Monthly updates

Monthly Update #29 (January 2021) – Full Throttle

6 min read

Hello fellow wealth seekers and good folk!

We’re well into the new year, and it’s thus time to look back at how our financials have fared in January 2021.

The winter has truly arrived in Denmark, so we spent some time outdoors in the snow with the kiddo! It was nice to be outside and play in the snow. It reminded me of my childhood, skiing in Norway. I don’t mind the snow – as long as there’s sun and blue sky! 😛 (Unfortunately, it’s not always like that here in Denmark – actually it’s becoming more and more rare).

I still struggle with some sort of inflammation in my hands, so this will be another brief(ish) update.

The month in review

The stock market took a little dip in the end of January, so I seized the opportunity to exchange some of my cash into (hopefully) future cashflow.

I added 2 new Canadian stocks to my dividend portfolio (because I couldn’t chose which one to buy – so I got both 😛 ), Toronto Dominion Bank (TD) and Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS). These stocks only pay dividends 4 times per year, so unfortunately I won’t see any dividend income until a couple of months (I just missed the ex-dividend date for BNS).

I also added another ETF to my index portfolio, and bought iShares MSCI World Minimum Volatility (IQQ0). This is definitely a conservative play, to provide some “stable balance” compared to my other ETF (iShares Global Clean Energy), which is very volatile. So far I’m liking the mix 🙂

Last month I decided to write-off my last crowdlending investments, so this update will not include any income from crowdlending – however, since last month Wisefund has started delaying payouts (I’ve been withdrawing a little every month) and 9/11 project on Crowdestor is now delayed. Oh dear. I’ve now mentally written off the €500 I have with Wisefund completely, and the €950 I currently have with Crowdestor is probably going to be next. Crowdestor however continue to service payouts, and new loans are still funded, so there’s still a little hope left there 🙂

I only have about €200 left with Mintos, so that’s not major hit there. I still very much like the idea of crowdlending, but it’s just not liquid enough for me to continue putting money in that pot. I’m out for now, but maybe I’ll one day return 🙂

In other news, I investigated a potential Property #2 (a residential property) and was fairly close to pulling the trigger (I would have to deploy some serious leverage) but ultimately decided not to. It would have required me to cash out ALL of my stock positions, and in the end the property (while interesting) just didn’t speak enough to my heart, to dump all of my positions in the stock market at this point in time. For the right property, I would be willing to empty all of my accounts (including my stock accounts 😛 ) – but it seems the market for residential real estate in Denmark is just really really difficult these days. There are many big players that pick up everything of real value, so small-time investors is left with the “scraps”.

I’m certain that I will find the right property eventually though, and I am willing to wait (somewhat patiently) for the right project…

The pretty graphs

 

The first page of the infogram has now been replaced with a “stock portfolio” overview (instead of crowdlending). It’s a work in progress, so bear with me 😉

Once again this month saw me converting a good chunk of cash into investments. It seems I’m having issues keeping my cash in my pockets once again *HAHA*. Oh well, stocks are far more liquid than crowdlending was, so I’m ok with putting cash into the market, because they don’t really work much for me sitting in my bank account. My #1 priority however remain getting Property #2 into my portfolio. This could mean I will be forced to sell all of my stocks at one point, if the right property pops up. It’s risky, and obviously I could be “stuck” if the market were to suddenly tank. For now I feel I have a decent margin though, so I’m willing to “gamble” a bit (oops) that my cash are better off in the market than in the bank…

It takes a bit of time creating these infograms, and lately I dread doing it – but once I get started I always enjoy it. It’s a great motivation to look at especially the Net worth page (page-3). I made the first infogram in March 2019, and back then my Net worth was €408.847. 22 months later and It’s now more than €514.000. I’m headed for that €1.000.000 – fast! 😛

My home equity and pension has been developing almost hand-in-hand throughout 2020, but it now seem like (finally) my Pension has taken off a bit. So far my new pension AA is treading  me fairly ok, and I sleep well at night with this new AA – which ultimately is the most important thing, when you follow your strategy. My current pension AA is most likely not going to beat any records, but I’m comfortable having “cash reserves” (at 2% interest) that can be mobilized in case of a(nother) market correction.

 

The boring income statement

Platform Invested Transactions Last month Current value Monthly income
Commodities
GOLD (Coins) € 5.333 € 0 € 5.500 € 5.500
€ 5.500 € 5.500
Stocks (Dividend portfolio)
Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) € 1.000 € 1.000 € 0 € 1.100 € 0
PROREIT (PRV.UN) € 2.018 € 0 € 3.300 € 3.398 € 16
Shaw Communications (SJR) € 2.000 € 0 € 1.900 € 1.921 € 6
Toronto Dominion Bank € 1.000 € 1.000 € 0 € 857 € 0
TransAlta Renewables (RNW) € 2.000 € 0 € 2.500 € 2.600 € 8
€ 7.700 € 9.876 € 30
Stocks (Indices)
iShares Global Clean Energy (IQQH) € 6.667 € 8.500 € 8.961 € 0
iShares MSCI World Min Volatility (IQQ0) € 6.667 € 6.667 € 0 € 6.721
€ 8.500 € 15.682
Properties
The-Many (Brickshare) € 1.333 € 0 € 1.333 € 1.360 € 0
Property #1 € 68.667 € 0 € 68.667 € 68.667 € 0
Fundbricks € 1.333 € 0 € 1.333 € 1.333 € 0
€ 71.360 € 71.360 € 0
Cash
Bank #1 cash (main savings) € 1.200 € 8.250 € 783
Bank #2 Opportunity money € 203 € 0 € 203
€ 8.250 € 986
Total balance € 101.352 € 103.434

 

The (not so) Classic Growth Chart

As always, I include the Classic growth chart for tracking purposes:

As is the norm when we enter into a new year, the Total Balance Growth Chart gets an overhaul. 2021 is no different, and as promised the new charts focus a bit more on the overall growth of the portfolio, rather than the passive income (since it’s not currently a priority). I’ve kept the savings/income bars in the chart though, as I think it provides a great tracking history. It’s a great motivator for me to see those bars “reach for the sky” every month. I’ve had some MASSIVE savings months in the past, the majority of which has been because of some sort of financial windfall (eg. these months are abnormal). I aim to keep my monthly savings additions around €1.000-€1.500, so this month was an average month in terms of savings.

I’ve removed the target value, as it’s not really relevant for this chart. My yearly target for 2021 is to hit a Total Balance of €135.000, which I wrote more about in my goals for 2021 post.

 

In conclusion (TL;DR)

I added some new dividend stocks to the dividend portfolio (BNS & TD), and a “conservative” ETF (iShares MSCI World Min Volatility) to my ETF portfolio.

Last month I evicted crowdlending completely as an asset type in my portfolio, and I’ve been filling the hole with stocks and ETFs. However, my heart remains with real estate, so I continue to be on the lookout for Property #2.

The month saw a small growth in my overall stock portfolio, and I added €1.200 to my savings, which wasn’t too shabby at all.

All in all a decent month, without being much out of the ordinary 🙂

See you next time!

How was your month?!

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