It is great, because it is inevitable yet surprising
Balthasar van der Pol
Twice a year I prepare a summary of total income from my financial independence portfolio. This is my twentieth portfolio income update since starting this record. As part of the transparency and accountability of this journey, I regularly report this income.
My primary goal is to maintain a portfolio of at least $3,250,000 which is capable of providing a passive income of around $112,000 (in 2026 dollars), based on an assumed safe withdrawal rate of 3.45 per cent. A secondary focus is maintaining a minimum equity target of $2,600,000.
Portfolio income summary
Investment
Amount
Vanguard Lifestrategy High Growth (retail fund)
$25,019
Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth (retail fund)
$1,638
Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced (retail fund)
$3,719
Vanguard Diversified Bonds (retail fund)
$5,424
Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS)
$8,191
Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS)
$8,363
Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200)
$5,070
Plenti Capital Notes
$3,770
Total Portfolio Income – Half-Year to June 30, 2026
$61,194
The chart below sets out the distributions received on a half-yearly basis from the financial independence portfolio over the past nine years.
For I say there is no other thing that is worse than the sea for breaking a man, even though he may be a very strong one.
Homer, The Odyssey, Book 8
This is my one hundred and fifteenth monthly portfolio update. I complete this regular update to check progress against my goal.
Portfolio goal
My objective is to maintain a portfolio of at least $3,250,000. This should be capable of producing an annual income from total portfolio returns of about $112,000 (in 2026 dollars).
A secondary focus will be maintaining the minimum equity target of $2,600,000.
Portfolio summary
Vanguard Lifestrategy High Growth Fund
$1,020,192
Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund
$50,793
Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund
$86,408
Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund
$92,856
Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS)
$670,009
Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS)
$1,130,147
Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200)
$343,341
Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX)
$257,823
Bitcoin
$961,985
Plenti Capital Notes
$84,000
Financial portfolio value (excluding Bitcoin)
$3,735,569 (+$55,028)
Total portfolio value
$4,697,554 (-$125,692)
Asset allocation
Australian shares
30.1%
Global shares
33.9%
Emerging market shares
1.2%
International small companies
1.4%
Total international shares
36.5%
Total shares
66.6%(-13.4%)
Australian bonds
2.8%
International bonds
3.8%
Total bonds
6.6%(+1.6%)
Gold
5.5%
Bitcoin
20.5%
Gold and alternatives
26.0%(+11.0%)
Presented visually, the pie chart below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the full portfolio.
Comments
This month saw a sharp a fall in the headline portfolio, of around $126,000, or around 2.6 per cent.
This was entirely due to a sharp correction in the price of Bitcoin, which fell by 16 per cent across the month.
The underlying financial portfolio, however, expanded, growing 1.5 per cent, or $55,000, to reach a new highest value of $3.7 million.
The chart below sets out the performance of both the full and ‘financial assets only’ portfolios since the commencement of the journey.
The strongest contribution to financial portfolio growth was a small positive movement in global equities (of around 3 per cent), reinforced by a marginal increase in Australian shares (of 0.6 per cent) over the last month.
By contrast, gold continued its falls since January, with the value of holdings falling a further 8.0 per cent, despite continued accumulation by developing and emerging economy central banks.
Over the month, bond holdings made a small gain of 0.9 per cent.
The month, as previously, small additional new investments were made in global equities (through the Vanguard exchange traded fund VGS), in accordance with the decision to regularly reinvest excess distributions and cash holdings.
Breaking storm? Early trends in second quarter distributions
Prior to the finalisation of this update, the three major exchange traded fund announced provisional distributions.
This permits an early glimpse of some of the portfolio income record, which will be added to and reported more comprehensively across the weeks to come.
