Progress Report

Financial Independence Progress Report for September 2015

/ humblefi / 2 Comments
09/30/2015
Emergency Fund ($72K) 100.0% 100.0%
College Fund (80K) 33.77% 33.94%
Passive Income Streams ($4000 pm) $178.58 pm (08/2014)% $439.96 pm (08/2015)
Retirement Fund ($900K) 54.66% 54.62%
Roof for our Family($1 mil) 00.00%
Medical Fund 00.00%
Life Insurance Done (term life insurance payments initiated)

Main Takeaways

Markets are continuing the roller-coaster ride…the DOW Jones index lost more than 200 points more than once this month. I did take advantage of this down market (another post on this coming up on how).
I expected a downturn and planned for it (here)…but, that did not soften the blow much. At the end of August, my portfolio had taken a beating….so, how did September do?

  • September was a much better month for markets than August.
    • College fund stayed even
    • Retirement funds stayed even.
  • Passive income for September 2015 continued the winning trend vs last year.
    • I compute Passive Income per month as (total passive income in this year) / number of months completed this year.
    • Total passive income is a sum of dividends + capital gains distributions.
    • September Passive Income = (total passive income in this year) / 9 == $439.96 pm.
    • Doing it this way keeps the monthly passive income more realistic because I can instantly know which of my monthly expenses are covered by this amount. I keep a separate tracker for this which I will write about at a later date.
  • I did take advantage of the down markets and added to my investment in VDIGX and VTMFX. Both these investments dipped to their 52 month lows when the DOW Jones index dropped more than 200 points. These new investments will contribute towards dollar cost averaging my holdings. Yeah for that!

Financial Independence Progress Report for August 2015

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09/05/2015
Emergency Fund ($72K) 100.0% 100.0%
College Fund (80K) 35.00% 33.77%
Passive Income Streams ($4000 pm) $148.74 pm (07/2014)% $353.74 pm (07/2015)
Retirement Fund ($900K) 58.51% 54.66%
Roof for our Family($1 mil) 00.00%
Medical Fund 00.00%
Life Insurance Done (term life insurance payments initiated)

Main Takeaways

I came back after a two week travel on work related matters and every day of that trip was a emotional roller coaster. Markets up and markets down…sometimes, within the same day. I expected a downturn and planned for it (here)…but, that did not soften the blow much. At the end of August, my portfolio has taken a beating….but so did a lot of people. So, what were my main takeaways this month?

  • August is a soft month for dividends…so, not much cushion to soften the blow from the down markets. September is a much better month for dividends…so, looking forward to next month.
    • College fund took a hit
    • Retirement funds took a bigger hit.
    • Last month’s zero gain is looking good now 🙂
  • Passive income for August 2015 continued the winning trend vs last year.
    • I compute Passive Income per month as (total passive income in this year) / number of months completed this year.
    • Total passive income is a sum of dividends + capital gains distributions.
    • August Passive Income = (total passive income in this year) / 8 == $53.74 pm.
    • Doing it this way keeps the monthly passive income more realistic because I can instantly know which of my monthly expenses are covered by this amount. I keep a separate tracker for this which I will write about at a later date.
  • I did take advantage of the down markets and added to my investment in VDIGX. My cost basis was close to $23 per stock before the market hit a downturn…but I invested about $1500 at an average of $21.50 per stock. This new investment will contribute towards dollar cost averaging my holdings. Yeah for that!

Financial Independence Progress Report for July 2015

/ humblefi / 4 Comments
07/31/2015
Emergency Fund ($72K) 100.0% 100.0%
College Fund (80K) 35.00% 35.00%
Passive Income Streams ($4000 pm) $139.55 pm (07/2014)% $319.11 pm (07/2015)
Retirement Fund ($900K) 58.51% 59.10%
Roof for our Family($1 mil) 00.00%
Medical Fund 00.00%
Life Insurance Done (term life insurance payments initiated)

