Great Weekend - $200 in Dividends

One of the real estate investment trusts (REITs) just gave out dividends 2 days back. Received a nice lovely sum of $200. Not a lot but enough for me to buy a few items for myself that I like.

I have also received over USD$250 from selling some adspace on my blogs. This is still stuck in my paypal account as I have no idea how to transfer it out to my bank account yet.

The weekend has been great thus far. Lots of lazing around and trying to figure out what I want to get out of my life. Been thinking about this a little more the past few weeks.

Today is a hot day so we are staying indoors most probably. The family is taking its afternoon nap but I do hope to be able to go out and get some fresh air, clear my head, and get myself all geared up for the new week ahead.

Diversifying Streams of Income - Passivity the Key

I have been trying to diversify the various streams of income that I currently get.

I have my earned income from my 9 to 5 job. This is the most hard earned income as I literally have to work hard to earn it. Any day I stop going to work means that I stop earning money literally. In this time and age with the retirement age set at 62, I need to find some kind of work that will allow me to work beyond the official retirement age.

I have dividends from my stocks and real estate investment trusts (REITs). Sold off my Canadian Royalty Trusts (Canroys) some time back so I no longer am able to get those monthly cheques which were wonderful to get.

Online ad revenue has also been kind to me as I have managed to sell certain spaces on my blogs for cool sums of money. It is sometimes quite amazing how I have managed to diversify the various streams of income. From relying solely on Adsense to other alternative sources.

I have been toying the idea of starting a business but still do not have a concrete idea what to sell. It needs to be something really easy to set up and which requires minimum effort on my part. It doesn't have to bring in much, maybe just few dollars a month.

What I realised is this: Once I open up another stream of income, I become surer of myself and somehow will be able to slowly turn on the taps and increase that stream till it turns out to be a sizeable stream.

I will keep all updated once I have managed to seek out that additional source of passive income.

Stay tune!

Dividends and Passive Income (Aug 2010)

Received some dividends from my holdings in certain real estate investment trusts (REITs).

The following 2 REITs paid out distributions for the month of Aug 2010:

1. Ascott REIT ($423.60)
2. Suntec REIT ($25.28)

Total passive income and dividends for Aug 2010 = $448.88

It seems that dividends are still the main source of passive income for me as I do not have any money generating businesses or stuff to provide me with more passive income.

$402.75 in Dividends and Passive Income for Mar 2010

This is the total dividends and passive income that I received for the month of March 2010.

I wrote sometime earlier in the month that I have gotten my 3rd cheque from Google's Adsense program. Kindly refer to that posting there about my earnings from adsense. I will get my next payout in April or May.

Dividends
1. Pac Andes = $222.00

"Passive" Income
1. Adsense = $180.75

Total in Dividends and Passive Income = $402.75

On the job front, I will most probably secure a job by next month. (Fingers are all crossed!)

I have also started giving tuition which should roughly add another $1000 to my earnings each month.

Dividends and Passive Income for Feb 2010

(Image by kwerfeldein)

While it is not the end of February yet, I think it is possible for me to record down all my dividends and passive income for the month.

Dividends (from Ascott REIT and Suntec REIT) = $455.58
Trading Income = $39.31
Interest from Savings Account = $7.35

Total dividends and passive income for Feb 2010 = $502.24

I also expect to increase my earned income as I have started taking on some tutoring assignments. This is not so much for the money but more for the experience of teaching students in a one-to-one context and basically because I like to teach. I have enjoyed it thus far.

On the job front, I am still on the look out for jobs that might interest me. Still waiting for the replies from several job applications and hopefully I get a reply by March 2010.

31 Days to Increase My Passive Income

One of the reasons why I started this blog was to track my passive income earnings.

In 2008, I managed to hit my goal of achieving $200 per month in passive income.

The goal set for the year 2009 was to hit $400 per month passive income.

With 31 days left to 2009, I have to figure out a fast way to hit that amount of passive income.

Here is my estimate at where I am at currently:

1. 12,000 x Ascott REITs (DPU = 3.55 per half) = $71.00 per month
2. 17,000 x First REITs (Annualised DPU = 7.66cents) = $108.51 per month
3. 1000 x Suntec REITs (Annualised DPU = 11.94cents) = $9.95 per month
4. Maybank iSavvy Deposit = $8 per month
5. Online Income Sources = $30 per month

Total = $227.46 per month



I am now torn between putting my capital into dividend stocks or stocks for capital gains.

2 Months to End 2009

Oh No!!

It is just a short two more months to the end of 2009. And it seems like I have yet to hit my objective of $400 per month in passive income for this year!

How could I have fallen asleep and not keep track of my passive income earnings?

