My January investment income dropped slightly to $89.50 from $90.93 the month before. This was a result of the value of my IRA going down and no money being added to my investment portfolio.
It has been suggested that this is perhaps not the best way to measure my investments since it doesn’t completely reflect reality. After taking that into consideration I am going to come up with a new measurement based at least in part on my actual dividend and interest income received. I’ll still be calculating my investment income as I am now as well so that I will have a consistent measure for comparison purposes.
Disclaimer: This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement savings, emergency fund, and any other money I consider permanent savings. What the total of my savings would earn at 6% interest for a month is my monthly investment income. My goal is to get this amount to $1000 a month. If I have $1000 in monthly passive investment income I will be able to retire early.
Well, on the positive side you have doubled your investment income since January 2009. In order to make $900/month ( $8400/year) you need to invest $210,000 and earn 4% yield; If you could invest $52500 in stocks that yield 4% today, but double their distributions every 6-7 years, you would achieve that in 12-14 years 😉
Of course by that time you would probably be getting over $1000 in Social Security anyways..
DGI – I know 4% is considered the safe number but I’m making a fair bit more than that right now. I’m going to include some of my online income as well so my total money needed will be less than your figures. Well, maybe not less than the $52500 figure but I won’t have to wait quite as long. In 12-14 years I will be in my 50’s. A little too young for Social Security but not extremely young for a retiree.