As I wrote at the beginning of the year I had 3 goals for 2019. And one of them was not so much about taking action but it was about a big milestone and mental change as well. It was paying off the student loan. An Estonian student loan is about 6% interest rate, so no great 2% loans as in States... But many of us needed to take these loans out, and I needed as well. Most years I did not take out the maximum sum, and I think that one year I did not take out any, but I was 6 years in university and I had more than 6000€ student loan. And the payment plan was 10 years. 
And May 2019 was the last payment. So finally I am totally debt free! And this means I have extra 70€ every month to put towards investments or maybe just spend... It is my money to do what I want. But the feeling of having no such obligations is so freeing :)
Mintos sent out informational emails yesterday and today. So if you are not a user yet, but have been thinking about it maybe this is interesting information for you:

  • Kredo loan portal on Mintos is offering 2% cashback
    on loans with a duration 13 months or longer. Offer is valid until 3rd of June. To qualify for the offer you need to enrol to the offer, you can find the link after you have logged in, in the top right when you click on your name the dropdown menu link "offers" there you need to enrol. This offer is not valid if you do not enrol to this offer. And of course, you need to invest then also to their loans to get the cashback. 
    When I looked around I saw that they offer only loans that come with a buyback guarantee and seem all to be with 13% interest rate, so with cashback that becomes 15% loans, and you will get the cashback almost instantly. At least previously they have paid cashback offers to the account about once a week, so you can actually reinvest the cashback money and get more cash back. So instant money. 
    Kredo is one of the lower rating portals in Mintos with C+ rating, so be cautious, and think on risks as well. I personally will try this offer with some of my circulating money in Mintos. I put in some money what was sitting on my account (auto invest seems to have trouble getting money out although there are loans suitable for the auto invest). I hope this was a wise decision. 
    Also if you invest using this offer note that in first page this income is shown under campaign rewards but for some reason in accouns statement view (if I remember correctly) it is shown under deposits.
  • Today's news was that the average interest rate in Mintos has grown to 13%. They have even loans with 19% interest, many loan portals, many countries and loan types- so something for everyone.
    I personally have seen a drop in my average, which has been dropping and is currently at 12,40%. Maybe I am more cautious than the average investor, preferring buyback guarantee, higher rated loan portals and diversification between portals. But as you did see from the previous point I do take some challenges as well. You win some, you lose some.

Still, Mintos is one of the best portals I am using and I think it is a great way to start if you have been thinking about getting into P2P investing.
And suddenly one-third of a year has passed. It has felt rather slow but now looking back - it has gone so quickly. And to be honest I am a bit worried, worried about my yearly goals. Getting a 25 000 portfolio should not be a problem as I have deposited quite a lot of additional money but the income... income does not want to increase and to get 1800€ income I need about 150€ a month. And this does not seem to be happening. June and July should be rather good months in CrowdEstate, so maybe that would help. I have thought of adding more money but even if I add 1000€ and get let's say 12% in the 8 months left of this year, that is just additional 80€. That would not help much and would mean taking money from the snowydayfund...

But let's keep the post manageable and not tooo long. How was April, was it better than March?


 Looking at the deposits, I deposited in almost all the portals this month. So from smallest to largest, it looked like this:
Envestio 300
So all together 890€ of additional money will be circulating in different portals. Envestio is the only one where I still have a problem getting into new loans as I can not invest from my mobile phone any more and sometimes when I get to the computer the new project is fully financed. Well not exactly, I have noticed several times that when logging into Mintos 50-150€ has been just sitting there although there have been many loans that would actually qualify for my auto invest strategies. Every time I have invested the money manually as I do not want the money to stay idle. It needs to work :)
2 sites seem to have problems at the moment, one with not enough projects coming in, and the other with running the portal efficiently.

