My Investments 03/2022 (BIG News!)

Welcome to my portfolio update for the month of March 2022.

A lot has happened since my last monthly update, not just financially but also in my personal life. Which is why I’m posting this a full week after publishing the video, sorry about that.

I’ll try to summarize everything, but I’ll definitely talk about some of these topics in more detail separately.

As always, you’ll also find out exactly what I’ve done with my investments in P2P lending, ETFs and crypto and my monthly income from each of my investments.

Please don’t forget that none of this is investment advice, just my personal opinion based on my own experience as an investor.

The Big News

Let’s get the personal stuff out of the way first.

My TV interview about financial independence and frugalism finally aired on Austrian television (ORF2/Vera) last week.

Overall, it was a good experience and I enjoyed my time with everyone I talked to. Still, to be honest I wouldn’t do it again and I’m quite disappointed.

Here’s why:

• I’m not allowed to use any of the video material for a reaction video or voiceover the way I planned.
• They never once mentioned or showed my YouTube channel, because “they don’t do promotions”, even though we discussed this beforehand and it was the least I expected to get out of my appearance.
  So I basically got nothing from it – Ok, apart from my dad finally being proud of me for being on TV.
• Not only that, after it aired, the video was only watchable from an Austrian IP address, only on their website and was only online for a few days. Basically, it already disappeared forever into the dark abyss, never to be seen again. That’s legacy Austrian television media for you.

So that’s that.

The Actually Life-Changing News

Now, let’s move on to much, much better news.

My wife is pregnant and if everything goes well, we’re having a baby in October!

Before you ask – yes, it was planned and we’re both very excited about this new adventure.

But it still means a lot will change in our life, including us needing a larger apartment.

Alright, let’s get to the real reason you’re probably here. That is to see how my investments performed, starting with ETFs:

ETFs

Our monthly investment plan into a single ETF, the accumulating Vanguard FTSE All-World (ISIN: IE00BK5BQT80, Ticker: VWCE), has not changed.

Obviously, due to the on-going war, combined with levels of inflation we haven’t seen in many decades, the market is moving a lot in both directions.

But, that’s part of the journey and ETFs are long-term investments anyway.

Here is how our ETF performed (in €):

• +3,12% in March
• -3,34% in 2022 so far

Dividends

We also received dividends from our distributing ETF shares. As a reminder, we only switched to the accumulating FTSE All-World in the beginning of 2021.

In March, we received a total of 277,81€ in distributions from the Vanguard FTSE All-World and the xTrackers MSCI World.

If you’re looking for the best, low-cost brokers in Europe to get you started on your investment journey into stocks or ETFs, I recommend checking out Interactive Brokers and Degiro first.

And if you’re based in Austria or Germany, where taxes are more complicated, make sure you check out my favorite local brokers here. These take care of everything for you, making your life a lot easier.

• ETF Investing for Europeans in 2022 (Incl. Broker Tutorials)

P2P Lending

Let’s move on to P2P lending.

Here’s my platform allocation on the 1st of April:

As you can see, I added a new platform, Income marketplace.

Let’s see how each of my investments performed:

Mintos

• Income (March 2022): 23,23€
• IRR: 11,23%
• Invested since: 27.09.2018

As I mentioned in my previous videos, I’m withdrawing repayments from Mintos for the time being, until I see drastic improvements regarding my funds in recovery.

Viainvest

• Income (March 2022): 31,26€
• IRR: 12,05%
• Invested since: 11.10.2019

Viainvest is currently running a 1% cashback campaign for all investments placed via its auto invest until the end of April.

Several platforms are actually running bonus campaigns right now or increased the interest rates. I’m guessing that’s because they’ve seen some outflows from investors since the start of the war, which is understandable.

• Get a 10€ signup bonus on Viainvest via my link.

Robocash

• Income (March 2022): 35,73€
• IRR: 12,23%
• Invested since: 19.01.2021

The interest rates on Robocash now go all the way up to 13%, which is great to see.

• Sign up using this link, to get  1% cashback on all of your Robocash investments after 30 days.

Lendermarket

• Income (March 2022): 45,59€
• IRR: 14,45%
• Invested since: 21.11.2019

Lendermarket remains my best performing platform in P2P lending.

Similarly to Viainvest, they’re also running a 2% bonus campaign for new and existing investors until May 2nd, 2022. To participate, you need to log in to your account and manually enroll after clicking on the yellow banner. Here are the exact terms.

• Get 1% cashback on your investments on Lendermarket after 60 days by signing up via my link.

Iuvo Group

• Income (March 2022): 18,04€
• IRR: 11,49%
• Invested since: 05.10.2018

Iuvo Group is finally showing how much is in recovery directly on the dashboard, something I’ve been requesting for a long time. In my case, it’s 428,59€€ from the Polish loan originator CBC, which I’m hoping will be resolved in the coming months.

• Get 0,75% cashback on your Iuvo Group investments after 60 days when signing up via my link.

Crowdestor

• Income (March 2022): 13,01€
• IRR: 8,15%
• Invested since: 03.04.2019

27 out of my remaining 37 loans are late on Crowdestor. I ‘m hoping I’ll see some repayments this month, but either way I can’t recommend this platform based on my experience.

Bondora Go & Grow (Unlimited?)

