With the COVID-19 pandemic, March 2020 was a very interesting month for people who are investing their money in the stock market. The stock market fall significant and many people lost a very high amount of money. But people only lost their money because they sold their shares. One says, you only loose if you sell. It was also my first stock market crisis and to be really honest I was not afraid of the situation. In opposite, I used the situation to buy more shares of companies with discount. Since I am following the dividend strategy, buying shares with discount is what we all are looking for.
In March I’ve created positions in my portfolio with 5 new companies. Exxon, Royal Dutch Shell, Wells Fargo, Aflac and Simon Property Group made it in my portfolio. I had them on my watchlist for quite long time and I used the chance to buy them with discount. If you are interested in my watchlist, feel free to sign up at the end of this post for my weekly newsletter, where I share my watchlist of the week.
Coming back to my financial report March 2020: In March I’ve earned 42,81 Euro in dividends and invested it directly into real estate crowdfunding platforms. My plan is to diversify my money into 4-5 money “baskets” within this year. With the investment in the real estate platforms, I’ve not only reached my first goal of 2020 but also created my 2nd money basket.
My Story
I’ve started to learn more about saving and investing in the beginning of 2018. I am proud what I have achieved in the past 1,5 years:
- I am debt free.
- Since the beginning of 2019 I’ve increased my savings rate to have a small emergency fund
- I’ve increased my savings and investment rate to 34%.
- I’ve started my dividend portfolio in 2018 and increased my dividend income YoY.
- In January 2020 I’ve invested my first money in 2 real estate crowdfunding platforms.
Of course these are the basic and mandatory steps towards financial freedom, but I am proud where I am so far.
I want to share with you my monthly financial reports to follow my journey to early retirement.
Savings & Investment Rate
In the beginning of 2018 I just saved a little amount per month without having a real sense behind. I just saved, because I was supposed to save.
Reading the book “I Teach You To Be Rich” from Ramit Sethi changed my money mindset and I started to invest and created my own money flow.
You can find my Mr. Financial Freedom Automatic Money Flow in following post: Financial Freedom In Germany – How To Start Your Journey
In March my savings & investment rate was 9%. It is almost a 40% decrease to the month before. In any case, all my saving plans were executed as usual.
Invested € in March 2020
This month I have invested 6298€.
6117€ into my dividend portfolio, 100€ into my ETF portfolio, 40€ in real restate crowdfunding platforms and 40€ in an education course.
I’ve increased my positions on the following stocks:
$AAPL, $T, $DIS, $MO, $KO, $PG, $VZ, $CVS, $IBM, $JNJ, $MSFT, $MMM, $PM, $CSCO.
I’ve started new positions on the following stocks:
$XOM, $AFL, $WFC, $RDS.B, $SPG
Check out my stock portfolio.
Dividend Income in March 2020
In March 2020 I have received 8 payments and my dividend income resulted in 42,81€. That money was directly invested in my real estate crowdfunding portfolio.
The companies who paid dividends this month:
Gladstone= 6,11 €
Realty Inc = 6,00 €
IBM = 7,11 €
Johnson & Johnson = 2,59 €
Stag Industrial = 5,63 €
Microsoft = 1,12 €
Walgreens = 5,20 €
3M = 9,05 €
Dividend Income in 2020
My dividend income this year is at 170,71 €. In 2018 my dividend income was 48 €. A lot can change within 2 years.
[visualizer id=”182″]
Highest Expenses by Category
I am tracking my every expense every day since about 1 year now. I’ve started this private project when I read the book “Your Money or Your Life” from Vicki Robin.
It helps me to get an idea, where I spent most of my money. I am using the app “Money Manager” on my phone. There is no need to create an account and it is very easy to use.
In March I spent the most of my money on the following 8 categories (sorted by most spent)
- Investment: 66,3%
- Rent: 9,5%
- Groceries: 4,7%
- Gifts for others: 3,5%
- Car: 3,5%
- Savings: 3,2%
- Vacation: 3,1%
- Dining out, ordering food: 2%
- Non-Work related: 50%
- Ordering food: 50%
In March 2020 I spent the most of my money for new investments as mentioned at the beginning. With COVID-19 my expenses for groceries went up, while dining out and ordering food went down. Dining out and ordering food, is where I spent the most of my expenses in 2019. One of my goals in 2020 is to reduce my spendings on that category to 2000€ per year.
Join my weekly E-Mail Report “Wisdom Wednesday”
During the week I am reading different articles and listening to podcast. In my weekly e-mail report “Wisdom Wednesday” I am going to send an email every Wednesday to you with all interesting articles or tools I found during the last week. I am sharing / advertising the article of other bloggers. In that way I can make sure that everyone is getting the best resources available on the Internet.
Mr. Financial Freedom
Latest posts by Mr. Financial Freedom (see all)
- The 24 Days of Wealthy Wonders 🎄 - December 2, 2024
- 7 Years of Dividend Investing: My Journey, Lessons, and Future Goals - November 17, 2024
- Should You Have A Shared Account With Your Partner? - June 16, 2022
- Do You Need 1 Million To Retire? - June 15, 2022
- My First Experience With Options Trading - October 29, 2020