 But on to the April income, from best to worst it is as follows:
Mintos 39,34
CrowdEstate 38,58
EstateGuru 28,12
Grupeer 5,58
Bondora 0,09

Income for April was 129,05 € which is 4,30 a day. 
So the overall monthly income is just 1€ more than last month but as the month was one day shorter the daily rate was much better compared to March (4,13 vs 4,30).
The first time this year Mintos outperformed CrowdEstate for me. This has happened in 2018 as well as CrowdEstate is variable and Mintos is rather stable.  Both CrowdEstate and EstateGuru have some loans which are in debt to me. CrowdEstate has one main culprit the MMMSprattus, and two which are just one day late and this might be just a weekend effect that money has not come through yet. EstateGuru is more complicated, there 5 loans are in default and 3 more 60+ days late. So out of 57 loans, this is more than 10%.
We will see what May brings. I would guess everything else to be stable and LHV getting nothing as my ETFs so not usually pay out in May (expect something in June from EXSA and a bigger payout in July from VAL). Need to hope for some solutions to the late loans in the portals... Maybe hope will not be enough.

The portfolio value was 22818,72 on 30.04.2019, which is 904 higher than a month ago which quite well agrees with the larger deposits of the April. 

 But how to boost the monthly income? Hope that portals like CrowdEstate and EstateGuru will cover it? Add more money to high-interest risky portals? Add more money to less risky places? Not sure. What would you do?
I have been thinking about the costs of investing in my LHV Growth Account. 
There are many costs associated with this account. There is a monthly fee of 0,05% starting from the second year and there is also a 1% fee for purchases. Also selling ETFs is rather expensive with an 11€ fee + 0,3% per instrument, and LHV funds charge 1% of sales fee (not sure if this also includes the 11€ or not). Why I use it? Well, it is still the cheapest option offered here in Estonia, also due to the tax law I can postpone income tax on this account. In the future, I might also look into Interactive Broker or other options but at the moment I am using the LHV Growth Account.
But I had one more cost associated with this account. One of the ETFs I was using was an IEMM (Emerging market companies - iShares MSCI EM UCITS). And although they tell you the fund is operated in euro, they lie! So every time I bought my funds or every time I received dividends - it happened in USD. And every time I had to pay for the currency exchange for this. I decided to end this extra cost. So first I stopped buying this fund, and then I waited for the fund to go up enough that I could sell it without losses. So I had 32,149 shares of it and my personal purchase price had been 35,63€ (so 1145,47€ invested) and I sold at the price of 36,664€ (1178,71€) and paid 14,54 as a fee. So I sold with a tiny margin and was rather happy as the fund had been rather volatile. Of course, since then it has gone up being over 37,40€ at the moment, but you win some you lose some. At least now all my ETFs are traded in euro and I have therefore limited somewhat my monthly costs on the account.
As I mentioned in my previous post I do not get a tax refund but many people do. Either they are perhaps too cautious on the tax calculations month to month or perhaps they have several tax write off options which give them a refund. 
So what to do with the refund?
First of all, it is important to remember that this is not a windfall. It is your hard earned money and as such this should not just be spent on random things so that in a months time you have no idea where it went. So here are some great ideas on what to do with it. I have tried to order them more or less in the order of importance. I think the first three should be clear priorities if you have not done those previously.