Main Takeaways

  • July is a big letdown w.r.t. dividends compared to June….but, there were no rough spots in July on the personal side. Yeah for that!
    • College fund stayed even again…zero progress for the second straight month is not so good…especially since I pump money into it every month.
    • 401K took a hit in June…so, getting a positive gain in July was good news…not by much, but it is greater than zero 🙂
  • Passive income for July 2015 continued the winning trend vs last year.
    • I compute Passive Income per month as (total passive income in this year) / number of months completed this year.
    • Total passive income is a sum of dividends + capital gains distributions.
    • July Passive Income = (total passive income in this year) / 7== $319.11 pm.
    • Doing it this way keeps the monthly passive income more realistic because I can instantly know which of my monthly expenses are covered by this amount. I keep a separate tracker for this which I will write about at a later date.
  • I made a portfolio change in my IRA…moved some of the profits off to Vanguard REIT Index fund (VGSLX). This is my attempt at investing passively in real estate. I am happy I took this decision….somewhere in September/October time frame, I will think of adding to this REIT pile…I am expecting REITs to go down in  price some more around that time. Lets wait and see!

Financial Independence Progress Report for June 2015

/ humblefi / 2 Comments
06/30/2015
Emergency Fund ($72K) 100.0% 100.0%
College Fund (80K) 35.00% 35.00%
Passive Income Streams ($4000 pm) $104.34 pm (06/2014)% $277.37 pm (06/2015)
Retirement Fund ($900K) 59.29% 58.51%
Roof for our Family($1 mil) 00.00%
Medical Fund 00.00%
Life Insurance Done (term life insurance payments initiated)

Main Takeaways

  • For me, June is the second biggest month for passive income. So, when I wrote the progress report for May 2015, I was eagerly waiting the end of June. But, June has its own ideas…it was a rough month on the personal and professional side for me and looking at the FI progress report, it looks like FI progress also has some rough spots.
    • College fund stayed even…which is great news actually considering the performance of the stock market this month. But, still, zero progress was depressing.
    • 401K took a hit in June….especially after a great month of May. A 1% drop is a chunky drop and that stings.
  • Passive income for June 2015 increased quite well in comparison to June 2014, even though the mutual funds did take a hit to the principal. This was the only bright spot this month.
    • I compute Passive Income per month as (total passive income in this year) / number of months completed this year.
    • Total passive income is a sum of dividends + capital gains distributions.
    • June Passive Income = (total passive income in this year) / 6 == $277.37 pm.
    • Doing it this way keeps the monthly passive income more realistic because I can instantly know which of my monthly expenses are covered by this amount. I keep a separate tracker for this which I will write about at a later date.

My investments went a bit down this month. So, I am going to look at my mutual fund investments this month and see if there are any investment opportunities to dollar cost average down the cost. More on this later.

Financial Independence Progress Report for May 2015

/ humblefi / 3 Comments
05/31/2015
Emergency Fund ($72K) 100.0% 100.0%
College Fund (80K) 34.54% 35.00%
Passive Income Streams ($4000 pm) $75.95 pm (05/2014)% $191.60 pm (05/2015)
Retirement Fund ($900K) 56.55% 59.29%
Roof for our Family($1 mil) 00.00%
Medical Fund 00.00%
Life Insurance Done (term life insurance payments initiated)

Main Takeaways

  1. February, May, August and November are months with lowest passive incomes. So, nothing great to write about this month of May. Next month is June, the second biggest month for passive income. So, eagerly waiting the end of next month 🙂
  2. 401K paycheck contribution increases lead to increases in the Retirement Fund and not market performance.
  3. Passive income for May 2015 increased in comparison to May 2014.
    • I compute Passive Income per month as (total passive income in this year) / number of months completed this year.
    • Total passive income is a sum of dividends + capital gains distributions.
    • May Passive Income = (total passive income in this year) / 5 == $191.60pm.
    • Doing it this way keeps the monthly passive income more realistic because I can instantly know which of my monthly expenses are covered by this amount. I keep a separate tracker for this which I will write about at a later date.

