2019 is wining down my financial amigos, and with it soon comes my first year as a blogger, or well … “sort of” I should say 😉
November has been the quietest month of the whole year I believe. My girlfriend spent some time off in a meditation centre and visiting her family in the Czech Republic, so I had more time for myself that I used to play with my returns, and write this extensive post as a personal development exercise. I am also working on an unprofessional risk/reward self-assessment for my alternative investing portfolio.
If you are wondering why I’ve got a snowman on the cover image is not because it is snowing, but because I watched the Snowman film inspired by Jo Nesbo’s book recently. Don’t worry though, I am not an assassin (yet?) :p
Here is a quick recap of November numbers:
- Portfolio value: 105,779 € (+4.2%) – details HERE
- Monthly Transactions (Deposits – Withdrawals): 2,180 €
- Monthly growth from investments: 1,402 €
- Passive income: 427 € (-28 % ) – details HERE
- Savings rate: 68.34 %
Let’s get into the details.
Jump to
Table of Contents
Portfolio Performance
| Platform | Inception date | Investment Description | Value October | Transactions | Growth | Value November | Return November | Cumulative Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Property Partner | 01/2018 | Buy-To-Let | 6,358 | 0 | 20 | 6,392 | 0.32 % | 4.88 % |
| Stocks & Shares ISA | 03/2018 | Stocks & Bonds | 54,908.6 | 912.6 | 860 | 56,356.2 | 1.56 % | 13.8 % |
| Housers | 03/2018 | BTL and Dev. Loans | 6,751 | 25 | 15 | 6,791 | 0.22 % | 5.8 % |
| Grupeer | 05/2018 | General P2P Lending | 8,593 | 0 | 94 | 8,687 | 1.1 % | 24.3 % |
| Mintos | 08/2018 | General P2P Lending | 1,364 | - 1,046 | 10 | 329 | 0.73 % | 13.5 % |
| Crowdestate | 08/2018 | Development Loans | 1,739 | 353 | 11 | 2,104 | 0.65 % | 12.7 % |
| Envestio | 10/2018 | Business & Dev. Loans | 5,079 | 0 | 75 | 5,155 | 1.5 % | 21.4 % |
| Fast Invest | 10/2018 | Consumer Loans | 1,139 | 0 | 12.05 | 1,151.2 | 1.06 % | 15.1 % |
| Trading 212 | 03/2019 | Dividend Investing | 1,633.6 | 0 | 28.9 | 1,662.5 | 1.77 % | 53.24 % |
| Estateguru | 05/2019 | Development Loans | 3,081.7 | 0 | 34.58 | 3,116.3 | 1.12 % | 4,4 % |
| Abundance | 05/2019 | Business Loans (Ethycal) | 573 € | 58.5 | 0 | 636.5 | 0 % | 1.7 % |
| RateSetter | 08/2019 | General P2P Lending | 1160 € | 0 | 16.11 | 1,186.11 | 1.38 % | 1.38 % |
| Crowdestor | 08/2019 | Business & Dev. Loans | 2,290.5 | 0 | 35.88 | 2326.4 | 1.57 % | 3.42 % |
| Robocash | 08/2019 | General P2P Lending | 2,037.2 | 2000 | 13.47 | 4050.6 | 0.33 % | 2.53 % |
| Wisefund | 09/2019 | Business Loans | 2,098.1 | 0 | 32 | 2130.1 | 1.5 % | 5.03 % |
| Freetrade | 09/2019 | REITs | 131.2 | 40.95 | 3.28 | 176.5 | 2.48 % | 5.62 % |
| Evoestate | 10/2019 | Buy-To-Let | 315 | 300 | 0 | 615 | 0 % | 3.33 % |
| UK Pension | 10/2019 | 100% Global Equity Fund | 2,520 | 308.4 | 140.28 | 2375** | 5.56 % | 31.9 % |
| TOTAL | 101,856 € | 2,180 € | 1,402 € | 105,799 € | +1.38 % | -37.2 % * |
*Includes Algotechs loss
**20 % discounted as future tax payments
As commented on my October update, I sold my Micron (MU) shares and started building a tiny dividend investing portfolio. The good thing of living in the UK is that we have £2000 tax allowance in dividends every tax year besides the £1000 tax allowance in interest income. So, why not to start taking benefit of this?
