This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

Welcome to How to Money.

I'm Joel.

I'm Matt.

And this is your Smart Money Guide for 2026.

I'm... You know what, buddy, it's 2026. Let's go. New Year, new you, baby. It's the first real day of 20206.

Well, it's not really. I know it's the fifth. But it is, though. It's your first real day. I think it's most people's first real day of 2026. You can't have New Year's Day be Thursday and expect everyone to be like, yeah, it's the new year. Let's be productive tomorrow in the office. That makes almost as much sense as your kids going back to school last fall on a Thursday, right? Or on a Friday. On a Friday. On a natural Friday, which made even less sense. So we skip the first day of school. You're like, we're still going to be at the beach. Don't judge. Yeah, that was ridiculous. I will say normally, so if folks haven't listened to the podcast, normally on Monday episodes, we hear directly from you, our listeners.

You would normally take a voice memo that you can easily record on your phone and you email it over to us.

You say your name.

You say where you're from because that's always fun.

And I like to Google where it is that people live.

People know that at this point. Which is actually bizarre. Yeah, the last one, she literally put her actual address so we could, I don't know. I don't want to go there. But like the general town, if I haven't heard of a town, I like to click around and get a feel for it, see what they have to offer. See if I want to go visit there at some point. Like if you're on a road trip and you've heard of a small town, you're going to. Matt's paying house visits to listeners now. So again there, but normally, yeah, Monday episodes, ask how to money episodes. We have the voice members and we, you know, we're able to directly answer listeners, personal finance questions. But with this being the first real episode of

26, we wanted to do something a little special, you know? Set the table a little bit for the

coming year. And so, yeah, we'll have kind of some general thoughts on getting your money

together in 2026. We'll cover a little bit of the money gears. We'll talk about maybe what

to expect in 2026 and kind of maybe a little bit of the current state of the economy. We'll kind of, yeah, hit a bunch of things, Matt, run through a bunch of things that we think are important for people to consider as they're thinking about their personal finances going into this year. Does it feel like there's too much pressure on this episode because it's like the first it's

got to be the first perfect episode of the year i don't think so i'm okay you know i don't know you're talking to me earlier like this is going to be a good one i'm like i know it's going to be a good one but also you know you can't pack it all otherwise we'd be we'd be sitting here for like five hours right if it's like and then we're going to have one a guest he's going to deliver some brilliant nugget and then we're going to answer some listener questions. You and I are going to

crush two craft beers because hours. Right. If it's like, and then we're going to have one a guest, he's going to deliver some brilliant nugget, and then we're going to answer some listener questions. You and are going

going to crush two craft beers because... That's why I said this is setting the table. It's like a nice tablecloth on top of the table. There's no food or anything. It's like it's kind of going back to the basics in some ways. We're bringing the food. There's going to be some actual sustenance here. This isn't just fluff.

That's not what you meant. Not what I just meant. That's not what I meant.

I think one of things maybe

...