(I’m still working my way through our old updates. I’m planning on posting an update a day until I’m caught up.)

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 September, 2020. This report includes income from dividends, interest, mutual funds, and rental properties.

Overview

August was a fantastic month for our passive income. Our dividend income was great and our real estate investments were profitable again.

Without further ado, here’s what our investment income looked like for the month:

Dividend & Interest Income

Total dividend income for the month was $14,262.51. This is actually down 1.55% from last September. Bank of America has cut their dividend by a bit, and Nike ended up paying their dividend on Oct 1 rather than at the end of September like they normally do.

Our cumulative dividends for the year through the end of September are up 8% over 2019.

My long-term goal is to have our dividend income increase by 10% per year, so we are starting to fall behind our goal.

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.

This month we had the final few expenses for the property work/remodel we did, and the unit is now rented and should start generating solid cash flow starting in October.

Our cumulative rental income is currently 60% LOWER than it was through September, 2019. Whew – that sucks.

As you can see in the table above, our rental income started strong in 2020 but our pace has slowed considerably.

Total investment income this month

Total (dividend + rental) income = $15,142.18

This was a great rebound from last month, but given the poor performance of our rental properties and some dividend cuts, it’s unlikely we will even beat last year’s total income.

Our total income through the end of September is 9% behind last year’s pace. It’s looking increasing unlikely that we’ll get our goal of $115,000 in passive income for 2020.

Changes

I am looking at investing $100k into a venture capital fund. I’ve been trying to find someplace interesting to put some money for the last 6+ months and I think this is a reasonable alternative to the overpriced stock market.

Recap

This was a solid month – great dividend income and our rental income was fine.

Hopefully our rental income will be back on track in October and we’ll finish the year strong.

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?