Rapid Fire Passive Income Monthly Updates: May, June, and July 2014

Rapid Fire Passive Income Updates - Fire

After some thought, I decided I would accelerate my catching up on missed passive income posts and bring the blog, dividend growth portfolio, Lending Club and Prosper accounts up to actual (through July). I’ll provide a high level summary for each of the months below, and will transition back to a traditional monthly update for the month of August. This will allow me to post more real-time updates as well as avoid the cumbersome process of a big update post for each month, during which not much happened… besides, well… getting married.

So, without further ado, the updates:

May Passive Income and Pageviews:
 
May
Year-to-Date
2014 Goal
Percentage of
Annual Goal
Lending Club
$76.05
$542.68
$1,950
27.83%
Prosper
$36.66
$111.23
$400
27.81%
Dividends
$111.24
$560.29
$1,650
33.96%
Total
$223.95
$1,214.20
$4,000
30.36%
Blog Pageviews
3,817
25,269
100,000
25.27%
Unique Visitors
1,484
8,216
20,000
41.08%

My blog saw a sharp decrease in pageviews as I stopped posting mid-April as wedding planning and preparation kicked up a notch. Even though we had a small ceremony with just 20 people at the end of May, there were quite a few logistical challenges such as moving my wife in and actually getting married!

May was one of my lowest passive income months of the last year or so as my peer to peer lending struggles continued, providing one of the lowest months ever. In fact, it was the lowest Lending Club months since the beginning of 2013 when my IRA account was still getting invested and not at full strength! Fortunately, things have since returned to “normal” after a rough start to the year.

As for the rest of my passive income, Prosper continued strongly with my dividends continuing to come in, increasing 10.5% over the period a year before. Additionally, I continued with my monthly $300 contributions to my Loyal3 portfolio. During May, I purchased shares of MAT, PEP, and TGT, adding $10.07 to my forward 12-month dividends. At the end of May, my forward 12-month dividends were $1,470.95, an increase of $17.77 over the previous month of $1,453.18.

June Passive Income and Pageviews:
 
June
Year-to-Date
2014 Goal
Percentage of
Annual Goal
Lending Club
$151.04
$693.72
$1,950
35.58%
Prosper
$38.28
$149.51
$400
37.38%
Dividends
$165.74
$726.03
$1,650
44.00%
Total
$355.06
$1,569.26
$4,000
39.23%
Blog Pageviews
3,441
28,710
100,000
28.71%
Unique Visitors
1,434
9,510
20,000
47.55%

After returning from a wonderful honeymoon and some time away from work, it was great to get back to monitoring investments, however given the beautiful summer and new bride, posting would have to wait. With that being said, the blog continued to generate about 100 pageviews a day on average, and brought in a solid 3,441 views.

After two tough months in a row (April and May) income wise, June ended up being my strongest month ever, with $355.06 of passive income. My Lending Club and Prosper accounts were all strong, producing a combined $189.32, my highest total since December 2013. Outside of that, my dividends hit their peak month of the quarter, bringing in an additional $165.74.

Again, as with May, I continued my Loyal3 purchases, and made purchases of four positions totaling $310 of KO, MCD, TGT, and WMT. The slight increase over the standard $300 monthly amount was on account of dividends I received being combined with fresh capital. These purchases for my no-cost dividend portfolio added $8.93 to my forward 12-month dividends and brought my Loyal3 portfolio up to $61.22 of forward dividends. Not too shabby given six months of contributing only $300 per month. This should show anyone that every little bit adds up and can generate a growing stream of income, one purchase at a time (check out Snowball City – Loyal3 Dividends).

My overall dividend growth holdings at the end of June reflected a forward 12-month dividend amount of $1,489.70.

July Passive Income and Pageviews:
 
July
Year-to-Date
2014 Goal
Percentage of
Annual Goal
Lending Club
$138.27
$831.99
$1,950
42.67%
Prosper
$17.04
$166.55
$400
41.64%
Dividends
$88.66
$814.69
$1,650
49.38%
Total
$243.97
$1,813.23
$4,000
45.33%
Blog Pageviews
3,403
32,113
100,000
32.11%
Unique Visitors
1,377
10,737
20,000
53.69%

My first post back happened at the end of the July, and while my overall pageviews remained flat, things should turn back around now that I’m back to posting regularly. I am quite amazed that given my lack of posting how consistently people were still swinging by the site, via referral or from a search engine.

