maintenance sweep to cut bloated home and auto premiums, contest inflated property tax appraisals, rebalance 401k investments, spot lifestyle creep in your budget, and improve your savings yield with conservative options for excess cash. This is a straightforward, no-fluff reset that sets you ahead of the curve: less debt, more liquidity, smarter contributions, and better protection.




To learn more about Stansell Wealth Planning visit:
https://www.StansellWealth.com
Stansell Wealth Planning
5550 Granite Pkwy, STE 270
Plano, TX 75024
469-606-2040

Speaker:

Hi everyone, welcome to a new year and a new season of the Stansell Wealth Podcast. If you're new here, this is where we give you practical advice on your finances, whether you're young, you're old, you're rich, or not yet, uh, whether you're in the advanced financial planning stages of your life or brand new to this thing called financial planning and investments. Uh, this is where we empower you to make informed decisions and give you information and encouragement on your finances. So I'm Cody Stansell, certified financial planner and founder of Stansell Wealth Planning. Uh before I get into today's topic, the 2026 Financial Reset, a money playbook, I wanted to run through some updates and changes on this year's podcast. So if you've been listening for a while, it's you've probably noticed it's been a few months since our last podcast recording. I have two big announcements to make. First off, you may have noticed we have a new name, Stansell Wealth Planning. Our previous firm name was apparently copyrighted and trademarked in our industry. So they reached out to us and we had to change our name. Uh, nothing else really changes, not the service, not the topics that we'll go over in these podcasts. Uh, but what has changed is we have a new website. So it's stancelwealth.com. And our email changed too. So my email address, Cody at stancelwealth.com. Lauren, my executive assistant, is Lauren at stancelwealth.com. And our general inquiry inbox is info at stancelwealth.com. So we had to change our name, uh, and I cannot mention the name that we changed it from for legal reasons. Um, so once again, everything else is staying the same, same service, same team, same topics that we'll go over on these podcasts. Um, it'll be 10 to 15 minutes on each of these podcasts, short, sweet, uh, get you on the day and get you having a good weekend. Our 2026 goal is to have a weekly podcast. So for a month, and hopefully new episodes dropping every Friday for you to gear up for your weekend. So, with that, the second big announcement, I will be the solo host of this podcast uh from now on. We adjusted how we operate and distribute the podcast. So I will be the solo host. But in saying that, I actually just got done uh with two podcasts. I will have guests on the podcast from time to time. So I'm planning on probably every other podcast uh having a having a guest join me. So, you know, twice a month or so. Don't hold me to it, but that's kind of the tentative plan. Um, these guests can span the universe on the finance topics related to mortgage lenders, you know, what we're seeing with interest rates. Uh, I'll talk to a real estate agent or two, you know, where are they seeing the housing market and how competitive, you know, is it buyer's market, seller's market, kind of walking through that. I may have an economist come on, talk about the investment market, you know, what's the outlook on your 401k and your investments? Uh may have an estate planning attorney come on to talk about how important it is to update your estate plan. So just running through all the different topics, there's not a there's not a shortage of topics in the financial planning world. Uh so I'm really excited about that. So uh with having a new name, we've had to go back and remove our previous name from the podcast for legal reasons. So if you go back, you'll have to search Stansell Wealth Podcast, Stansell Wealth Planning Podcast. If you want to see any of those previous uh podcasts that we've done. Um and hint hint, that's why it's been a few months since we shot our last podcast, is we've had to hire an editor and go back through and go back through all those podcasts. Enough of that. Obviously, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us. But today, this may be a little bit longer of a podcast because I also want to give you uh the topics that we'll discuss today. So for today, wanted to go through, I'm titling it Your 2026 Financial Reset, a money playbook for the new year. Right? It's a fresh start. It's January as of this recording right now, 2026. So I know New Year's resolutions and you know your diet's probably fading at this point, and all the all the goals that you've set, whether you wanted to set them or not, you know, they may be holding up strong or they may not be. Um, so think of this kind of as a new year's resolution to your money and your finances. What can you do? What kind of checklist can you make to improve your finances for