April was a great month for us. We spent a week in Gran Canaria, and the trip did not disappoint.
The island is also special to us personally – exactly 10 years ago, I proposed to my wife there. This time, we returned with our daughter, which made the trip even more meaningful.
Another highlight of April was experimenting with Anthropic’s Claude AI and redesigning how my portfolio is presented on the blog. Here’s a quick comparison:
Before:
After:
It took quite a bit of trial and error, and I had to challenge the AI’s suggestions in several places. The free version also runs out of tokens surprisingly quickly, especially during busy hours. Still, I’m very happy with the result and plan to continue using AI tools to modernize the blog further.
But enough about vacations and redesigns – let’s get to the April numbers.
Dividend Income
April brought in dividends from four companies:
As always, I am comparing dividends to actual expenses of our family:
- €27.28 – Ignitis Group (IGN1L): Covers 1.9% of our Utilities expenses for the last 6 months.
- $9.28 – Eastman Chemical (EMN): Covers 3.3% of our Home expenses over the past 3 months.
- $5.10 – Mondelez (MDLZ): Covers 1.9% of our Sweets expenses over the last 3 months.
- $8.70 – W.P.Carey (WPC): Covers 0.8% of last month’s Mortgage payment.
It’s still a long journey, but seeing dividends slowly cover real-life expenses makes the process rewarding and keeps me motivated to continue investing consistently.
Dividend Year-on-Year comparison
Let’s compare April dividends to what we received in April 2025:
The change in dividend is mainly due to:
- Additional shares and higher dividend from my Ignitis Group position
- A new addition to the portfolio: Eastman Chemical
- Dividend increases from Mondelez & W.P.Carey
As a result, dividend income grew by 31% year over year.
Other Passive Income Sources
In addition to dividends, we earned some income from several other passive income sources in April:
- €7.63 – P2P lending
- €13.52 – Real Estate Crowdfunding
- €1.91 – Bonds interest
- €4.15 – Money Market Funds
- €0.91 – Real Estate Crowdfunding (Rental Income)
These smaller streams continue to add up and help diversify my passive income beyond dividends alone.
Passive Income Summary
When I add everything up, our portfolio generated €75.05 of passive income in April:
This chart below shows comparison of passive income over years:
April delivered a 40% increase in total passive income versus April last year.
Portfolio Contributions and New Investments
During April, I contributed €1000 to my investment accounts. I used part of the funds for these purchases:
- 6 shares of Ignitis Lietuva (IGN1L) at €21.6/share for a total of €129.60
- 50 shares of Telia Lietuva (TEL1L) at €2.17/share for a total of €108.50
- €200 was invested in a new real estate crowdfunding project with 6.5% interest
The rest of the money is waiting for new opportunities in my stock investment accounts.
Summary
April was the strongest month of the year so far for passive income, and I’m optimistic the record will be broken again later this year. Maybe I’ll even reach €100 in a single month sooner than expected.
Year to date, the portfolio has generated €230 in passive income, which represents 30.6% of my annual goal of €750.
I’m still slightly behind schedule, but with regular monthly investments and growing dividend income, I’m confident the gap will narrow over the coming months.
Thanks for reading, and see you in next month’s update!