Every month I take an honest snapshot of where I actually stand — the real numbers, what moved, and the one or two stories that shaped it. Here’s July 2026. And I’ll be straight with you: this was a down month.
The numbers this month
- Current savings: $106,514 — down about $3,286 (roughly 3%) from last month’s $109,800.
- Average dividends (trailing 12 months): $153 / month — essentially flat.
Here are the actual charts from my homepage this month, frozen here so future me can look back:
My Real Monthly Dividend Income
Actual dividends received, trailing 12 months (Aug 2025 – Jul 2026).
Total ≈ $1,834 · Average ≈ $153 / month · updated monthly
Hover a bar to see the exact amount. Converted at ~1,500 KRW/USD.
Where My Money Is Invested
A snapshot of my retirement-account portfolio by asset type — the whole pie is my total. Updated monthly.
Cash is dry powder waiting to go in through my weekly automatic buys. Not financial advice.
What changed
The headline number went down, but the story underneath is not all bad.
- I kept buying. My cash cushion fell from about 27% of the portfolio to roughly 18% as I put money to work on schedule. My S&P 500 slice grew to 29%.
- The core held up. My two S&P 500 ETFs and my dividend-focused (Dow-Jones-style) holdings actually finished the month in the green.
- The damage was at the edges. My long-term U.S. Treasury position and my small thematic bets — a quantum-computing basket and an AI-power-infrastructure fund — were the biggest laggards. Long-dated bonds got hit hardest.
The story behind the month
The Federal Reserve meets on July 28–29, with its policy rate sitting at 3.50%–3.75%. Markets mostly expect the Fed to hold, but the risk of hikes later this year has kept pressure on long-dated bonds — which is exactly where my portfolio felt it this month.
It is tempting to react to a red month. But a ~3% dip in a month where I actually bought more of the index isn’t a crisis — it’s just the market breathing. My monthly buy doesn’t move.
That’s where I stand this month. Slow and steady, one step at a time — see you next month.
This is my personal story, not financial advice. Just one 40-something engineer keeping an honest monthly record of his own journey.