November Update

Dividend Update

And I'm back for more! November is over and that means the dividends have to be tallied and shared.

• STAG: $1.76
• ABBV: $6.40
• PG: $44.13
• VZ: $14.75
• T: $44.59
• Total: $111.63

All in all, it was a great month for dividends. Compared to the $25.89 received last year, the $111.63 received this year feels great! It's exactly what you want to see when you expect the dividend snow ball to really start rolling. 

Life Update

Life has been busy! This last month/month and a half has been chalk full of working on editing my novel, working on my insurance designation, and preparing for the little man to arrive (3 months left!).

 

The novel has been going well. I just finished my first full edit of it last night and I now have to move on to the plot holes that I found along the way. Once that's finished, I plan on printing the first copy and handing it to my wife for our Christmas book exchange and then giving it one final read through before publishing it to Amazon like my other previous works. 

As for my insurance designation, I have two tests left. The first of the two will be taken soon in the next couple weeks and the last will be taken (hopefully) right before the little man is delivered. Hopefully, for my sake, he decides to wait it out until I can get it finished. The tests are incredibly hard and I'd hate to have to study for them with a complete lack of sleep. It feels a little selfish but at the same time, if my son comes early, it's bad for him as well. So with enough luck he'll wait and finish cookin' in momma's easy bake oven until I'm done! :)

Finally, we've been doing as much work as possible with the spare bedroom that used to be used as my home office/gaming room. We've moved everything out of it and rearranged the living room to fit the computer/desk to be moved out into it and we've started moving things into what will now be the nursery. Buffalo plaid is the main scheme we're going with and we made little man a little tie blanket to match and put it over the little rocker we picked up for Mrs. DR. It's really coming together! 

Moving forward, things will only start to pick up speed. As little man's delivery date grows closer and closer and the new year arrives, there will be more and more opportunities to grab life by the teeth and I very much intend to. Thank you for reading my update and I hope you're all well. 

Just Sold EMR

Portfolio - October Update

August Dividend Income

When the Bear Market Arrives

Undervalued Stock Alert

August Stock Picks

Portfolio - August Update

July Dividend Income

July Stock Purchase!

My Debt Story

Art of Decluttering

Investment Mistakes

Frugal Activities

Individual Accounts

Order Types: Limit/Stop

June Dividend Income

July is here and that means more sun, less rain, and a vacation to the family cabin is on the horizon. It also apparently means that our patio has become a nest for black widow spiders. Just the other day I was tending to the banana peppers that I planted seeds for and as I was transplanting the saplings over to larger pots I noticed a big blob of white that appeared to be mold attached to the outside of one of them. Thinking that I had over watered the plants, I grabbed at the blob to remove it from the side of the pot. As soon as I grabbed it, a large black widow popped out and attempted to attack me.

Investing in a Roth IRA

Roth IRAs can be tough for some to understand and admittedly they are a bit different than the normal offered 401k and Roth but that doesn't mean they have to be feared. Roth IRAs can be incredible investment vehicles and to neglect having one is to leave money on the table and nobody wants that! That'd be like being offered twenty extra bucks from grandma and saying no. How could you not? 

New Position: Sempra

It's been a good little while since I've added any new positions into the Dividend Scythe but this week it finally received one. For this month's investment, I opened a position in Sempra Energy. If you haven't heard of the company before, Sempra Energy is a holding company that mainly operates out of San Diego. Their current holdings include but are not limited to San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), Southern California Gas Company (SoCal Gas), and Sempra South American Utilities. After reviewing their fundamentals and thinking on it for the last few months, I finally decided to pull the trigger on this addition.

Bare-Bones Investing

Undervalued Stock Alert

Give Yourself a 10% Raise

May Dividend Income

I won’t pull any punches. May has not been a great month for dividend income. It is the first time since I’ve started down this road of dividend investment that I’ve made less than the previous year’s results. While this may on the surface sound like a pretty big deal, I want to instead approach it as an opportunity to face my portfolio’s time of adversity. Instead of sitting here and talking about what went wrong, I instead want to talk about what went right and what will be going right with these results having come to fruition. Let’s start with what I was paid for the month of May.

The Ups and Downs

A great example of market ups and downs happened today. GameStop (GME) shared their Q1 reports today with lots of things to be happy about. They saw new hardware sales up by 25%, new software sales up 8%, digital sales up 3%, collectibles up 39%, and posted that they expect full-year EPS of 3.10-3.32 points. One would think with all of these positive earning results that they would see a massive price increase but instead Mr. Market decided to rear its ugly head and slam the stock in after hours for a total of -6.3%.

It's time like these that remind me that as much as one may try to predict the market, they can only do so much. And when that happens it's incredibly important for each investor to return to the books, blogs, and teachings that can reassure us that we are still moving forward with whatever certainty we can obtain through financial reports, investor sentiment, and general good-luck guessing. After all, we all have had or will have a day on Wall Street where this kind of shenanigans hits.

