What will you read in my March 2020 monthly report? We will go into major life updates, March expenses, March passive + side hustle income, and March goals.
It’s strange how much has changed in a month.
March was the month where many countries installed a travel ban, the majority of the world is (partially) in quarantine, and everyone is urged to stay inside unless absolutely necessary.
At the beginning of March, it felt like summer and going outside. Now everyone is inside and it’s like winter all over again.
It’s great to see how many people are staying inside and how many are trying to flatten the curve.
In the Netherlands, you cannot be outside with more than three people unless you’re a family. Everyone should keep 1.5 meters (4 feet) apart minimum. Even in supermarkets, the amount of people allowed inside is regulated.
It’s heartwarming all of the kind gestures that people do for each other. Doing groceries for one another, cooking meals for others, giving out toilet paper to people.
Personal Update
Quick personal update: I’ve not started my new job on April 1st as anticipated. I will, however, keep good hope that I can start before May.
Luckily I do have a great emergency fund that I can live from for a while if necessary.
All this insecurity has fired my flame for financial independence even more!
I want to have freedom over my time and my money. That’s the most valuable to me.
My investment strategy has changed over the past couple of weeks. To fast-track my way to financial independence, I am building a passive income portfolio and growing my nest egg at the same time. When my passive income exceeds €1000 monthly, I would have enough to quit my job. Say what?!
Highlights of my March month:
👻 Expenses of €1003
🌟 63% savings rate
🌪️ Passive income of €85 – plus major P2P market concerns
👉 Side hustle income of €105
how I’m Going To Grow My Blog During This period
While it’s no fun to be standby at my new job, it’s totally okay.
I see it as an opportunity to work on my blog even more!
Here is what I’m doing to double down on my blog and focus on the outcome in a couple of months.
Learning New Skills
I’m convinced you can never learn enough. Learning new skills can be invaluable!
Here’s what I’m focusing on:
- Improving my SEO – Moz currently offers their courses for free until the end of May 2020.
- Improve your money – Clever Girl Finance has made its resources for free until further notice.
- Working on my affiliate marketing – Going through my Making Sense Of Affiliate Marketing Course again. See if it fits you by checking out my review here!
Going Through My Website
I’m going to improve my website a lot. I have learned so many new skills over the past few years in terms of blogging.
More specifically, I’m going to:
- Update old content
- Redo my home page
- Adding more pictures to my posts
- Organize the blog better
That’s it for the blogging content for the upcoming month.
March Expenses
Okay, back to my finances.
The stock market hitting lows from the end of February continued into March, big time.
In March I covered how to react to these kinds of stock market drops.
In addition to that, is now a good time to invest is a very relevant question to ask yourself.
Besides that, in March I had €450 medical expenses that were not planned. In April there will be another couple of hundred euros on dental expenses.
March gives me a monthly savings rate of 63%, which I’m very happy with. My goal for 2020 is to have a savings rate of 75%. Currently, my average savings rate is literally 75% and I’m right on track.
March Income.
Here is a breakdown of income per source:
| Source | Income | Annual Return |
|---|---|---|
| Ebay Selling | €49 | |
| Blog | €48 | |
| Cashback Groceries | €7 | |
| Grupeer | €49 | 1.75% |
| Mintos | €20 | 9.79% |
| Funding Circle | €6 | 7.72% |
| EstateGuru | €5 | 7.78% |
| Crowdestor | €4 | 1.16% |
| Reinvest24 | €1 | 6.73% |
| Total | €218 | P2P: 7.2% |
Let’s get into my passive income, side hustle income, and my other income for the month.
March Passive Income
Every month I try to grow my passive income. Passive income means that you’re making money without making any effort. With putting in little work you can have recurring income. My peer-to-peer loans and quarterly dividends are the biggest contributors to that.
My current strategy is to pause my peer-to-peer investments (not cashing out) and to get the cash that I would normally reinvest. That cash I’ll reinvest in the stock market, which is currently experiencing a big dip.
Note that I’m not a financial advisor and I’m not giving you any financial advice. I’m only telling you what steps I’m taking.
If you’re looking for an overview of all peer-to-peer platforms INCLUDING sign-up bonuses, look no further.
In March I got a total of €85 passive income for the month.
Here is a breakdown of all my passive income sources:
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.
What happened?
This month the economy got hid real hard. It’s not only the stock market that plummeted. The peer-to-peer lending market is also feeling this.
What happens with the loans that are outstanding when companies are not making any turnover? Or when people lose their jobs, what happens to the amounts they need to pay?
This will become increasingly hard for them. While I don’t expect all loans to fall through and all platforms to fail, there is a fair chance that people can’t pay back their loans.
I was aware of this risk in peer-to-peer lending and I want to be open to you about all the possible scenarios at this point.
To summarize:
- Grupeer has stopped all payments to investors for the foreseeable future. I would recommend you don’t invest any extra money in the platform until they resume all payments.
