After Two Great Years, Can 2026 Push My Net Worth to $550,000?

My stock portfolio lost around $1,500 today, a totally normal reaction to the market. The TSX closed today’s session at 30,076.21 points, down 250.25 points or -0.83%. My net worth is probably around $517,000 right now. Still strong. In 2025, it was the first time I reached the 500k mark. Over the past two years, my stock portfolio has gained close to $140,000. I had two excellent years. Can 2026 be just as good and lead me to at least a $550,000 net worth?

I wouldn’t be surprised if the upcoming months turn out to be more difficult. My net worth could go back down into the 400k range. I am getting mentally ready for such a scenario. However, under no circumstances am I wishing for a stock market crash or a heavy correction to arrive anytime soon. Yes, stocks would become cheaper, but it would break my heart to see my valuable net worth fall back below the 500k mark. I have experienced some difficult years. For example, in 2022, I started the year with a net worth of $340,128.37 and closed it on a lower note at $337,875.65. Similar scenarios could happen again and, when they do, trust me, it’s no fun.

Time is passing by quite quickly. In less than two months from now, we’ll be celebrating the New Year. Not that I am ready to jump into a new year, but I am never really ready anyway. This is the time of year when I try to figure out how much extra I should contribute to my RRSP. Money being tight these days, I was thinking about proceeding with a contribution in kind with the New Flyer Industries Inc. (NFI) shares that I hold inside my non-registered portfolio and having them transferred over to my RRSP stock portfolio. By doing so, I would only have something like $2,000 to contribute out of pocket, and I would hopefully get a $2,000 tax return.

Last year, I contributed a whopping $15,000 to my RRSP and received a tax refund of about $4,200. Unless you hold a lot of cash, already have a solid emergency fund, and already have a good amount invested in your TFSA, I don’t think it’s really worth it to make large RRSP contributions, unless you are in an extremely privileged financial situation. Things are going quite well for me with that 500k+ net worth of mine, but I currently have less than $4,000 in savings, which means I basically have next to nothing in what you may define as an emergency fund. Earlier this year I had a bit more in savings, but I spent the money on summer vacations and other extravagances.

Over the past few weeks, many great Canadian stocks that I hold in my investment portfolio have increased their dividends, including Granite REIT (GRT.UN), Suncor Energy (SU), Fortis Inc. (FTS), Exchange Income Corp. (EIF), and CGI Inc. (GIB.A). Sometimes it just adds a few dollars to my dividend income, but it always helps. Currently, my dividend income coming from my non-registered, US, and TFSA portfolios is now equivalent to $973 per month. I am only $313 away from reaching the equivalent of $1,000 per month. And even then, it wouldn’t be an amount that clearly shows up in my pockets because I am on a DRIP for my biggest holdings. I don’t actually receive the equivalent of $973 per month in cash from my dividends. However, it’s almost as if I did. I’ve been dancing around that 1k mark for a little while. I’ll probably get there in maybe two years from now, even if I don’t invest any new money.

Most of my stocks usually announce dividend increases, but from time to time, because I hold so many stocks in my investment portfolio—one of my precious stocks announces a dividend decrease. Unfortunately, that has recently been the case with Northland Power Inc. (NPI).