December flew by, literally. We met friends in Mexico and toured for a couple of weeks, after which we flew to Orlando, Florida to spend our last days in Disneyland and Universal Studios.
I LOVED the time we had in Universal, as I’m a big Harry Potter fan. I also loved Disneyland and enjoyed my time there tremendously! It was simply amazing and I’m happy we decided to book the detour to Orlando.
After Florida, we went back home to the Netherlands and the mini-retirement is officially over 😭. I officially went back to work last Monday, but since my manager has the week off I’m working from home and taking my time to adjust.
On a more exciting note, I moved in with my partner! We have a rental apartment and I’m very happy with it. Although my rent will go up, I expect costs still to be relatively low since it’s a two-bedroom apartment.
I Marie Kondo’d the heck out of all my stuff when moving in – it was a lot. I got rid of HALF my stuff when I moved and went on my mini-retirement.
After that, I watched an episode of the Tidying Up series and read her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I convinced myself that this would be good for me to do when I came back, so we did. We brought a LOT of stuff to friends, family, and goodwill.
Result: only 20% of my initial stuff is left and I feel a lot lighter!
I am incredibly grateful for my mini-retirement, which gives me a taste of freedom during financial independence.
To fast-track my way to financial independence, I am building passive income besides my nest egg. When my passive income exceeds €1000 monthly, I would have enough to quit my job.
Highlights of my December month:
- Expenses of €1384.88
- Passive income of €174.30
- Blog income of €107.70
December Expenses
December was a very unconventional month. Lots of time spent chilling in Mexico, walking around Disneyland and Universal, and gifts brought for family and friends.
One very big spending is my health insurance for 2020, which is €979. I pay this cost yearly because this gets me a discount. This cost is 70% of my December expenses.
This gives me a -102.81% savings rate for December. That’s fine, I’ll do better when I get my salary again. My year to date savings rate is still 65.59%. This means I’ve met my goal of a 60% savings rate for 2019, wooooo!!
December Passive Income
I’m very grateful that I get to earn passive income every month, adding money even when I’m walking around on the other side of the world. My peer-to-peer loans are the biggest contributor to that.
If you’re looking for an overview of all peer-to-peer platforms INCLUDING sign-up bonuses, look no further!
Here is a breakdown of income per source:
| Source | Income | Annual Return |
|---|---|---|
| Grupeer | €51 | 11.16% |
| Crowdestor | €44 | 15.62% |
| Mintos | €24 | 10.80% |
| Envestio | €18 | 15.42% |
| Funding Circle | €6 | 7.54% |
| EstateGuru | €3 | 4.26% |
| Reinvest24 | €1 | 6.98% |
| Dividends | €28 | 0.30% |
| Total | €174 | P2P: 11.90% |
I’m at €174 passive income for December. This is 116% of my goal for 2019 (€150 monthly passive income), I made it!!
My December passive income means that I am 17.4% into my goal to reach €1000 passive income.
[wppb progress=17.4 option=”animated-candystripe red” text=”€174/€1000″]
Here is a breakdown of all my passive income sources related to Peer-to-Peer lending or crowdlending:
The biggest part of my portfolio is coming from peer-to-peer lending or crowdlending, which means higher risk and higher return. Generally in investing, the higher returns you have the more risk you take. Make sure you know the risks associated with peer-to-peer lending to make a fully informed decision!
Grupeer
Portfolio Value: €5,439.57
Average Interest Rate: 11.16%
Passive Income: €50.58
Grupeer is by far the platform I have the most invested in. Every month I add more money to the platform to let my passive income grow. Especially over the last four months, lots of money has been added as I wanted to meet my passive income goal.
Grupeer as a platform has a lot of potential to grow, that’s why I trust it and invest my money there.
I have a simple Grupeer strategy that is easy to replicate: invest in loans with 13% interest or higher. Considering everything they offer has a buyback guarantee, this is an awesome deal.
At this moment I have €5439 invested with Grupeer, which gives me €50.58 passive income – an average rate of 11.16%.
🔥If you’re not using Grupeer yet, I highly recommend you check it out. You can read my Grupeer review here or you can sign up directly.
Grupeer currently has an increased interest rate to 14%!!! for FinSputnik, PlanetaCash, and Primo Invest until January 12th. Plus +2.5% cashback on CubeFunder until January 6th.
Don’t hesitate if you want to sign up!
Mintos
Portfolio Value: €2,684.54
Average Interest Rate: 11.69%
Passive Income: €24.15
Mintos is one of the biggest peer-to-peer platforms in Europe, which makes it a great platform if you want to build up passive income.
As Mintos interest rate went back to old levels, I’m adding new investments to the platform constantly. I will still practice what I preach and only invest in Mintos loan originators that have a good track record.
