December 2017 Summary

Just like that, the 2017 is over. With that, it is time to see how my portfolio ended the year. I noticed that December is usually a good month for most of the investors, as a lot of ETFs are paying dividends during the last month of the quarter/year. However, it is not the case in my portfolio and the third month of the quarter is actually the slowest one for me. I am still happy that I receive a tiny amount every month so let’s see how it went for me during December.

Dividend Income

Not much changed in my portfolio regarding companies that pay in December so I only received dividends from two companies (amount is after taxes):

This is not a fascinating amount but it’s still something and I hope to add some more companies to the list in the future. I like to think about what I could do with the money if I decided to spend it. With $3.77 from Exxon Mobil I could buy ~3 liters of diesel for my Fabia which would be enough to cover ~50km. Imagine if I could only buy fuel for the amount of dividend I received from energy companies! In December there was a lot of driving involved and I think I actually covered more than 1000km so I would need to up my investment to XOM by quite a bit if I wanted the fuel expenses to be fully covered by XOM’s dividends 😀

Realty Income is the hard worker of my portfolio and it keeps delivering a tiny amount each month which I am grateful for. $2.37 would cover ~0,3% of our rent so it’s a long way to go if we wanted the rent to be covered by this Real Estate company 🙂

Year on Year comparison

Let’s see how the dividends compare to what I received in December 2016:

I am glad to see that both of the companies increased their divided compared to last year as that is what I am looking for. It actually shows the point of how it would look like if I came to the point where dividends would need to cover my expenses. With inflation, the value of money loses value over time and dividend increases would help to cope with that. Of course, the difference of $0,21 would not make much difference now but I like the fact that the percentage increase is around the inflation level. I will do my best to see some bigger increase for next December by acquiring some companies that would pay additional dividend.

Dividend Increases

This month two companies from my portfolio increased their dividends!

1. AT&T increased their quarterly dividend by 2% from $0.49 to $0.50. Since I own 19 shares of AT&T, it will increase my income from AT&T by $0.53 after taxes during the year ($0.01 * 19 * 4 -30% tax).
2. Realty Income also raised amount for their monthly dividend by a tiny bit from $0.212 to $0.2125 per share. Since I own 16 shares, it will increase my net annual income from Realty Income by ~$0,07 ($0.0005 * 16 * 12 – 30%).

The amounts may look funny but I think that every bit counts. If I wanted to earn additional $0.60 over a year, I would need to invest ~$30 with an average 3% yield and I am getting this for free now.

Portfolio Additions

During December, I added one company to my portfolio. I spent €600 to purchase some shares of a local company called “Vilkyskiu Pienine”. This should add some additional income for me in May. You may read more about this purchase in this post.

Other Passive Income

During December, I also received some interest from P2P lending platform. This month I received €3,01. The amount is actually smaller than last month when I received €4,46. This is due to the fact that one of the loans is late and didn’t return €1,61 in December. It’s the first time since I started investing in P2P lending when a loan is late but I was prepared for that. I knew that it was bound to happen at some point but it still doesn’t feel good. Fortunately, this loan is insured which means that I will still get it back if it is late for 90 days so nothing to worry about. Still, it shows how risky this type of investment is and I think it would be the first to go down in case another recession hits. That’s why I am only keeping up to 10% of my investments in this platform. Currently, I have €369.7 invested which is distributed among 26 individual loans. I am planning to add a small amount during January and reinvest the interest received.

Summary

In total (after converting to EUR) I received €8.11 from passive income during December which brings the total amount for 2017 to €104.90 which was just enough to reach my goal of €100 for 2017. I hope that this was the last month when I didn’t reach €10 during a month but we will see how it goes when 2018 unravels.

 

How was your December? Did you finish the year strong? Did you manage to reach your goals for 2017? Don’t hesitate to leave a comment below and thanks for reading!