Welcome to my August 2019 Passive Income Update. August was an incredible month, both personally and for my passive income investment portfolio. My passive income exceeded 940 EUR (~1039 USD) this past month, which is a new record for me.
I am really seeing the effects of compound interest and it’s an incredible feeling. My monthly passive income keeps growing every month even without me adding new savings. It’s crazy.
What is compound interest? Let’s make an example: In the first eight months of 2019, I earned 3882 EUR interest from P2P loans on Mintos, Grupeer and Swaper. That amount has directly been re-invested and I am receiving interest on the additional investments made. At the current average interest rate of 12.77%, that is an additional 495.71 EUR per year, which is 41.31 EUR per month. So even without adding new money (and without withdrawing money!), my porfolio and my passive income is growing by itself every month. 🙂
Visiting Bukhara (Uzbekistan) in August 2019
Back to the August update. Summer was in full swing and I have been enjoying most of August outdoors exploring the ancient Silk Road and enjoying the beauty of my new home base Istanbul.
I took the first 10 days of August almost completely off and travelled trough Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan along the ancient Silk Road – which was absolutely incredible. Following the Silk Road trip, I went to Cappadocia for a few days with a good friend of mine, which was equally incredible. The rest of the month of August I worked between 20 and 25 hours per weeks mostly in the early mornings and evenings either from home or from one of the many coffee shops of Istanbul. 👨💻
Living a life that is supported by passive income means that I don’t have to worry about money all the time – and that I can take days off whenever I want.
This past month, my passive income investment portfolio managed itself and required basically no work. I adjusted my Mintos auto-invest portfolio once to better diversify my investments and to adjust to market interest rates (more below), and that was it!
Now, on to my passive income numbers for August 2019!
August 2019 P2P-Lending Interest Rates
August 2019 Passive Income Update
My total passive income in August 2019: – P2P lending: 631.09 EUR – Real Estate Lending: 1.25 EUR – ETF Dividends: 96.15 EUR – Stock Photos/Videos: 215.72 EUR TOTAL: 944.21 EUR (~1039 USD)
P2P Lending & Real Estate Lending Update – August 2019
Total Passive Income from P2P Lending, P2P Real Estate Lending, ETF Dividends and Stock Video Sales.
P2P & Real Estate Lending Overview – August 2019 Passive Income Update
As part of my August 2019 passive income update, here is a quick overview of passive income that I am earning from three (3) P2P Lending and two (2) Real-Estate P2P Lending platforms that I am investing in.
Mintos: Mintos maintains its status as my favorite platform. I have 29,000 EUR invested on the Mintos platform which represents 24% of my total investment portfolio. The money is invested across 24 loan originators (all with ratings from A+ to B-) in 20 countries. My interest income from Mintos was 321.53 EUR in August.
Honestly, I love how Mintos allows investors to diversify their investment portfolio – there really is no other platform with that many loan originators (30+). My self-calculated interest rate on Mintos climbed to 11.45% p.a.. What else? I updated my Mintos auto-invest portfolios in August, changing the minimum interest rate to 11.5% and acceping new loan originators with A+ to B- rankings. If you are new to Mintos, have a look at my Mintos review which includes my auto-invest settings.
It’s been really incredible to see how well the Mintos platform performs while the company continues to grow rapidly. Mintos just reached its 3 billion EUR of investments in loans on the platform. Thousands of new investors join the platform every month and despite the huge influx of investors, the platform performs super well, loans are available (no cash drag!), and interest rates are still around 11.5 to 12%.
Mintos has reached 3 billion EUR of investments in loans on the platform.
Swaper:This past month has bene a good month for Swaper. The company received a number of awards as the best P2P European Loan Platform 2019, including by Wealth & Finance, Bankingcheck, and eKomi at the Bank and Insurance Summit 2019 in Berlin, Germany. The Swaper Blog is back up and running and numbers are being published: Just last month, Swaper grew by 24% with a total number of 2532 investors. That is significantly less than Mintos, but the platform is on a great path of growth. Since I joined Swaper exactly a year ago (August 2018), the platform has performed really excellent and delivered on-time payments through its BuyBack guarantee of all loans on the platform.
