Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! Here is wishing you a happy and prosperous 2017. May all your dreams and aspirations come true!!

December is a happy month for all dividend investors and so it was for me too! Passive income coming into my account is validation for the FI path and also motivation to continue the FI journey with even more vigor! Lets look at the numbers for Dec 2016.

Main Takeaways this month

• Passive Income Stream
  • Passive Income for December 2016 ($1983) is appx 54% higher than December 2015 ($1281.58). This is a big increase and a totally unexpected one.
  • The positive surprise was due to more than expected capital gains distribution from VDIGX and VWELX. I will take it…however they come 🙂
• Additional Investments
  • VEIEX(Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund))
    • Just like prior months, I continued to increase my exposure outside the US. Stocks in United States are way to overvalued and frothy in my opinion. So, I have continued to increase my exposure to countries outside the US. I want my passive income stream to come from many countries all over the world as a good means of diversification.
    •  This time, I invested in a new fund: an Emerging markets fund called VEIEX. This fund invests in many emerging market countries like Brazil, India, Russia, China, Taiwan and 20 more countries around the world.
    • If you want more details on VEIEX, please get it directly from the horse’s mouth: VEIEX.
• Passive Income Goal
  • My 2016 goal was to reach $750 pm in passive income by year end. December is done…and my per-month dividend stands at $801.99. Hurrah!
  • 2016 had lots of ups and downs…including a phase of unemployment and no salary for a month at least, a nasty health issue and what not. So, achieving this goal and exceeding it by a small amount of $50 makes me very happy.
  • Sometime back, I wrote an article called How much freedom did I buy today? I read that article again today and decided to compute the number of hours of freedom I have bought with $801 of passive income per month.
    • My Passive Income goal is
      • $4000 per month (Why $4000 pm?)
      • $48000 per year
      • $131.5 per day ($48K/365)
    • It is the end of 2016 and my passive income is $801 per month.
      • How much freedom will $801 pm buy me?
        • $801/$131.5  =>  6.09 days per month => 146 hours per month => 4.7 hrs a day (31 day month)
      • To put this in perspective, here is the amount of freedom $801 of passive income will buy me:
        • 4.7 hours      of absolute freedom every day!
        • 6.09 days     of absolute freedom every month!
        • 73.08 days    of absolute freedom every year!
        • 2.35 months of absolute freedom every year!
  • For 2017, I will aim for a challenging monthly passive income target of $850 pm. Wish me luck!