Every month since 2017, I have written an article that shows the growth of our passive income. In the last few years, I\u2019ve included a monthly update on the year\u2019s goals. I had gotten later and later with these goals until the May one, when I just skipped it altogether. At the start of the month, I was finishing up taxes and preparing for travel. The travel was 11 days, and by the time I got back and caught up, it was already almost June.<\/p>\n
Then I figured that I\u2019d get this combination of an article out early at least. Unfortunately, my wife recently got deployed to the West Coast for a week. I had to take care of the kids at the same time that my dog boarding business does 50% more business than the next busiest time of the year.<\/p>\n
Phew, the other thing of note is that this update covers the first half of 2026. It\u2019s a good milestone to stop and see how your progress on goals has gone.<\/p>\n
Goals for 2026<\/h2>\n
I put all my goals in a spreadsheet that I (Click it, and it will open in a new tab.)<\/p>\n Steal this idea and make it yours. I always make a bunch of goals that I know I\u2019ll never complete. It gives me the flexibility to fail on some things as long as I\u2019m making progress on others. Most people would do the opposite, focus on fewer goals, and aim to get them all done. It\u2019s much less overwhelming. I\u2019m weird.<\/p>\n I used to have three side hustles with a passive component: a dog-sitting business, this blog, and a website I manage for a non-profit. They all required some active work. However, I could do them all even while working a full-time job. I considered those partially passive income. This blog and the retainer for the non-profit website are minimal, so consider it almost all dog boarding.<\/p>\n This section is the least passive of all incomes. I only count this as 50% passive. Dog business in May was about 40% lower than last year. June was even worse as we traveled for nearly two weeks.<\/p>\n May\u2019s Dog\/Web Real Income: $2,697.45 We have two rental properties. Both still have mortgages, and the rental income is around $1,100\/mo. One mortgage is due in 2027. The other one is a small loan, but it has another 15 years on it. If they were both mortgage-free, we\u2019d make around $32,000 a year.<\/p>\n For the purpose of this report, I calculate the rental property income using the following formula:<\/p>\n (Rents After Estimated Expenses) * (Equity Percentage Owned) = Income)<\/b><\/p>\n The idea is that we only own a percentage of the equity, so I only count that percentage of the rent after expenses. When we own everything, the equity percentage will be 100%, and it will be the entire rent after expenses.<\/p>\n Estimated expenses are insurance, property taxes, condo fees, and estimated condo maintenance<\/a>. Equity Percentage Owned (EPO) is our total equity divided by the property value on Zillow. (Zillow is very accurate for our condos.) When the mortgages are paid off, we\u2019ll have an EPO of 100% and be able to keep all the rent after estimated expenses.<\/p>\n In the last two months, Zillow estimated our properties were worth $12,000 more than the month before. We also paid off $1,000 in mortgage principal. That meant our EPO went from owning 84.91% of our properties to 85.46%. The rents after expenses are $2,900\/month. Using the equation above, our estimated income from this area would be $2,476. That\u2019s up from $2,460 in April.<\/p>\n That\u2019s an average of $8 a month, which has been how it\u2019s going lately. Real estate prices are near their highs, and I don\u2019t see them rocketing up again for a while. Real estate works well when leverage can multiply gains. However, since we own 85% of the properties, we aren\u2019t taking much advantage of leverage.<\/p>\n One of our properties is worth about $800\/mo. than what we are charging the tenant. However, we know that they can\u2019t afford it, and my wife likes that they never call about anything. Unfortunately, it\u2019s not sustainable, because we are going to have to renovate it at some point, and it\u2019s barely breaking even. I\u2019m trying to convince my wife to sell it next year.<\/p>\n Managing rental properties requires some work \u2013 a few days a year. For this reason, I only count 80% of this number as passive income. One of our new tenants has had a lot of needs, but they are mostly legitimate. I\u2019m thinking of getting out of the rental property business. We\u2019re probably going to sell one property next spring.