For the last month of this three-month roundup, July was again a fairly strong month for my peer to peer lending, yet because it is my low month on the dividend cycle, my passive income dropped in comparison to June’s outstanding performance. Overall, both Lending Club and Prosper dipped slightly, but remained at a level I’d expect going forward. During July, I was able to add $300 to my taxable Lending Club account which should generate some additional interest in a month or two as the money gets invested into additional notes.

Lastly, I began the second half of the year with another $310 of purchases in my Loyal3 portfolio. Again, the increase over the standard $300 was the result of some dividends received in the account. In July, I purchased five different securities, MAT, MCD, PEP, TGT, and WMT. These purchases added $10.21 to my forward 12-month dividends. At the end of July, my Loyal3 portfolio had a forward amount of $75.26, including dividend increases, and my overall dividend growth positions have a forward 12-month amount of $1,516.54.

Passive Income Summary

So, over the three-month period just recapped, I earned $822.98 of passive income, with $365.36 from Lending Club, $91.98 from Prosper, and $365.64 from dividends. Overall, my year-to-date passive income earned is $1,813.23. My trailing three-month average is $274.33 and is reflected by the black line below. You can find below my updated passive income chart showing my overall passive income for the last 19 months, since January 2013.

Rapid Fire Passive Income Updates - Passive Income Since January 2013

Unfortunately, I am well off the mark I set when putting together my 2014 goals. This is primarily the result of me not being able to contribute as much fresh capital as desired due to some other real life concerns, investments, and expenses. To further push me from my goals, my peer to peer lending accounts have not performed as high as anticipated. That being said, my overall passive income in 2013 was $2,643.48, so to be within $800 or so of that total already, with five months left of the year, gives me great confidence that I should surpass that by a wide margin.

As mentioned above, my forward 12-month dividends are $1,516.54 as of the end of July, or an average of $126.38 per month. The below chart shows my growing forward 12-month dividends and dividends received since the beginning of 2013:

Rapid Fire Passive Income Updates - Dividends Received and Foward 12-Month Dividends

Well, that should just about do it. Fairly painless and thankfully a lot easier than big and complicated separate posts! I am looking forward to continuing to share my progress with you, in a more real-time basis now that life has settled down. Hope everyone has had wonderful summer and enjoy the upcoming start to fall!

I have brought all my investment pages up-to-date through July. You can find these updated pages here: Lending ClubProsper, and Dividend Growth. Additionally, you can find all of my monthly updates under the Passive Income Updates page, and all my monthly updates and incremental progress towards my 2014 goals on the Goals page.

Flickr: lost in purple

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Comments

  1. W2R,
    Nice update. Much easier than doing a separate post for each month. It’s good to see your mature LC account income totals as it’s a reminder that P2P is not always smooth sailing. I’m sure it felt good to take a break from blogging to focus on the wedding and new bride. Congrats again.
    -RBD

    • Definitely smoother and a heck of a lot easier. I think I will take some pointers from this as I continue with my regular monthly updates. It was definitely nice to take a break and enjoy what life has to offer. I hope you and your family are doing well!

  2. Love that trend upward over the months. Keep the great work!

    R2R

  3. Hi writing2reality

    Congratulations on getting married and may you have a wonderful life together…

    I like your goals-oriented monthly update — that’s a great way to monitor progress! Keep up the good work and I’m sure you’ll do well with your 2014 goals!

    Cheers
    FerdiS

    • Thanks FerdiS, I appreciate that! I think that constantly identifying progress towards goals allows one to make adjustments to continue to stretch towards them, or push them further should they seem too obtainable. Best of luck with your growing dividend stream as well!

  4. From a passive income perspective you are doing pretty awesome. I think of the millions of people who still have no clue about the power of time, compounding and passive income. In that respect, you are way ahead of many. Keep up the good work and keep feeding the dividend beast. Look forward to your future updates.

    • Thanks DH, I appreciate the support. The most amazing thing is it doesn’t take much to get the ball rolling, but you will never get there unless you start. I’m looking forward to the next couple of years as things continue to progress and the stream of income continues to grow.

