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 July. This report includes income from dividends, interest, mutual funds, and rental properties.
Dividend & Interest Income
The first month of the quarter is always a letdown from the previous month and July was no exception. We generated $1,707.23 in dividend income this month.
Of that total, about $700 came from tobacco companies (Philip Morris and Altria). I’m continually amazed by how profitable these companies are and how much of that profit they are able to pay out via dividends.
It looks like I’ve finally closed out all of the small positions remaining from my Loyal3 accounts, so I shouldn’t have any sub-$100 dividend payments any more.
Dividends for the month were up 8.11% from July, 2017. Through the end of July our cumulative dividends for the year are up 38% over 2017.
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.
Although all the properties are rented, we had some required repairs related to some tenant turnover. As a result, our rental income was just $141.95.
Total investment income this month
Total (dividend + rental) income = $1,849.18
Our total income for July, 2017 was ($209.5). This was negative due to some large losses in our rental income portfolio. This means our investment income for July, 2018 was a bit more than $2,000 higher than last year.
Trailing 12-month investment income
Since I only started tracking these numbers in Sept, 2016, I only have actual 12-month totals starting in August, 2017. I’ve annualized numbers before that date (that is, if I had 6-months of income data then I would double it to get the 12-month number). In 2016 I only had a few months of data to work with, so small fluctuations would cause my projected 12-month number to jump around. This number will start to stabilize now that I have 12 full months of data to use in the calculations. And, in fact, if you look at the graph after August, 2017 you see a much smoother line.
Actual investment income over the last 12 months was $67,478.38. I would expect our income over the next 12 months to be higher as new investments are made, dividends and rents are raised, etc.
Our goal is eventually have $120k/year in investment income, so we are 56.2% of the way there!
Recap
July was a solid but unspectacular month for our investment income. Our dividend income was good but our rental income continues to be unreliable. However, it’s hard to get upset about getting $1,849.18 of income for doing nothing other than, at some point in the past, deciding to save/invest money rather than spend it.
I continue to hope for a serious market correction soon, as I’d love to put some of our cash to work. Absent a market correction I’m also investigating some foreign investments – valuations overseas are significantly more reasonable that valuations in the US market.
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?