Another month has passed by which means I am another month closer to retiring. Only 9 years, 8 months and 26 days until my target retirement date. I have a lot of work to do before my retirement date, but I have a plan and continue to execute my plan. Let’s see how the month of May worked out for me.
Spending/Savings
Spending this month was inline with the budget. Savings this month is relatively flat. Nothing major to report in this section this month.
Dividends/Options/Interest
This month I received $320.25 in dividends. This is up significantly from May 2020 when I received $95.86 in dividends. I was still relatively new to investing at this time last year. Going forward, the year-over-year comparisons will reflect the growth of the dividends better. For the year, I have received $1,418.97 in dividends.
Income from options premium this month was $227.62. I am reworking my options strategy so it may take some time to build up the income from options trading. So far this year I have received $1,566.37 in options premium.
I have decided to start tracking my interest income on my savings account. It is not much income, but every little bit helps out. For the month of May I received $9.29 in interest income. For the year I have receive $52.90 in interest income.
From dividends, options and interest income combined I received $557.16 this month. Originally I had set a goal of $1,000 in combined income from dividends and options trading per month. I am well behind on this goal and it is very unlikely that I will catch up. I will be scrapping this goal for now and will look to re-evaluate the combined income goal in the future. I think the goal of $1,000 a month actually hindered my options trading. I began chasing premium which I believe hurt my strategy. For now, I will continue to learn about options trading and work on developing a sustainable strategy. The combined total income for the year is $3,038.24.
Debt
My total debt went down by $2,460.30 this month which is above my monthly goal of $2,083. So far this year I have paid off $11,453.10 of debt. This puts me $1,038.10 ahead of schedule to meeting my goal of paying off $25,000 of debt this year.
Traditional IRA
The Traditional IRA finished the month up $1,599 at a value of $115,301. The account value is up $33,795 from May of last year. The estimated annual income actually decreased by -$88 from last month down to $3,627. This is due in part to some of the changes I have made in this account to focus a little more on growth. Also, the site I use to track my estimated annual dividend income, trackyourdividends.com, revamped its website so I think there may have been some changes to how this figure is calculated.
Roth IRA
The Roth IRA is up by about $110 over last month to $544. This was pretty much the same amount that I contributed this month, so no capital appreciation to speak of this month. The estimated annual income is up $1 over last to $22.
401k
The 401k is up about $399 over last month to $7,316. This account is up $5,190 over May of last year.
Taxable Account
The taxable growth account is up by about $8 over last month to $237. This account is still in the red from the pullback that happened on growth stocks. If you would like to see the positions in this account click on the link https://m1.finance/rekel8JM2C5G.
This was another good month. My spending and savings were inline with the budget. The accounts continue to increase in value up to $123,999 invested. My net worth grew by about $4,487 this month to $43,367. This doesn’t seem like much for my net worth but considering last May my net worth was -$22,347 I am very pleased with my progress over the past year. As I continue to work my plan the numbers continue to look better. That’s it for now. Thanks for taking the time to follow along on my financial journey.
*Disclaimer – I am not a financial professional. The information shared here should not be considered financial advice. I am just a factory worker sharing my experience as I strive to achieve financial freedom. Before investing or making any financial decision do your own research and due diligence or consider seeking the advice of a financial and/or tax professional.
Here are some of the businesses that I use that I thought some of you might be interested in.
I use the free version on trackyourdividends.com. This is a quick an easy way for me to track my estimated annual income from dividends.
Lolli has a variety of stores that it is affiliated with and offers rewards for shopping at these stores. I use Lolli when I shop on Chewy and I get bitcoin as a reward. Who doesn’t want free bitcoin! If you are interested in Lolli and want to help support the blog here is my referral link: https://www.lolli.com/share/XP7gxDgqC4
I use M1 Finance for my taxable growth account. M1 Finance offers promotions for signing up. At the time of writing this post, the promotion is for $30. These promotions vary from time to time but is usually a $10 bonus. If you are interested M1 Finance and want to support the blog here is my referral link: https://m1.finance/ktIiFeOI5zDr
If you use the referral links listed above I could receive compensation. Please take the time to read the terms and conditions before signing up.