Portfolio Update – My Investments in 2021 (November)

Let’s see how my investment portfolio performed in November 2021.

As always, I’ll be covering all my investments: P2P lending, stocks in the form of ETFs, my small bets in crypto and my income from crypto and USD lending. You’ll see how everything performed, why I increased my investment on a few P2P platforms while reducing it on others and we’ll discuss important events.

I’ll also give you my opinion on the current market volatility and whether or not it is influencing my investment decisions at the moment.

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

Alright, let’s begin with ETFs, which make up around 60% of my investments.

ETFs

My strategy remains as boring as ever. My wife and I just buy one low-cost ETF, the accumulating Vanguard FTSE All-World (ISIN: IE00BK5BQT80, Ticker: VWCE) on a monthly basis.

We don’t really care what the market is doing from month to month, since this is a long-term investment. We’re actually happy if the market drops a bit before our monthly investment, as it allows us to buy more shares for the same amount of money.

But of course I won’t lie – we’re only human and it still feels better to see your portfolio value going up and not down.

So let’s see how our ETF performed:

• -0,11% in November
• +22,74% since the beginning of 2021

If you need some excellent, low-cost brokerage accounts to get into stocks & ETFs, I recommend checking out these two first:

• Interactive Brokers
• Degiro – Their 200 commission-free ETFs are a great place to start (ETFs & conditions)

If you’re from Austria like me or from Germany, where taxes are more complicated, you can find my favorite local brokers here. These take care of the taxation for you, making your life a lot easier.

I also just created an updated guide for all the brokers I mentioned. You can find it here:

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

P2P Lending

Let’s talk about my investments in P2P lending.

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

From these, I would like to remove Crowdestor and to move that money to other platforms.

• My TOP 5 in P2P Lending

And here’s how each platform is doing individually:

Mintos

• Income (November 2021): 42,24€
• IRR: 11,47%
• Invested since: 27.09.2018

On November 18th, I moved 1.000€ from Mintos to Lendermarket, Robocash and Viainvest.

That’s because the interest rates offered by many lending companies on Mintos dropped below my minimum of 10% per year over the past couple of weeks.

Things are starting to look slightly better since then, but it’s still become a lot harder to diversify at a decent interest rate on the platform.

Viainvest

• Income (November 2021): 28,57€
• IRR: 12,16%
• Invested since: 11.10.2019

I added 250€ to my Viainvest account on November 22nd, which was invested shortly after.

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

Robocash

• Income (November 2021): 25,74€
• IRR: 12,00%
• Invested since: 19.01.2021

I also added another 250€ to Robocash on November 19th.

• Sign up to Robocash via this link to get 1% cashback on all of your investments on the platform within the first 30 days.

Lendermarket

• Income (November 2021): 37,83€
• IRR: 14,44%
• Invested since: 21.11.2019

I deposited an additional 500€ to Lendermarket on November 18th.

Creditstar, the group of lending companies offering all the loans and the buyback obligation on Lendermarket, published its audited financial statement for 2020. Many of you (me included) were waiting for this one.

• Creditstar’s Audited Financial Statement (2020)

It was audited by KPMG, which should finally put concerns regarding their previous smaller auditing firm to rest. The one thing they criticized was that Creditstar revalued its intangible assets upwards, resulting in higher reported profits and equity.

However, even without those adjustments, the company was still able to remain profitable in 2020, which was a very difficult year for many loan originators.

And the reports they published so far in 2021 (Q3 2021 interim report) are looking even better than last year, giving me confidence in my investments on Lendermarket.

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

Iuvo Group

• Income (November 2021): 19,22€
• IRR: 11,74%
• Invested since: 05.10.2018

Crowdestor

• Income (November 2021): 25,26€
• IRR: 8,49%
• Invested since: 03.04.2019

Crowdestor remains my one annoyance in the P2P lending sector right now. I withdrew 28,76€ at the start of November, as I’m planning to leave the platform.

24 out of 39 loans are still late. Many of them have been late for a long time already.

