What will you read in my monthly report of February 2020? We will go into major life updates, February expenses, February passive + side hustle income, and February goals.
In February I’ve taken on a new challenge, the #MiracleMove challenge hosted by my friend on Instagram. I’m moving 30 minutes daily for 30 days. We’re almost halfway and it is great.
I’m walking a lot, getting my steps in, and moving. I feel great when I’m moving my body and I want to keep it that way.
I am working towards financial independence as fast as I can. While I don’t hate my job, I value freedom above anything else.
Freedom over my time. Freedom over my money. Freedoooom!
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 February month:
- 😎 Expenses of €530
- 👉 86.5% Savings Rate
- 💰 Passive income of €145
- ✨ Side hustle income of €73
February Expenses
Apart from the total panicking stock market last week, no big things happened over the last month.
I started to pay back my student loan debt and then someone told me that you can just pause your payments for another 6 years without giving any reason why. I liked that, so I did. For February I have still paid it off, but from March 2020 until January 2022 I have paused my payments.
Since there is 0% interest, no additional loan part is building up.
This month I also spent quite some money on public transport. I have to get used to the fact that I need to use public transport. As of April, I will have no car available at all!
February gives me a monthly savings rate of 86.5%, which I’m very happy with. My goal for 2020 is to have a savings rate of 75%, which means I am currently on track with 80.6% year to date savings rate.
February Income
Here is a breakdown of income per source:
| Source | Income | Annual Return |
|---|---|---|
| Blog | €39 | |
| Ebay Selling | €33 | |
| Cashback Groceries | €1 | |
| Grupeer | €57 | 12.42% |
| Crowdestor | €54 | 14.64% |
| Mintos | €24 | 11.27% |
| EstateGuru | €5 | 7.78% |
| Funding Circle | €4 | 5.81% |
| Reinvest24 | €1 | 6.72% |
| Total | €218 | P2P: 12.19% |
My sources of income are growing, which is great! I enjoy seeing them grow and I love to put money into growing them more and more over time.
Let’s get into my passive income, side hustle income, and my other income for the month.
February Passive Income
I’m very grateful that I get to earn passive income every month, adding money even when I’m sitting on the couch doing nothing. 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.
In February I got a total of €145 passive income for the month.
My yearly goal is to reach €300 passive income, which means I’m 48% there. Considering that I still need to double my passive income this year, I’m going to carefully invest some additional money into peer-to-peer lending and in stocks this month.
My February passive income means that I am 14.5% into my goal to reach €1000 passive income.
[wppb progress=15 option=”animated-candystripe green” text=€145/€1000 Passive Income”]
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!
My posts are no investment advice, please perform your own due diligence before investing in any platform.
Grupeer
Portfolio Value: €5,557.33
Average Interest Rate: 12.42%
Passive Income: €57.53
Grupeer is the platform I have most of my money invested to let my passive income grow over time. Especially in the last part of 2019, I was trying to reach my yearly goal and I have added a lot of money to Grupeer as a trusted platform.
Grupeer as a platform has a lot of growth potential. It may even get bigger than Mintos! The most important thing for them is to get information out about their loan originators, that would help a lot with growing their platform.
Grupeer will increase transparency in 2020 because of what happened with Envestio. They will disclose more about their team members, their loan originators, and their practices overall. That’s definitely a good thing!
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 €5557 invested with Grupeer, which gives me €57.53 passive income – an average rate of 12.42%.
🔥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.
Mintos
Portfolio Value: €2,534.16
Average Interest Rate: 11.27%
Passive Income: €23.80
Mintos is currently one of the biggest peer-to-peer platforms in Europe, which makes it a great platform if you want to start building up your passive income streams.
I have just added some more money to the Mintos platform, that will be visible in my March report. I am still only focusing on Mintos loan originators that have a good track record, to ensure that my performance keeps up.
To get maximized return on my investments with minimal time investment I’m currently focusing on their auto-invest tool. 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 €2534 invested with Mintos. That gave me €23.80 passive income in February, which is an 11.27% 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 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 latest addition to diversify my portfolio and get more into real estate investing.
I’ve gotten my second payout in February. I’m excited to check this platform out, see how to use it, and have collateral as a back-up of 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.
🔥 If you sign up using this link, you get a 0.5% cashback bonus for 90 days!
Funding Circle
Portfolio Value: €915.73
Average Interest Rate: 5.81%
Passive Income: €4.43
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: €99.98
Average Interest Rate: 6.72%
Passive Income: €0.56
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 here!
February Goals
Here they are:
- Get €150 income from passive sources – FAIL! I fell just a couple of euros short in February, let’s up the amounts for March!
- Get €250 side hustle income on top of that – FAIL! With just €73 that fell a bit (a lot) short. I’m very busy trying new sources of income so I will keep you posted.
- Design a new front page of Radical FIRE – FAIL! I didn’t take any time to learn Elementor, better luck next month
- Try out if Tailwind lives up to the hype – PASS! I loved Tailwind, a lot. I signed up for their annual plan and a review post will follow soon!
- Improve 5 articles – PASS! I’ve improved a couple of articles but the ones with the biggest make-over are Rich Dad Poor Dad and Mintos Review 2020.
- Write one book review post – PASS! I’ve written about a popular book: The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss.
- Work ahead 2 weeks in posts – FAIL! I did not have the time to produce so many blog posts. Let’s try again next month.
March Goals
- Get €160 income from passive sources
- Get €200 side hustle income on top of that
- Design new front page of Radical FIRE
- Write one book review post
- Work ahead 2 weeks in posts
How was your February? Let me know below!
Founder of Spark Nomad, Radical FIRE, Journalist
- Expertise: Personal finance and travel content
- Education: Bachelor of Economics at Radboud University, Master in Finance at Radboud University, Minor in Economics at Chapman University.
- Over 200 articles, essays, and short stories published across the web.
Experience: Marjolein Dilven is a journalist and founder of Spark Nomad, a travel platform, and Radical FIRE, a personal finance platform. Marjolein has a finance and economics background with a master’s in Finance. She has quit her job to travel the world, documenting her travels on Spark Nomad to help people plan their travels. Marjolein Dilven has written for publications like MSN, Associated Press, CNBC, Town News syndicate, and more.
Good luck on your walking challenge! I get to walk around 1 hour a day and it does wonders for your body, mind and soul.
I’m amazed by the 86.5% savings rate 560 euro! How in the world??
Cheers!
Thanks for stopping by BF! I’m loving to walk or work out at least 30 minutes a day, I really enjoy it and it makes me feel relaxed.
For the savings rate, I have a fairly cheap living situation (350 euros per month, including utilities), watch my food budget (70 euros per month), and don’t pay for a car. I’ve written about it here in more detail: https://radicalfire.com/live-on-half-income/