I always love reading blogs about other investors’ investment income. Watching other people’s investment income rise is my second favorite thing (the only thing better is watching MY investment income rise!)
Here is our investment income for November, 2020. This report includes income from dividends, interest, mutual funds, and rental properties.
Overview
November was a poor month for our passive income. Our dividend income was up slightly YOY but our rental income was flat.
Without further ado, here’s what our investment income looked like for the month:
Dividend & Interest Income
Total dividend income for the month was $1,648.44. This is up 2.4% from last November. Although all our stocks except Deere paid higher dividends this month than last November, our interest income was down about $75 due to holding less cash.
Our cumulative dividends for the year through the end of November are up 9% over 2019.
Our long-term goal is to have our dividend income increase by 10% per year, and that still looks very possible for the year.
Rental income
This category includes net income from the 6 rental properties that my wife and I own, plus 50% of the income from 4 rental properties that we own with my mom. This number does not include appreciation of the properties or the decrease in the mortgage balance (those numbers show up in the net worth report).
However, this income is net of all mortgage, tax, and insurance payments. That is, this is a true cash flow report for our rental properties.
We decided to make an investment in one of our properties by replacing the carpet with tile in the common areas. The carpet was worn out, and over the long term the tile will be less expensive as it’s significantly more durable and shouldn’t need to be replaced for decades. In addition, we believe it will keep the current tenant happy and in place for a few more years.
Unfortunately, that meant that our total rental income for the month was slightly negative (we had a big deficit for our jointly owned properties and a profit on our other properties).
Cumulatively through November, we have only generated about 43% of the rental income that we did at the same point last year.
As you can see in the table above, our rental income started strong in 2020 but has disintegrated in the last few months.
Total investment income this month
Total (dividend + rental) income = $1,606.94
Things are improving, but we are still substantially behind where we were last year and it’s looking increasingly unlikely that we’ll even hit last year’s number for yearly cumulative total income.
Our total investment income for December, 2019 was just over $20k, so that would put us on track to have total investment income of around $92k for this year. That’s disappointing, as I was hoping to finally break the $100k mark. However, given everything that’s happened in 2020, I’m not too disappointed.
Changes
None
Recap
Another tough month for our rental income. We’ve had a number of expenses across all the properties, plus we’ve made some improvements that we hope will pay off over the long term.
We continue to hold cash that I’m hoping to be able to productively deploy at some point in the not-too-distant future.
How did everybody else do with their investment income this month?
Are there any investments out there trading at reasonable valuations that I should be looking at?