- Crowdestor is pausing all payments for the upcoming three months so that lenders have time to get their finances in order. If companies can still continue to pay, they will investigate that and continue with payment. I would not recommend starting investing with them in these times. You can read their full statement here.
- EstateGuru and Reinvest24 will still continue to pay for now
Grupeer
Portfolio Value: €5,485
Average Interest Rate: 10.75%
Passive Income: €49.13
Grupeer has stopped its payments to investors for the foreseeable future. They have little turnover at the moment and they decided to let employees go to free up some cash flow. This means they can’t handle the number of questions and the withdrawals that will be made are delayed.
You can read their statement here.
It would be wise to pause your investments on the Grupeer platform for now. If there are significant updates, I will write an article for that. Do you want to follow? Don’t forget to subscribe!
At this moment I have €5485 invested with Grupeer, which gave me €49.13 passive income over March – an average rate of 10.75%. I expect no interest for the upcoming months. Fingers crossed that it will recover!
Crowdestor
Portfolio Value: €4,397.43
Average Interest Rate: 1.16%
Passive Income: €4.24
Crowdestor is giving the businesses that needed to repay their loans a couple of months to get their finances together. They do not need to pay interest or principal for the upcoming three months.
During that time, Crowdestor is planning on reviewing businesses. When they are able to meet their repayment obligations sooner, they will start to repay again.
For the months April, May, and June I won’t be counting on any income. As always, I will keep you posted!
I currently invested €4397, which has yielded me €4. That’s 1.16% interest for March, let’s hope that picks up again.
I would advise you to wait a couple of months when the payments start again and you know what you get.
Check out my Crowdestor review 🔥 for more detailed info.
Mintos
Portfolio Value: €2,427.23
Average Interest Rate: 9.79%
Passive Income: €19.81
Mintos is currently one of the biggest peer-to-peer platforms in Europe, which makes it a good platform to start if you want to start building up your passive income streams.
With my current strategy, I am not adding any funds to Mintos. I will not sell my investments but patiently wait until they have reached their maturity date.
Mintos is still a good place to invest, now more than ever it’s important to be careful and only select the loan originators that have a great rating. They are solid and will be generally safer than a loan originator with a low rating.
I currently have €2437 invested with Mintos. That gave me €19.81 passive income in March, which is a 9.79% average annual interest rate.
🔥If you’re not using Mintos yet, 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 0.5% extra return on any investments made within the first 90 days!
EstateGuru
Portfolio Value: €784.86
Average Interest Rate: 7.78%
Passive Income: €5.09
EstateGuru is my addition to diversify my portfolio and get more into real estate investing.
I enjoy investing with EstateGuru and to have collateral as a back-up for my investments. A review will be written soon!
Currently, I have €784.86 invested in EstateGuru, with a €5.09 return – which is including one property that is paying dividends quarterly. I’m expecting a first payment in April.
🔥 April promotion: if you sign up using this link, you get a 1% cashback bonus for 90 days!
Funding Circle
Portfolio Value: €864.65
Average Interest Rate: 9.13%
Passive Income: €5.56
Funding Circle was my first crowdlending experience, back in 2018.
They have no buyback guarantee, no secondary market, and below average interest rate 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.
Reinvest24
Portfolio Value: €98
Average Interest Rate: 6.73%
Passive Income: €0.55
In October I started investing with Reinvest24, a real estate investment platform that allows me to invest relatively low amounts.
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. On top of that, your property gains value when they sell the property.
On this specific investment, I get a 6.73% 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 here!
March Goals
Here they are:
- Get €160 income from passive sources – FAIL! With the recent P2P market development, I don’t think I will make that goal any time soon.
- Get €200 side hustle income on top of that – FAIL! With just €104 that fell a bit (a lot) short. I’m very busy trying new sources of income so I will keep you posted.
- Design new front page of Radical FIRE – PASS! Here it is, what do you think?
- Write one book review post – FAIL! I forgot about this one.
- Work ahead 2 weeks in posts – FAIL! Not much time to write this month. In April I should have plenty of time.
April Goals
- Move daily – as I am spending more time inside than ever, I would love to move daily. Do a dance workout, some yoga, or going for a run would be great. Honestly, going for a walk will also count towards this goal.
- Read a book – if I want to stay on track for my 12 books this year, I should read some more.
- Work ahead 2 weeks in posts – working ahead gives me great peace of mind.
How was your March? 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
It’s honest to publish results even if they are not as bright as other months. I highly appreciate it as a reader 🙂 Even my March was not the best. The main thing is to go ahead with an improvement-oriented mindset. Hold on, things will be much better!
Thanks for your kind words Francesco, that keeps me motivated to share my numbers – even in the months that are not as positive. I’m sure it can only get better from here! Fingers crossed the extreme situation will be over soon!