Fidelity (and most of Vanguard) have posted their end of year distributions this weekend, and after adding all of ours up, over multiple accounts: We’ve “earned” $10,850.60 in investment income this year – with most of it ($6521) in December. We’re primarily invested in total stock market funds, and those generally dump all their goodies at the end of the year. We do have about 18% bonds in our tax-advantaged accounts and they earn us about $100/month throughout the year. Most of this money is in tax-advantaged accounts and “untouchable” for us, but our taxable account generated $138 in dividends/capital gains this year (almost 100% FSTMX).
If my goal was to live completely off dividend/capital gains income, we’d need about 3.4million in the bank based on this year’s income. But, if that was my goal, I wouldn’t be as heavily invested in equity index funds, and instead would have more money in bonds, which throw off more reliable income.
Still, $10k in almost completely passive income isn’t much to sneeze at – that’s about 2 months worth of living expenses for us.
How did your investment income do this year? Did it increase as you wanted it to?
Nothing to sneeze at indeed! Do you think your living expenses will go down in retirement with DD on her own? If so, that money may stretch even further!
Almost definitely. We’ll still be in a similarly sized house, but we won’t be in Allegheny County (and possibly not in PA), so our property taxes will be much less expensive.