In short, we did better than in 2019 but missed our planned financial goals which were set here.

It was challenging all year around, Covid-19 restrictions, working from home, buying a house, seeing companies cutting or suspending their dividends in our portfolio.

All companies set goals and managers monitor their execution. It is proved that having a plan helps you to get closer to those goals. We set our financial goals and they help us to stay on the course and improve understanding and planning of our financial situation.

There is a new unknown financial environment in which many governments are giving money away to support economies. I do not know what consequences we will face because of this free money pumped into the economies. Most likely the buying power of money will deaccelerate even more with inflation and holding other assets like taking part in good businesses, real estate, and other investments would be preferred over holding cash.

Therefore we will stay on our path to financial freedom and continue increasing our income from our passive income streams. Let’s see how our financial goals of 2020 served us this year despite the pandemic.

Dividends

We received $12,596 in dividends. Two companies suspended their dividends and four companies reduced their dividends in our portfolio. We planned on receiving $13,000 in dividends, and this $404 miss does not look like failure this year.

Real estate

Income from real estate was $14,882. After verifying the set goal for this income stream I have figured out that initially I did not calculate properties maintenance cost in the last year. The planned amount was $25,000 which should be offset by $11,000 because of maintenance cost. Maintenance consists of two rental properties taxes, strata and management fees. Please, note that this number does not include the mortgage principal that was paid off during this period.

Lending Loop

Income from Lending loop totaled $2,553 as expected. It was noticeable that small businesses have been affected by the pandemic this year on this platform. Much less businesses were looking for finance.

Cheque from Google!

For the first time, I received cheque of $104 from Google this year. This income stream is passive only if you would chronology your actions in any case. Otherwise it is not a passive income stream and to make it somehow a significant income source you have to invest time and research on the matter.

Realtor reimbursement

I am not sure if it might be considered as passive income, but the realtor we worked with to buy our home paid us back half of his payment. We have got $6,965. This money invested for four percent will generate passive income of $278 annually. It is something to consider if you are looking to buy real estate and know what and where you are going to buy.

Getting experienced

Here is the graph of our financial goals planned and our results for the last five years. In 2016 and 2017 we counted capital gain as income and stopped doing that starting from 2018. The last three years shows that we are getting more experienced in setting and achieving our goals.

Aah, our passive income streams brought us $30,031. That’s amazing! It is $2,502 in passive income every month despite the uncertainty in the market. It is already enough to live in some developing countries with no need to go to work but we want to retire in the beautiful Vancouver and therefore we have to push our financial goals even higher and better.