Financial Independence Progress Report for April 2015

/ humblefi / 1 Comment
04/30/2015
Emergency Fund ($72K) 100.0% 100.0%
College Fund (80K) 33.15% 34.54%
Passive Income Streams ($4000 pm) $71.84 pm (04/2014)% $172.40 pm (04/2015)
Retirement Fund ($900K) 56.55% 58.82%
Roof for our Family($1 mil) 00.00%
Medical Fund 00.00%
Life Insurance Done (term life insurance payments initiated)

Main Takeaways

  1. Stock funds seems to have bounced back this month. And so has the 529 fund.
  2. Passive income for April 2015 increased in comparison to April 2014.
    • I compute passive income per month as (total passive income for the year) / number of months completed in year. So, for April, it would be (total passive income for the year) / 4. Doing it this way keeps the monthly passive income more realistic.
    • But, $172 pm is far far away from $4000 pm which is my target 😦
    • Compound Income…please hurry up!!

Financial Independence Progress Report for Mar 2015

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03/29/2015
Emergency Fund ($72K) 100.0% 100.0%
College Fund (80K) 33.20% 33.15%
Passive Income Streams ($4000 pm) $41.48 pm (03/2014)% $125.42 pm (03/2015)
Retirement Fund ($900K) 56.35% 56.55%
Roof for our Family($1 mil) 00.00%
Medical Fund 00.00%
Life Insurance Done (term life insurance payments initiated)

Main Takeaways

  1. Stock funds, in general, have not done well. 529 funds went down and Retirement fund barely moved.
  2. Passive income for March 2015 increased in comparison to Mar 2014. The main reason is an extra infusion of capital last year. But, I will take the money…however it comes.

Financial Independence Progress Report for Jan 2015

/ humblefi / 5 Comments

Starting this year (2015), I have changed the tracking method for Passive Income to real dollars per month in passive income rather than percentage values. I.e. I am taking the cumulative passive income received this year and dividing them by 12 months. I removed the percentage tracking because percentage increases may make me feel good, but it is real dollar amount increases that shows reality. Amount per month looks puny at the beginning of the year…but lets keep it real hey 🙂

01/31/2015
Emergency Fund ($72K) 100.0% 100.0%
College Fund (80K) 31.04% 31.46%
Passive Income Streams (target=$4000 pm) $30.36 pm (01/2014)% $46.41 pm (01/2015)
Retirement Fund ($900K) 53.91% 53.34% (lost a step)
Roof for our Family($1 mil) 00.00%
Medical Fund 00.00%
Life Insurance Done (term life insurance payments initiated)

2014 Financial Independence Progress Summary

/ humblefi / 4 Comments

We have reached the end of year 2014 and it is time to look back at some important dates in my humble journey towards Financial Independence.

  • 01/2014
    • Hired a financial planner and got a gut check of where our finances stand
  • 03/2014
    • Tracked my budget for two months
    • Found most of the expenses I had missed in the original budget
  • 04/2014
    • Started my first investments in Vanguard
  • 07/2014
    • Started tracking my progress via this blog
  • 12/2014
    • Wrapping up my first year end of my humble journey to financial independence.

It is very humbling to see where I have come in my first year of the financial independence journey. Admittedly, I did not start with nothing or even negative worth like so many of the bloggers, but I was equally if not more “financially lost” than most of the financial independence bloggers out there.

From when I started tracking my progress (07/2014) to this date (12/2014), what have I achieved? The table below should summarize the progress from 04/2014 to 12/2014 i.e. across 8 months.

04/2014 to 12/2014
Emergency Fund ($72K) 100% 100%
College Fund (80K) 0.00% 31.04%
Passive Income Streams ($4000 pm) 0% 7.36%
Retirement Fund ($900K) 46% 53.91%
Roof for our Family ($1 mil) 0% 0%
Medical Fund 0% 0%
Life Insurance 0% 100% (term life insurance)

I am most proud of having started the Passive Income streams after having studied many of the blogs written by wonderful people like Dividend Mantra, Mr. Money Mustache, Mad Fientist, Financially Integrated, Financial Samurai, Afford Anything, Project 3 million, $25000 Dividends….uff….the list is too long to list. Thanks to all of the people who blog and share their wisdom. And thanks to Vanguard for making the process very easy to learn and start.