Bondora Go & Grow

• Income (November 2021): 7,12€
• IRR (incl. withdrawals): 6,68%
• Invested since: 01.09.2018

I added 500€ to my Bondora Go & Grow account on November 29th, increasing the interest I receive on a daily basis.

In my opinion, Bondora Go & Grow is still the best and most reliable option for short-term investments in P2P lending. I might move more of my cash buffer there over the coming months.

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

EstateGuru

• Income (November 2021): 0€
• IRR: 6,78%
• Invested since: 12.10.2020

I withdrew 131€ (my available funds) from EstateGuru last month.

As I mentioned, I just don’t have the time to choose loans individually on the platform at the moment.

• Use this link for a 0,5% bonus on EstateGuru for the first 3 months.

EvoEstate

• Income (November 2021): 0€
• Invested since: 03.02.2020
• IRR: 6,71%

My Income From P2P Lending in November

Platform	Income	IRR	Invested	Value
Mintos	42,24€	11,47%	4.409€	6.897€
Crowdestor	25,26€	8,49%	5.179€	6.336€
Lendermarket	37,83€	14,44%	2.513€	3.313€
Viainvest	28,57€	12,16%	2.737€	3.318€
Iuvo Group	19,22€	11,80%	1.562€	2.696€
Robocash	25,74€	12,00%	3.250€	3.507€
Bondora Go&Grow	7,12€	6,68%	1.400€	1.796€
EvoEstate	0€	6,71%	324€	400€
EstateGuru	5,52€	6,78%	369€	407€
Mintos I&A	0,04€	9,90%	0€	59€
Total	186,02€		21.743€	28.729€

I earned a total of 186,02€ in interest from P2P lending in November. According to Portfolio Performance, the free tool I use to track my investments, that’s a return of 0,65% for the month and an internal rate of return of 9,46% so far from P2P lending in 2021.

• P2P Lending Bonus & Cashback Offers (December 2021)

Bitcoin & Ethereum

And with that, let’s get to my most speculative investments – my 10% allocation to the two largest cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Let’s see how they performed until December 1st:

Bitcoin:

• -5% in November
• +110% since the start of the year

Ethereum:

• +10% in November
• +591% since the start of 2021

Due to the market freaking out because of a new variant and possible restrictions, both of them had a correction since then, but I remain optimistic that they’ll recover quickly.

While my returns have been incredible so far, make sure you don’t get too excited and YOLO a large chunk of your capital into this highly volatile sector. I wouldn’t go beyond 1-10% of your portfolio. And don’t risk money you absolutely can’t afford to lose.

• My favorite exchanges to buy crypto

USD & Crypto Lending

And this brings me to my last source of investment income: Crypto & USD stable coin lending via Celsius Network and the FTX exchange.

My income from this source fluctuates on a monthly basis, depending on how much cash I’m holding. And since I have to do some tax planning for the end of the year, it will likely be lower next month. That being said, I earned a total of 114€ in interest from crypto and USD lending in November.

I’m Going To Be on TV!

Here’s another thing that happened last month: An Austrian TV network invited me to talk about frugalism and financial independence on TV.

At first, I was a bit hesitant, but ultimately I decided to just go for it! The recording already took place last week and it should air sometime in January.

I’ll let you know once it goes live! I’m also planning a reaction video, where I can go into a lot more detail.

And that’s everything for last month!

You might enjoy these posts:

• ETF Investing for Europeans in 2022 (Incl. Broker Tutorials)
• My Top 5 P2P Lending Platforms – Here Is Why
• Distributing or Accumulating ETFs: What You Need To Know
• Why Mr. RIP Quit His Job at Google (As a Millionaire)
• The Best Brokers for European Investors in 2021 (ETFs & Stocks)
• Robocash Review: How Did I Miss This One? (12,56%)
• Finding The Best ETFs in 2021 (European Investor)
• Viainvest Review – 2 Years Later (12,16%)
• PeerBerry Review – Worth It In 2021? (My Personal Opinion)

My Investments in 2021 (November) – The Video