Dividend Update- September 2014

September is over and it is time to count up all the dividends received throughout September 2014.  A new personal best was set and will stand until December where I should be able to improve on.  I am still anticipating I will likely fall short of my goal this year in total dividends of $2700.  This is mainly because my buying has been put on hold for a couple months because of the cost of school and books these days.  I hope to be more active with acquiring income producing assets in the near future, but have been kind of stuck lately.  I eliminated my car payment debt at least and now own it 100%. The nice thing about this strategy is most of my dividend stocks are being reinvested in additional shares.  The portfolio continues to power along with higher income and share amounts without me at times.  Looks like we may see some decreases in our balances, but as long as our income keeps growing I'll be happy.  Once it is set up compounding can really take effect and if you are in a position to add more fresh capital you can reach Financial Independence that much faster.  I encourage everyone to keep on going down this path.  We started to get a little bit of a pullback that could be used to buy more value on the way down.  It can continue to correct for a bigger period of time then we expect.  That should not cause panic for the long term income investor, but rather encourage us to pick out the best values out there and accumulate more.

New Milestone! 30K Pageviews

It has been quite awhile since I have posted and wanted to give a little bit of an update on my thoughts now.  I am honored and humbled to reach over 30K page views .  Many of you have been communicating with each other since the inception of my blog.  Thank you to everyone who has supported and encouraged me along the way to keep this blog running.  I also paid off my car a couple days ago which was one of my goals.  I have been working a lot of days to pay for school which starts this week as well.  I am still very much focused on the same things as many of you.  I am always looking to learn valuable knowledge to apply to my investment strategy.  It is nice to be mentioned in the same company as many successful bloggers and their kindness to even include me in their blogrolls.  I look forward to many more months and years of communicating the successes and also sharing what we learn when something ultimately does not work out the way we had planned.  This community has been an encouragement to many beginning investors because it is mostly about sharing our investment experiences and building each other up.  I don't think you find it in too many other communities where they rally around each other and share in successes like we do.

Congrats to all the finalist and winners of FINCON 2014.  I think I will make an effort next year to join several others who plan to attend.  It will be nice to find out where it is going to be well ahead of schedule so I can plan ahead.

I hope everyone is having a great September.

 

August 2014 Dividend Update

August has ended and it is time to tally up the dividends received for this month.  I am anticipating I will likely fall short of my goal this year in total dividends of $2700.  This is mainly because my buying has been put on hold for a couple months because of the cost of school and books these days.  I hope to be more active with acquiring income producing assets in the near future, but have been kind of stuck lately.  I will at least get rid of my car payments altogether in September and own it.  That eliminates about $210 a month out of the expense category.  The nice thing about this strategy is most of my dividend stocks are being reinvested in additional shares.  The portfolio continues to chug along with higher totals and share amounts without me at times.  Once it is set up compounding can really take effect and if you are in a position to add more fresh capital you can reach Financial Independence that much faster.  I encourage everyone to keep on going down this path.  I hope we all get there and achieve our goals.

LIEBSTER Award

I have been nominated for the LIEBSTER award by The The Dividend Family Guy.  He has made some great contributions to the blogging community since he started journaling his family’s progress.  I would like to thank him for accepting his previous nomination from another fellow blogger Living At Home.  The award is designed for you to answer 5 questions your nominator asks you and then to pass it on by nominating other bloggers and formulating your own questions.

 

Here are his questions:

1.      Why is the Sky blue?  Good question and one I cannot fully answer other then I will say I believe God had the authority to make that decision.

2. If everyone knows saving is good and you should not spend more that you make why is America the way it is?  I think it comes down to people’s wants being prioritized more than their needs.  I get it and think it is great to have nice material possessions, but not at the expense of being a slave to lenders with debt.  People are not being taught responsibility as well as they should and seem to want more for less work.
3. If you were an old billionaire (say $10 billion) would how would you split up your money between family and other things important to you?  That is a tough one I’d probably make sure family is taken care of.  I’d likely donate some income to great charitable organizations as well.  A lot of it though would still be invested I think because I just find a lot of enjoyment in researching stocks and staying in the game for the long haul.  With that amount of money the income it would throw off would be enough to do a lot of things to help in much needed areas.
4. Is a house a worth it? I don't see many super frugal people blog about owning one.  To most I would say a house is definitely worth it.  The value used to go only up for a long time.  Lately it has been harder to realize the benefits of it.  It takes a lot of work and money to fix things, but in the end especially if you have a family and kids owning a home as opposed to renting a apartment is worth it if you can afford to in my opinion.  Condos are not too bad idea if you can get into the market while prices are depressed.
5. How much time do you research stocks you invest in?  Got me with that question.  I am constantly researching stocks and trying to keep up to date with all the news.  There are so many companies to monitor and research for prospective and current investment candidates.  I would say maybe 50 hrs or so a week on average.  I enjoy it though and it’s not like I have a boss forcing me to do it.