this year? Um, kind of a, like I said, New Year's resolution. So, and as far uh, I'll give you some 2026 tax law updates, investment info updates, uh, because we're in a new calendar year as well. So, first thing, we've all made goals before, right? The old saying that don't make a goal on an outcome, make it on an action, right? So you can say, my goal is to be debt-free next year, um, but that's an outcome, right? That's not an action. Um, and that's fine. You know, my goal is to be debt-free, but you have to give it some action. Your goal needs to be an action. So something that you can control. So your goal really should be my goal is to pay $1,000 extra every month to my credit card or to my vehicle, right? Like that's an action that you can control. And as a result, obviously you'll get the end result as well. Um, but you'll be debt free, you know, by doing that. So give your goal an action. So that leads me into my first playbook item for 2026. Let's make this the year that you're consumer debt free. What's consumer debt? Basically, every debt besides the mortgage. So credit cards, personal loans, student loans, car loans, um any kind of loan or a debt that isn't a mortgage loan. Uh, most importantly, I would love for you to set those goals to get you on path to being debt free. So I want you to set them this year. Whether you end up being debt-free by December 31 this year, great. But if not, you at least made a plan, you have a strategy for it going forward. Even if you'll be debt free in 2027 or 2028, you sat down and made a made a plan for it. So, what you practically how you go about this is sit down, lay out all of your debts, right? Kind of make a spreadsheet or write them down, whatever it may be, prioritize them uh smallest to largest, or prioritize them highest interest rate to lowest interest rate. Actually go through this, uh, which one of these to do and which one makes sense for you in a previous podcast. That episode is titled Breaking Free Smart Debt Elimination Strategies. And I believe we shot that in September of 2025. So you can go back uh through that and see the details on how to how to go about and how to prioritize those. So lay out your debts in order, whatever amount, um, you know, whatever which one you ever you pick, the avalanche method or the snowball method. There's differences there. Once again, I go into the podcast. So lay out all your debts and add them all up and divide them by 12. And roughly speaking, you can pay this much extra uh toward that loan and be debt free this time next year. So, for example, if you just a hypothetical, if you added all of them up and it's $36,000. Okay, credit cards, car loan, student loans, whatever it may be, they all add up to $36,000. Um, divide by $12, and if you pay $3,000 a month toward these loans, you'll be debt free by this time next year, right? Nothing radical, nothing uh groundbreaking advice there, you know, Cody, but it gives you an action plan. So let's say you're already paying $1,200 a month toward these loans, just the minimums or the regular payments to your car payment or whatever. So you only need to pay an extra $1,800 each month to pay these off by this time next year, right? You're already paying $1,200. You need to pay an extra $1,800 so that you're paying three grand toward your $36,000 uh debt total. That's rough math. So it may take you a month or two more because of the interest that's gonna cost you. But I'm just trying to help you build a roadmap here. Now, if you can't afford that $1,800 extra a month, you say, okay, Cody, that that sounds great, but where am I gonna find $1,800 just lying around every single month? Okay, fine. Then don't divide by 12, run through that same exercise, but divide by 18. Right? So our previous example, um, that would be $2,000 a month. And you're already paying $1,200 a month. So now you need to pay an extra $800 a month to be debt free 18 months from now, right? Summer of 2027. So if you can swing this $800, then you'll be debt-free. Um, once again, you'll have a goal, you'll have a plan, stick with it, you'll be debt free in 18 months. If the extra $800 a month is still too, you can't swing that still too much, then just keep going down the list. You know, keep dividing that number by 12 or 18 or 24 or 30 until you find that monthly number that you're like, I can do $400 a month, I can do $600, I can do $200, whatever it may be. Make this year the year that you have a resolution for your debt and you have a plan, whether you actually have it paid off this year or not, develop that plan. The next playbook item is your savings account. So cash. Make this year the year you have enough in your savings account. How much is enough? Our rule of thumb is three to twelve months of spending. Um, it used to be three to six months, but with inflation and just people's spending numbers, we kind of bump that up. So three to twelve months of spending is our rule of thumb. So, for example, you add up everything that you spend in a month, let's say