December is done….and I realized that November was done before that and I did not update my monthly report! Too late now. I was extremely busy with unsuccessful house hunting. But lets get on with December.

This is the last month I will have passive income for a while….I have sold all my investments and plan to prioritize buying a home for the family. Based on how that purchase goes through, I will re-enter the market with whatever money is left. This was a tough call but in the face of lots of uncertainties, this is the only reasonable path I see. I think I will again become a beginner in dividend investing….lets see how things go the second time around!!

How much closer did I get to my financial independence targets in December? Lets look at the numbers for December and find out.

Main Takeaways this month

• Passive Income Stream
  • My passive Income for Dec 2018 was $1387.59.
  • Compared to this time last year, the total dividends this year through end of December is 32.69% more than 2017.
  • My first year of developing passive income streams was 2014. December dividends in Dec 2017 was $297.68. It has been a good ride with lots of lessons learnt along the way.
• Additional Investments
  • Investments in taxable accounts
    • Sold some more investments to tax-loss-harvest some gains.
    • Using the proceeds, I continued to rebuild my emergency fund.
  • Investments in tax-deferred account (IRA)
    • Was forced to liquidate some holdings because the 401K plan offerings changed.
    • Invested back into three buckets
      • US Intermediate bond funds
      • International Equity funds
      • US Equity funds
      • Money market fund
        • Building a cash fund because I am seeing a lot of red here.
        • Time to invest more and dollar cost average down the investments will be here soon!!
• Miscellaneous
  • I was walking through all my investment categories and I am seeing red in many of them.
    • Investments in the  GREEN
      • US Equities :
        • VDIGX
    • Investments in the RED
      • International equities:
        • VIHAX, VTIAX, VEMAX
      • REITs:
        • VGSLX, VGRLX
      • Investment Grade Bonds:
        • VFSTX and VFICX
      • Bonds:
        • VTABX
  • In my experience, when I see such broad declines across many investing categories and across many geographies, then it usually indicates that a storm is gathering. The entire world is connected in many ways and non-performing markets (like emerging markets) have a way of spreading fast.
  • It is time to shift focus on how to not only prepare for a downturn but also how to benefit from a downturn.
    • If you have time, you can read this post I wrote a while back.
    • How to prepare for the next recession?
    • Since I have have been house hunting, it is amazing how similar the scenarios I wrote in 2015 are in comparison to today!!