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The pursuit of financial freedom is the supreme discipline in the desire for passive income. Because financial freedom may sound so unrealistic to you, you may not even bother with it. But even in this case, you will probably be like many other people. From time to time you dream what it would be like if you no longer had to go to work to earn money because instead your money goes to work for you.
Whether you strive for it or not, the topic of financial freedom is interesting because it represents the desire for a secure and self-determined future. In order to estimate how realistic it is to achieve this dream, we will do a little reality check this month and ask ourselves
How close are our Income Heroes to financial freedom?
Obviously, it is not possible to determine this to the exact penny. Because to investigate the individual living conditions of each of the 40 participating Income Heroes a small team of detectives would be necessary. However, we can narrow down the answer by comparing the earnings from passive income by dividends with the typical cost of living of an average German.
ATTENTION: The following analysis is not representative for hardcore frugalists due to excessive expenditures. Please throw your hands up in horror and close the browser quickly.
As we are talking about the average German, we will limit the analysis- which is just for fun – to the 20 German Income Heroes, among whom I count the colleague from Austria, in the sense of the German Question in 1848. I hope Bergfahrten will bear with me.
This is how much the average Joe (or Jörg in Germany) spends
Our friends from the German Ministry of Statistics have presented figures showing that the average household in 2018 was living on 2,704 euros (approx. $3,001 per month). Here comes the breakdown:
34% accommodation, utilities, maintenance/repairs of real-estate
14% transportation
13% food, beverage & tobacco
11% leisure time
5% clothes, shoes
23%other expenses
Financial freedom – This is how close our Income Heroes are
The following table shows how much passive income from dividends has been earned by our Income Heroes in the last 12 months. By relating the dividends to average consumer spending, we obtain the “financial freedom in percent”. 100 percent would be the equivalent of financial freedom. And this is how close our Income Heroes are to financial freedom:
| Income Heroe | Dividend $ 12 Month | Dividenden $ / Month | Rate of Freedom % |
|---|---|---|---|
| GetMad | 23,015.16 | 1,917.33 | 64.1% |
| beamteninvestor | 21,471.79 | 1,789.31 | 59.9% |
| Bergfahrten | 18,565.04 | 1,547.08 | 51.8% |
| Freaky Finance | 13,849.76 | 1,154.14 | 38.5% |
| Plutus And Me | 12,964.11 | 1,080.34 | 36.1% |
| Rente mit Dividende | 10,408.37 | 867.36 | 29.0% |
| Finanzjongleur | 4,136.93 | 344.74 | 11.5% |
| Sparfuchs | 4,042.61 | 336.88 | 11.3% |
| Wachstumswerte.Net | 3,961.79 | 330.14 | 11.0% |
| Finanzblog News | 3,877.79 | 323.15 | 10.8% |
| Mission-CashFlow.de | 3,625.63 | 302.13 | 10.1% |
| KapitalFarm | 3,448.20 | 287.35 | 9.6% |
| Dividendenpirat | 3,283.28 | 273.60 | 9.1% |
| Finanzen mit Plan | 2,252.58 | 187.72 | 6.3% |
| Schwarzgeld | 1,991.10 | 165.93 | 5.5% |
| DividendeOhneEnde | 1,987.79 | 165.15 | 5.5% |
| Homo Oeconomicus | 1,836.27 | 153.02 | 5.1% |
| BudgetVision.de | 1,294.72 | 107.89 | 3.6% |
| Div. Aktien mit Plan | 1,221.42 | 101.76 | 3.4% |
| Finanz Kroko | 297.36 | 24.78 | 0.8% |
Unfortunately, no one has yet achieved 100 percent. But at least three financial bloggers, with more than 50 percent, have already covered more than half the way towards financial freedom. GetMad is in the leading position with 64 per cent of target followed by Beamteninvestor and Bergfahrten from Austria. It largely depends on their dividend growth how many years the three financial bloggers need to reach the full score. You can see the dividend-growth rate in the analysis of the 12-month comparison below.
Freaky Finance, Plutus And Me and Rente-Mit-Dividende are three additional Income Heroes who have made it about a third of the way. 9 Income Heroes, on the other hand, are still on the first ten percent of the journey.
