May is another slow month. But, since my portfolio rework over March and April this year, dividends for rest of the year are going to look totally different than prior years. May is the first month where the total effect of the changes will be seen. Let us see how the numbers look for May 2018.

Main Takeaways this month

• Passive Income Stream
  • My passive Income for May 2018 is 160% higher than May 2017 🙂
    • In March an April, I redistributed where my funds are invested. Cashed out some gains and converted quarterly dividends to monthly and more importantly more stable and tax efficient dividends. Details in April monthly progress report.
    • The June, September and December dividends are going to be much less. But, the total dividends for the entire year will be higher though.
• Additional Investments
  • Investments in taxable accounts
    • Nothing new to report here as I am out of cash 😐
    • In April, I took money from my emergency and home down payment funds and deployed them to generate more passive income for me.
    • From this month on, I need to rebuild my emergency fund.
  • Investments in tax-deferred account (IRA)
    • In the last few months, I have taken some profits and set up a a cash fund to take advantage of the next investing opportunity. Unlike 2008, I want to have a cash fund ready to take advantage of lower asset prices in the next bear market!!
    • I bought some more of VEIPX (Vanguard Equity Income Fund) and VIHAX (International High Dividend). Both are down a few % points this year and I took advantage of this to dollar cost average down my investments.
• Miscellaneous
  • I had to revise up the money allotted for the college fund. Looking at the projected cost of college, I will not have the capacity to fully fund college. But, my goal is to fund at least some of it.
  • I have started a new way of tracking numbers for the next phase of my financial independence journey…will talk about this over the next couple of weeks.