Monthly Progress Report - December 2014

It feels like it's been a long time since I last wrote anything.  December was quite a month for us but we made it through relatively unharmed.  We lost a car and re-assessed whether we needed to replace it.  Well, after further review, we decided to go ahead and purchase a cheap set of wheels.  That explains why we had to dip into our savings, but the good news is No Loan!  That also means, reduced funds and we will have to try and replace those funds throughout the year.  I was still able to make a couple of purchases through Loyal3 and Lending Club and set aside a little into the brokerage.

On the tax-deferred front, we saw big gains with end-of-the-year payouts of dividends and capital gains that went right back into our accounts.  Here's a summary:

Deposits

• Made a monthly deposit into savings, but withdrew a big chunk.  Net loss was -$4830
• Made a deposit of $50 into our dream account
• Deposited and invested $200 into Lending Club
• Deposit of $100 fresh money into Loyal3 and added $1 of dividend for purchases of $101.
• Purchased $50 of UL and $51 of KO
• Deposited $240 fresh money into my 457
• Deposited $150 into the IRA

Passive Income

Big news! December saw the first month of dividend income from individual stocks!  A total of only $2.10, but you gotta start somewhere.  I also saw interest from savings, CD and Lending Club.  The big gains came in the form of December dividends and capital gains from the retirement accounts. Huge gains this month for a total of $1482.28! See the numbers below.

Savings	Total	Dec Deposits	Dec Int/Div	Year to Date
Main Savings	$5,020.89	-$4,830.00	$5.74	$24.84
Dream Account	$2,381.17	$50.00	$2.02	$7.35
CD (2.15%)	$1,016.57	$0.00	$1.83	$7.20
Lending Club	$1,567.07	$200.00	$15.77	$48.33
Loyal3	$642.99	$101.00	$2.10	$2.10
Brokerage	$1,092.40	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
457(b)	$32,404.16	$240.00	$1,015.14	$1,025.52
IRA	$69,317.66	$150.00	$439.68	$615.84
	$112,350.51	-$4,089.00	$1,482.28	$1,731.18

Recent Buy

No time to create a new post so I'll stick one in here. In the early stages of January, I made a purchase through Loyal3. Utilizing my remainder $1 of dividend and adding $125 of new money I purchased $75 of YUM and $51 of MSFT.  This brings my forward 12 month dividends to $112.17.

Moving Forward

This is the end of the first year of tracking these accounts so closely.  I've learned a lot from so many different people. I've also learned a lot from my accounts. 2014 was a short year in this regard and I hope to continue my progress. 

A couple of major things I've learned is that tracking and putting things down on (digital) paper have helped me to stay motivated.  Case in point is the car purchase. In the past, I may have paid for the car and took my lumps then crawled back into my hole and sat there not investing and not moving forward. Now, I feel I have the confidence to take that lump and tighten the belt. I'll move forward. I may not be as aggressive, but my theme is to keep a trickle going. The trickle is already accelerating and some day I hope to see a stream of passive income coming down the line.

Thanks again for all the inspiring articles out there. Like I said above, I may not have been writing much but I was still reading. I hope to loosen the fingers a little and add some comments to your sites soon.