Last year, I managed to achieve my goal in a pretty short time simply by buying lots of REITs. This year however, the global financial crisis sort of through my whole REITs buying strategy off track. I got a little bit afraid of buying more REITs as most of my REITs had fallen in value.

I really need to get to work so that I do not fall behind my earnings goal. Otherwise there will be lots of catching up to do for the year of 2010.

Any suggestions please?

Read Related Articles:
1. Welcome to My Financial Freedom Journey
2. Financial Freedom Number
3. Financial Freedom Goal

Passive Income Update

In the journey to financial freedom, one of the decisions I made was to rapidly increase my passive income. This was done through the acquisition of REITs, bank deposits as well as online income sources.

My updated portfolio for passive income (end September 2009) is as such:

1. 12,000 x Ascott REITs (DPU = 3.55 per half) = $71.00 per month
2. 17,000 x First REITs (Annualised DPU = 7.66cents) = $108.51 per month
3. 11000 x Suntec REITs (Annualised DPU = 11.94cents) = $109.45 per month
4. Maybank iSavvy Deposit = $8 per month
5. Online Income Sources = $30 per month

Total Estimated Passive Income = $326.96 per month


See Related Articles:
1. I Received over $1000 in Dividends for August 2009
2. Passive Income Sources

Passive Income True Potential

I found this useful article on a blog regarding how to calculate the true potential of passive income online earnings. By calculating the amount of time we have put into writing articles for our blogs, and keeping track of our earnings, we can figure out how much money we are making per hour. Compare that with our active income sources and you can find out which is more "productive". The article is attached below:

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HOW TO CALCULATE THE TRUE POTENTIAL OF PASSIVE INCOME ONLINE

Building passive income online can be a great opportunity to take control of your personal finances. It typically requires a lot of hard work up front to get the income stream created. If you have built a solid income source, then your hard work will pay off down the road. But how can you tell the potential of your time and effort spent? By projecting out your earnings per hour and comparing it to other income sources.

I recently completed a personal challenge that required me to write 100 eHow articles in 1 month. While I did not reach my 100 article goal, I still finished the month with 72 published articles. In order to see the true potential of the time I spent writing these articles, I can project out my earnings for one year.

eHow Dollars per Hour Earnings

In the first month of writing these 72 articles, my eHow Earnings totaled $124.27. I spent 42 hours writing these articles which calculates to ~$2.95 per hour. I will admit that there is nothing special about earning $2.95 per hour. However, if you project these earnings out over the course of 12 months, you may change your mind.

I am in the 2nd month of collecting earnings after creating this passive income online source. The beautiful thing about this income stream is that I will earn a projected ~$128.63 from these same articles this month with no time spent on my part. That pushes my earnings over $6 per hour!

If I were to assume that these articles could continue to earn the same amount each month for 1 year, my earnings jump to $36.13 per hour. I could keep going, but you get the picture. Earning over $30 per hour (and possibly a lot more over time) is absolutely worth my time and effort when compared to my active income earnings.

Active Income Dollars per Hour

My current job that is earning active income is a salary position with a company that comes with health benefits, a 401k match, as well as a steady paycheck. Based on a normal scheduled of working 60 hours per week, I earn around $24.95 per hour (not factoring in any benefits).

Lately, because of staffing cuts and projects, I have been working closer to 70 hours per week. If I were to calculate my earnings per hour rate based on one full year of working at this pace, it would come out to $20.80 per hour.

Comparing the Income Sources

If I were to ask you – Would rather earn $30 per hour or $25 per hour? What option would you pick?

Obviously there are several assumptions in these calculations that I have provided. Health insurance coverage and 401K employer matches are not factored into my active income calculations.

I am also assuming that I can maintain the current earnings rate for my eHow articles. Who knows, the company could go under tomorrow and those dollars would go away. But who is to say that my employer couldn’t do the same?

By projecting out your passive income online earnings, you can easily compare them with other income sources. These calculations can be an excellent motivator to keep pushing you along!

How much is your active income job really paying you?

The original article can be found here: http://www.passivefamilyincome.com/2009/09/18/passive-income-online-earnings/
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See Related Articles:
1. I Received over $1000 in Dividends for August 2009
2. Passive Income Sources

Income Investing - High Dividend Yield Stocks

I am starting another mini 5 part series. This time, the topic will be on income investing and the various instruments that an investor can invest in to obtain an income.

Posting #1 - Investing in High Dividend Yield Stocks


Some people call this high yield investing. Investing in high dividend yield stocks basically means buying stocks of companies or corporations that have the habit of paying out dividends (a.k.a cash) every month or year. After reading this article, you should be able to know how to compute dividend yield for a certain stock, understand what high dividend yield means and also have an idea of some of the high dividend yield stocks that are available in the market including how to search for them.