Once again I thank The Dividend Family Guy for nominating me for the LIEBSTER Award.  Some of these guys are busy and may not be able to find the time to do this. I now have to come up with some nominees, but it’s hard to find a new blogger who has not been nominated yet.  I will go with some I have been reading for awhile:

1.      $25,000 Dividends

2.      Dividend Mantra

3.      My Dividend Journey

4.      Dividendasaur

5.      Passive Income Pursuit

 Here are a few questions for them:

1.      Do you think it is better to buy a car or lease a car?

2.      If you had to do college again knowing what you know now would you still pick the  same degree major?

3.      What was your first stock?

4.      At what age did you start getting interested in the stock market?

5.      Did a person or event help you learn at any time that you were heading in a direction you did not want to go that would lead you into too much debt?

 

 

July 2014 Dividend Update

We now have 7 months on the books for 2014 and it is time to update my dividend progress for July.  We have started to get a correction to end the last two days of July and looking forward to what the markets can bring us here in August.  The dividends steadily rolled into the accounts buying me more shares.  I have not been buying too much lately so it is mostly the compounding effect powering the totals a little bit higher from my April total.  I expect next month to be a similar total and September to be a better month like it is for most of my fellow DGI investors.  August I am expecting to receive two dividend from GLAD for some reason they are paying one the 5^th and another the 29^th instead of the last day of the month of July like it usually has done for many months.

How was you your July?  Hope you are doing well in August!

Thanks for reading.

Recent Buy for Roth IRA

 

I have been neglecting my Roth IRA for awhile in favor of my taxable account and Roth/traditional retirement accounts from work.  I decided to make a move and contribute a little money to my IRA and bought 4 shares of MPC at $79.00 on Wednesday July 30, 2014.  The company raised the dividend 19% from a quarterly rate of $0.42 to $0.50 and announced additional buyback of $2 Billion worth of shares.  They announced earnings today and beat the estimates and it showed in the stock price.  They also said the review of the deal to acquire Hess Retail LLC. Has been completed and should close by the end of the year.  I am a happy shareholder of MPC even though I’d rather have a lot more shares or maybe bought some call options before this big rise.

Photo Source: www.marathonpetroleum.com .

Should I add this new trading avenue to achieve my long term goals?

As a big supporter of DRIP investing because of limited capital to invest I am always looking for ways to accumulate more shares.  I like to acquire shares that are either undervalued or reasonably valued.  This in return provides me with a ever increasing amount of dividends and more shares in mostly well known companies that have proven to stand long periods of time and thrive in different economic times.  Last year I became interested when Scottrade came out with the FRIP plan.  Up until now I have not really been able to participate or open another account.  Recently I have been starting to get frustrated with E*Trade’s $9.99 commission because it is higher than just about every competitor.  I have been an E*Trade customer for a long time and am comfortable with the tools and platform though.  I have not had too many major problems with them when contacting customer service. 

I also am interested in all these newer brokerage firms and innovative ideas, but not sure if they are worth the risk.  The one I am leaning most towards is Scottrade with $2.99 less commission and the ability to FRIP the percentages I want towards any stock I want to without paying commissions and keep excess cash if I want to as well.  This would be a significant cost savings over time for someone who can only afford small purchases.  I would have to make 1500 at E*Trade trades a quarter just to get about that same rate that is already offered.  This is probably a lot easier to keep track of for records and tax treatment as well since you can only acquire full whole number amount of shares.  Once I clear out some of my current expenses I might look into opening a Scottrade account because have to start with $500 I believe.  I am a couple months away from finishing my car payments and owning it.  The unknown is how I am going to go about paying for school.  I am making the transfer to a higher cost school, but am 15 classes away from getting my Bachelor’s of Business Administration in Finance.

Anyone out there have any issues with Scottrade?  Do you participate and/or like or dislike the FRIP program?