‘Life moves pretty fast – if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.’

The wise words of Ferris Bueller, from a movie that came out a year before I was born, is one of my favourite quotes of all time… even if it does come from a fictional character.

And it has prompted me to dedicate some time, away from the chaos of everyday life, to put together a bucket list of things I want to achieve, or get the ball rolling on, before I turn 40.

That milestone birthday arrives in May 2027 – and having started as a reporter on This is Money at age 22, I know how quickly the time can fly.

Instead of giving myself too short a run up, I am putting together a list now so I have a good shot of achieving them.

Navigating financial milestones: With a new bucket list comes categories – including one labelled ‘financial’

I did something similar when I was a naïve 21-year-old – 30 items to tick off before I turned 30.

I completed the bulk of them, from small gestures such as taking my mum to the Ritz for afternoon tea once I felt financially secure enough in employment, all the way to huge challenges, like owning a home.

I never did manage to hit a 180 on the dart board (honestly, why is it so hard) or travel Japan (that’s going on my new bucket list), but it was fun attempting to complete it.

I also put together something aged 29 for This is Money: Heading into your 30s? Then now’s the time to plan for your financial future, so here’s 12 tips to build your wealth

Much of that piece was written for myself, on the precipice of turning 30 and finding myself in a more financially secure position and looking back now, I realise I have taken most of my own advice.

This time around for a new bucket list, I’m older, wiser, married and have two young children – and will split bucket list items into a sensible seven categories: travel, health, experiences, challenges, family, items, and lastly, financial.

I was toying with 40 items, but decided it’s too many – and instead, will aim for three to five in each category. It needs to be doable.

To give you a flavour of some of the joyful things going on the list – a visit to Japan is under travel, and I will aim to visit for my 40th, while I also want to visit the West Coast of the US, potentially on a road trip.

Iconic: Ferris Bueller’s famous quote popped in my head recently and prompted me to create a bucket list 2.0

A half marathon is going into health, spending a slow week metal detecting with my dad is in the family basket, owning a vintage Rolex into items and sending my children out to be mascots at my beloved Southend United is in experiences.

You get the idea.

The question is… what would you put into the financial bucket of the list?

Yes, it is probably the most boring bucket of all of them, but it is crucial to be making my money work hard in order to complete the fun stuff. A trip to Japan doesn’t come cheap.

I’ve drilled it down into sub-categories: building wealth for my two daughters for when they reach adulthood, putting the building blocks in place for a secure retirement and saving harder, alongside moving to a new house.

On the first one, I will ramp up how much I’m tucking away for my girls in a stocks and shares Isa, alongside a bigger monthly sum heading into Premium Bonds for them.

Recent stock market wobbles might have deterred some from investing, but I have a 20-year minimum outlook for my children, and will ride the peaks and troughs.

For the list, I will set goals in mind and work out how much is needed to hit them.

I’ve been contributing a healthy amount into my pension and diversified it many years ago out of the default fund, alongside saving and investing hard outside of this – but it might be time to ramp it up further.

The rule of thumb is that by age 40, you should have 2x your household income saved for retirement, and I’m on track for that. By age 50, it should be 4x… and I’ll keep plugging away to try and hit that target. It’s good to have a rough goal.

I’ve created an investment account with the idea of building up enough cash to be able to withdraw £5,000 a year from it to pay for a holiday each year – the rate of return pays for the holiday. A far better play than sticking that trip on a credit card, which I did a fair bit in my mid-20s.

On the new home front, the hardest part is swallowing the ridiculous stamp duty bill for moving to a bigger house – it’s time to just accept it is as a necessary evil, or never step-up the ladder.

On the list goes a savings pot for my wife and I to build up to put towards a stamp duty shock, similar to when saving for a house deposit.

What am I missing? If you’re in your 40s or 50s, what would you stick on my list? What do you wish you did earlier? Let me know: lee.boyce@thisismoney.co.uk

PS: I might put ‘do a Ferris Bueller’ on the experiences list – have a sneaky day off, not tell the boss, wife or children, and just have a day galivanting around London without a care in the world.

If the boss is reading this, I’m kidding of course…