Calculating a Stock's Dividend Yield

It is really simple to calculate a stock's dividend yield. The method I use is simply to take the amount of dividends given out each year divided by the price of the stock and multipy by 100. For example:

If price of ABC stock is $10.00 and the dividends for that year is $1.00 , the dividend yield works out to ($1.00 / $10.00) * 100 = 0.10 * 100 = 10%

The dividend yield of the stock works out to be 10% per annum. The reason this number is important is because it gives you a basis to compare the yield with other similar stocks. Thing to note is that comparing dividend yield between 2 stocks might not be a good basis alone as the higher yielding stock might have a lower price due to certain factors that have occured after the last dividends that it paid out. This accounts for its seemingly higher yield.

Another good reason for having the yield is that it gives you a rough gauge of how much dividends you can expect to get each year based on your invested capital. IF the dividend yield of the stock is 10% and you have invested $10000, you can expect to receive $1000 per year in dividends.

What is considered a high dividend yield stock?

I would like to think that a high dividend yield stock is basically one that has a relatively higher yield compared to peers in a similar industry. Most people however compared dividend yields across different stocks in different industries and buy the stocks with the highest dividend yield. For me, a high yield will be one that gives me a better return than the bank's fixed deposit.

Looking for High Dividend Yield Stocks?

If you are looking for high dividend yield stocks, you can check out S&P's Dividend Aristocrats List which provides a filter on various dividend yielding stocks. Another simple way is to simple search using Google. Just key in the words High Dividend Yield Stocks and you will get lots of suggestions from various websites and blogs.

READ THE ENTIRE SERIES:
1. Investing in High Dividend Yield Stocks
2. Investing in REITs
3. Investing in Canroys
4. Investing in Rental Property
5. Investing in Bonds

SEE RELATED POSTS:
Read : The 25% Cash Machine
Read: Dividends I have Received Thus Far

Received Over $1000 in Dividends for August 09

I received over $1000 in dividends for the month of August. Pretty pleased also with the way my portfolio is regaining its value. The month of August was also significant for me as I started a simple 10 part mini series about the Journey to Financial Freedom. You can read all the postings here:

The Road to Financial Freedom
#1 - The Greatest Mistake
#2 - Protect What You Cannot Afford to Lose
#3 - Spend Less Than You Earn
#4 - Spend Less Or Earn More
#5 - Buy Assets Not Liabilities
#6 - Read and Learn More
#7 - The Magic of Part Time
#8 - Health Equals Wealth
#9 - It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
#10 - Congrats! You have Achieved it!

I have also begun to explore using HubPages to increase my Adsense Earnings

Earning Passive Income Online

I have debunked the myth that it is not possible to earn money online!

For those of you who have been following my postings, you should know that I started experimenting with Google's Adsense program around last year. How Google's Adsense works is simple. Advertisements are placed on your website or blogs. You get paid when people click on the advertisements. Of course, you are not allowed to click on the advertisements or to ask readers to click on your advertisements.

So you can think of your website as your very own magazine or e-magazine and Google pays you to put these advertisements on your site. The only thing is that you get paid when someone clicks on the adverts which can take a really long time.

I started off really slow earning a mere few cents from Adsense during the first few months. However, as the weeks and months went by, I began to see a slow but steady increase in my Adsense earnings. Of course it is not alot and the money i earn is really just coffee money. But nevertheless, it gives me great satisfaction that I have been able to pull off something which I thought was impossible - Making Money Online!

I am beginning to brainstorm on new ideas to increase this area of my passive income. I have found that the content I put up might not always be particularly useful at times. This is due to the lack of time to edit my work and stuff.

Just wondering out aloud whether it is worthwhile to invest in a proper domain name and some server while creating some really good content that will be useful to people.

111 Posts and Counting

Wow! It has been almost an entire year since I started this blog and I have accumulated 111 posts already.

Of course, I know a lot of the posts do not fit into the high quality posts that one normally gets from other blogs.

But still I will stick to my own style of writing...and basically, sharing of my experience.

A mid year review will be done soon on the amount of passive income I have attained thus far. I believe I'm still short of my $400 per month passive income.

We will see how it goes as I try to expand into other areas to boost my passive income.

$1590.38 in Dividends & Passive Income for May 09

This month was another bountiful month for me similar to Feb 09.

The breakdown is as follows:

1. Stock Dividends = $1553.50
2. Canroys Distribution = $15.88
3. Other income = $21.00

This brings the grand total to an amount of $1590.38.

$120 Dividends From NOL

Received $120 dividends from NOL

My portfolio of stocks has also risen in value by $10k. Still sitting on paper loss though for some of the stocks

So the Bull (or Bubble) is Here ($1500 to be coming soon)

So it seems that the bull market is back in full force. Or maybe it is simply too early to tell. It could be the greatest Bubble for all we know.