I use auto invest to get maximized return on investment with minimal time investment. Check my exact auto invest settings you can use to maximize your passive income with Mintos.
If auto invest is too much hassle for you, there is also Mintos Invest & Access. You just click one button, type in how much money you want to invest, and Mintos invests it for you. It’s really straightforward and simple to use.
I currently have €2684 invested with Mintos. That gave me €24.15 passive income in December, which is a 10.80% average annual interest rate.
🔥If you’re not using Mintos yet, I highly recommend you check it out. You can read detailed Mintos review here or you can sign up directly.
When you sign up with Mintos using my link, you get 1% extra return on any investments made within the first 90 days!
Crowdestor
Portfolio Value: €3,383.72
Average Interest Rate: 15.62%
Passive Income: €44.04
Crowdestor is one of my favorite platforms out there. They have great projects with lots of information, great interest rates, an extremely transparent buyback fund, and a convenient website.
I have added another €1200 this month to my investments on Crowdestor. They do a great job with minimizing the platform risk with their buyback fund by displaying exactly how much is in the fund, I like that a lot.
I currently invested €3383, which has yielded me €44.04. That’s 15.62% interest. Not bad!
Check out my Crowdestor review 🔥 for more detailed info. It is a great platform with a transparent buyback fund, where you get great interest rates!
Envestio
Portfolio Value: €1,422.78
Average Interest Rate: 15.42%
Passive Income: €18.28
Envestio is another steady peer-to-peer platform. This results in about the same amount of passive income every month. I have invested more in the platform over the last month, which makes the passive income go up a bit.
I have €1422 invested in Envestio, with a €18.28 return that means a 15.42% interest rate.
They are having some issues lately with funding projects and there have been some comments about the change in COO in combination with the bankruptcy of another Peer-to-Peer platform. However they have their 90% buyback guarantee, where you can get out of any project at any moment and get 90% of your investment back.
🔥If you are experiencing any problems with Envestio, go here to see what’s going on with Envestio and the current situation.
Funding Circle
Portfolio Value: €955.91
Average Interest Rate: 7.54%
Passive Income: €6.01
Funding Circle was my first crowdlending experience, back in 2018.
They have no buyback guarantee, no secondary market, and below average interest rates for the risk you are taking. It is not my favorite platform, but I’m patiently sitting out the loans that I have invested in.
All the other platforms I mentioned have a far greater risk-reward ratio, so I would recommend checking them out instead.
🔥 If you’re interested in real estate crowdfunding, I have a list of platforms that I recommend here.
EstateGuru
Portfolio Value: €779.77
Average Interest Rate: 4.26%
Passive Income: €2.77
Surprise, I’ve added another platform to my portfolio! EstateGuru is my latest addition to diversify my portfolio and get more into real estate investing.
My first payout will be January, so I’m excited about my returns on the platform to start coming in. This is one of the platforms that I’m very excited about, a review will be written soon!
Currently, I have €799.77 invested in Envestio, with a €2.77 return – which is only my cashback bonus. Next month the first returns will be coming in and these numbers will be updated.
🔥 If you sign up using this link, you get a 0.5% cashback bonus for 90 days!
Join EstateGuru Today >>Reinvest24
Portfolio Value: €98
Average Interest Rate: 6.73%
Passive Income: €0.57
In October I started investing with Reinvest24, a real estate investment platform that I am still in the testing phase with. I love that I can start investing from a relatively low amount and see how the platform is performing before I invest more.
The thing I love about Reinvest24 is that you get a yield on your investment, as if you’re owning the property and getting rental income. Besides that, they offer capital growth gains when the property is sold at the end of the term.
On this specific investment, I get a 6.98% yield as if I really own the property and I am renting it out to a tenant. At the moment of selling, I get another 5% yearly capital growth gains. This will bring my total return on almost 12% annually, not too bad!
🔥 If you want to give Reinvest24 a try, sign up here or check out my complete review!
December Goals
In December I spent little time on these because of travels. In January I’m back home again, back to work, and back to smashing my goals!
Here are my December goals:
- Get €150 income from passive sources – PASS! I made €174 passive income in December. It was mostly the dividends that dragged me over, so let’s keep this up in January!
- Read through June-July posts for spelling and grammar – FAIL! 0 time was spent reading through old posts
- Design a new front page of Radical FIRE – FAIL! I will get to that, I swear
- Get 1700 followers on Pinterest – PASS! That’s what I love about Pinterest, I didn’t spend time on it for 4 months and my numbers are still good. Yay!
- Write one book review post – FAIL! No book review post yet, this will in arranged in 2020 though!