  • Start or top up the emergency fund. Having an emergency fund is something everyone should have so that if something happens you would not need to take out (credit card) loans. So it is extra money you do not use for daily living expenses but is there for cases like your car breaking down or you losing ypur job etc. I have written a longer post on it here. If your emergency fund covers currently less than 6 months living expenses I would suggest you use the money to top this up.
  • Pay off debt. This is a rather individual topic as people deal differently with the dept. I would say that paying off any debt which is more than 4-5% interest should be a priority. So any credit card debt, consumer loans, car loans etc. As the interest rate is higher than the general inflation any debt you pay off will save you money in the long run and the more you are able to pay off the principal balance, the less you need to pay in interest. If you have a low-interest mortgage loan perhaps this is not a priority. But it also depends on your personal preference. Although many mortgage loans are similar interest rate to inflation and perhaps paying them off is not financially best idea (instead of that paying the monthly dues and investing the extra money might be the financially better plan) I personally hate the feeling of owing money and I would sleep better with less money owed.
  • Start investing/invest the money. If you already invest- great add the money to an investment portfolio. If you are not yet investing, start now. This is money you in all likelihood did not miss from your monthly budget so it is perfect for a first investment. If you do not know where to start I would look into ETFs (I use LHV Growth Account service) or if you are more adventurous and would like to try p2p investing them perhaps Mintos is a great place to start (look for payback guarantee loans).
  • Make one time purchases. I think we all have some things in our lives which would need some upgrade. And I do mean needs, not just wants. So think about it. Perhaps your home would really need some repair work or your car should go to the mechanic? When was the last time you went to the dentist? Do you know which money you will use to buy wood for next winter heating? Thinking of these larger costly things is important and if you keep an eye on these things they will not surprise you in the most inopportune moment. Also if you perhaps have been saving up for some larger project such as a new roof then add this money to the cause.
    As I stressed - think of one time purchases. I think it is important not to spend this money on any type of subscription service, be it TV, monthly boxes, gym membership or something else. This money should not be the easy entry into additional monthly costs for the rest of a year. Unless...
  • Becoming smarter. Investing in yourself is also important life goal and this can both improve the mindset and your earnings. So the only subscription type service this money perhaps could go to, is a bigger down payment on a course you have been meaning to take or a subscription to an educational book service etc. I personally use the Äripäeva raamatuklubi, which is a service offering 1 or 2 books a month on financial and business topics. As I can decline any book I am not interested in (I do it most months) and the books I do want are cheaper than in stores, I feel OK to use this service. This service does not cost anything to enter so tax refund does not really play a role here but I thought of mentioning the service as it might be interesting to my Estonian readers. But a university course, language course, online courses- there are many options and if you have been meaning to take this step this is a great time to start a course you are interested in.
  • Donate. I think in the times where you are doing all right, it is important to look also to those less fortunate than you. So using perhaps part of this money to a cause you believe in, is a great way to spend it. Everyone is passionate about different things, I tend to give to animals. I have for many years adopted different Tallinn zoo animals with my friends as a group effort. I have given to animal shelters and I also have an adopted saiga antelope somewhere in Mongolia and my mom has an adopted sea turtle. Maybe you give to a women's shelter or to people with disabilities or disease research, any cause you believe in is important.
    One organisation I would like to point out to you is KIVA. Technically it is not donation... Kiva allows you to lend money to people in need in different countries of the world. The money is usually spent to set up some kind of business on the local scale. So there is a possibility of profit for the person getting the money and this profit is used to pay back the loan. The loans are with no interest, so it is an easy way to make someones world a better place and when you get back the money perhaps to lend it to the next person. On the site, you can select the person you lend to based on location, goal etc and you see the person asking for the money. So it is a personal experience and you can choose a topic you care about (water security, refugee, single parent, arts, schooling etc). If nothing else, just look at the site and perhaps help out someone, the minimum loan is 25$.
  • Spending on time with your family. Although I do not feel using this money on a vacation or such one-time costly event is a good idea there are some things that can seem costly but bring a lot of joy to the family. I personally love different types of board games with friends or family. And some more elaborate games cost around of 80-100€. This is a lot of money for "just" a game. But if you do the research on what game to get and think about how many cosy evenings you will spend playing it- it is one of the best ways to spend money. I personally do not enjoy too complicated games but I do not mind if they take a lot of time to play. So things like Bohnansa, Carcassone, The Great Dinosaur Rush, Mexican Train, Forbidden Desert, Discworld, Organ Attack, Citadels, Cards Against Humanity, Fluxx are some of my favourites... I mean there are so many good ones and selecting something for your needs can guarantee great evenings for years to come. 


As you can see this is not a list where you need to select just one thing. If your refund is a bit bigger perhaps using 5-10% of it on just buying something you want is a great idea, and then using 50% on debt payoff and maybe some for the home and maybe donating a bit is a great balance for you? Maybe putting all of it into the emergency fund is the best solution for you? 
I can not tell what is the right answer, but I hope you will think about it and will not just mindlessly spend it on things you will not able to remember what they were in few months time.
Also if the money is in the main account you use day-to-day it is easy to spend it without meaning to. So if you have not yet decided what to do with it, put it on a savings account or a secondary account until you decide- this really helps :)
Generally, tax season in Estonia is an easy time. You have to look through the prefilled digital tax form and just sign it. I think it usually takes about 3 minutes. 


