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The Inaugural Month of this Blog is is coming to a close and with it the second month of my experiment to reach $1000 per month in dividends. Now if you recall I started with a leg up by converting my existing taxable brokerage fund with Bonds and some VTSAX into a risky dividend producing experiment. So Let’s formalize this a little since I love Math.
| December | Vanguard | Robinhood | Sofi |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial Money: | $14,000 | $0 | $0 |
| Added Money Dec: | $2364 (1600 is for IRA not for experiment) | $1290 | $50 |
| Dividends Dec: | $248 | $40 | $0 |
| Total: | $16,612 | $1330 | $50 |
| Brokerage statement (which has gain/loss) | $16,361 | $1,643 | $50 |
At the beginning of Jan I set a plan to consolidate into my 18 choices of high paying dividends split amongst Weekly (Robinhood) and Monthly (Vanguard) paying funds. The initial goal is to fund the cheapest funds first until their dividend schedule can buy 1 share of itself every time it pays and roll the money into the next one. By the end of January everything at the 9 Vanguard funds should be self funding, but we know EARN has a front load of $10k. So lets look at Jan 2026, and then I’ll break down where the funding came from.
| January | Vanguard | Robinhood | Sofi |
|---|---|---|---|
| Balance 1 Jan: | $16,361 | $1,643 | $50 |
| Money Added Jan: | $0 | $2641 | $36 (5 from signup) |
| Dividends Jan: | $242 | $124 | $3.36 |
| Total: | $16,603 | $4,408 | $89 |
| Brokerage statement (which has gain/loss) | $17,100 | $4,520.94 (w/ Margin) | $68.65 |
I think I should also track if all this money was in VTI (Total US Market) instead.
If $14,000 was in VTI Dec 1st through Dec 31st = $14,530 paper growth + $46 in dividends.
Jan 1st through Jan 30th. $18,000 ($16,361 + $1,643) = $18,155.
So far my Robinhood holding took a Net Loss of -$843 while bringing in $124 in dividends. Now it’s been a down month, but this was always the concern of weekly paying ETFs. Sofi was opened for the chance at a free stock, won $5. It will be swapped to Robinhood eventually. Vanguard however made $242 and grew $500. This is not a good place on month #2 of the experiment. That’s a $23 net profit, $132 less than if we played the safe VTI bet.
Now lets cover where this money all came from we’ve discussed Swagbucks which was a chunk of it:
Dec and Jan combined: I will start tracking separately in the Future.
Playful Rewards scraps from account ban: $10
Solitaire Payout from Swagbucks Game: $61
Swagbucks: $525
Chase Credit Card Rewards: $100
USAA Credit Card Rewards: $100
Brother Owed me: $40
Lost Cash OH: $56
Lost Cash TX: $51
Navy Fed Dormant Accounts: $358
Misc from other savings accounts: $1,101
Subtotal: $2,402
From Paychecks: $2,374
Now that’s just shy of $600 a paycheck for two months. Which exceeds my goal in the Snowball Post of $500 per paycheck.
So we have had a very Bearish month in the entire market, but this was also pretty painful to watch. It’s one of the key reasons, that once we get these Robinhood funds self purchasing we need to diversify into more stable choices. The $800 loss is most heavily focused on the tanking crypto this month, as the largest Robinhood holding is COIW, which fuels itself from Coinbase’s weekly success. The weekly dividends also destroy the NAV making fund prices plummet. We’ll see how February goes.
~~Miniwing~~