In November I purchased my first two US dividend aristocrats stocks: AT&T (T) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). These are both giant companies that have kept raising dividends for many years out of company earnings. In December I plan to purchase the third one. Any suggestion?
Back to the table, we can see that once again my best performer is my UK pension +5.56%. I’ve introduced a 20% discount in the value of it to compensate for future tax payments from withdrawals. This is to represent a more accurate net worth value in the books.
On the alternative side of my portfolio, my REITs (Freetrade), Crowdestor and Wisefund are my three top performers for November. Some of my loans in Crowdestor pay quarterly, hence the better than usual return.
The GBP/EUR currency ratio grows from 1.16 to 1.17, boosting the value of my Euro portfolio.
Stocks & Shares ISA
My stocks & shares ISA returns £735. The market gain is £687 and bonds and cash interest £47,7.
As usual, I paid myself £780 out of my payslip as an automatic regular monthly payment.
The portfolio value grows £1515 in total. It’s motivating to see the snowball effect as time goes by. My monthly returns are nearly as much as my monthly contributions 🙂
My best ETF performer is the S&P 500 UCITS (VUSA) +21.4%.
The worst performer so far is Global Value Factor UCITS ETF (VVAL) -0.06%
So far this year:
- S&P 500 Index : +25.3 %
- My balanced Vanguard ISA: +11.5 %
The difference in returns is noticeable now, but that doesn’t change my strategy of keeping a balanced portfolio until the market crashes or we buy a house.
See further details and the portfolio chart in my Vanguard page
Property Partner
Rental Income from Property Partner is £18.68 (£18.66 in Oct). Steady. This income is tax-free as a UK resident.
This month the shareholders of the property College Mews, Lincoln (me included) conducted a shareholders vote to decide whether we wanted to sell the property after receiving an unsolicited offer that would give an 11% net capital gain. to investors.
We were given a few days to vote, and after that period Property Partner sent us an email to share the results with us. A large majority of 66.8% (me included again) voted to sell, however apparently a majority of 75% is required before going ahead.
This was the first time that I participated in a vote as an equity real estate investor through Property Partner. It transmits professionalism and reliability, even though it comes at its own costs (high fees).
See further details and the portfolio chart on Property Partner page
Related content: Property Partner Review & Property Partner Stabs Their Small Investors
Housers
Income from Housers in November was 15€. This is income after-tax as it is automatically deducted from the platform.
My first buy-to-let investment was sold, Estadio Nacional. The difference here with Property Partner is that there was neither vote nor explanation of why it was sold. In addition to the fact, the returns underperformed the initial estimation. The initial stage was 120 months with an estimated IRR of 6.29 % when the property has been sold after the 20th month with an actual IRR of 4.15 %, which is rather disappointing.
So far, 3 out of my 5 exited projects have outperformed, whereas the other 2 have underperformed. Tight results.
See further details and the portfolio chart on Housers page.
Related content: Housers Review
Estateguru
Estateguru income is 34.6 EUR (17.4 EUR last month). My portfolio consists of 59 loans (57 last month), where 4 are delayed on payments (7 last month). 2 loans are delayed between 4-15 days and other two between 16-30 days. None of my loans has defaulted.
I couldn’t be happier with this platform so far.
See further details and the portfolio chart on Estateguru page.
Crowdestate
My Crowdestate portfolio earns 11 EUR (17 EUR last month).
Income decreases after my last month sell-off of loans on the secondary market.
In November I deposited fresh cash that I used to purchase loans from the secondary market and to invest in the first development loan in the platform from Romania with a 14.7% expected return and monthly repayments.
Now, my Crowdestate portfolio consists of 13 loans (11 last month), where two are delayed by 1 day.
See further details and the portfolio chart on Crowdestate page
Evoestate
I’ve invested in two buy-to-let properties from Brickstarter. You can see them here and here (the latest is funding at the time of writing).
None of them has produced any rental income yet.
For any new reader, I plan to build a small BTL portfolio close to 4k or 5k with Evostate. I would expect it to be rather safe in a market downturn scenario.