As we had tax reform some time ago 2018 was the first time when the flexible basic exception was actually in use. So this year had surprises to many people... This meant that the people who were afraid of the new system asked to be taxed more than necessary throughout the year and now got a refund. And others had a nasty surprise of needing to pay more. So you either gave an interest-free loan to the state or now need to pay some back. The people who need to pay some of it back usually did not realise that if they had any additional income this was not just taxed at 20% but this also meant that they lost some of the tax free balance they had so also some other income was additionally taxed. I wish we had clear tax brackets where a person could know that if I earn this or this much my tax free amount a year is x. 
But no, now in Estonia we have some "lovely" complicated system for it:


  • If your yearly income is less than 14 400 € the annual basic exemption is 6000 euros. So if you earn 10 000 a year, 6000 € is tax exempt and 4000 € is taxed at 20%, which means you pay 800 € in income tax.
  •  If you earn above 25 200 € the basic exemption is 0 and all your income is taxed at 20%, so earning 30 000 € a year means you pay 6000 € in income tax.
  • And if you are the majority of the population who earns between these 2 numbers of 14 400 euros to 25 200 euros, you need to take learn this rule by heart: 6000 – 6000 ÷ 10 800 × (income amount – 14 400). So even if a bank pays you dividends it changes your basic taxation. 
For me the tax report does not take 3 minutes, it took weeks and weeks to get the 14-page report in order. In general, it is rather easy. My wages, sickness benefit etc are sent in automatically, I just had to add most of my investments. The LHV growth account can be sent on automatically, also EstateGuru offers this service. So this just leaves the other portals. Most of them offer easy yearly income overview so it is just a matter of entering the data to the correct parts of the form. The issue I had for the second time in a row was CrowdEstate. For investments in their portal, the income tax has already been deducted and the clients to whom I borrowed the money should declare it themselves. Most of them had nicely entered the data and it was there the day tax reports become available. But for 2  companies it took them weeks and weeks: the Vakning OÜ and Starelement OÜ gave me a headache. They finally appeared about a week before the deadline of submission. All others were there before the 2 month submission period started, so shame on them. Vakning was the one most delayed and this was the company which had the same problem a year before as well (financial issues?). If I could leave them out of my auto-invest in the platform - I would do it in a heartbeat. Too much hassle and grey hairs, and for what?



So, most of my income tax had been deducted by my employer as well as some of the portals. The LHV Growth Account allows the postponement of the taxes, so only for portals like Mintos, Bondora, EstateGuru, Grupeer, Envestio I need to pay an additional tax (plus the tax which comes from the added income and the lowering of my tax exemption of course as well).



By 1st of October this year I need to pay additional 306,80 € to the Tax and Customs Board which means I had 1199,37 € income from my investments and if you think the numbers do not add up, this also made some of my wages to be taxed due to the crazy tax law. I mean 20% of 1200 would be 240€ and taking into account that several income strains are either tax-deferred or already tax paid... should mean it gets smaller, not bigger. Well, this turned into a rant, but I hate this system. Not because it is unfair or something, but just because the numbers really do not add up. And if it is complicated for me, a person who actually loves math and personal finance topics, think of for example retired people who might be totally clueless of this system.
We are already through a quarter of a year. Time has gone by fast, I have been really busy and can not wait for the better weather to come around. I feel like I am constantly deprived of something in Estonian winters, and I guess it is sunlight. I am all for the spring weather to come around! So yay for spring and nay for another transition to daylight saving time! Next quarter also includes some vacation time. All is good!

How did March go?

Looking at the deposits, I deposited only in few portals this month. My current auto transfers to CrowdEstate and LHV are still active so these are done as usual. I also added some money to Grupeer and Envestio. All together I deposited 540€ in March. I would like to deposit even more on Envestio and CrowdEstate but in both sites, my money is sitting on the account as there are not as many new projects coming to the site (or I am missing them). Hopefully, things pick up in April. Looking at the future in CrowdEstate I should have many projects ending in June and July so I hope that there will be many new projects coming up otherwise my money sits there...

 Income for March

CrowdEstate 47,69
Mintos 36,83
EstateGuru 28,73
Envestio 5,90
Grupeer 4,39
Bondora 0,08
LHV Growth Account 4,36 € and 3,18 $

Income for March was 127,98 € (and 3,18 $) which is 4,13 a day. 
As you can see, again the CrowdEstate was the best one for the income. Overall, the order of portals is the same as last month with the added LHV which did not pay out dividends in January or February for me. Comparing to the last month the Bondora and CrowdEstate did underperform compared to February and all others improved slightly. Compared to February the income was 12 € less, but compared to January (was 97,79) this month was about 30 € better. So I guess an average month looking at the income.