• Income (March 2022): 21,30€
• IRR (incl. withdrawals): 6,69%
• Invested since: 01.09.2018

Bondora announced Go & Grow unlimited in the beginning of April, which honestly I don’t think is a good deal.

The interest rate is way too low at only 2%. I’d rather stick to the standard Go & Grow at 6,75% interest per year and accept that I’m only able to add a maximum of 1.000€ per month to my account.

• Get a 5€ bonus on Bondora when you sign up via my link and invest 10€ or more.

Bondster

• Income (March 2022): 29,81€
• IRR: 11,35%
• Invested since: 25.01.2022

A good chunk of my income on Bondster came from the 1% bonus I got on my investments after a bit over 30 days as an investor. You can get the same using my link.

The Bondster CEO visited me and Bernhard in Vienna in the beginning of April:

• P2P Deep Dive with Bondster CEO Pavel Klema

He left a really good impression on me and I’m actually feeling a lot better about investing on Bondster after talking to him.

Income Marketplace

Now, as I said in the beginning, I started investing on a new platform, Income.

I like their approach of how they try to prioritize investor protection. Lending companies have much more skin-in-the-game in each loan, via a junior share of 20-67%.

Not only that, in case of a default, the loan originators junior share is only paid back after investors have received their money back, finally putting investors interests first.

The cashflow buffer and junior share is in addition to the standard buyback guarantee each loan comes with. As we’ve seen over the past few years, a buyback obligation on its own is not always enough.

I really like their innovative approach to P2P lending, which is why I invested my first 1.000€ on Income on March 17th.

I earned 22€ so far, but 20€ were actually a bonus from a bug I discovered using the auto invest.

Still, I’ll gladly take the extra bonus, which you might be able to get as well if you discover a bug on the platform and report it.

I added an additional 500€ a few days ago, but that will be part of next month’s update.

My Income Auto Invest Settings

Here is how I set up my auto invest on Income Marketplace right now (click to expand):

If you’re interested in checking out Income Marketplace for yourself and you’d like to support me, you can get a 1% bonus on all of your investments after 30 days using this link.

You can add the referral code: I4IEMZ during signup, but it’s not needed to qualify for the offer, as long as you’re using one of my links.

If you’re an investor already, I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!

My Income From P2P Lending in March

Platform	Income	IRR	Invested	Value
Mintos	23,23€	11,23%	3.949€	6.620€
Crowdestor	13,01€	8,15%	4.836€	6.105€
Lendermarket	45,59€	14,45%	2.513€	3.472€
Viainvest	31,26€	12,05%	2.737€	3.440€
Iuvo Group	18,04€	11,49%	1.562€	2.768€
Robocash	35,73€	12,23%	3.250€	3.649€
Bondster	29,81€	11,35%	2.000€	2.039€
Income (new!)	21,53€	67,92%	1.000€	1.022€
Bondora Go&Grow	21,30€	6,69%	3.400€	3.851€
EvoEstate	0€	6,95%	214€	300€
EstateGuru	0€	7,58%	145€	196€
Total	238,59€		25.606€	33.462€

I earned a total of 238,59€ from P2P lending in March.

According to Portfolio Performance, the free tool I use to track my investments, that’s a return of 0,72% for the month and an internal rate of return of 9,04% p.a. from P2P lending in 2022.

Crypto

We’re almost done, we just need to discuss my highest risk investment category, crypto. In my case that’s mostly Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Bitcoin:

• +6% in March
• -2% so far in 2022

Ethereum:

• +14% in March
• -9% so far in 2022

Crypto returns aside, I earned a total of 91,43€ by lending out some of my crypto on FTX last month.

I’m Really Enjoying The Crypto.com Debit Card

The only other thing worth mentioning is that my wife and I have now been using a Ruby steel crypto.com debit card for every purchase we make since February.

The 2% cashback in CRO tokens on every single payment was just too good to pass on, and I had been meaning to test it for a long time.

It’s honestly quite addictive, so please make sure you don’t buy anything you weren’t planning to just because of the cashback rate.

I added the card to my Curve account, enabling me to use the card in Google Pay and thus pay using my phone. As an added benefit, this is how my wife can use the same card as well for our expenses.

And lastly, the card fully refunds our Spotify subscription every month (saving me about 155€/year), which is a pretty nice bonus.

All in all, after now using it daily for over two months and really enjoying its benefits, I figured it was time to mention it here. As far as I’m aware, there’s nothing quite like it in Europe, while cashback on card purchases is more common in the US.

My friend Lars from Passives Einkommen mit P2P had been telling me to get one for a long time and I’m glad I finally pulled the trigger.

• You can use this link and my referral code: t2pj8q8nmz to get $25 in CRO tokens for your own VISA debit card.

Alright, that’s all for today!

Now I can get back to looking for a bigger apartment and as a result, worrying about higher living expenses and becoming a father…

My Investments in 2022 (March) – The Video

You might enjoy these posts:

• My TOP 3 Investments For 2022 (Yearly Returns & Outlook)
• Viainvest – 2 Years Later (12,08%)
• The Stock Market is Crashing – What Now? (ETF Investor)
• Lendermarket – 2 Years Later (14,45%)
• ETF Investing for Europeans in 2022 (Incl. Broker Tutorials)
• My Top 5 P2P Lending Platforms – Here Is Why