it's $10,000, we're gonna want you to have anywhere between $30,000 and $120,000 of cash in your savings account, uh, checking account, CD, emergency fund, whatever it may be, liquid that you can access at any time before moving on to a next goal. So depending on where you're at in life, if you're married and both you and your spouse work and make good income and you're younger than 50 years old, I'm okay with you having closer to three months of savings because your risk is lower, right? Two incomes, um, your earning years are probably still ahead of you because you're younger than 50, your risk is just lower. So I'm okay with you having a little bit less in a savings account. But if you only have one income, whether you're single or married, but only you work or your spouse works, uh, and or you're 55 and older and a few years from retirement, then I'm gonna want you to have closer to 12 months of expenses because your risk is just higher. One income, God forbid your laid off. Now the family has no income, your risk is higher. You're only a few years from retirement, we have a bad market, your risk is higher. So that's how we kind of prioritize and think about how much to have in a savings account. So this exercise is very similar to my last section on the debt. So establish what exact amount you want to have in your savings account, divide that number by 12, and make it a goal to save this amount per month. So let's say you have 10 grand in your savings account and you know that's not enough and you want to get to 60 grand of savings. Well, that's a 50 grand difference, right? And divide by 12, you'll need to save a little over four grand a month to get there, right? So that's a lot of money. Um, so once again, keep moving that down the list. 12 months, 18, 24, divide it by whatever you can. If you need to pause what you're doing to the 401k, if you need to pause uh use saving for the kids' college, whatever it may be, focus on this savings. As we're seeing with the um uh workforce market and everything, we you can't afford to lose your job and lose your income going forward. Uh, I would encourage you, don't procrastinate this one too much. Don't extend that number out to 24 or 30 just because we want you to have enough cash ASAP because you don't you don't choose when you get laid off or you don't choose your next emergency, right? So try to have that saved up as soon as possible. After debt, after cash flow. Next, another roadmap item. Check your retirement contributions. 2026 has new limits on how much you can contribute toward Roth IRAs, 401ks, even HSAs. So check your pay stub, your 1231 pay stub from your job and see if you're really saving what you think you are. Um Roloff example, talked to a client the other day. Um, she told me that she was maxing out her 401k. Okay, so we looked at her December 31 pay stub to see how much she contributed. And sure enough, she uh she contributed 16,000 in change last year toward her 401k, which is great. But the IRS max is 23,500. So she thought she was maxing it out, but she wasn't maxing it out at all, right? That definitely affects your planning in the future and your taxes and all that. So, in general, looking at your December 31 pay stub will tell you a lot about your financial situation. Tells you how much you're contributing to your 401k, it tells you how much you're contributing to the Roth 401k portion or the pre-tax 401k portion. It tells you how much your employer contributed toward your 401k, how many of you know dollar for dollar, how much that was last year. Uh, your pay stub will tell you how much went into your HSA from you and from your employer, right? So the annual max for your HSA is a combined number, what you and your employer puts in total. So check on that number. Your pay stub tells you how much tax withholding you had. So fast forward three months from now, if you get a tax refund, you can decrease how much you're withholding from your pay stub and your paycheck, um, or vice versa. If you end up owing a lot at tax season coming up, you need to increase how much you're withholding, which your pay stub will tell you how much you withheld. So once again, December 31 pay stub will tell you a lot. That's a good one to check as a reset and a checklist item for your 2026 finances. Um, let me pause there. By the way, if you do just these three things, become debt-free, have an ample savings account, and you're contributing enough toward retirement, you're already ahead of 75% of people out there, right? Whether you're 20 or you're 80. That if you can do those three things and get those in order in you know, in your command, you're doing a hell of a job. Pardon my French. Uh, that's that's fantastic. So last two items I'll touch on uh for your roadmap for 2026 is they're the they're the easiest to do, but also the hardest to do somehow. So, first one, I encourage you to get your estate plan done. The second one, readdress your life insurance situation. So check in on it. Um, next week we'll actually post our