 The portfolio value was 21914,75 on 31.03.2019, which is 787 higher than a month ago. As the deposits were 540 the rest 240€ is portfolio growth, mostly again like last month this is coming from the LHV Growth Account being finally positive. On the other side, the MDARA stock has dropped 50 € for me, it is still positive but not sure what this is about. They just came out with new UV products as well as hair products, so a bit miffed with this price drop.

 How was March and the first quarter of 2019 for you?
In June I made a post about Grupeer portal, one of about 8 portals I am currently using.

 Grupeer just emailed their users letting us know that there is a special offer for Finsputnik deals! There is a possibility to get 1% CashBack from 1st to 30th April!

 They stated that:

 Invest* in Finsputnik Platforma projects in April and get 1% instant CashBack for all investments you make in these projects!
SEE PROJECTS
*Please note: Finsputnik 1% CashBack offer only applies to standard Finsputnik projects, yielding 13% (where the borrower is neither NordCard, nor Kviku, nor Ibancar or other specific borrowers).

 CashBack offer listed above won't be paid for investments made in projects, which are already subject to our regular CashBack offers (i.e., this special deal doesn't sum with other CashBack offers). Regular CashBack offers can be found on Grupeer website and are marked with a special blue badge.

 CashBack for Finsputnik projects will be delivered instantly.

 So if you have wanted to test out the Grupeer portal and need just that small encouragement then this is it. Great way to get instant cashback, all loans still come with payback guarantee so there is this extra security as well.

 PS. Grupeer links in this post are affiliate links and if you sign up using these links I will get a small bonus. It will not affect your investment in any way.
It is truly hard to know what I want from the market. I mean for more than a half a year every time I logged on my LHV account I just saw red. Everything was below the purchase price and looked so depressing. At times my account was more than 12% below the purchase price, and for months 10% below... Of course, as a long term investor, it was a great time to buy, and I did try to save more and buy more ETFs... At the same time, it is now finally great to see some green. So for the second day in a row, my account is in profit. The overall look (including my single stock) has been in profit for about a month or so, as my MDARA stock has been profitable, but now also the Growth Account is finally in green. Just by 0,07%, but still, it's GREEN! So still a great time to buy, but also good time mentally when you do not need to look at the red numbers constantly...
I have been Madara investor since last summer, so again this spring was time to receive another Madara box. It is something I have talked about previously here and here. I had seen this springs box advertised on Instagram and was getting worried that I had not head from Madara... Did they stop giving away the mystery box to the stock owners? No, I had just completely missed the email. Silly me.
So I had received the email on 11th of March and the deadline of making the order was 15th of March. I missed it. I found the email, between many unread ones on 17th and decided to try if the code still works for an order. If it didn't, well it was my own fault, but if it did, I would be happy of course. And it still worked :)
So I made the order late on 17th, got a notification that my order had been received on 18th, received an SMS notification that I had a package on 19th and picked it up the next day. So, all in all, I got my order in basically 3 days.