It's not for lack of trying to time or beat the market. It's just that investing is hard. There is a science to picking stocks but there is also a lot of luck and for those that believe in the efficient market theory, days like today prove that you really can't predict everything. The market will do what it wants to do and in the fashion that it wishes to do it. That being said, Bloomberg machine or not, we are all a little more humbled when we get taken for a brain-melting and head spinning trading day like GameStop (GME) saw today.

Self-Tax Budget

Imagine if at 5PM today the government came up to you and tapped you on the shoulder. Imagine that when you turned around to address them, they advised you that starting tomorrow morning they would start taxing you an additional 10% on everything you decided to buy. What would you do? Would you riot in the streets? Would you cry and moan about how unfair it is? Would you be willing to go to jail for not paying it?

Odds are you would be mad or sad but ultimately you would pay it. You would pay it because you would seemingly have no choice but to do so. Your life would be tough for a while and you would have to change a lot of your habits to reflect the new tax but eventually you would adjust to this new way of life. Eventually you would be so used to it that you wouldn’t even notice that tax being taken out.

New Acquisition: LB

New Acquisition: L Brands (LB)

Purchase: 50 shares of LB @ 49.19/share

Total Purchase Price: $2,466.45

Previous Projected Annual Dividends: $868.99

New Projected Annual Dividends: $988.99

Previous Projected Monthly Dividends: $72.41

New Projected Monthly Dividends: $82.46

Free"ish" Money Saving

Grocery Tips

Wealth: One Card Budget

Keeping a bunch of envelopes around the house or at arm’s reach can be a pain in the Kim Jong-Un. It’s one of the primary reasons that the envelope system of budgeting is hard for some people. If you don’t have the luxury of carrying around a purse or a man-bag (AKA: a satchel, AKA: Indiana Jones had one), keeping track of the envelopes can really be enough in itself to stop someone from using that way of budgeting. That’s why I offer an alternative to the equal to zero budget. The alternative is what I like to call the One Card Budget. With this budget, one can easily manage their expenses, track their spending, and make money by spending money.

The budget itself revolves around one simple rule: put everything on one credit card. I know; it seems a bit wild to be talking about savings and credit cards in the same sentence but it works. In fact, it works just about as well as any cut scene in a Marvel movie where Stan Lee gets five more seconds of fame. The best part is that it’s one of the easiest out there to keep track of.

Quick Adjustment

Even though I would like to think that I am above making errors, I must admit that I made one on my last post. The good thing however is that it is a good error. On my last post I had announced that I had made a little over $40 in dividends for the month of April. After looking at my trading account today however, I noticed that the AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) dividends didn't show as having been made in April but they were in fact made in April.

This brings the month of April's dividend income to a much more respectable total of $75.40. Sorry not sorry.

Wealth: April Dividend Income

Hello everyone and thank you for stopping by for my monthly dividend income report. The dividend reaper was very successful this month. Multiple companies made payments and the dividend scythe swung hard to collect all that could be taken. This left my family with $45.51 in total dividends received by the scythe this month. This is slightly lower than the expected average payment per month but that is to be expected given that it's a monthly average and not a guaranteed monthly breakdown.

The key is to simply stay on track. Each month, as long as the received are larger than the previous years (given little/no surprises), that month should be seen as a success. That being said, this month has been a huge success. The scythe shows a 230% increase YOY for this month's dividend income. One can't complain when leaps forward are at that big of an increase.

Health: Green Deliciousness

This last weekend, my wife and I were enjoying a sun kissed afternoon lunch at the nearby golf course with my in-laws (their treat). As our conversation had progressed, we had gotten to talking about my new favorite jolly green monster. It was sweet, it was cheap, and I believed it to be a healthy option in a world of poor choices. No, I’m not talking about licorice again. I’m talking about iceberg lettuce. It was something that I had only just moved to a short while ago in an attempt to lose some weight and save some cash at the same time.

The delicious and cheap green orb of juicy goodness had become a staple for me. At only 99 cents a head, it was what I was now

Wealth: Equal to Zero Budget

Making more money each month is hard. Saving more money is easier. When one is trying to put together their own dividend scythe or simply just trying to put away money, the easiest way to do so is to learn how to budget effectively.

A budget can come in many forms. I'll be detailing many different budgets on the blog soon but first I wanted to start with one of the most common - the "Equal to Zero" budget. If any of you have ever read anything by Dave Ramsey, you've likely become very familiar already with this type of budget. If you haven't, I'll try my best to walk you through how you could create and use this type of budget for the very first time.

Don't worry if you have never put together a budget before. They aren't as scary as everyone talks them up to be. They simply require a little time and a good bit of control in order to work. The particular budget that I want to talk about today requires only two columns that pretty much anyone could emulate.

