It’s time to report my passive income for the month of September. The time really flies by as it looks like I reported my August income just recently. It’s nice to reflect on what happened during the month so I can’t wait to write this monthly post.
Dividend Income
Let’s see which companies paid dividends to me during September (the amount is after taxes of 30%):
Not a huge amount to say the least but I will take it nevertheless. And it keeps coming in so I am happy to have these quality companies in my portfolio. E.g. when I purchased shares of Exxon Mobil a couple of years ago, I thought that it was undervalued and was hoping for the oil market to jump back up together with XOM. Unfortunately, it didn’t, and the difference from cost basis and current market value is -$10,30 (the “loss” was actually bigger a month ago). However, I already received $33 in dividends from XOM so it’s still profitable in the end and I am not planning to sell it as long as it keeps delivering cash every 3 months. That’s the power of dividend investing – you don’t need to worry about the market value that much.
Realty Income is another example of a great dividend paying company. What I love the most about it is that they pay dividends monthly. They paid dividends for 566 consecutive months already! It’s also an example of how you may invest to real estate in some way without having loads of cash which is usually a barrier to enter this market.
Year on Year Comparison
Let’s compare September dividend income with previous year:
Again, not an exciting month and not much changed since previous year. Even though the changes are little, they are going to the right direction and it feels good to be a bit better off than I was this time last year. All the growth was organic (dividend raises) since I didn’t purchase any new stocks that pay during September. October is going to be a different story, though, as I will be getting dividends from a new company for the first time (recent purchase of CSCO here). It will be interesting to see what difference it will make.
I also like to compare my dividend growth rate with annual inflation. If I was living off dividends one day, it would show if the growth would keep up with living costs. The latest available data (August 2017) shows that inflation again reached it’s multi-year high of 4,4% so the dividend growth would not offset that. A good thing is that this does not look ordinary and the full annual inflation for 2017 in Lithuania is forecasted to reach 1.6%.
Dividend Increases
This month one of my companies raised their dividends. Realty Income (O) raised their monthly dividend from $0.2115 to $0.212 per share (Press Release here). The new monthly dividend represents an annualized dividend amount of $2.544 per share as compared to the current annualized dividend amount of $2.538 per share. That’s a very tiny increase. Since I own 16 shares of Realty Income, it will raise my annual income from this company by whopping $0.067 after taxes 😀 It sounds funny but Realty Income tends to raise their dividends by a tiny bit every quarter so it all adds up in the long run.
Other Passive Income
I received 4,37 EUR in interest from P2P lending this month. My current active loans balance stands at 318,93 EUR so it’s slightly less than 10% of my current stock portfolio. I might add small amount to it or just reinvest returned interest this month. This month several loans were late a few days and it didn’t feel well. However, all of them were still paid and the riskiest ones are insured (I would get back the investment and 10% annual interest if the loan is late for 90 days). Still, this is a risky investment and I will keep it to a fraction of my main passive income sources. On the other hand, it’s really profitable so I am glad that I found this platform earlier this year.
Summary
In total (after converting to EUR) I received 9,56 EUR in passive income during September. This brings the total amount for 2017 to 69,31 EUR up to date which is not that far away from my goal of 100EUR. It looks like I will be able to achieve this goal by the end of the year if nothing unexpected happens.
How was your September? Did you reach any milestones? Are you sharing above companies? As always, please don’t hesitate to leave your comments below!
It’s great to see that you’re on track for your 2017 goal! Good luck reaching that!
Thanks! Yes, I thought that I will miss the target earlier but it looks like the P2P lending is going to pull me through 🙂
The snowball is small, but it’s rolling! 🙂 Hopefully you make it to the €100 goal for this year. Completely agree with what you said about not having to worry about the market value. The goal is to build a passive income stream, market value is secondary. In fact, a lower market value is oftentimes a good thing, as it means you can add to your position on lower prices and ‘buy’ even more income.
Hi SD,
That’s correct – market corrections are usually opportunities for us, dividend investors. However, I would like to find the value in companies I do not yet own instead of the ones I am already invested in 😀
Keep it up broke investor. It’s a personal journey and race and you’re clearly moving in the right direction. Slow and steady definitely wins and you’re on the right track!
Passive Income Dude
Thanks a lot Dan! It’s clearly a start but hopefully it will pick up speed in the future.
Great report BI. You had passive income from several sources and your dividends are moving in the right direction. I recently added CSCO to my portfolio, and Realty Income is definitely one of my favorite companies because of the monthly dividends. Can’t wait to see how October goes for you.
Thanks DP! I can see that we have quite a few of the same names in our portfolios – it looks like our strategies are similar 🙂
Great stuff BI, love seeing your reports as we are in the same boat. Small steps but the only way is up! Keep making the solid buys and your snowball will keep growing…
Hi Mr.Robot,
Thanks for stopping by! Yes, we are both at the beginning of our journeys and I am sure that we are in for the long haul!
Nice job BI! That’s income that you wouldn’t have had otherwise. I think XOM is a good hold (I’m not any sort of advisor and I don’t own it). Eventually the oil markets are going to settle (maybe they already have). Even with renewables, oil demand keeps rising along with a rising world population and XOM is one of the best at extracting and delivering.
After some experience with P2P lending, would you do it again knowing what you know now?
Thanks DD!
I really like P2P but maybe it’s too early to tell. I am only using it since March of this year. In case economy turns south and the loans stop to be paid, I might change my opinion. But for now, it’s all looking good and I am accepting the risk.
Good job. It increased from last year that is what you want. 2 good stocks. Keep it up
Thanks Doug! I can see that you crushed it again in September!
Not a bad month. Still 3.5% organic growth is better than sitting on the cash and it doing nothing for you. Small portfolios are exciting because you can make the growth percentages huge in the early days. That gives a lot of motivation to keep pushing for more. Keep up the good work. Still a lot of time left this year to make some moves.
Hi DD! Thanks for your comment! Yes, I think the growth will be noticeable when new investments kick in. I should be able to add one more company to the portfolio until the end of the year.
Hey, no amount is too small. Look at that growth rate and look and how you are already starting to feel the impact of dividend investing. You received dividends from two great companies this month and I’m sure you will be adding more in your future. Keep on hustling and keep on investing!
Bert
Hi Bert,
Thanks a lot for visiting! It definitely feels good to receive those dividends and I will keep on investing to get more of that!
As many others have commented you are well on your way and just keep up the good work. We are all on the same path just at different points on the journey. Stick with the solid names, reinvest enjoy those dividend increases when they come and invest when you can. That’s all it takes.
Thanks for visiting, DivHut!