I guess most people have missed the bull run up as share prices of alot of stocks have already risen dramatically over the past few days. Seems like the swine flu and the global financial crisis no longer strikes any fear in people.

It is good to see my portfolio recover some of its paper loss. But of course I am lamenting the fact that I have missed this great opportunity to ride the bull up. I was not too disciplined in doing my dollar cost averaging as you can see.

Anyway, the month of May will be a bountiful month for me in terms of dividends. Below are the list of stocks that I am holding that have declared dividends:

1. ChinaAOil (SGD 0.02 per share)
2. First REIT (SGD 0.0188 per share)
3. Innotek (SGD 0.05 per share)
4. KingBoard (HKD 0.01 per share)
5. NOL (SGD 0.04 per share)
6. ST Eng (SGD 0.128 per share)
7. Suntec REIT (SGD 0.02918 per share)
8. KepLand (SGD0.08 per share)

I estimate that I should be getting about S$1500 plus in dividends for the month of May.

Hmmm.. so maybe its not too bad also..some extra cash in my pocket.

My First Cheque from Penn West Energy Trust

So I received a total sum of $6.66 for my 50 shares of Penn West Energy Trust. See picture of the cheque from Penn West below:


The distribution was actually a grand total of $14.12. HOWEVER, after deducting for a 30% withholding tax, postage/handling charges of $5 and a 7% GST, I am left with a paltry $6.66.

There you have it, my dividends nearly halved by all these expenses. Oh well, guess I will just have to accumulate more of Penn West Energy Trust for all these expenses to be worthwhile.

Added PWE into my Portfolio

Added 50 shares of PWE. Also bought 500 shares of Citicorp @2.92

My updated portfolio for passive income for 11 Apr 2009 is as such:

1. 12,000 x Ascott REITs (DPU = 4.28 per half) = $85.60 per month (decrease in DPU)
2. 17,000 x First REITs (DPU = 1.94 per qtr) = $109.93 per month (increase in DPU)
3. 1000 x Suntec REITs (DPU = 2.858 qtr) = $9.52 per month
4. 3000 x NOL (estimate 8 cents per year*) = $20.00 per month
5. Maybank iSavvy Deposit = $8 per month
6. 100 x PenWest Energy Trust = $22.00 per month
7. 100 x Pengrowth Energy Trust = $15.00 per month

Total avg monthly passive income = $270.05 (Mar 09)

Taking one step at a time towards my financial freedom.

3 Sources of Passive Income

Been seeing a lot of advertisements on the newspapers recently advertising how some people are willing to teach you how to make passive income by either joining their seminars and stuff. Well, I will just share mine openly since I believe that knowledge ought to be free for all.

In this post, I will be revealing the 3 sources of passive income that I hope to achieve by the end of this year. For this year, my goal is to achieve a passive income of $400 per month or $4800 per annum. I am looking to 3 areas/ sources to grow my passive income.

Source #1 - Dividends and Distributions from Stocks/REITs

This is currently my main source of passive income. I hope to achieve a minimum of $300 per month or $3600 per annum of passive income from dividends and distributions that I receive from both Singapore and US listed stocks.

Source #2 - Paid Advertisements on Blogs

I am currently relying on Google's Adsense to make some coffee money. It is peanuts really. Hope to achieve a stable $20 per month by the end of this year.

Source #3 - Writing Options

I have opened an OptionsXpress account. Basically, I hope to sell naked puts on fundamentally good stocks. Should the puts be exercised, I won't mind buying the stocks. If not, I will just be happy to make money from these puts. I hope to make this source of passive income operational by May 09.

There you go! My 3 sources of passive income. Feel free to comment or share your sources of passive income with me!

Read Related Articles:
1. My Flat is Worth Half A Million?
2. Passive Income Update for October 2009

Added Pengrowth Energy Trust

Updating my passive income portfolio.
PenWest Energy Trust had a dividend cut to US$0.15 per unit. Also added Pengrowth Energy Trust into my portfolio. It gives US$0.10 per unit.

My updated portfolio for passive income for 31 Mar 2009 is as such:

1. 12,000 x Ascott REITs (DPU = 4.28 per half) = $85.60 per month (decrease in DPU)
2. 17,000 x First REITs (DPU = 1.94 per qtr) = $109.93 per month (increase in DPU)
3. 1000 x Suntec REITs (DPU = 2.858 qtr) = $9.52 per month
4. 3000 x NOL (estimate 8 cents per year*) = $20.00 per month
5. Maybank iSavvy Deposit = $8 per month
6. 50 x PenWest Energy Trust = $11.00 per month
7. 100 x Pengrowth Energy Trust = $15.00 per month

Total avg monthly passive income = $259.05 (Mar 09)