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 December, 2021. This report includes income from dividends, interest, mutual funds, and rental properties.
Overview
Without further ado, here’s what our investment income looked like for the month:
Dividend & Interest Income
Total dividend income for the month was $27,550.88. This is up a 55% from last December. This is a HUGE increase over last year and this is by far our largest single month of dividend income. It was largely driven by higher income from our mutual funds and my 401k.
Rental income
This category includes net income from the 6 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.
All properties are rented and only minor repairs were needed on one of the properties. In addition, two of our loans were paid off last month, so our net income has increased quite a bit.
Total rental income was $4,225.80 for the month. This was our highest 1-month rental income since I’ve been tracking it.
Total investment income this month
Dividend + rental income = $31,776.68
Our total monthly passive income was up 70% over last December. And this was the highest monthly dividend income ever, our highest monthly rental income ever, and our highest monthly total passive income ever.
Quarterly/yearly review
We were behind or equal to last year’s cumulative dividend income through most of the year, but we ended up with 15% growth over last year.
Similarly, our cumulative rental income this year trailed last year for the entire year until December and we ended up with 22% growth.
Finally, our total passive income ended up 15% higher than last year as well.
This is huge for us, as we FINALLY exceeded $100,000 in passive income for the year. For most of the year we were behind pace but a huge December put us over the top.
Changes
No changes this month.
Recap
This was a huge month for us, as it put us over $100,000 of passive income for the year. We’ve been trying to hit this number for the last 3 years, so it’s very satisfying to finally hit it.
The next big goal is $120,000 in passive income, and I expected we’ll hit that in 2023, assuming 10% growth per year. Of course, if we make any additional investments over the next 2 years that will help.
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?
I think “HUGE” is the only word that can describe a 55% yoy. Gotta love it while you get it and I know when a portfolio gets to a certain size big bumps like this are far and few between.
Best of luck and happy New Year
Agreed – I was not expecting an increase anywhere near this big! That’s the thing about mutual funds. You just never know what their quarterly or annual payout is going to be, so it’s hard to project (or rely on) any specific amount.
If we get another 50% increase in December of next year we’d be looking at $50k in one month!