January Goals
- Get €170 income from passive sources
- Read through June-July posts for spelling and grammar
- Design new front page of Radical FIRE
- Take care of my health and get back to working out three times per week
- Get back to my morning routine and try out journalling
- Get back to posting three times per week
- Write one book review post
How was your December? Let me know below!
Marjolein is a financial consultant who has built over €4,000 monthly passive income and saves over 70% of her income. Read Radicals’ inspiring story, from stuck in the 9-to-5 to loving life. Feel free to send Radical a message at the bottom of this page
Hi,
Zoals altijd weer een leuke blog! Heel vet dat je kan schrijven terwijl je op reis bent.
Ik wil wel iets doorgeven waar ik mij aan stoor. Je wilt passief inkomen creëeren en blog inkomen, maar moet hierbij goed opletten wat je zegt over crowdlending platformen. In mijn ogen schep je geen realistisch beeld van de risico’s.
Highly recommend Envestio? Ze zijn an eigenaar gewisseld deze maand en er wordt rotzooi over hem gevonden. Pas dus vooral op.
Kuetzal een soortgelijk platform als o.a. EstateGuru blijkt een scam te zijn in de afgelopen maand..
Ga vooral zo door!
Congrats, congrats and congrats! 🙂 You had a fantastic year radical fire. It’s impressive that you managed to surpass the 60% savings rate mark with a mini retirement included.
Good luck with your investments and have a great 2020 🙂
Thanks Tony, I really appreciate that! I hope that 2020 is going to be even greater for the both of us!!
Hi Robin, dankje voor je reactie!
Ik heb een artikel geschreven over de risico’s van crowdlending (hier), waar in elke review die ik heb geschreven naar heb gelinkt. Daar staat duidelijk in dat er risico’s verbonden zijn aan het investeren in crowdlending, aangezien hoe hoger de reward (het rentepercentage) hoe hoger het risico. Ik ga er vanuit dat mijn lezers de risico’s van crowdlending dus kunnen inschatten en beslissingen kunnen maken op basis hiervan.
Op mijn blog schrijf ik vanuit mijn persoonlijke ervaring en ik heb geen problemen met Envestio ondervonden tot nu toe! Ze hebben wellicht een dubieuze keuze gemaakt in het aannemen van nieuw personeel, maar tot nu toe heeft de business daar geen last van gehad. Bedankt voor je waarschuwing, ik ga het zeker in de gaten houden!
De situatie met Kuetzal is inderdaad heel erg vervelend, hopelijk dat daar snel meer duidelijkheid over komt! Als het een project is waar ze slechte due diligence hebben gedaan hoop ik dat ze de boel nog kunnen gaan redden, als het meerdere dingen blijken te zijn zou dat de zaak zeker geen goed doen.
Bedankt voor je reactie Robin, cheers!
Hi RF,
Ten eerste ben ik blij dat je een disclaimer hebt toegevoegd aan je Envestio review.
Ten tweede, hoop dat ik je op een respectvolle manier nogmaals mag wijzen op je woordkeuze.
Waarom? Nou hier vind je de roast van FOM: https://kristapsmors.substack.com/p/how-much-did-the-p2p-bloggers-lose. Andere bloggers zullen zware kritiek op je gaan uiten als je niet oplet met wat je je lezers voorschotelt.
If you are not using Envestio yet, I highly recommend you check it out!
I’ve heard many good things about Envestio and decided to go check them out myself. I have invested over €1000 with Envestio before I decided to create this Envestio review. In the process of investing my money there, Envestio became one of my favorite Peer-to-Peer platforms in Europe.
Envestio has really caught my eye.
I’m quite impressed with Envestio and its Peer-to-Peer lending platform.
Many good things? One of my favorite? Caught my eye? Impressed?
Geen woord over alle kritieken van ondertussen tientallen andere bloggers.
Kortom, het lijkt mij duidelijk dat wij anders tegen de situatie aankijken, maar ik hoop dat deze reactie je duidt op de gevaren van je woordkeuzes. Dit zal je op de lange termijn niet ten goede komen.
Dankje voor de follow-up Robin! Als ik heer eerlijk ben heb ik alleen de disclaimer toegevoegd, de rest van de review doornemen staat nog op de planning (naast de reviews + kritiek van andere platforms, want als er bij een dit voorkomt waarom niet bij meerdere platforms?).
Toen ik met Envestio begon en de review schreef was ik onder de indruk en het was lange tijd ook mijn favoriete P2P platform, dat is nu veranderd. Dat is inderdaad niet gereflecteerd in mijn review.
Ik ben van plan in de komende weken alle reviews grondig door te nemen en ervoor te zorgen dat de laatste ontwikkelingen erin verwerkt zijn. Het laatste wat we nodig hebben is nog meer verspreiding van misinformatie!