<\/p>\n My wife and I have been nearly maxing out our retirement accounts for a couple of decades. The markets have done very well over that time. Overall, we have a nice retirement nest egg.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t track dividends from all the accounts. I\u2019m doing well to get my wife to log in to her TSP (the government\u2019s version of a 401 (k)) account and give me the totals. I simply assume we could invest the money into an ETF that pays a 2.5% dividend. For example, HDV, a high-dividend ETF, currently yields 2.93%.<\/p>\n I also have profit-sharing income with a private company in which I own a small stake. I get a check each month that behaves like a dividend \u2013 it\u2019s just taxed a little differently.<\/p>\n May\u2019s estimated dividend income was $6,314, and June\u2019s number was virtually the same ($6,318). In April, it was $6,218. The $100 gain in the stock market makes me wonder why we even bother with real estate anymore. I have to tell myself that the stock market can be crazy and it feels very overpriced right now. I have been putting more and more money into bonds and treasuries to try to protect these gains.<\/p>\n Unlike the previous two sections, this income is 100% passive. For this reason, I don\u2019t have to adjust the numbers.<\/p>\n Dog\/Etc.: $2,054 \u2013 Adjusted to $1,027 Dogs\/Etc \u2013 Blue Line Total Adjusted Passive Income: $9,326<\/b><\/p>\n Here\u2019s a graph of the adjusted passive income since 2017, when I started keeping track:<\/p>\n The blue line represents the monthly total adjusted passive income. The red line represents the 12-month average. This removes some of the seasonality of dog boarding. I focus on the red line more.<\/p>\n In May and June, the number continued to climb. That important red line mentioned above has hit another new high, as it has for 14 of the last 17 months. While dog boarding and blogging have made less and less money, investments continue to grow. Those most passive components (real estate and dividends) passed $8,200 for the first time and landed near $8,300 (two dollars short!). That\u2019s a minor rounding away from an even $100,000 annual income.<\/p>\n My wife continues to work as well, though she\u2019s seriously considering retirement for the 34th time. I\u2019m trying to encourage her, but it hasn\u2019t worked. She has 27 years of high-level military service, which yields a vested pension that essentially doubles all this passive income. I also earn some income that falls outside of the areas listed above. It\u2019s not passive, so I don\u2019t mention it here.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t think of anywhere else to put this information, but our net worth gained 3.01% over the two months. That\u2019s a great gain! For the whole year, our net worth is up 9.01%. I\u2019m not sure if I can expect more gains this year, because it\u2019s already gone so well.<\/p>\n My income has been dropping over the last few years, going from $98K to 488K to $81K. Last year, I stayed mostly the same at $80,593.<\/p>\n Now that I\u2019m 50 and we\u2019ve got a good set of assets, I don\u2019t feel the need to push this. Income feels more for self-worth than anything else, I guess.<\/p>\n In May, I made $4,697. In June, I made $4,055. For the year, I\u2019m at $26,849. That pace would bring me to almost $54K. I\u2019m very likely to fall short on this goal. That said, July looks like a top month for dog boarding, and I have a standing order for some contract work that pays a decent hourly wage. It won\u2019t be enough, but it\u2019s in the right direction.<\/p>\n With travel, I haven\u2019t been able to get much of anything in this area. However, I have made progress in July that I\u2019ll get to next month.<\/p>\n I got to the point where my guide for young men on how to live the best life is done. I sent it off to a couple of friends who either thought it was so bad that they decided to say nothing, or got so busy they missed it. It\u2019s likely the latter, because it was a text message to a Google Drive file without a description besides, \u201cThis is something that I\u2019ve been working on.