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Money in the Trough – November Dividend Stock Purchases – 2018

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Wow, another month has flown by!  Here are the dividend stocks I’ve purchased so far this month.  Hopefully we’ll get some opportunities to add big values like we did in October.  Which, by the way, I hope went well for everyone!  Sudden paper loses can be staggering, but don’t let it shake your resolve.  I [...]

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Money in the Trough – December Dividend Stock Purchases -2018

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Looks like our favorite Christmas pig is here with the best present, decent values on dividend stocks!  Glad we don’t have to wait for too long after our favorite turkey pig brought some decent values after November’s hiccups!  Here are the dividend stocks I’ve purchased so far this month.  It’s already been pretty busy. This up [...]

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Dividend Yield – Everything You Need To Know

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Many investors are flocking to dividend stocks as a means for generating a passive income and/or amplifying their current investment strategies with the help of dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs). However, in the midst of all this hype, it’s important to remember that not all dividend stocks are created equal (hence the necessity of using a [...]

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Money in the Trough – January Dividend Stock Purchases -2019

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A new month, a new year (HAPPY NEW YEAR!) and a new round of dividend stock purchases.  With the government shutdown looming, China’s economy slowing (which is impacting USA companies) and a pending trade war, we again find ourselves with some deals for the taking. December 2018 dividend stock purchases came in at a gigantic [...]

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December Dividend Income and Net Worth Report – 2018

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We did it!  We made it through 2018 pretty much unscathed.  While net worth took a huge hit this month, dividend income finished out the year strong.  It’s hard to end a year with only negatives, so I’ve also compiled some highlights of 2018 year end successes as well. December Dividend Income This month I [...]

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Dividend Payout Ratio – Are Your Dividends Safe?

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Even the best investment strategies require ongoing maintenance and adjustments to stay ahead in a world with volatile markets and fluctuating economic conditions – but how can investors differentiate between normal market activity and troublesome indicators?  One of the solutions is the dividend payout ratio. In regards to dividend stocks specifically, the dividend payout ratio [...]

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Too Late to Retire Early?

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Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about early retirement. The major reason I blog about dividend investing is to keep me motivated and on track to retire early. But, over the last few weeks, I’ve been struggling with my plans and progress. So, since I keep this blog to talk about this stuff and flesh out my thoughts, here I go.

Here is a post I wrote about 5 years ago about why I wanted to retire early.  Funny, nothing has changed.  Good to know I’m consistent 😉

The Situation at Work

I have had a love / strongly dislike relationship with my work for awhile. I suspect everyone does, except for those lucky few unicorns that love their jobs and don’t consider going to work, work. Anyway, I’m not one of those guys. My work requires me to travel quite a bit. As with all things new, the travel was very exciting at first, but now that I’ve done it for over a decade, it has long last its magic.

My desire to retire early, other than to have full control over my time, is to spend more time with my family. *please excuse the whining* My child is growing up so quickly. I have missed a little over a YEAR of my kids life due to travel. That’s a bit more than a tenth of the piglet’s time on earth – because of work – that I have been gone and will never get back. Now, 10% might not sounds like a lot, but to me, it sure feels like a lot.

On the flip side, my job has also given me the opportunity to provide well for my family, travel and allowed me to save and invest for early retirement. I am extremely thankful for and appreciate my job.

But, here I am at almost 40 years old with a ten year old kid and wondering how much more time am I going to miss with my family over the next 5 years (45 is my forecasted FIRE age). I can guarantee I will be on the road at least 6 months cumulative over the next 5 years, several time zones away from my family during that time. The more I think about it, the longer 5 years seems!

After almost losing my wife to a complication during surgery last year, I’ve had a hard time justifying what I earn versus the time spent away. It’s been difficult to focus and my work productivity has diminished. While I’m not in jeopardy of losing my job, I feel terrible about not doing my best and being distracted.  I am not currently enjoying my work/life balance at the moment.

I suspect all of these thoughts could stem from me approaching middle age. That’s what happens, right? Maybe this is a weird phase that I will get over soon. I hope so.

My Current Early Retirement Plan

Until then, here are my thoughts. I realize I am one, big, hard decision from an entirely new life. I need to refocus at work and dedicate myself to trimming our budget.

Housing is the big variable. I could sell my house now and use the proceeds to purchase a more affordable home, for cash. This would reduce our monthly budget to roughly $3,000 a month. My FIRE number (amount of money invested that I will live off of) has always been 1.2M. This will produce almost 50k a year of growing dividend income.

Where I am Now

Adding up all my accounts and cash sitting on the sidelines, I have roughly 775k of investable assets. My dividend portfolio is currently producing almost 15k a year.

If I were to move all of my liquid assets into the market now, it could safely and easily yield 3.5% or 27k a year (average $2,260 a month). We also have a rental that will net us roughly 6k a year once the mortgage (about 40k left to go) is paid off.  So, we could have a little over 33k of passive income if we didn’t have the mortgage on the rental. That’s cutting it too close, I need a larger buffer.

