My 2016 earnings review

With 2016 now over, it's time to give you an update on my first full year in the investing game.

My 2016 has, for many reasons, been extremely successful.
For example, in this year I started to envision my master plan for financial freedom. I also started to keep a detailed progress report to continuously monitor my progress and I now want to share few details with you.

First of all, let's take a look at the total net dividends collected.

As you can see in the graph above, my best month of the year has been December, followed by August and July.
In December I collected £68.42 net, an astonishing result considering how recently I started my investing journey!

My cumulative performance also shows something interesting. The payment rate is accelerating, and this is an expected outcome considering that I have started new positions throughout the year.

Some of the positions started have yet to pay their first dividend, so even if I decided not to invest a penny in 2017, my annual performance would still outperform last year's! This gets me really excited 😊.

The total for the year amounts to £400.72, or £33.39 per month on average. This is a truly respectable number, a number that I can't wait to beat this year!.
One of my objectives for 2017 is in fact to collect over £750 in net dividends, a goal that should not be impossible to achieve if the markets continue to behave.

You can have a look at my full list of objectives for 2017 here.
Thanks for reading.

Yours,

The Gentleman Investor

My objectives for 2017

Hello everybody,

As discussed in my previous article, it's now time to share my objectives for 2017!

You may know that I am an avid reader of investment blogs and publications. It is a healthy habit to compare ourselves every now and then to other bloggers who are too racing towards their financial independence.
Something I noticed in the way my peers set their annual objectives, is that they tend to include a mix of goals ranging from personal growth to travel and life experiences and, of course, financial achievements.

At the end of the day, life's purpose is to grow as individuals, learn new things (often from those who are better than us), enjoy new experiences and widen our minds. At least, this is my vision of life's purpose.

With this approach in mind, I decided to consider adding some personal growth objectives to my 2017 goals - despite the fact that I still consider this blog as a pure financial journal.

Enough introduction, let's take a look at the new goals!

2017 objectives

I see my 2017 as a continuation of 2016. As you may have read in my blog, my 2016 ended pretty well, smashing all my objectives (some of which had already been revised upwards mid-year).
For this reason, many objectives are an updated version of previous goals. However, I hope you'll agree with me that the contents of these revised targets are still ambitious to achieve.

1. Achieve $2250 in projected passive income (this is calculated over the following 12 months period).
   This is up from $1,500 in 2016. I think I could have been more ambitious with this one last year, but I would consider myself lucky I was able to hit the number in 2017 given the recent uncertainty affecting the markets and the late euphoria which caused market overvaluation. Also, in 2016 I took the hit with my Santander current account. In fact, Santander cut its interest rate paid to current account from 3% to 1.5%, therefore greatly reducing my income from this source. I was projecting to get to the end of 2016 with circa £600 in passive interest, whereas I am now facing about £240 of max passive interest when considering also the increased fee for the product. #reallydisappointedwithSantander for ruining my plans.
   
   
2. Increase my Net Worth by 70% over my 2016 result.
   This target would take me to a Net Worth of £90,000 by the end of the year! This is one of my most impressive targets I think. Who would have thought that in just a few year I'd come this close to be worth 100K?
   2017 may be the big one.
   
   
3. Save in excess of £6,500 each quarter.
   As my goal of £2,500 per quarter was achieved with success in 2016, I have decided to up my game this year. I think this goal is now very difficult, but if you know me a little bit you'll understand that I like challenges.
   
   As a partial addition to number 3., I have also added the objective to save over £26,000 over the course of the next 12 months. This is simply the sum of the 4 quarters as per point 3, however I understand that throughout the year I may not be in condition to achieve the quarterly task, but still overachieve the overall target for the year thanks to better performance in other quarters. In such condition, I would consider the objective achieved.
   
   
4. Collect £750 in net dividends.
   This is a new goal. In 2016 I collected £400 net from dividends paid to my account. Not bad, but now I really want to see some progress in this area.
   
   
5. Get a bit more serious about blogging.
   This blog started with no ambitions. I still want it to be my space to talk about my personal finances and offer to other people my honest view. I would like it to become a space where readers have an opportunity to understand my point of view, to track their personal progress against mine and maybe get new ideas or inspirations about investing.
   I really believe that investing your money will be the greatest decision you will ever make, and I want to offer my example for those willing to start. Also, I am upping my game on the other objectives, so it only makes sense to spend some more time taking care of the blog and refining my thoughts over new investment ideas and analysing upcoming opportunities.
   
   
6. Learn something new an get some qualification to add to my cv. Lately I have developed few interests, like learning to code, learning a new language or learning to trade options/active trading.
   I haven't really decided yet what I want to pursue exactly, but rest assured you'll be the first to know!
   
   
7. Keep diversifying my investment portfolio. In 2016 I started the diversification process by picking new stocks covering different industries and business catgories. I am now in posession of a decently diversified stocks portfolio which should be able to maintain its value during bearish market conditions. This is what I hope at least!
   But now I think it's time to start investing/allocating my financial resources onto other channels. The first that came up to mind is gold. In moments of political and financial turmoil, Gold is considered a stable asset class. It generally appreciates during tough times, and my forecast for the next 12-24 months is that gold should outperform the main stock market indexes.
   Keep an eye on this space as I have got few good ideas to implement over the course of the next couple of months. 

This is it for the moment.

2017 will be a great year for investors and I can't wait to start working on my new objectives!

Good luck to everybody.

Yours,

The Gentleman Investor

2017

It has been a while since my last post.
What can I say, I got a bit busy during the second half of the year... sorry!

First of all let me thank @Liquid Independence as he posted a nice comment reminding me that I have I job to do here, that is to keep my readers updated :-) Thanks Liquid, you rock man!

So, the new year is the perfect excuse to take a look at 2016 and draw some conclusions.
2016 has been a great year professionally. The new job brought some refreshed ambition and higher pay! With the increased earnings I have been able to boost my savings, investments and ideas.
The the money starts flowing, you have a chance to become creative.

Let's start from my 2016 objectives. I could not be more excited to say that I smashed them!
I thought that some of them were really tough, but it looks like I am a good climber.

My 2016 objectives were:

• Generate $1500 in passive income (projected over 12 months)
• Increase my net worth by over 100%
• Save in excess of £2,500 each and every quarter of 2016
• Save more than £25,000 in calendar year 2016

On 31st Dec 2016 my end of year snapshot was:

• $1517 in projected passive income over then next 12 month period
• My net worth at the end of the year was £52,035 (which represents a +107% increase year on year)
• I have consistently managed to beat my saving target for the four quarters
• I saved a total of £26,892, part of which was invested

I feel very proud for the progress made during the last 12 months.

To help me achieve my passive income goal, I purchased the following stocks over the second half of 2016:

x15 Johnson&Johnson (JNJ) @ $117.20

x30 Verizon (VZ) @ $50.00

x35 AT&T (T) @ $36.50

x35 Unilever (LON:ULVR) @ GBX3200

x10 iShares J.P. Morgan $ Emerging Markets Bond ETF (LON:SEMB) @ GBX8650

I am very excited for some of the names above, as I think they really are quality stocks that any dividend investor should own.

Last but not least I am working on the 2017 objectives. I will soon publish a new post to introduce them.

As always, thanks for reading.
Yours,

The Gentleman Investor