Portfolio Update – My Investments in 2021 (September)

It’s that time of the month again, where we have a look at how my investment portfolio performed.

As usual, I’m going to cover all my investments: P2P lending, stocks in the form of ETFs and my small position in crypto.

You’ll see how everything performed, if I made any changes and we’ll discuss noteworthy events all the way up to October 17th, 2021.

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

Let’s begin with my investments into stocks in the form of ETFs. These make up around 60% of my investment portfolio.

ETFs

I like to keep it as simple as possible, so I only buy a single ETF, the accumulating Vanguard FTSE All-World (ISIN: IE00BK5BQT80, Ticker: VWCE).

I switched to the accumulating version of the ETF in the beginning of the year, to simplify my strategy a bit further and have dividends reinvested automatically.

• Distributing vs. Accumulating ETFs: What You Need To Know

Dividends

The largest chunk of my investments in ETFs, which I purchased before 2021, is still paying out dividends.

It wouldn’t make any sense for me to sell these shares, as they’re up quite a lot in value. I don’t want to already realize and have to fully tax those profits by selling before I actually need the money in my retirement.

If you’re curious about my entire ETF portfolio at the moment, I’ll link that down below. I’m investing together with my wife, so this includes her shares as well:

• Our entire ETF Portfolio

55% of our shares are still in the distributing version of the Vanguard FTSE All-World ETF, which pays out dividends on a quarterly basis. That’s exactly what happened in the end of September, as we received 279€ in dividend payments.

This has been a great year as far as paid out dividends are concerned, and it’s nice to see the progression over time since 2018:

We received 179€ in dividends in 2018, 507€ in 2019, 1.048€ in 2020 and we’re already at 1.286€ in 2021, even though we still have 1 entire quarter left to go this year.

Obviously we kept buying more shares over that time frame, especially last year. Also, this growth is likely going to slow down starting with 2022, since we’re only buying the accumulating version now.

Still, I can’t blame anyone for preferring distributing ETFs, as regular dividend payments can be quite addictive & motivating!

Let’s have a look at how the Vanguard FTSE All-World performed:

• -1,94% in September
• +17,72% since the beginning of 2021

Prices Don’t Only Go Up

Remember how I told you prices don’t only go up and to treat these as long-term investments? Finally, we had a month proving that.

While we’re still up by over 17% this year, I’m curious to know how a 2% drop felt for you as an investor. Especially in case you’re new and you haven’t experienced that before.

Let me know in the comments!

The Best Low-Cost Brokers in Europe

If you’re still looking for an excellent, low-cost brokerage account to get into stocks & ETFs, these are my two favorites:

• Interactive Brokers – Especially after they eliminated inactivity fees in July 2021
• Degiro – Their 200 commission-free ETFs are a great place to start (ETFs & conditions)

And 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.

P2P Lending

Ok, let’s talk about my investments in P2P lending.

Here is my platform allocation on the 1st of October.

I want to reduce or maybe even eliminate Crowdestor completely and to move that money over to other platforms.

My Top 5 in P2P Lending

A few days ago, I published a post about my top 5 platforms in P2P lending, so if you haven’t seen that yet, you can find it here:

• My TOP 5 in P2P Lending

In the article, I explain why these are currently my favorites, my auto invest settings for each of them and where I still see room for improvement.

For this reason, my monthly update for the first five platforms will be shorter than usual, as you can get more information in that post.

Mintos

• Income (September 2021): 49,37€
• IRR: 11,80%
• Invested since: 27.09.2018

Good news, my funds in recovery dropped by 94,11€. I’m hoping that’s a good sign for the coming months.

Mintos notified me that they’re introducing a waiting list for new investors, in order to comply with the licensing in every country.

You can use this link to register, so that you’re the first in line to get an account when they open back up.

Viainvest

• Income (September 2021): 27,19€
• IRR: 12,16%
• Invested since: 11.10.2019

I added 310€ to my Viainvest account on September 22nd, pushing my invested funds over 3.000€ on the platform.

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

Robocash

• Income (September 2021): 26,81€
• IRR: 12,56%
• Invested since: 19.01.2021

I also added 500€ to my Robocash account on September 22nd, as I’ve been very impressed with them and the Robocash Group’s latest financial results.