I could take the 200k I have sitting in cash and invest it into higher yielding assets. Preferred stocks are an option, but I don’t have a lot of experience here, and this is a large step away from dividend growth investing. So, if I went this route I would choose a preferred ETF (diversification is key), $PFF is an option and is currently yielding a bit over 6%. That 200k would then produce 12k a year in dividends. That would bring the total income up to 32k from 27k (before the rental). That’s a step in the right direction, but still not close enough.

Work Longer

I am not in a place where I can retire just yet.  I need another few years of saving, investing and cost cutting before I can retire safely and comfortably.   While I don’t mind sacrificing now for later, I do hate that I’ll miss so much time with my family.

I don’t have a solution other then taking a less stressful and lower paying job.  That would push my early retirement date back considerably and most likely put me in a job where I wouldn’t be challenged or enjoy very much.  This is an option, just not a good one.  Like I said, I’m one big, really hard decision away from a new life.  Unfortunately, I’m not quite ready to make that decision just yet.

I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions on this.  What would you do in this situation?  Or what are you doing?  Would you quit your job, take a less stressful job and push your retire date back years?  Should I quit my moaning and just man-up?  Please let me know in the comments below.  I appreciate your feedback!

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Money in the Trough – February Dividend Stock Purchases – 2019

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money love dog

What an awful month.  Well, not for the markets (so far at least), but for being sick!  I came down with a nasty virus (or multi-day food poising… if that’s a thing) that kept me in bed or the bathroom for 2 days.  Fortunately, I’m finally back to life and working again!

It’s interesting on the timing of my sickness.  This time last year my wife was going in for a surgery that turned out to be the most stressful time of our lives.  I managed to stay well in the hospital for almost 3 weeks working on very little sleep, nutrition and super amounts of stress.  I also discovered I like to stress buy dividend stocks… February 2018 was a HUGE month and it’s interesting for me to look back and see what I was buying then.

Anyway, here is what I’ve been buying this month.  So far this month, I’ve put a little over $950 to work with an average yield of 3.2%.  Not too bad for only  a week into the month where I’ve only made one manual purchase!

Obviously, a lot of the buys were made via DRIP this month.  The $T, $CVS and $GIS purchases were all made via DRIP.

New Buys - February 2019



My dividend portfolio has been updated with these buys.

All additional purchases made this February will be posted on this page.  I try to invest $2,500 – $4,000 every month, though last month totaled in at almost $6,000!

Financial Data provided by Intrinio.

What have you been buying this month?

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January Dividend Income and Net Worth Report – 2019

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One twelfth of the year is gone already, but I’m making decent strides in both my dividend income, net worth and reducing my cost of living.  It’s been an exciting month and I’m thrilled to share my monthly progress.

January Dividend Income

Dividend income is, of course, the keystone to my early retirement.  I’ve been working on building a safe and growing stream of dividend income over the last 5 years, and the benefits are becoming more and more transparent!

This month I received $946.16 in dividend income!  On average, I was paid $32.62 from 29 different companies!!  This month’s dividend income is a great 89.2% increase over January 2108.
That’s $446.21 more dividend income than last January, which is no small chunk of change!

Dividend Income - January 2019




Here is a chart of my passive dividend income progress over the last 4 years.

The dividend portfolio has been updated.

January’s dividend income covers a lot, including  my utilities, groceries, internet and cell phone for the month.

January Dividend Growth (Dividend Increases)

Here are the realized dividend increases I received this month.  Dividend growth is a very important part of my early retirement and this is clearly one of my favorite reports to produce!  This January I received 8 dividend increases!  This month, only 3 of those dividend increases were over 10%.

Dividend Increases - January 2019




January’s dividend increase adds $56.76 in annual dividend income!  While this wasn’t a super dividend growth month, all dividend increases are great to see.

Net Worth

This month looks much better!  A huge bounce back from December’s disappointing report.

Let’s do the numbers…Monthly net worth report January

Cash

As you can see, cash took a huge hit this month.  This was because I fully funded both of our Roth’s and also padded the after tax brokerage account.

I was a little late adding to the party in January during the huge dip, however, I did manage to put quite a few bucks to work in the end of DecemberJanuary.

The cash I’m sitting on might have a new home, at least temporarily in a few months.  But right now, the money is sitting in a high yielding money market account and earning 2.45%.

Real Estate

In an effort to reduce our costs, we have been strongly considering a move.  I talked more in depth about this here.  This move would allow us to null out our mortgage expenses and have a fully paid for house (after we sold our current home).  A very cool and necessary step (for me) to realize early retirement in a few years time.