See further details and the portfolio chart on Evoestate page
Mintos
Mintos returns 10 EUR (13 EUR previous month)
UK residents are still not allowed to invest in Mintos, so I am just withdrawing any free cash until further notice.
Many of my remaining loans were sold on the secondary market in November. My Mintos account value is only 329 EUR, which is less than my total earned income from Mintos.
Mintos keeps growing and expanding their loan originators base further. Earlier in November, we were sent a newsletter with the statistics of loan supply for January-October 2019. I’m attaching the link here if interested in knowing more.
I asked the affiliate marketing team about any news concerning the license required to operate in the UK. Apparently, the UK is not clear on what licence a company like Mintos must have, and that’s making the whole process take longer than it should. Mintos is a marketplace for loans, it is a new model in a very dynamically changing finch-tech sector. It’s nothing like RateSetter or any other British peer-to-peer lending company.
Hopefully, this whole process won’t take longer than Brexit, right?
See further details and the portfolio chart on Mintos page
Related content: Mintos Review
Grupeer
Grupeer has performed solidly, manufacturing another welcoming 94 EUR (96 EUR previous month) of passive income in October.
The platform said goodbye to one of their start-up loan originators, Monify. I got several loans from this LO, I am glad to see that my payments haven’t been affected by this decision.
In exchange, Grupeer added a new loan originator – Lime Loans from South Africa offering short and mid-terms 12% loans with an interesting 1% cashback.
It also seems they’ve just introduced a Grupeer rating which shows the relative risk level of their loan originators. I’ll need to keep a close eye into this.
See further details and the portfolio chart on Grupeer page
Related content: Grupeer review after 15 months of investing.
Envestio
Income from Envestio decreases down to 75 EUR (80 EUR last month).
This is due to the 644 EUR I withdrew last month. Nothing to worry about.
I reinvested the earned interests in the latest development loans yielding 17.9% and 19%.
See further details and the portfolio chart on Envestio page
Fast Invest
Another solid month for Fast Invest returning 12.05 EUR (12.2 EUR previous month).
My auto-invest is set to invest in 13% loans or higher and it’s working fine, no cash drag issues.
Check out my returns after 13 months of investing and portfolio chart on Fast Invest page
Robocash
October is my forth robo-month 😉 returning 13.47 EUR (29.15 EUR last month).
I must admit that I have been calculating Robocash income wrong. Besides the earned interest, the dashboard also shows the accrued interest by today. I took this interest as passive income in my previous updates, when in fact is money that hasn’t been paid to me yet.
I deposited 2000 EUR in my Robocash account this month.
Current loans: 3013.24 EUR
Overdue loans: 1037.42 EUR
See further details and the portfolio chart on Robocash Page
RateSetter
RateSetter paid the first interest payment in November returning £13.77
I allocated all my funds in a Max Account which gives a 5% interest. This is pretty low when compared with other P2P lending platforms, but at least the returns are tax-free as long as I reside in the UK and I don’t surpass the £1000 annual interest allowance.
Furthermore, I should receive a £100 bonus after a year of investing with RateSetter that should propel my returns up to 15%.
See further details and the portfolio chart on RateSetter page
Crowdestor
Crowdestor returned 35.88 EUR (21.25 EUR last month).
The platform issued new renewable energy loans, fact that eases my anger on them after the loan funded for a fur processing company.
I will likely increase my portion on Crowdestor if they don’t mess up with any other unethical loan.
See further details and the portfolio chart on Crowdestor page.
Wisefund
Wisefund returns 32 EUR (37.8 EUR last month)
The platform has been working on a technical improvement update on automated deposit processing in November. We were kindly asked to not deposit any funds during the process.
This hasn’t affected my monthly income.
See further details and the portfolio chart on Wisefund page
The €45K Project Fund
As usual, my savings on tobacco as a non-smoker went straight away to my Abundance account. That’s another £50 that I invested in the latest ethical investment that will make low carbon houses affordable. That’s much better than burning cigarettes, isn’t it?
The Gentleman’s Family Finances Blog wrote a post earlier in November detailing what this project is about. If you feel interested to know more, it may be worth reading for you.
