Bill sits down in January with twenty-one months of data. He has done this once before, at the end of FY 2024, when the number was clean and the structure was simple. This time it is more complicated.
FY 2025 opened with 3,315 euro and a monthly surplus of 495. It closes with 4,544 euro in cash, a security deposit of 1,200 euro held by the landlord, a smartphone at book value 213, and a monthly surplus corrected to approximately 100 euro per month after the lifestyle inflation of October. Total net assets at year end: 5,957 euro.
The annual closing forces a question the monthly statement does not ask: what did the year actually cost, and what did it produce? Revenue for FY 2025: 12,800 euro, eight months at 900 and four months at 1,400. Total outflows: approximately 11,226 euro, including the security deposit of 1,200 (recoverable, not a true cost) and the recurring lifestyle inflation absorbed in October and November. Net surplus for the year: 1,574 euro in cash, plus the 1,200 deposit and the smartphone.
The structure of FY 2025 is different from FY 2024 in one important way. In FY 2024, the surplus was produced by an absence of costs. In FY 2025, it was produced despite a significant cost increase: a job change, a relocation, and an episode of lifestyle inflation that temporarily turned the surplus negative. The system was tested and it held. Barely, but it held.
The closing also settles the recurring-cost audit that October opened. The streaming service goes. The morning coffee ends with the year. The monthly train home stays, funded by a social budget trimmed from 150 to 90. From January the structural surplus returns to 185 euro per month.
FY 2025 closes. FY 2026 opens with a cleaner model and a harder question: now that the cost structure is stable, what is Bill actually building toward?
The tip
When reading an annual closing, compare the source of the surplus, not just the amount. A surplus produced despite higher costs is structurally more meaningful than one produced by an absence of costs.
Annual Financial Closing FY2025: opening net worth 3,315, closing net assets 5,957 (cash 4,544, deposit 1,200, smartphone 213). FY change: +2,642. Total revenue: 12,800. Total outflows: 11,226. Net cash surplus: 1,574.
Bill is 25. Every episode, we read his personal ledger through accounting eyes. / FY 2026 ledger