The beauty box is sold for 27,95 and is advertised to contain at least 40 € of products, which seems to be the case this time as well.
What did it contain?
  • 155 ml Grow Volume Conditioner (full size 175 ml costs 19,90€). I personally do not use conditioners for my hair, but it is a nice gift for someone with long hair. And comes in plant-based plastic packaging, which is a nice touch. 
  • 10 ml tester of their Grow Volume shampoo. The size is such that I would get 3-4 washes out of it due to my short hair, but as it is a rip-me-open type package, it would be hard to do. Probably will give it to someone with long hair who could use it in a single wash. 
  • Full-size Beach BB Shimmering Sunscreen SPF15 (valued at 21,95€ in the website). I love mineral sunscreen and with summer coming this will be used up. I prefer the non-shimmering ones personally but as mineral sunscreen can have a white cast, a bit of golden shimmer might help with that.
  • 3 ml tester of their Weightless Sun Milk SPF20. These tiny testers a quite good for short travels where I might see the sun just for a few hours on a one day. I have a half day field trip planned near the Black Sea in June. So great for hand luggage on a plane for that trip, for example. 
  • 15 ml sample of Fake It, the Natural Look Self Tan Milk. Probably big enough to get full application for feet and legs. Maybe even arms as well. Not sure, I do not usually eye-ball the amount of moisturiser I use. I do use fake tan from time to time (Dove usually), so not bad to have an extra to try of a bit higher price range.
  • 2 ml sample of the Daily Defence Cream. I own it in original size and it is great for elbows, feet, even lips. So great tiny sample for travelling. 
  • 12,5 ml Scrub Exfoliating Oil-To-Milk Scrub. This is a product I own in full size. It is not in my daily rotation as I prefer acid exfoliators to the mechanical ones... But it is a good product and I am sure to use it in my travels when I usually tend to not bring most of my skincare due to the large sizes. So no excuse for not taking this along.
So, all in all, looking at the two larger products and 2 larger samples I would say there is at least 45€ worth of value here. So I have 100 stocks with the purchase price of 7,35 a piece (you could get the packages even with less stocks), and get more than 80€ worth of products yearly. So better than 10% dividend. And they do pay out some real monetary dividends as well. So not bad, not bad at all.
Do you own Madara stock? Plan to buy? Have any other stock giving such perks?
It feels like every month starts with an apology on the fact that I have been absent a bit. In November December I was travelling for work, half of January was dealing with severe illness in my family and then death and funeral arrangements. So I was really hoping for a much better February. I had a planned post on the income tax I wanted to do, but alas, the companies have not sent in all the data for the tax administration. So I have been unable to declare my taxes, and it would be a rather limited post due to that- so I figured I'd wait. And then I had my regular doctors appointment about my chronic illness and they were unhappy with my results and I was unexpectedly hospitalised. So I am currently sitting up in my hospital bed and getting an IV drip.
So, I guess I can plan only so much. Life really loves to laugh at your plans and change them.

 But let's get to the February overview.

So what about deposits?

As I did set myself rather ambitious goals on the income received this year (1800€ or 150 a month) I have been trying to deposit as much as possible within the first months so that I will gains some of the interest from these deposits throughout the year. So I have taken some money from my snowy day fund and put it into deposits this month.  I plan to top it up in few months time. 

Deposits and withdrawals made in February:
Bondora -10
Mintos 350

So, all in all, I withdrew 10€ from Bondora and deposited 760 to other portals which means 750€ deposited to investments within February. I have been putting in small sums to the Grupeer and Envestio where I hope to get higher interest rates and I also added a significant sum to Mintos where the interest rates are lower but the portal itself has proven itself for a longer time. 
For the Growth Account, I have the auto deposit running weekly on every Tuesday I deposit 50€ there. So If I do not add any extra money there the month always ends up being 200 or 250 a month depending on how many Tuesdays there are. On CrowdEstate I have a 50€ a month auto deposit running and depending on how cash flow is on the portal and how many interesting projects there are I sometimes add extra money there (that happened for example in January), but in February I had several projects ending and I had cash flow to invest in new projects so I did not add any extra there. 

Income for Feruary

CrowdEstate 77,18
Mintos 32,66
EstateGuru 21,82
Envestio 5,33
Grupeer 3,14
Bondora 0,17

Income for February was 140,3€ which is 5,01 a day. It is not the highest monthly income I have received, but due to the short month, it is the first time the daily income is above 5€ a day! Small victories are important :) To get to the 1800 a year I need an average of 4,93 a day so I need to keep this up. It will be hard I am sure but that is what goals are for.
As you can see, again the CrowdEstate was the best one for the income, as several longer projects ended there the payout was nice (for comparison the monthly average of last year was ca 26€). As I mentioned last month I had some projects in trouble both in CrowdEstate and in EstateGuru. I am happy to say, that at the moment in CrowdEstate almost all of them have paid up, and the only one still owing me money is the MMMSprattus OÜ, but it seems they are also working on the cash flow, they have paid some of the owed money and hopefully this will solve itself soon. All other portals did perform up to usual standard so no real surprises there.

 The portfolio value on 28.02.2019 across all the platforms was 21127,46€, which is 955 higher than a month ago. As the deposits were about 750 the rest 200€ is portfolio growth, mostly coming from the LHV Growth Account being less in red, with just about -2% (compared to -4,15% last month). Also, my only single stock Mdara is up more than 8+ compared to the purchase price, being currently the highest it has been since I purchased it.

 So fingers crossed that my portfolio keeps on growing and that I will be able to achieve all my goals for 2019!