Last week of July

As a month turns to August we again paid back some of our investment loan. We paid back 213 € of capital and 8,10 € of interest and fees. We also withdrew 1908,06 from one fund and paid heavy taxes on that. The taxes will be adjusted to correct level at the end of the year. We received net 1266,95 € from that fund. We used this money to finalise our "debt restructuring program". Now all our remaining loans have interest rate less than 0,9 %, and monthly free cashflow raised by 645 €.  What we actually did? We renegotiated the terms of our housing loan and paid back in full our car financing plans. We paid back both car financing plans two years in advance. This operation saved us additional 500 € in fees and interests. There is no real costs of paying plans in advance.  The reason was that the monthly fees started to be more than interests.

And now the income part.  On the 31st of July we received dividends from two companies. From LTC properties we received 7,09 € after taxes and fees and from Gladstone Capital Corp. we received 5,05 € after taxes and fees. On 1st of August we also received dividends from two companies, AT&T and Verizon. From AT&T we received 99,97 € after taxes and fees and from Verizon Communications Inc. we received 45,29 € dividends.

So weekly dividends were 154,95 € which is 4th best week so far this year.

Now we have accumulated 77,13% of our this year's target, 3002,54 € of 3892,78 €. So we are missing 890,24 €

Month by month comparison looks like this:

4th week of July

We thought that there would not be much to write this week because we did not expect any dividends. We were wrong.

On 24th of July we received 20,20 € dividends from Main Street Capital after taxes and fees deducted. Next day we received 50,04 € dividends from Ocean Yield ASA after taxes and fees. Ocean Yield is still on our "sell" list. Now Kingdom of Norway owns us approximately 18 €. Ocean yield dividends may be cut down by 21,5 % in Q1/2020 as indicated by the company itself.

Since we did not expect any dividends in this week we prepared comparison of passive income to previous year.  This year we have accumulated 56% more passive income than last year during the same period. The only month we fell behind from previous year was March, and explanation is simple. One company moved its yearly dividend payment from March to April.

At the moment we have accumulated 73,15 % of our this year's target. We are 1045,19 € short of our target.

3rd week of July

On the 3rd week of July we received dividends only on Monday. From Realty Income we received 16,74 after taxes and fees deducted. Also the cash portion of HSBC dividends landed on our account. The cash portion of the dividend was 4,79 €. From Dream Global REIT we received 9,92 CAD dividends after taxes, which is approximately 6,75 €. From Exchange Income Corporation we received 15,51 CAD dividends after taxes which is approximately 10,55 €. From Inter Pipeline we received 36,46 CAD dividends after taxes which is approximately 24,80 €

This week's dividend income was 63,63 €, which is pretty good on our standards. Now our total capital income for the year is 2777,35 €, which is total of 71,35 % of our yearly target. To hit the target we need to get approximately 49 €/week. Unfortunately we do not expect any dividends next week. And traditionally December has been quite weak month for us what comes to dividends. So to be on the safe side we need to generate approximately 60€/week dividends in those weeks that we are expecting dividends. Most likely we will hit the target. We will start slowly increasing our investments soon as we have pretty much finished our program to cut our liabilities and free the cashflow.

2nd week of July

Again a quite quiet week in investment sector.

This week we made a bit unusual investment to a fund. We do not usually invest in funds, but this time we did so because the insurance company has changed their loyalty program, which we hadn't noticed earlier. Investing in one or more funds managed by our insurance company raises the loyalty discounts by one tier. The company has 4 tiers, and we have been on 3rd tier earlier. By investing into the fund we raised us to the 4th tier, which means additional 4% discount to the insurance fees. We invested 100 €. This way we lowered our total insurance bill approximately 40 € annually. We are not expecting a lot of profits from this investment, but we hope that it will keep its value and beat the inflation. That is enough for us.

And now to the investment income for the week.  On the 9th of June we received 24,52 € dividends from Main Street Capital after taxes and fees deducted.

The HSBC paid its dividends on the 11th of June. As we are participating the DRIP, we received 2 shares. The exact value is still a bit unclear, since we receive the report later on paper. The value is approximately 14,79 €. We will get cash dividend from fractional parts later, most likely next week.

Whitestone REIT dividends should arrive to our account later on today. We are expecting to get around  49 € net dividends. We will update the exact amount when the dividends arrive.

Edit: Dividends from Whitestone arrived and exact amount was 49,13 € after taxes and fees. 

After this week we have received approximately 2714 € capital income. This is 69,70% of our yearly target.  At this speed we will most likely exceed our target income for the year.

Start of July

Again, as usual our month starts with the expenses. We paid back some of our investment loan. Payment was 221,07 €, with 8,07 € interests and fees.

On the first day of July, we received 19,46€ dividends from Coca-Cola after taxes and fees. On Wednesday the 3rd of July we received 11,28 CAD interests which is approximately 7,64 €.