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been following Get Rich Slick<\/a>, who has transformed his blog from personal finance to mostly AI. It\u2019s great! He\u2019s doing things with AI agents that are very cool and explaining how he does it. I\u2019m trying to carve out the time to do some of the things he\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n He\u2019s noted that it can get expensive, possibly $100\/month, but there are ways to save money by using cheaper AIs developed in China. Also, I\u2019m looking into getting my own desktop AI set up. It took some time to figure out what specifications I want, but I\u2019ve got it all down now. There was recently a deal, and I missed it. Since I have a number of other projects to do, I can wait for a killer deal. Unfortunately, there are few deals because the Nvidia GPUs and RAM necessary are limited.<\/p>\n As I mentioned above, I got old, turning 50 a few months ago. For my health goals, I\u2019m mostly using this separate article about health goals<\/a> from last year.<\/p>\n My goal this year is to add lean mass while losing fat mass. It took me a long time to figure out how to create a formula for that. I settled on the formula: lean mass minus 2\u00d7fat mass. This penalizes me if I add weight that\u2019s a bunch of fat.<\/p>\n My weight this month was 175.9 lbs, and my body fat was 24.7%. That means my lean mass was 132.5, and my fat mass was 43.4 lbs. This is a score of 45.6<\/b> using my formula. Last month, my average weight was 173.3lbs, and my body fat was 23.6%. That was a score of 50.6. It turns out that I added 2.5 pounds of straight fat \u2013 almost no lean mass. That\u2019s why my score dropped 5 points.<\/p>\n Higher is better, and I\u2019ve been going in the wrong direction for a couple of months now. The vacation in March really set me back. I haven\u2019t been able to get back to where I was. I\u2019m making progress, but it takes time to lower the whole average.<\/p>\n My goal of getting this number to 60 could be achieved by losing 169 lbs and having a body fat of 21.5%. Wow, those numbers don\u2019t seem likely at all right now.<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t been tracking body and brain points the last couple of months. I still think it\u2019s a good idea, but I just had to declare bankruptcy on it for now. I\u2019ve got too much other stuff going on. Also, I\u2019m feeling like my body is covered from the above. My brain is another topic. On one hand, I feel like AI is giving me a shortcut so I don\u2019t have to think as much. On the other hand, I\u2019m exploring and learning new things (often with AI) almost every day.<\/p>\n Last year, I found that I had high blood pressure. I was measuring it daily and putting it in a spreadsheet. However, now I have this blood pressure monitor<\/a> and it tracks it over time in an app. (That link to the device is an affiliate link, by the way.)<\/p>\n Whenever my doctor takes my blood pressure, it\u2019s normal. So from her perspective it\u2019s fine. When I present the graphs, she seems to appease me by raising the medication a tiny amount. We\u2019re on the third increase now, and I felt like I\u2019ve pushed it as far as I can. I\u2019ve deprioritized taking my blood pressure now, and with travel have fewer data points.<\/p>\n Over the last two months, it has been 130\/80. That\u2019s not great, so I\u2019m going to try to measure it more often. I\u2019ve been feeling very stressed lately with scheduling the kids to camps and such while the number of dogs checking in and out of boarding just seems to grow.<\/p>\n For the third month in a row, I didn\u2019t have a doctor appointment. This is weird because before this, I had a doctor, dentist, or something else for the previous roughly year and a half.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t remember doing any longevity research.<\/p>\n Most of my hobbies are related to AI nowadays. I can come up with infinite ideas and go down the rabbit hole. I already wrote what I\u2019m doing with AI, so I won\u2019t repeat that here.<\/p>\n Here are a couple of others that I am working on.<\/p>\n 3D Printing<\/b><\/p>\n The kids haven\u2019t printed anything with the 3D printer in a couple of months.<\/p>\n Play a modern song on a ukulele<\/b><\/p>\n I got out the book to learn the ukulele and put it in my view. Unfortunately, that hasn\u2019t motivated me to start.