August has come and gone and it is time to look at the numbers for August 2017.

Main Takeaways this month

• Passive Income Stream
  • My passive Income for August 2017 is approximately 36% higher than August of 2016. Past investments in VCADX (CA MUNIs) and VWUIX (National MUNIs are the main reasons for the increase.
  • But, since I re-distributed the sale proceeds to other funds that follow the regular quarterly payout cycle, my total dividends for 2017 year-to-date is higher than that for 2016 at the same time. So. nothing to worry!
• Additional Investments
  • Captured gains in taxable account and paid off car loan
    • Sold rest of Tax managed Balanced fund (VTMFX) to capture capital gains and add to my cash fund.
  • Paid off our car-loan
    • I did not find any deals worthy of investing among the mutual funds I own….out here in the US and outside. So, instead of keeping it in the bank and/or a money market fund, I repaid the remaining portion of our car loan! Now, every month, I will have some extra savings to be applied for home down payment and/or to replenish the emergency bucket.
  • Investments in tax-deferred account
    • Last month, I sold portions of some funds to capture accumulated capital gains and created a cash fund inside my IRA.
    • I deployed some of the cash in the cash fund to buy two international mutual funds…the US funds have not come down from their super expensive valuations.
      • VTIAX: Vanguard Total International Stock Fund
        • Lower expense ratio
        • Covers the entire international market (large, medium and small caps)
      • VIHAX: Vanguard International High Dividend Fund
        • Higher expense ration
        • Covers a portion of the international market only (mainly large caps)
    • The curious reader may ask: why not just invest everything in the cheaper VTIAX?
      • I am following my old rule of risk diversification….in the same class of mutual funds (international market), I always have two funds compete for your money.
    • So, both VTIAX and VIHAX will now compete with each other to make more money for me 🙂
• Add to the cash fund..details 
  • I started a small cash fund accumulated a couple months back to take advantage of any market dip(s) in the US market. This month, I again captured some gains in a couple of my investments to add to this cash fund. 
  • Now, the waiting game begins for a significant stock dip. What is a big dip? I will wait to employ my cash fund at least until the NAV drops 10% on any of my passive income streams.