We started looking at a new construction home from one of the big national builders.  Wow, new homes are nice!  The rub is, these planned track home communities are much further outside of the city and have extremely small lots.  Production builders are good at putting up homes quickly.  That is a plus and a minus.  All the model homes we have walked through had glaring problems, mostly cosmetic, but some structural (which is ridiculous)!

Anyway, we found a location we like in the price range of $330 which is what we are willing to spend.  This would be a home that we would build. We pick a floor plan, elevation (what it looks like from the outside) and “upgrades” that fit into our budget.  We don’t know yet what the full costs are for these “upgrades” but we plan to stop by the design studio to get a real idea of the cost.

I like the idea of making those decisions, waiting a few months (but thoroughly inspecting it at every stage) and having a brand-new house complete.  In a future post, I will share the woes of our current home. Not only is it to big for us, but we have been exhausted by unforeseen issues that have tired us both mentally and physically.

With regards to numbers, fortunately, buying a new house seems to have a different track record then buying a brand new car in terms of value retention.

As far as the rental, we heard nothing this month and the tenant paid on time!

Wrap-up

We have another exciting month in the books.  After December’s ugly nose dive, it’s great to see this reversal.  Buying the dip has been a very productive strategy for the last few years.  I wonder how long that can continue?

The Fed pulling back on their rate raising trajectory has been obviously well received.  One thing is for sure, this “new” data dependent Fed certainly is waffling around a lot.  With something as important as our economy, you want them “watching the data”.  One can wonder, what the heck they were doing before they were data dependent?  Either way, I’ll continue to put money to work into the best dividend stocks I can find.  I’m sure you’ll do the same!

 

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The Dogs of The Dow for 2019 and Performance This Year

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Consistent, high returns are among the greatest values for any investor, yet there are so many competing strategies and advice that it can be difficult to determine which one is a suitable fit for your portfolio. If you are already dedicated to investing in dividends stocks, then there’s a strategy you really can’t afford to [...]

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February Dividend Income and Net Worth Report – 2019

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Anybody else feel like we jumped into hyperspace and February just FLEW by!?!  February’s dividend income and net worth report is an example of what I would like to post every month.  A great step forward in terms of dividend income earnings and pretty darn decent net worth growth.  There is no possible excuse for [...]

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Money in the Trough – March Dividend Stock Purchases – 2019

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A new month and some new money in the account to put to work.  With the market still moving up, great deals aren’t in the abundance they were in December and early January. Anyway, here are the dividend stocks I’ve been buying this month.  So far, I’ve put a little over $2,100.00 to work with [...]

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Dollar Cost Averaging – It All Adds Up

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When it comes to growing wealth with your investment portfolio, consistency is key.   That’s where dollar cost averaging really shines!  Whether you prefer investing in dividend stocks or taking a multi-faceted approach to your portfolio, committing to regular contributions to your investment account is one of the most important factors to a successful investment [...]

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March Dividend Income and Net Worth Report – 2019

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It’s hard to contain my excitement, so I won’t… a new dividend income record has been reached!!!  This is the level I’ve been eyeing for over two years and it’s finally here.  Fortunately, net worth also crept up a little to keep this March dividend income report nothing but great news! March Dividend Income Dividend [...]

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Money in the Trough – April Dividend Stock Purchases – 2019

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I know this is super late posting this month’s dividend stock buys!  I’ve been traveling for work and haven’t had time/access to my accounts during the trip. So, without further ado, here are the “limited” dividend stocks that I’ve purchased this April.  So far, I’ve put a little over $1,400.00 to work with an average [...]

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Money in the Trough – May Dividend Stock Purchases – 2019

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WOW!  What a month already, eh?  Here are the dividend stocks I’ve picked up so far this May… it’s a lot more than usual! I’ve been very busy with getting our house ready for sale and haven’t been able to keep up with my normal posting schedule.  But, I did want to share some thoughts. [...]

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April Dividend Income and Net Worth Report – 2019

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I have encountered a first for me this month, and it’s not one of those good firsts.  This is the first time my monthly dividend income has declined YOY.   However, net worth is still growing solidly and I’m making big strides at reducing my living expenses. April Dividend Income Monthly dividend income declined.  It’s [...]

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May Dividend Income and Net Worth Report – 2019

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Oh May, what a month!  We saw a decent decline in the stock market pinned to the back of additional China penalty tariffs.  However, for the dividend growth investor, we don’t see or focus on market value decline – we see opportunities.  We also see our dividends stay consistent and come in just as planned, [...]

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Money in the Trough – June Dividend Stock Purchases 2019

June Dividend Income and Net Worth Report – 2019

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Half of 2019 is in the history books.  Dividend investing has again shown it’s worth!  June’s dividend income and net worth have respectfully set records in both monthly and  lifetime performance!  It’s been a great month and I’m excited to share the progress! June Dividend Income This month I received $2,066.77 in dividend income (my [...]

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