Portfolio Update: November 2019

Just as I thought the income could not grow anymore (last month I made €77 from blogging), it reached a new record of €180,8. Just from blogging! Furthermore, I have promised transparency and therefore I will start to include graphs of my blogging income in these monthly income updates.

November was the month I FINALLY got my pay from my employer. Due to a contract being processed slow, I haven’t gotten any salary for the past two months. This means I got 3 months salary at the end of November.

While it may be untraditional, I did not purchase anything during Black Friday for myself. However, I did manage to save some money on Christmas gifts.

General Comments to Portfolio and Income

The portfolio is going like a sinus curve at the moment. This is mostly due to the crypto market going down, and the stock market going up. In the past two years, it has seemed as the two markets are negatively corresponding. So whenever one market is up, the other is down.

An interesting development is happening in P2P Lending right now. Fastinvest has disclosed their first loan originator: Kviku. The overall interest rates are slowly decreasing and have been since September.

The decrease in interest rate could mean a number of things, and thus far I will continue with my investment plan of increasing my index funds and saving cash for a crash.

Portfolio – November 2019

A small increase in the overall portfolio value. The monthly gain has been 2,4% in portfolio value. The average interest rate provided by the dividend and interest incomes yields 7,1%.

The portfolio does not move significantly back or forth due to the strategy of saving most of my income to cash and have approximately €135 go to index funds. The reason index funds are the chosen investment is due to my lack of exposure to the stock market. Being in P2P lending and crypto-only would bare to many risks. Diversifying through index funds seems to be the best option for me currently.

Total Portfolio Value:

• Portfolio value: €5.869
• Income this month: €44
• Income from blogging: €180,8
• Average interest rate: 7,1%

The portfolio allocation illustrates the high percentage of cash holding, compared to P2P lending, index funds, and crypto. While cash yields a 0,1 annual return in my bank, it is much safer than being invested, with my future plans.

While my overall portfolio value has increased my ROI has maintained. The “battle” of the crypto market has seemed to go downhill for over 6 months. While the crypto market has been on this slope, the stock market has increased in value very slowly, but continuously.

Saving rate and Emergency Fund

Getting a high saving rate is easy when you have low expenses. If I could maintain this lifestyle, I could save a huge percentage of my income in the many years to come. However, the income from November is salary I should have had from September, October and November, hence 3 months salary.

Furthermore, the contract at my current workplace ends at the end of January. This also limits the amount I can manage to save when the end of January comes. Since I potentially will be without a job from February and forward.

In contrast, remember I live in Denmark. Here we are paid ~€715 post-tax to attend school. Currently, I have about 1 year left of my master’s degree. While my income might plummet for about a year, my monthly income/expenses will look like August and October.

P2P Lending Income

P2P lending is the never-ending money machine. While the interest rates are slowly decreasing, the overall income are compounding hence I continue to get more and more income.

Should I invest more in P2P lending and hope the market is not too saturated for a market collapse. I am not sure hence I am withdrawing money but I am not depositing either.

The last three months have been without despite. However, the portfolio curve has a clear upwards going trend. The income is clearly compounding just fine.

While I keep talking about the fear of a P2P lending market collapse due to the decreasing interest rates, I cannot find out whether I should invest at a new platform or not. I have a large portion at Mintos and Envestio. I am unsure whether the exposure to 2 platforms which accounts for 70% of my P2P lending platform is smart. Reconsidering I am not ready to “spend” the money.

Envestio

• Started investing: Dec-18
• Average interest rate: 16,6%
• Portfolio value: €1.294,6
• Income this month: €19,48

Envestio has been my top performer and still is. I don’t want to sell the skin before the bear is shot, but this platform has never had a default and continue to deliver +16% XIRR returns.

My advice for new investors would be to secure a good portion of your investment at a well-known platform like Mintos. The second piece of advice would be to exploit the amazing opportunities of P2P lending. Meaning investing with Envestio, Crowdestor or similar reputable high yielding platforms.

You can sign up for Envestio by clicking this link. It will give you a €5 sign up bonus and 0,5% additional interest on your investments for 270 days.

Envestio Performance Over Time

Since the deposit in May-19 the income from Envestio has been steadily growing with €0,5-€1 per month.

Mintos

• Started investing: Sep-18
• Average interest rate: 11,35%
• Portfolio value: €1219,96
• Income this month: €10,86

The most well-known and reputable P2P lending platform in my portfolio. While the interest rates might be decreasing, Mintos continues to provide an income.

Mintos released a very informative blog post about their investors. It seems that only 20% of the total investors are women. Girls if you wanna get ahead, you got to grab the opportunities and not only the safe route.