We also increased a bit of our investments in this week. We bought 5 shares of Johnson & Johnson @138,8 USD. We also bought 15 shares of Nordea bank @6,674 €.

Now our net capital income is 2625,28 €

Last week of June and mid-year review

Our week started with interests from co-ops. We received 30€ interests. We now have received all interests from Co-ops this year. The total yield was a quite lot less than earlier years.

On Friday we received the usual end-month dividends. From LTC Properties Inc. we received 6,96 € after taxes and fees deducted. The second company paying us dividends at the end of the every month is Gladstone Capital. From there we received 4,61 € after taxes and fees.

So our capital income on last week of June was 41,57 €.

On Friday we bought 12 shares of Duke Energy. Again a bit expensive, but we try to increase utilities on our portfolio. This is progressing slowly, since we are still restructuring our other liabilities.


And now the mid-year review:

So far we have collected 2598,18 € capital income, which is 66,74% of our this year's target. There have been few dividend cuts and less interests from co-ops than expected. On other hand we have bought some new shares, which generate new cash flow. Also some of the companies have increased the dividends. So there is still a change to hit our target.

Our starting values were:

Investment funds: 11 241,88 €
Shares portfolio: 75 521,06 €
Coop memberships: 1 500 €
Total financial assets: 88 262,94 €

Loan for investment: 9361 €

Net financial assets 78 901,94 €

On a last business day of June values were:

Investment funds: 12 424,39 €, increase 10,52%
Shares portfolio: 80 078,12 €, increase 6,03%
Coop memberships: 1 500€, no change
Total financial assets: 94 002,51 €, increase 6,48%

Loan for investment: 8 296,00 €

Net financial assets 85 706,51 €, increase 8,62%

We are quite pleased with the progress.

3rd week of June

This week was very quiet. We received our first dividends from Dominion Energy. Net dividends received were 3,39 € after taxes and fees.

2nd week of June

On the second week of the June we received our usual mid-month dividends. First, on Thursday we received dividends from Whitestone REIT. From Whitestone we received 49,03 € after taxes and fees deducted.  On Friday we received 16,69 € dividends from Realty income. Realty Income also announced dividend increase earlier on this week. From Main Street Capital we received 19,49 € dividends.

On friday we also received our Canadian dividends. From Exchange Income Corp we received 15,51 CAD dividends. This is approximately 10,31 €. From Inter Pipeline we received 36,59 CAD dividends. This is approximately 24,40 €. Also Dream Global REIT paid us 10,05 CAD dividends. This is around 6,70€.

This week's dividend income was approximately 126,62 €. Pretty good week.Now we have accumulated 65,59% of our yearly target.

First week of June

Our week started with negative investment cashflow events. Repayment of the investment loan was on Monday. We paid 213,00 € capital,  6,10 € interests and 2,30 € fees.Total payment was 221,40. Now we have 8 296,00 € loan left.

On Monday we bought 5 shares of Dominion Energy. A bit expensive for our liking. By making this transaction we eliminated account management fees for Q3. We paid transaction fees 3.37 €, and now we have free account management for next quarter. Normal fee from bank is 1.95/month. This way we saved 2,48€ of fees and increased slightly our invested capital. We receiced 38,04 CAD dividends from Canadian Utilities after taxes deducted. This is approximately 25,26 €.

On 5th of June we received interests from May. Interests were 14,05 CAD, approximately 9,33 €.

On Thursday we received quarterly dividend from Nokia. Nokia changed its dividend policy from yearly dividend to quarterly dividend. Even though we get our money a bit later than in earlier years, we warmly welcome this change. We received 10€ from Nokia, no fees and no taxes deducted. On the same day we received dividends from Southern Company. We received 11,49 € after fees and taxes deducted.

Total capital gains from first week of June was 56,08 €.

End of May

On 22nd of May Ocean Yield paid us 49,97 € dividends. The Ocean Yield is still on the "sell" list because norwegians take too much taxes. Now Norway owes us 12,66 €. Another solution would be to increase positions heavily on Norway to make the extra work meaningful. Claiming back the excess taxes will cost around 4-5 € and will take few hours of time. It is shame that Norway started this idiocy. It would be great if every small investor in the countries with tax treaty would claim back taxes transaction by transaction. We bet that they would change back to old way of doing this just because handling those applications would cause awful workload and cost more money than what they expected to get.

On 24th of May we received 24 € interests from coop memberships. So far we have received 44 € interests from our coop memberships. This is not awfully lot, but investment is almost as safe than keeping money on the bank account. At the moment our received interest rate is 2,93% p.a. We are expecting to get a bit more interests on June.

At the end of the month we received our usual end month dividends from LTC Properties and Gladstone Capital. From LTC Properties we received 7,11 € after taxes and fees deducted. From Gladstone Capital we received 4,71 €.

Now we have accumulated total of 2370,49€ of capital income. Our target for this year is 3892,78€. So we have collected 60,89% so far.