My friend and fellow YouTuber Lars Wrobbel actually visited the Robocash offices and some of their lending companies. He’s publishing a video series about his trip – I recommend checking it out, if you’re interested! Don’t worry, only the intro is in German, the rest is in English.

• Use this link or the referral code advE to get 1% cashback on all your Robocash investments after 30 days.

Lendermarket

• Income (September 2021): 25,73€
• IRR: 14,36%
• Invested since: 21.11.2019

Iuvo Group

• Income (September 2021): 19,04€
• IRR: 11,86%
• Invested since: 05.10.2018

Iuvo Group added a new product to its platform, called IuvoUp. It’s similar to Bondora Go & Grow, allowing you to withdraw your funds at any time.

However, in my opinion, the interest rate of up to 4% is too low to make it an interesting alternative. So I’m sticking to Iuvo Group’s “normal” P2P investments.

If you’re wondering why my internal rate of return dropped, that’s because I decided to finally exclude the 90€ bonus I got back in 2018 from my calculations, as I think it better represents what new investors can expect today.

• Request a referral here to get 1,5% cashback on Iuvo Group

Crowdestor

• Income (September 2021): 25,43€
• IRR: 8,68%
• Invested since: 03.04.2019

Crowdestor is the one platform that’s causing me headaches.

My monthly earnings were once again quite low considering how much money I have invested here. That’s because 24 out of 39 projects are currently late in my account.

Their own statistics page shows this problem quite clearly as well:

Unless things turn around for the better, I’m withdrawing all the payments I receive on a monthly basis and leaving this platform.

Bondora Go & Grow

• Income (September 2021): 6,86€
• IRR (incl. withdrawals): 6,68%
• Invested since: 01.09.2018

EstateGuru

• Income (September 2021): 0,02€
• IRR: 7,00%
• Invested since: 12.10.2020

EvoEstate

• Income (September 2021): 0€
• Invested since: 03.02.2020
• IRR: 7,10%

My Income From P2P Lending in September

Platform	Income	IRR	Invested	Value
Mintos	49,37€	11,80%	5.409€	7.834€
Crowdestor	25,43€	8,68%	5.259€	6.356€
Lendermarket	25,73€	14,36%	2.013€	2.744€
Viainvest	27,19€	12,16%	2.487€	3.009€
Iuvo Group	19,04€	11,86%	1.562€	2.658€
Robocash	26,81€	12,56%	3.000€	3.204€
Bondora Go&Grow	6,86€	6,68%	900€	1.282€
EvoEstate	0€	7,10%	324€	400€
EstateGuru	0,02€	7,00%	500€	534€
Mintos I&A	0,06€	9,96%	0€	59€
Total	180,51€		21.454€	28.078€

I earned a total of 180,51€ in interest from P2P lending in September. 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 9,79% so far from P2P lending in 2021.

• P2P Lending Bonus & Cashback Offers (October 2021)

Bitcoin & Ethereum

Let’s get to the most volatile, speculative part of my portfolio: My investments in the two largest cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum. I try to limit them at around 10% of my total investments, as they carry a lot more risk.

Here’s how they performed:

Bitcoin:

• +2% in September
• +71% since the start of the year

Ethereum:

• -5% in September
• +369% since the start of 2021

They are actually doing better now that the first Bitcoin Futures ETF was announced, but we’ll have to wait and see what effect this is going to have long-term.

Just a quick reminder: Since these investments are highly volatile and unpredictable, please never invest money you can’t afford to lose.

• My favorite exchanges to buy crypto

USD & Crypto Lending

Speaking of crypto, that brings me to my last source of investment income.

As I mentioned last time in a bit more detail, I started lending out some crypto and USD stable coins via Celsius Network and the FTX exchange.

These amounts fluctuate quite a bit and also depend on how much cash I’m holding. For September, I earned a total of 65,9€ in interest on Celsius and FTX.

And that’s everything for last month!

Are you happy with how your investments have been performing? Did you get anxious when the stock market dropped a few percent?

You might enjoy these posts:

• My Top 5 P2P Lending Platforms – Here Is Why
• Distributing or Accumulating ETFs: What You Need To Know
• Why I Quit My 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%)
• How To Buy ETFs – My Investment Strategy
• PeerBerry Review – Worth It In 2021? (My Personal Opinion)

My Investments in 2021 (September) – The Video