Mintos has introduced about 3 new loan originators just in November. They are trying to deal with large demand for their loans.

You can sign up to Mintos by clicking this link. You will get a 1% cashback on all of your investments in 90 days.

Mintos Performance Over Time

The return on Mintos is not particularly good, nor bad. However, when my calculated weighted interest (calculated by Mintos) is 12,14% I expect to see a high XIRR than 10,78%. That being said I see no defaults or increases in delayed loans.

Grupeer

• Started investing: Aug-19
• Average interest rate: 11,69%
• Portfolio value: €412,37
• Income this month: €3,92

The newer addition of Grupeer has yielded some good results so far. I have heard a lot of positive about Grupeer from other bloggers. So I look forward to seeing how Grupeer performs in the long run.

Grupeer Performance Over Time

Fastinvest

• Started investing: Sep-18
• Average interest rate: 12,9%
• Portfolio value: €474,33
• Income this month: €5,09

Fastinvest has made a payment record this month. I have received €5,09. This is, of course, no big difference from the previous months. But it could be indicating that the interest is starting to compound.

Since Fastinvest has started to announce loan originators such as Kviku I expect that future loans will be announced with loan originators. This is very positive development from my point of view.

You can invest at Fastinvest by signing up here.

Fastinvest Performance Over Time

You can sign up on Fastinvest by clicking the link here.

Swaper

• Started investing: Sep-18
• Average interest rate: 9,92%
• Portfolio value: €75,08
• Income this month: €0,54

Trusty Swaper deliveries what it can with the limited funds I have provided it.

Swaper is a very good platform. I have no critique right now. Other than making my money grow faster 🤑.

You can sign up for Swaper by clicking this link.

Swaper Performance Over Time

BitOfProperty

• Started investing: Aug-19
• Average interest rate: 4,33%
• Portfolio value: €151,63
• Income this month: €0,53

BitOfProperty was trying to fund a project, but it failed. I was refunded the deposit i had made towards the property. Instead i purchased shares in another property that is already establised.

BitOfProperty is a small platform currently. However, the idea is good and it has a secondary market, which a lot of other property lending platforms offers. Therefore, I can only recommend BitOfProperty.

You can sign up at BitOfProperty and start purchasing real estate yourself.

BitOfProperty Performance Over Time

Cryptocurrency Portfolio

Another downhill month in Crypto.

The overall crypto portfolio has had a downward movement. Crypto is not in a free-fall state like January 2018. However, for my well-being, it would be nice with a turn in the market.

I keep lending my crypto through Celsius Network. This generates some extra income in crypto. If you are hodling your crypto, you should deposit your crypto to Celsius Network and collect some extra income in crypto. Sign up through my link and you will get rewarded with up to $20.

I would recommend you to purchase crypto through Binance. They are one of the largest platforms in the world while also having a lot of Altcoins.

Interest Income on Crypto:

Index Funds

Soon it is dividends time. I have increased my positions in index funds over the year. Hopefully, the dividend payment will be a decent amount bigger than the start of the year. I have continued to accumulate this month and properly will continue to the day I reach retirement.

For the people that are returning visitors, you might remember that I only had 3 index funds. However, I found an index fund which I can purchase commission-free. The index fund follows the S&P500 and is of interest since I was mostly represented in Danish stocks. You can read more about my new acquisition here.

How Others in the Community are doing

I really like to see my own progress towards financial freedom. However, I cannot avoid being super jealous when looking at some of the other bloggers in this community. While I am the newest blogger to join this chart, I want to battle with the big boys.

Blog Statistics

As promised you get full transparency on my blog. The only thing that was missing was the income I have made from my blogging. However, I thought it was too good to be true last month. Therefore I excluded the income.

Now I am just afraid I have jinxed it. I am crossing my fingers and hoping that December and forward will bring great income. I am so thankful for having found blogging, as I can share my experience and even make a bit of money doing it.

The visitor count shown in the picture below is not 100% accurate. I have done some testing on the page speed, which makes artificial views on my site. However, my organic search traffic has increased a fair bit.

You can start your own blog using the best host, with WordPress pre-installed. Anyone can start a blog using Siteground. Create a blog for €3,95 (regular price €9,95) and start sharing your investments or other hobbies/interests. You can use my affiliate link here.

Conclusion of November 2019

I finally got my salary for September, October, and November. However, my current strategy is to increase my index fund size and save cash, hence I will not be investing my income currently.

I have made a total of €224,3 in passive income from my investments and blog this month. I am grateful for the opportunity to blog about a topic I care about. The fact that it can help me make more money is simply unbelievable to me.