  5. W2R,

    Good stuff. A lot better than separating everything out in different posts.

    Looks like the dividend tread is steadily upward. That’s the name of the game!! :)

    Keep it up. And I hope newly married life is treating you very well.

    Best regards.

    • Haha thanks DM! I am glad I decided to lump them together and combine them. Allows me to focus on some of the other joys of life with the new bride and other activities.

      Best of luck as you find a new home in Michigan!

  6. Hi W2R,

    Some great results there! Are you aiming for a particular allocation of passive income from each category of DIvidends, LC and Prosper?

    Looking forward to reading the August update too.

    Congrats on getting married and best wishes for the future!
    -DL

    • Thanks DL! I am not looking for a particular allocation at this point, but would eventually like to see a 4 to 1 ratio between dividends and P2P interest income. I believe dividends to be much more stable and steady, with the P2P interest stepping in and providing that “high yield” boost.

      Appreciate you stopping by and commenting.

  7. Congratulations on your marriage, hopefully you both have a long and happy life together! I’m glad to see you back to posting – I can’t participate in P2P any longer since moving states, so I can continue to live vicariously through others!

    • Thank you! I am hoping we do as well! As for the P2P lending, Lending Club will be having an IPO in the next couple of months, so you should be able to get right back into the game shortly! Until then, I will happily fill you needs vicariously!

  8. Cool update. I’m totally slacking in P2P. Maybe I’ll start again.

    I do a passive income update once a year, and that’s about it because not much happens!

    • Haha knock off the slacking and get back into it! :) Too exciting of a space not to be involved.

      This is true, but for those a bit earlier on in the journey, just keeping track of our intermittent progress is important and motivating.

      Appreciate you stopping by!

  9. “May was one of my lowest passive income months of the last year or so as my peer to peer lending struggles continued, providing one of the lowest months ever.”

    I’m curious about the struggles. Have you seen a higher rate of defaults or having a difficult time buying notes?

    • The past couple of years, I’ve noticed an increase in late notes/defaults in late first quarter into second quarter in my Lending Club accounts. It could be just coincidence, but March and May of this year were hit particularly hard, or the numbers were more apparent given my higher level of tracking returns and income these days. Overall, it is not something that I am worried about as my returns are still well above the 10% mark in both accounts. As for note buying, I am using automated services at this point, so I am not seeing any struggles finding notes to invest in. Additionally, while early, I am seeing great early results from my 2014 filters.

      Thanks for stopping by Mr. 1500!

      • Thanks for explaining!

        Are you using the native automated tools or ones from a 3rd party? I looked at a couple 3rd party ones a while ago, but the fees didn’t seem justified. Like i said though, that was a while ago.

        • No problem! And I use NickelSteamroller for my automated investing. I was able to get set up with him around the beginning of the year and have success with both my Lending Club and Prosper accounts. I refuse to pay to play so to speak. With Lending Club vastly improving their own automated investing option, it doesn’t make sense to go elsewhere if that tool will fit your needs.

  10. Hi Adam,

    A great update! Thanks for posting and things are moving forward for you very well…

    My LC and Prosper accounts continue to do well, and we add fresh capitol to them each month.

    I added KRFT to my Loyal3 account recently. While they have been kind of down and out lately, I feel we are going to see some sort of turn around with them and they do pay a nice dividend.

    I did not add to any of my “core” positions this last month with Fidelity. I am going to focus on building up the Loyal3 account right now…

    One thing you may want to do is write Loyal3 and ask them to start sending out an email when a dividend arrives to your account. I have done this and I think it is worthwhile. Money drops in, I want to know about it.

    Congrats again on your marriage, and it is great to see you writing again.

    Ray

    • Thanks for stopping by Ray. Glad to here your P2P lending accounts are doing well, as well as your Loyal3 account. I did notice Loyal3 added Kraft, and will likely add that position as well, giving me eight in my Loyal3 portfolio.

      I like the idea of getting emails when you receive dividends in your account. Were they able to set this up for you, or were you just requesting it?

      • I just sent them an email asking if this was on their radar. Since I do not look at that account each day, it would be nice to be notified when new monies hit the account. I will update when I hear back from them.