For this tax year, the whole €45K Project Fund is invested in Abundance, as I am using an IF ISA account (tax-free).
So far, I have recovered the 1.41% of my loss = 636 EUR
44,364 EUR left to go.
See further details and the portfolio chart in the Abundance page
Related content: How I FIRED 45k with algo trading, Investing Ethically, Recovering €45K through Investing in Myself First
Savings Rate
My total net income in November was £2,139 (2,502 EUR) and my expenses were as little as £677.5
This month I’ve been able to save £1462, which results in a whopping savings rate of 68.34%
That’s another record for the second month in a row 🙂
Now you may be thinking, how is it possible that this Spaniard spends less than usual during the black Friday month?
Well first, my girlfriend being away helped, as it was quieter than usual. Also, my black Friday expenses aren’t included (albeit I didn’t purchase much). I calculate my savings rate from payday to payday. I always get paid on the last Thursday of the month, which is generally before the month ends. I am doing it this way to relief work from the latest or the first day of the month, as on these days I am normally busy recording numbers from the platforms or writting the update (as it is the case today), so any work I can get done before is welcome.
So for me, November started on Friday 1st and finished on Thursday 28th, just before the black Friday on 29th.
In December I expect a much lower savings rate as it is obviously Christmas and we are also spending time in Spain and Andorra (a lot to spend on eating real food! Hihi)
My savings rate average is 44.87% (42.52% last month). I don’t have a chance to reach my 50% goal before the year ends, but that’s fine, I’ll try to do better in 2020 🙂
Health as a non-smoker
My exercising time keeps decreasing and so does my health. If it is not windy, it’s rainy and if not I am feeling lazy. That shows how important is to not break an exercising routine for too long.
My heartbeat increased from 60 bpm to 63 bpm. When I checked it last Friday I couldn’t believe it has increased so much since the 57-58 bpm from back in the summer. So, I found a new route I can follow up on my runs even during the dark winter, as long as it doesn’t freeze (I wouldn’t like to write my next update from the hospital after a slip and fall accident).
Me and Mr Belly continue our personal fight, he is been getting more prominence lately and seems also happy with Christmas approaching.
Help!
The donation milestone
Some more people used my links this month, thank you for doing so.
My total income since January from Targetcicle is 169.61 EUR (134.42 EUR last month)
Besides this income, I’ve got £3 from Property Partner, 75 EUR from Housers, 30 EUR from Evoestate and 8 EUR from Trading 212
That makes a total blog income of 286.12 EUR, a bit closer to my 1000 EUR donation goal.
December is the last month of my donation milestone. I am pondering about donating the money to a local organitation instead of the Bill Gates one I stated in the beginning.
Joining links and offers
Property Partner (share up to £1500, details here)
Estate Guru (0.5% bonus on your investments made during the first 3 months)
Mintos (0.5% bonus on your investments made during the first 3 months – UK residents temporally not accepted)
Envestio (5 EUR first deposit bonus + 0.5% bonus on your investments made during the first 270 days)
Wisefund (0.5% bonus on your investments made during the first 270 days)
Housers (25 EUR cashback for a minimum investment of 50 EUR)
Evoestate (15 EUR cashback for a minimum investment of 50 EUR)
Grupeer
Fast Invest
Crowdestate
Crowdestor
Trading 212 Trading platform UK and EU (Free shares worth up to $/£/EUR 100 )
Freetrade Trading platform UK (Free share worth up £200)
Until next time
I wish you all a great Christmas time with your friends and family. It’s time to reward ourselves with a controlled “overspending and overeating” budget, but don’t forget to overspend time on doing things that are for free too, like sharing the love to others. At least, that’s what I’ll do.
HO HO HO!
Thanks for reading! 😀
You can follow me on twitter where I share some thoughts from time to time and connect with other like-minded people. You can also follow me on Facebook.
Disclaimer: Most of the links on this post are affiliate or referral ones. If you join to a platform using my affiliate links you may get a bonus or commission and so could I. I’m going to donate any commission I get throughout 2019 to a charity. You can read more about the purposes of this blog here and where this money is going to go here. Thanks.