podcast with an estate planning attorney, Janelle C reme she joined the podcast. We went over topics of estate planning and her process and some things to look out for. So I encourage you. I just had, I told a story to a client the other day. I have a client's they're in their early 40s, healthy, they have minor children, life is normal. Um, she has a brain bleed, and um, you know, she's in ICU, and you know, the Lord has a plan for her, but it may not be in this world anymore, right? So things change on a dime. You definitely want you to get your estate plan in order because you don't control um where your life goes from here. So I'm really excited for that podcast. Be on the lookout for that one, uh, having your estate plan done. Once again, the second one, life insurance. Uh, when was the last time you looked at how much coverage you have and whether that's enough? Right. So that's something we can sit down and go over. I had a separate podcast on this topic titled Life Insurance, Calculating What You Need. It's also from September of 2025. So you can go back and check out that one in a little bit more depth uh on how much you need. But maybe you bought your policies a decade ago and you're not sure when they lapse or whether that amount is still good enough. You probably have a pay raise since then. Your lifestyle is definitely higher, especially, especially with inflation. So you may need more coverage or your savings and all your other assets, you've reached a point where you're self-insured. And I would love for you to just cancel your policies and it makes sense for everyone and not keep paying that premium. That maybe make sense too. So check in on those two items right there. Um, and know just life insurance through your work is usually not enough coverage, usually. So uh last thing, other topics that you should check in on at least once a year, that I won't I won't go into depth here, uh, but it may ping something in your brain for you to check in on. Uh, one thing is check your homeowner and car insurance. Those prices have uh skyrocketed the last couple of years. So have you shopped around in a while and can you find a better deal? Second one, check your property tax appraisal. Are they are they taxing you on a value that you think is too high and therefore you should contest? Uh third one are um your 401k investment allocation. If you don't work with me, now is your reminder to check with your 401k investment. Uh you know, log in, see if that investment allocation is really still what you need, make sure it's still the best for you. Uh FYI, your everyone's 401k plan usually adds or removes a couple of mutual funds uh once a quarter or once a year. So you may have some new investment options that you need to check in on. Obviously, that's a service that we provide to our clients uh to look over their 401k for them. But if you obviously don't work with us, here's your reminder to do so uh to check in on the 401k. Next one, your spending budget. Yikes. No one likes this one, right? But did you have a uh slow increase in your spending over 2025, especially with inflation? You think you're spending 10 grand a month, but once you really crunch the numbers, you guys are really spending 12 grand a month. Obviously, that affects a lot of planning and where your cash flow is going. So here's your annual reminder to check in on your budget. Uh, what I recommend is go back through the last two or three months of just bank statements and see how much you're spending. That's the best way to and divide it by two or three, right? And that tells you your monthly spending. And then last one, check your bank savings interest rate. The Fed lowered rates in 2025. So your savings account may not pay as much as you think anymore. It definitely doesn't pay you as much as it did two years ago. So we have conservative uh investment alternatives to just a bank savings account for your emergency fund. We call it an extended emergency fund. So something to keep in mind if you have just, let's say you want to have uh 50 grand in a savings account and you have 70 or 80 grand in a savings account, but you don't really want to invest it aggressively, um, you know, reach out to me. We have some very conservative investment options that are just better than your uh paying higher than your bank savings rate. So there are plenty of other topics, but I hope this helps. As always, let us know any questions. Cody at stancelwealth.com. Our phone number is 469-606-2040 or go to . StansellWealth.com. God bless. Have a great weekend. Thank you for listening to the Stansell Wealth Podcast. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It is general in nature and may not apply to your specific situation. Please consult with a professional before acting on any information shared in this podcast pertaining to financial, investment, legal, or tax advice. The views expressed by Cody and his guests do not necessarily represent those of Charles Schwab, Victory Financial Group, or any other organization.