Where to go for Income?

It's been another good week for dividends.

First, a capital update. My portfolio, in line with the market, has hardly moved this week. It is down slightly to just 0.1% positive for the year. I think this is due to the market trying to reconcile conflicting signals as to whether there are any strong green shoots of recovery, or if it will be a slow and painful road as the Bank Of England hinted at yesterday.

At the start of the week I had a £3000 1 year cash bond mature from Birmingham Midshires. The cheque for £3160 was most welcome. This was a 7% 1 year fix taken out when things were very different to now.

What to do with the cash? We are taking the interest towards our day to expenses. The £3000? That's the problem. No notice accounts are paying pitiful if no interest.

As we don't need the cash straight away we've decided to put into funds.

Split three ways:

£1000 Invesco Perpetual Monthly Income (yield approx 13%)
£1000 Aviva Managers Managed High Income (yield approx 12%)
£1000 New Star Extra High Yield Bond (yield approx 18%)

This will give us a blended approx yield return of 14.3% on a monthly basis. You could not get that in a bank. BUT there are risks. New Star particularly has performed dreadfully over the last year. But I am happy to take the rough with the smooth and ride out the capital fluctuations as we can hold these for the long term.

Dividend income was also good this week - £138.83. A big chunk of that was from Aviva paid today - £41.81.

The income for the year is ticking up nicely to a total of £2315. That's an average of £115 a week. Very nice.

In terms of shares, no buys or sells. I do have my eye on Lancashire Holdings at the moment, with good quarterly results announced today. If it drops below £4.70 I will buy.