As we approach the end of 2025, it's time to reflect and recap on the past year. After a year of loss in 2024, we are grateful for a better 2025. Looking back, 2025 felt like a busy year for us with a lot going on but overall, 2025 has been a good year.
Family
As we get older and especially after losing our dads last year, we have been more intentional about spending time and making memories with our loved ones. Our making memories with moms journey continued this year with a trip to Germany and Switzerland with both our moms. I am also glad to explore the Middle East and went on an Alaska cruise with mommy. This year's home trip to Malaysia was a shorter one as compared to the past few years, but I am glad to be able to travel back to spend time with the family and meet lil' Li Verne, the newest addition to the family. As for the US side of the family, we also took a family trip to the Great Smoky Mountains.
Travel
This year had been a pretty good year for travel as we were able to check off a few bucket list trips, and more importantly, make memories with our moms. We also dipped our toes into cruising this year and was able to check off more countries that I expected. I visited a total of 20 countries this year (Germany, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Turkey, Jordan, Oman, U.A.E., Malaysia, USA - Alaska, Canada, Mexico, Honduras, Belize, Bahamas, Sint Maarten (Netherlands), St. Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, and Guadeloupe (France), which included 12 new countries. Yes, this list sounds like I've gone rogue with my travel spending, but thankfully, I was able to keep our travel costs fairly reasonable by using points and miles. Downside of these back-to-back travels, I have so many trip backlogs that are waiting to be updated.
Summary of my travels for 2025 (work+leisure):
Number of hotel/cruise nights - 68 nights (IHG-11; Hyatt-3; Marriott-4; Hilton-1; Others-18; Princess-11; Margaritaville-7; Holland America-12)
Number of hotels/cruise - 26 hotels (IHG-9; Hyatt-3; Marriott-2; Hilton-1; Others-7; Princess-1; Margaritaville-1; Holland America-1)
Number of airlines - 7 airlines (American Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Oman Air, Qatar Airways, Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines, United)
Number of cruises - 3 cruises (Princess, Margaritaville, Holland America)
Work
Had my first busy season with a new team this year and I am grateful that it went better than I expected. Work was pretty uneventful this year (in a good way) and I only had a 2-day work trip to Orlando, but I am constantly reminded of how lucky I am to have a good job that allows me to work remotely, with pretty good benefits and pay.
Health
Thankful that we were both able to stay healthy, physically and mentally, throughout the year and especially during our travels. After years of saying that I need to exercise more, I finally returned to the gym this year and have been enjoying all the group classes. The aunties who are consistently going to the gym definitely motivates me to keep up...haha!
Finance
The stock market has been good this year, which made everything looked way better than we expected as we continue our wealth building journey. The big accomplishment this year was managing and completing all to-do's related to FIL's estate. The entire process took quite some time but we are glad everything is done now. Our travel expenses increased quite a bit this year with the many trips we took, but still keeping the total under $10K thanks to points and miles. Our total expenses in 2025 was also significantly higher because of some home projects, which should be a one-off expense for a very long time.
2025 had been a busy year managing through a lot of one-off tasks, and planning out a few long trips but we are grateful for a good 2025. Life is good. :) We have quite a lot planned for next year and are certainly excited in making more memories in 2026. Happy New Year 2026!
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