Quarterly Passive Income Report: Q2 2017 – £1,293.93

Another Quarterly Passive Income Report is here meaning we’re now officially half way through 2017 and I’m month 5/60 in Dundee.

The registrar training programme is 5 years long, hopefully culminating in a respiratory consultant post. There are still numerous hurdles and hoops such as the SCE exam, yearly assessments and the possibility of a 2-year MD potentially making this a 7-year programme but I don’t really want to think about that right now. I find myself constantly thinking ahead about my career, relationships and life that I fail totally at living in the present.

Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now is a great guide on how to avoid unpleasant thoughts from your past and future and trying to live in the moment. I’m currently in the process of reading it and some of the concepts are mind-blowing yet so simple I wonder why I never thought of it myself. You can get your own FREE copy by clicking on the link below. In the process I may or may not receive a small amount of money to support this blog at no extra cost to yourself.

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Originally I was planning to write about my struggle with motivation over the past six months. After enjoying a five week holiday in January I have since been unable to to study, work extra locum shifts or even create anything useful for anyone. I’m currently in the process of writing How to Pass MRCP PACES in 8 weeks. There’s so much information I want to put into the book to create value for you guys but I’m struggling to concentrate after work. I end up feeling very guilty but promise I’ll finish it to a high standard before the next QPIR.

April and May – Simplifying is Optimising

Truth be told I was getting annoyed at my old bank charging £5/month for something I could get for free so I simply cancelled it. In fact, some banks actually pay you to switch to their service so do some research to earn up to £150 for free!

Instead, as you can see from the table, I’ve opted for more peer to peer investing but doing so with caution as this is starting to become a large part of my investment portfolio. P2P income is classified as interest (not dividends) so falls within the Personal Savings Allowance so if you’re following the same path make sure you don’t exceed £500/year as a 40% taxpayer, or £1,000/year as a 20% taxpayer.

By scrapping this £5 monthly fee, that’s an extra £15 appearing on each QPIR for the forseeable future. Not a significant amount of money by any means but a few decisions like this one could make a reasonable difference I think.

June – 14 Pay Checks instead of 12

Good news as you can see is that I’ve finally exceeded four digits in passive income this quarter. This is almost equivalent to receiving an extra 2 pay checks every year, or 14 pay checks instead of 12 annually.

This income was entirely passive via simple but very effective investments that anyone can own but I’m very thankful to be in the position where no extra work had to be carried out to “earn” this. When the time comes for me to write “24 pay checks instead of 12” that’s when I know I’m financially independent so still a very long journey ahead of us.

The number is somewhat inflated because Q2 has historically been the best quarter for dividends, at least for the investments I hold. Compound this with the weak pound (strong dollar) means a much higher than usual dividend payment. Nevertheless I still expect Q3 to remain above four figures.

I think going forward I plan to do more of the same – there’s nothing elaborate about compound interest and dividend reinvestment. Sticking to basic financial principles will probably suffice. I also want to talk about hustle but that’s for another post.

P.S. I learned everything I know about finance from this book, this book and that one, amongst many others. For a more extensive list, don’t hesitate to drop me a line at rory@ukdoctoronfire.com. If you prefer learning through listening use this link to earn a free audiobook of your choice by signing up to their 30-day free trial. Simply cancel with the click of a button if you decide later on that the service isn’t for you, no questions asked.