<\/p>\n Declutter and Organize House<\/b><\/p>\n In June, just before our travel, my wife booked the organizer that we\u2019ve used in the past. I didn\u2019t know until the last minute, and I had some other plans for some of it. However, I realized this would be a good thing because I\u2019m the packrat.<\/p>\n They were more productive without me than they would have been with me. They cleaned up 85% of the garage. That is one of the two major areas that needed the most work. The other is the basement.<\/p>\n Travel<\/b><\/p>\n We went to Alaska. My mother-in-law has been wanting to go for years. My wife decided that she isn\u2019t getting any younger and now was the time. I don\u2019t think Alaska would have been on our top ten locations, but we had a great time.<\/p>\n The big thing she wanted to do was see Denali National Park. Well, you can\u2019t do that from a normal Alaskan cruise that she wanted to do. We found that Holland America and Princess had a combination tour that had a few days in central Alaska and Denali along with a cruise. Unfortunately, Holland America was the only one that would get the kids back in time for the music camp that they love. It\u2019s not that they are a bad cruise line; it\u2019s that they are geared to the 55+ crowd. Our family felt like the youngest people on the cruise.<\/p>\n On the Denali part, we got to see all the rare things. A bear practically came up to the bus to give everyone a high five and thank us for coming. I\u2019m exaggerating, but he was maybe 10-15 feet away, eating berries. I got a 3-minute video that is pretty incredible. A lot of people don\u2019t see bears or just see them off in the distance.<\/p>\n We also saw a couple of moose. They were walking along the road, perhaps looking to hitchhike to their next destination. I didn\u2019t get as good video as they were at the front of the bus. By the time we were able to safely pass them, they had mostly ducked into the woods.<\/p>\n Finally, we got to see the top of Mount Denali. I didn\u2019t know that was a rare thing, but it seems like only 30% of people get to see it because it can often be obscured by clouds. That wasn\u2019t the case with us.<\/p>\n The rest of the Alaska cruise was fine. We saw some glaciers. I suppose it was good for the kids to see them before they are gone. The Mendenhall Glacier<\/a> has a video that showed how far it has shrunk over the years.<\/p>\n The kids are at the age now (12 and 13) where they either love each other or hate each other. They are either working well together or getting into big fights.<\/p>\n In June, they finished up school. The last month of May and June had a lot of activities that I won\u2019t get into. They also started summer camp, which starts with a musical production. My oldest does acting, and my youngest makes the sets. After four years and a couple of shows per year, they both can take on big roles now.<\/p>\nstole<\/strike> borrowed from Retire By 40<\/a>. Here\u2019s what it looks like for this year:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.lazymanandmoney.com\/images\/posts\/2026\/07\/lazy-man-goal-progress-202606-1024x453.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPassive Income<\/h2>\n
![\"Passive](\"https:\/\/www.lazymanandmoney.com\/images\/posts\/2019\/06\/PassiveIncomePyramid-300x240.jpg\")
Dog Boarding\/Website Income<\/h3>\n
June\u2019s Dog\/Web Real Income: $2,054.84<\/p>\nRental Property Income<\/h3>\n
Dividend Income<\/h3>\n
Total Passive Income<\/h3>\n
Rentals: $2,476 \u2013 Adjusted to $1,981
Dividends: $6,318 \u2013 Remains at $6,318<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.lazymanandmoney.com\/images\/posts\/2026\/07\/passive-income-streams-202606-1024x463.png\")
<\/p>\n
Rental \u2013 Red Line
Dividend \u2013 Yellow Line<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.lazymanandmoney.com\/images\/posts\/2026\/07\/passive-income-streams-12month-202606-1024x452.png\")
<\/p>\nBusiness and Other Money Goals<\/h2>\n
Personal Income ($80,000)<\/h3>\n
Improve My Dog Boarding Website and Operations<\/h3>\n
AI Everything<\/h3>\n
Health<\/h2>\n
Weight and Body Fat (Lean-(fat\\\\\\*2) mass >60)<\/h3>\n
Body and Brain Points (300 and 225 respectively)<\/h3>\n
Blood Pressure (Goal: 115\/75)<\/h3>\n
Doctor Appointments<\/h3>\n
Longevity Research (40 hours)<\/h3>\n
Hobbies<\/h2>\n
Family<\/h2>\n
Kids<\/h2>\n