Heroics of the financial bloggers in May
In April, 38 financial bloggers shared their revenues with us. The largest account is worth 901,200 USD and the smallest account in May is 3,838 USD. On average, every financial blogger collected dividends of 903 USD. The highest dividend in May was received by Plutus and Me from Germany at 5,180 USD.
New dividend records
Seven Income Heroes have enjoyed record dividend income in the last month. Congratulations!
| Income Hero | Country | Dividend Income |
| Das Starterdepot | Germany | 28,49 |
| DividendeOhneEnde | Germany | 349,82 |
| Finanzen mit Plan | Germany | 730,32 |
| GetMad | Germany | 2850,82 |
| Osztalèk Csaszar | Hungary | 133,1 |
| Plutus And Me | Germany | 5180,06 |
| Rente mit Dividende | Germany | 1055,79 |
The following table shows how the income is distributed among the financial bloggers of the different countries. Meanwhile, most bloggers are from Germany. Consequently, Germany takes the lead in terms of both dividends and option selling.
| Country | Bloggers | Dividends USD | Avg Dividends USD | Option Income USD | Option Sellers |
| Germany | 20 | 19237,83 | 961,89 | 2636,03 | 5 |
| United States | 9 | 7001,18 | 777,91 | 148 | 1 |
| Italy | 2 | 1351,84 | 675,92 | 0 | 0 |
| Netherlands | 1 | 271,54 | 271,54 | 0 | 0 |
| Norway | 1 | 143,59 | 143,59 | 0 | 0 |
| Hungary | 1 | 133,1 | 133,1 | 0 | 0 |
| Australia | 1 | 470,98 | 470,98 | 0 | 0 |
| Austria | 1 | 1385,02 | 1385,02 | 0 | 0 |
| Canada | 1 | 263,61 | 263,61 | 0 | 0 |
| Finland | 1 | 3906,71 | 3906,71 | 0 | 0 |
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Top 10 financial bloggers by monthly income
Some financial bloggers not only generate income from dividends, but also from option selling. Option selling involves a much higher level of effort and risk, but when it works, monthly income may be much higher than a pure dividend income. Here are the top 10 financial bloggers with the highest total income:
Top 10 financial bloggers by monthly income
Top 10 financial bloggers by cash flow yield
The amount of income highly depends on the market value of your portfolio. The higher its market value, the easier it is to generate high income. However, comparing income to market value allows to calculate a yield which is independent of the portfolio size. Here the 10 financial bloggers with the highest yield in the last month:
Top 10 financial bloggers by cash flow yield
Top 10 financial bloggers according to stable income growth
The yield of a single month is only a small part of the long road to financial freedom. Even more important is a stable increase in income over a longer period. For this reason, this analysis looks for the stability of income growth over the last 12 months. The size of the portfolio does not matter.
The stability of the income is expressed by a number from +1 to -1. If the income fluctuates strongly the metric’s value is close to zero. If the income fluctuates strongly or even declines, the stability is low. If the income increases – which should be anyone’s objective – the metric’s value approaches +1.
And here are the top 10 bloggers with the highest income stability:
Top 10 financial bloggers according to stable income growth
Since dividend income can be better planned than income from option selling, pure dividend investors have a clear advantage here.
Top 10 financial bloggers by 12-month income growth
In order to achieve financial freedom, income should not only grow steadily, but also as strongly as possible. Therefore, the income of the last 12 months is compared with the income of the previous 12 months. This comparison may be seen as the supreme discipline and can be found on many financial blogs.
And here are the financial blogs with the highest growth rates in a 12-month comparison:
Top 10 financial bloggers with the highest 12-month growth rate
It is easier for smaller portfolios to increase dividends substantially within a year. This fact is a great motivator right at the beginning. It is simply fun to see your dividends grow by percentage points that are usually not achievable with ordinary labour income.
Conclusion: All bloggers on the right track
If you take a closer look at the results, you will see that there is much to be found even beyond the top 10 positions. And finally, the placement is secondary. It is crucial that all participants take their financial future into their own hands and thus have the best prospects for a self-determined, financially secure future.
And if you’re already investing in solid dividend stocks, you may be interested in the a specialized screener for long-term investors detecting high-quality dividend stocks by focusing on sustainable profit-growth first and on dividend history and pay-out ratios second.
