My Mom’s Portfolio : Dividend Income Report Out June 2017

First week of July already passed. Summer vacation for the kids started and my mom has another trip planned for July. Did she travel in June ? Of course she did…She travelled one week on a cruise at the Donau river and visited Budapest and Vienna.

I didn’t know you could make a boat cruise from Budapest to Vienna. I have been to Vienna 6 times when I was in my 20’s and I love the city. I have never been to Budapest though…

Another trip that I should put on my to do list one day. It is definitely not something I will do within the next 15 years as my kids don’t like long boat trips (it gets boring after a while) and my top 5 destinations list is more adventurous.

What happened in June 2017 ?

In the month of June, there were a lot of articles about retirees and the pension system in Belgium. And also in the world…

Did you know that if governments don’t take the appropriate measures that the pension bill will increase to 400 billion dollars. This outcome is the result of a study of the World Economic Forum (WEF). The six most important pension systems in the world (USA, UK, Japan, Netherlands, Canada and Australia) will have a deficit of 224 billion by 2050. Adding China and India will increase the bill to 400 billion. So what’s the solution many governments will be faced with ? As life expectancy will increase, the pension age will have to increase to at least 70 years old…

In Belgium many people retire early. The official age is 65 but many people retire at 60 or earlier.

Did you read the horror story of Peter De Keyzer ? Peter clearly outlines how governmental institutions make unrealistic growth projections of the job market and economic growth to pay the future pension bill ! Taxes are overestimated and assumptions are made to project a “No Worries” future.

The bigger issue here is that the problem gets shifted to a future generation (our kids) who will receive an even bigger problem….

Personally I don’t think the government will be able to pay for the current pension system. The current pension is already insufficient to pay for health care and a pension home going forward. And for me and future generations they only have one option…raise the pension age to 70 ! A scary thought..right?

That means I will have to postpone my retirement travel plans 10 years later than my mom who retired at the age of 60…wow ! Well..the only thing we can do is to build our net worth and portfolio to prepare for an early retirement if ever possible. My dad passed away at the age of 66…so enjoy life when you can !

Now you can read our Dividend Income June 2017 Report Out for my mom’s portfolio.

Dividends received in June 2017

During the month of June 2017, we received 180,78$ dividend income.

This dividend income was composed of 174,18$ monthly payments and 6,60 Dollar from high yield quarterly paying ETF’s . We did NOT achieve the objective of 200$, our new monthly target but that’s okay. Our June dividend payout is twice as much as our month of February and March 2017 payout.

Here you find the overview of all dividend payouts during the year 2017 compared to 2016.

Portfolio management

During the month of June, we executed three orders. First we placed a stop loss limit order under one of our dividend paying fund positions. We placed our stop loss 4% above our purchase price. The stock price went lower and our position got liquidated.

We entered two new positions. We bought a new position in a dividend paying Financials ETF which pays close to 9% per year and we entered a small longterm position in an ETF investing in Greece shares. We believe in US Financials as regulation may be more loosened and the economy in Greece is improving. Unfortunately the financial pressure on a part of the Greece population is incredible high and it is tough to survive.

The total value of the portfolio is still around 20k. We still have more than 35% in cash position for our next opportunities.

Dividend Income Growth

My mom’s dividend income is now growing above the yearly objective of 1200$ mark.  We have now a total of 1416.38$.

 

Going forward

We are now in July 2017. That is a month where quarterly paying dividends come back into play.

Our first goal is to get to our monthly 200$ objective. Can we break our 410,18$ April month payout? That would be nice…honestly I don’t know. We like to keep it simple and always search for opportunities….and focus on the growth of the money paid on my moms’ bankaccount.

When we reflect on all the travel that my mom does, I think it would be great if her portfolio would cover all her travel expenses in the future. Then she doesn’t lose any money and doesn’t get poorer…

How was your month of retirement savings? How do you generate money for your retirement? Let us know….

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