I am fully invested with 14.000 EUR on Swaper and I am currently receiving 172,49 EUR per month in interest (= 13.75% p.a.). I am planning to update my review of the Swaper platform over the coming days as well as to add more funds to my portfolio in the fall.
Swaper Award as the best P2P European Loan Platform 2019
Grupeer: My trust and confidence in Grupeer continues to grow. My 12.000 EUR are fully invested and I received 136,80 EUR interest in August, which were immediately re-invested (compound interest!) without any cash drag. Similar to Mintos and Swaper, Grupeer is currently growing at around 15% per month showing how the P2P Lending industry is booming.
This being said, despite the rapid growth, plenty of loans are available (all protected with BuyBack guarantee) and Grupeer communicates to their investors that they work hard in order to maintain their “zero default” record. Read my updated Grupeer review, to see my auto-invest settings and to see how to get a sign-up bonus. There’s also a very insightful Q&A with Grupeers Founder and their Executive Vice President available here.
EstateGuru: While I received a first interest payment from EstateGuru in July, this month’s interest payments were delayed (due to “summer holidays” as one of the borrowers communicated). I am a bit put off but not too worried about it as the loan collateral of both delayed loans are first rank mortgages on residential buildings and the LTV is 25.6% for one and 35% for the other loan.
My other loans on EstateGuru are full bullet loans, which means that both interest and principals are being paid in full at the end of the 12-month loan period. Unfortunately, that means that some months I receive large interest and principal payments, some months I receive nothing. I recently updated my EstateGuru review in which I explain details as well as show how to receive a 0.5% bonus as a new investor.
CrowdEstate:Similar to EstateGuru, most loans on Crowdestate have irrgular principal and interest payments, which is annoying . Due to the nature of the investments (mostly real estate development projects), interest and principal is often paid every 6 or 12 months, or at the end of the loan period. I have invested 2,000 EUR in CrowdEstate which have been “auto-invested” in 7 loans with an average interest rate of 12.58 % per year. As I had mentioned in earlier reviews, I prefer EstateGuru over CrowdEstate due to their more stringent diligence and better-secured loans, in return for slightly smaller interest rates.
Exchange–Traded Funds (ETF) Update – August 2019 🥳
Well, while heads of states talked about a global economic recession, the MSCI World ETF made only a small dip this past month (from 196.25 EUR down to 193.52 EUR) and I am positive that it will recover from that very soon. I was actually hoping that the ETFs that I am “holding” would drop in value much more, as I was planning to buy more of them (at a cheaper price!).
My ETF portfolio is my retirement plan and I am “buying an holding” ETFs for a period of at least 10-15 years. Hence, short-term market fluctuations are not an issue for me and I am indeed trying to benefit from them (buying additional ETFs when the prices are down). 🥳
Also, August was a dividend month and I received 464.80 EUR in dividends from my MSCI World ETF. Three (3) of the four (4) ETFs in my ETF portfolio are paying dividends, which provides great passive income.
Talking about my ETF portfolio: This year my ETF portfolio has gained 17.71 % in value. Since I started in 2016, the value of my portfolio has increased by 36.75%. In EUR terms, that means that the 63,000 EUR that I invested slowly since 2016, are today valued 75,643.17 EUR and I received an additional 2638 EUR in dividends over the past three years (which I used and spent as passive income).
My ETF Portfolio since beginning of this year (c) justetf.com
Overview of my current ETF portfolio (c) justetf.com
That’s it for my August 2019 Passive Income Update! All of you enjoy the rest of the summer 🙏. If you like to, please follow my journey on my FacebookFinancial Freedom Journey page for more frequent updates. And as always: If you have any questions or comments, please pop them in the comment section below or get in touch via Facebook or Email.