        My LC taxable account sits at 10.58% currently, and my Wife’s Prosper account sits at 6.52%. We are only buying A and B notes for her, and I try and buy B through E notes for the LC account. Overall, I have been pleased with the performance of these accounts. For LC, it seems these days it is harder and harder to pick up lower grade notes without the 60 month commitment. I am trying to keep my portfolio no more that 20% 60 month notes.

        I have auto-purchase turned on with Prosper, and since my Wife only buys Aand B notes, the 36 month notes are easy to get.

        It’s going to be very interesting to see once LC goes public to see how things change from an investor perspective. I hope it is all for the good!

        Ray

        • I just heard back from Loyal3, and wanted to get this posted:

          “Dear Ray,

          Thank you for your suggestion. We find it very important to listen and track all customer suggestions.

          Although this is not something we are currently working on, we will be sure to log this suggestion.

          If you have any other questions please feel free to contact us at XXX-XXX-XXXX.

          Best Regards,

          Customer Support
          LOYAL3″

          Maybe one day…

        • Good to see you are having great success with your portfolios!

          As the underwriting changes, expect the lower grade 36-month notes to continue to be scarce. I am finding the same thing, but am comfortable with a higher allocation than 20%. My IRA is approximately 60/40 to 60 month notes, with my taxable account being the reverse, with a much larger portion in 36-month notes. I do this strategically as I want the higher note churn in the account that I have the most access too and potentially shorter investment time frame. With my IRA, I am not likely to touch it for a couple of decades, so the five year terms aren’t too big of an issue.

          The IPO will change a lot of things, that is for certain.

  11. Glad to see your back on a regular basis! Was reading some old stuff and then the regularity kinda suddenly ended and I didn’t want it to stop. Haha so I am glad to be reading fresh material and more updates on passive income and blog progress. I never thought to have serious goals on pageviews/visitors like you laid out and have promptly gone to implement similar goals.

    • Haha sorry to disappoint! Let me know what you’re reading so I know what you liked!

      I love goals, and think they are the perfect way to motivate, measure progress, and identify weaknesses. Hopefully you can publicly share your goals and track them as well!

  12. One other comment that LOYAL3 is pretty great and I thank you for letting me know about it a while back. Couldn’t be happier with their service.

  13. The overall uptrend in dividend income is great. Keep up the good work! P2P lending is a great idea, too bad it’s not something we can do in Canada via an online broker.

  14. Hey! I too have taken a break =) Glad to see you are still chugging along on your various income streams!

    Take care!

  15. Great looking month! The only interest income that I receive is from my high yield bond fund. Next year I plan on initiating some peer lending type loans just to diversify my income streams a bit. I will probably focus on A credit only, even if it means a bit lower return.

    • Not a bad idea to add some P2P to the mix! Given your proximity to FI, and breaking into P2P Lending, I think A-graded notes are a great place to start. In order to get some slight diversification between borrower type (credit rating), I would recommend you split between A and B borrowers. I make this suggestion not to boost returns, but B borrowers have different credit metrics than A borrowers and will add a depth of diversity to your overall loan pool.

      Let me know if you have any questions as you get started down the road.

  16. Congratulations on the wedding and on a great month with your passive income. It looks like things are heading in the right direction after your hiatus.

    Oh and BTW, I have nominated you for the Liebster Award. If you haven’t already accepted a nomination please come over to my site to get your questions and find out more!

    What’s in the pipeline to finish out the year?

    ~ISP

    • Thank you for the nomination ISP. Given the age of my blog (20 months), I am going to pass to allow it continue circling newer blogs. I do appreciate the nomination however!

      For the rest of the year I am looking to get an additional $7-8,000 invested in my dividend growth portfolio, as well as another $1,000 in my P2P lending accounts. This, plus a rollover I am doing for an old 401(k) should provide a nice boost to get 2015 started off on the right foot. How about yourself?

  17. It’s nice to see that rise on the dividend graph. Great job! $823 in passive income over three months is wonderful. Thank you for the update. And most importantly, congratulations on the marriage.

  18. Great post and nice blog. I’ve just founded it today. Will be a reader!

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