July has come and gone without much fanfare. After June, one of the two biggest months of the year for dividends, July feels disappointing actually. But, let the numbers speak rather than my emotions 🙂
| Emergency Fund |
100.0% |
| College Fund (80K) | |
| Passive Income (2015 vs 2016) | |
| Retirement Fund ($900K) | |
| Roof for our Family($750K) | 00.00% |
| Medical Fund | 00.00% |
| Life Insurance | Done (term life insurance payments initiated) |
Main Takeaways this month
- Portfolio Increases (in green above)
- I cannot believe that any of the positive gains will ever stand the test of time. It is the markets going crazy on us with insane valuations. So, I will not waste my time talking about it.
- Portfolio changes
- I did some more portfolio changes….hopefully for the last time this year. The main idea was to capture some gains and move them into a couple of new fund options. And also set aside some money for the cash fund.
- I wrote about this here. My new mutual fund investments are VWELX and VDAIX.
- Cash Fund
- I started a cash fund in May since I anticipated a few days of down market towards the end of June…with the interest rate drama, Britain’s exit from Euro decision, etc. I used the fund completely to buy the Brexit dip.
- I have started a new cash fund in July again…nothing big..two hundred dollars a month max. And some cash to seed the fund came from capturing some of the gains from some of my mutual funds.
- Passive Income Stream
- Passive Income for July 2016 ($579.61) was surprisingly lower than that of July 2015 (604.87). I was wondering why this happened…..and then I remembered on seeing the numbers. When I was jobless early this year, I sold some ESPP stock I had and used the money to buy VWITX (National MUNIs). I got to sell some ESPP without any additional taxes….the espp sale replaced some portion of my salary loss. The ESPP stock dividends are slightly more than the National MUNIs but at tax time, the MUNIs will score because the gains are tax free. I got the diversification I wanted but it came as a surprise.
- My goal is to reach $750 pm by end of this year…it is already July…and my monthly dividends are appx $433 pm.
- Target Dividend
- $750 pm => $9000 pa
- Current Dividend
- $433 pm => $5196 pa
- Balance to make up in the next 5 months
- $9000 – $5196 => $3804 over the next 5 months
- I think I might squeeze through….inspite of July’s weak dividends.
- Lets hope for the best!!
- Target Dividend
Humble FI 
Hello, Good to see that you are still reporting regularly on your progress. Any thoughts on the recent news that Vanguard just closed their Dividend Growth fund?
Also, I have read your post about which funds you have in the different levels. But, I am curious about what percent of your investment portfolio you have in each fund. Would you please share?
Sorry if this message appears twice. I saved it earlier, but i didn’t see it when I reloaded the page. So i assume something broke when i tried to save it the first time.
Thank you,
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Thanks for dropping by. Just catching up on comments after a work related trip.
Vanguard closing the fund was a good move I think….especially since I am already in 🙂 Seriously, I think that if tonnes of money pours into a fund, the fund manager is forced to buy stocks and stocks today have very inflated asset prices. So, by closing the fund to new investors…more specifically new big-money investors, Vanguard is giving the fund manager some freedom to not buy overvalued assets. Lets see if this reflects in the fund performance at the end of the year.
I can surely share the percentages of the different funds. I have been asked about this a couple times already. Let me make a post on this soon. Thanks for asking.
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Hey HumbleFI,
Looks pretty good on most of your measurements and you know the exact reason why your dividends are down, you are aiming to build it up – so no worries there.
The cash fund is a good idea and I think everyone should keep at least a little amount of gunpowder dry for the next dip to hit up buying.
Tristan
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Thanks for dropping by Tristan! You are right that measurements on my portfolio are tracking the expectation. My portfolio is getting into the boring phase now. I am done with all my portfolio adjustments for this year and more importantly, I am out of cash 🙂 I will accumulate some money in my cash bucket and wait for the next significant dip.
Best wishes for marching towards your goals!
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