(I’m still working my way through our old updates. I’m planning on posting an update a day until I’m caught up.)
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 October, 2020. This report includes income from dividends, interest, mutual funds, and rental properties.
Overview
October was a solid month for our passive income. Our dividend income was up slightly YOY and our rental income is back on track.
Without further ado, here’s what our investment income looked like for the month:
Dividend & Interest Income
Total dividend income for the month was $2,909.65. This is up 39.9% from last October. This was for two reasons – we’ve purchased some additional Altria over the last year and Nike paid its dividend on October 1st rather than at the end of September.
Our cumulative dividends for the year through the end of October are up 9% over 2019.
Our long-term goal is to have our dividend income increase by 10% per year, and that still looks very possible for the year.
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 we had no repairs/expenses, which resulted in good numbers for the month. Total rental income for October was $2,103.47. That’s up 195% from last October.
Our cumulative rental income is currently 51% LOWER than it was through October, 2019. Whew – that sucks.
As you can see in the table above, our rental income started strong in 2020 but has disintegrated in the last few months.
Total investment income this month
Total (dividend + rental) income = $5,013.12
Things are improving, but we are still substantially behind where we were last year and it’s looking increasingly unlikely that we’ll even hit last year’s number for yearly cumulative total income.
Our total income through the end of October is still 6% behind last year’s pace. It’s looking increasing unlikely that we’ll get our goal of $115,000 in passive income for 2020. At this point it’s looking like we’ll be lucky to just hit $100,000 in cumulative income for the year.
Changes
In October we invested in a venture capital fund. Our total commitment was $100,000, with $20,000 initially and the remaining $80,000 invested as investments are found over the next few years.
Recap
This was a solid month for both dividend income and rental income.
Hopefully our rental income will continue to recover over the next 2 months.
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?
How do you screen for companies to buy for the dividend income? How do you when to enter/exit the positions?
How much did you invest to generate the dividends for this month?
Thank you
I rarely buy and almost never sell my investments, which means I have plenty of time to think about and analyze various options before I make any decisions. In general, I am looking for blue chip investments – large companies with proven business models that require little capital investment to maintain. And of course it’s always important to pick companies with low debt and high profit margins. I’m at the point where I care more about stability and safety in my investments than swinging for the fences and taking the associated risk.
You can find our portfolio on the homepage under About->The Money Commando Portfolio. I update this spreadsheet every month or so or after any large purchases. Right now our total portfolio is about $4.65M.
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