I always love reading blogs about other investors’ investment income. Watching other people’s investment income rise is my second favorite thing (the only thing better is watching MY investment income rise!)
Here is our investment income for April, 2019. This report includes income from dividends, interest, mutual funds, and rental properties.
Overview
April was a good month. I turned 43, which was both surreal and boring. It was surreal because I certainly don’t feel 43 (although I’m not sure what 43 should feel like). I still remember being in high school, meeting a 40-year old, and thinking, “man, that guy is OLD!”. But now I’m 43 and I don’t FEEL old.
And it was boring because 43 is a very “blah” birthday. It’s not 40 or 45 or 50. You’re not really in your early 40’s, but you’re not really in your mid 40’s. It’s just not really a very interesting age at all.
But, although 43 isn’t an interesting number, I’m determined to make 43 an interesting year for me. I’ve been invigorated by posting my goals for 2019 and I’ve been making steady progress towards many of the goals.
And, as usual, April was a light month on the income side. The first month of the quarter always has the lowest passive income, and the difference from the previous month can be jarring.
Dividend & Interest Income
Total dividend income for the month was $2,032.15. This is 1.44% higher than April, 2018, so not much improvement year over year.
Our income was fairly well diversified but we remain a bit too concentrated in oil/energy stocks (about 15% of our dividends this month were from that sector).
In addition to having a great month, we are back on track with our cumulative dividends received for 2019.
The first few months were a bit rough, but we are now a third of the way through the year and we’re up 14% over last year. I’d be awfully happy if we could keep that pace for the whole year.
Rental income
This category includes net income from the 4 rental properties that my wife and I own, plus 50% of the income from 4 rental properties that we own with my mom. This number does not include appreciation of the properties or the decrease in the mortgage balance (those numbers show up in the net worth report).
However, this income is net of all mortgage, tax, and insurance payments. That is, this is a true cash flow report for our rental properties.
April was also a rough month for our rental income. All the properties are rented but we had a roofing repair on one of them. And as anybody who has ever owned property knows, anything to do with a roof is expensive. The good news was that we were still positive for the month, and we netted a total of $799.63.
Our rental income last year was terrible, which makes the numbers this year look even better in comparison. However, if you look at the numbers from 2017 we are actually down a bit.
Total investment income this month
Total (dividend + rental) income = $2,831.78
Our total passive income is up a very satisfying 31% from this time last year. And of course, that’s absent any additional investments or dividend raises we might enjoy this year. I think it’s reasonable to expect to hit $85,000 in total passive income in 2019.
Changes
I made a few changes to our finances in April that will affect our passive income going forward. First, I decided to sell all of our Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI). This was my single largest dividend payer, but I’ve ultimately become a bit too worried about their financial position to feel good about having $100k invested in them. The issue is that their largest tenants seem to be having a lot of financial problems (resulting in an inability to pay OHI the negotiated rent). The fact that this is happening in the best economy in recent memory does not bode well for OHI’s future prospects.
However, I’ve taken the money raised by selling OHI and invested in 2 rental properties in Houston. I expect these two properties to cash flow about $3,000/year, which will at least partially offset the ~$6,400 in OHI dividends that we are losing.
We are still sitting on a mountain of cash that I’m eagerly looking to deploy if/when I find interesting investments at reasonable valuations.
Recap
April was an ok month for our passive income. The dividend income was good, but our rental income was just ok. I’m hoping that the rental income will spike for the rest of the year (due to the new property acquisitions).
I’m already looking forward to more passive income in May!
How did everybody else do with their investment income this month?
Are there any investments out there trading at reasonable valuations that I should be looking at?