Wealth: Debt Optimization

Living with debt can be hard. No, really. Ever hear Dave Ramsey’s show? Hear his guest’s “debt-free screams” when they come on the show to publicly announce that they have eliminated all of their debt? Crushing all of your debt is a big deal and it’s not an unreasonable thing to do when you’ve annihilated a lot of debt. However, one thing that I feel gets missed in all the hustle bustle about identifying and paying down debt is that sometimes investing in other items can be more beneficial than paying down your debt. Please allow me to explain.

Everyone knows that debt is huge in the USA but just how huge? In 2015, studies conducted found that the average American has $15,609 in credit card debt. That’s not including student loans, car loans, home loans, or other much larger loans that are generally expected. That’s just the amount that was currently sitting on credit cards. If you do the math at the staggering 25% interest rate that some credit cards are subject to, you’ve got an amount of credit card debt that is by all intents and purposes insurmountable by a lot of households. For this type of debt, the Dave Ramsey, “attack the debt with a sledgehammer” is probably the best approach. However, once that type of debt is gone and one if left with only other lesser interest rate debt, there could be a much better direction to take.

Wealth: Stock Alert - TGT

TARGET CORPORATION

Target Corporation is a general merchandise store that distinguishes itself apart from others by offering great deals without sacrificing service or options. While Walmart can be seen as the corner store for deals and therefore a staple for many American homes, Target seems to aim for a more middle class clientele. Their brands are recognizable, their selection isn't lacking, and their service always seems to be a cut above other general merchandise stores. They offer clothing, groceries, and much more.

Their merchandise comes from a network of forty distribution centers and are then carrier through multiple channels to their intended Target locations that are primarily located across the United States. They also offer digital services through their Target website with added perks for Target RED card customers. The company's risk factors seem to revolve around the same risk factors that can affect all general merchandise stores. Most notably is whether or not they will be able to maintain a good reputation. While this would seem simple for some stores, Target itself can be an easy target as they already walk a tight line as they have been called the store that is "Not Walmart". In addition, if Target cannot stay ahead of the trends, they themselves will be given the boot in lieu of another general merchandise store that can stock items faster or offer more competitive prices. Lastly, items like the data breach that occurred some time ago can adversely affect business as they know it.

Wealth: March Dividend Income

March 2017 Dividend Income

GME - $30.40

ARII - $6.80

QCOM - $15.37

STAG - $1.75

TGT - $9.00

EMR - $7.68

LB - $4.80

WFC - $8.36

Total March 2017 Dividend Income: $84.16

Total March 2016 Dividend Income: $20.40

Percent Increase: 312% increase

Now that March has come and gone, it's evident that the Dividend Scythe has been hard at work. If we're only looking at the change from the previous year to the current year, the percent increase has been phenomenal! It's enough for me to even wish for a positive increase year over year but an over 300% increase from last year is exactly what I want to see and more! Moving forward, I'm sure that I probably won't see these high percentages as it will be harder to see huge jumps as the portfolio grows but it's incredibly pleasing on the eyes as I get to look at it now. 

Wealth: Stock Purchase

March comes in like a lion and what a month it has been. While I haven't had a chance to do much of any writing at all for the blog, I've still been moving forward with the dividend scythe mission. For this month's purchase, I decided that instead of moving outwards with new acquisitions, I'd rather add more into an existing position while the pot was cold. 

After a quick look through the portfolio for deals to see what was down and priced to buy, I found that Target (TGT) was in the best position to grow outwards. That being said, I added a few more shares to try to buffer the loss of GNC's dividend cut while I wait for what I expect to be a rebound. And even though from what I read, there may never be a rebound for GNC, I believe that it is positioned to do so and I'm willing to bet what I have left in the company to ride it out.

And really, that's what it's all about when it comes to investing. With any company, there comes risk of failure of that company. Every time we bet on a winner, that bet could also be a big loser. You can't win if you never play the game. Only time will tell whether I'm right with GNC. I just hope it's sooner rather than later so that I can sell higher than I bought in and reinvest the earnings into a better dividend paying company.

Purchase Summary

BUY: 25 TGT @ 53.36/share

Total Purchase: $1,341.07

Additional Annual Dividends: $60

Wealth: February Dividend Income

Moving forward from February to March, life marches on and so do the dividends! This was a very good month for me - in health, in stocks, and in life. That is no lie.

February was most prominently a great month for my health. I've taken major steps forward with the weight that I've been able to lift in the gym. I've moved from doing three sets of ten on moderately decent weights to lifting four sets of fifteen on high weights and the results are really showing. Where it might just be through my clothing, I know that it is a positive sign for the future if I continue on the path that I am going.

As for stocks, February was also a great month. I feel like I grabbed one of the best companies that I could with the acquisition of QCOM. It's a great company with a strong moat, a long history of dividend payments, and a strong brand name. It's also a name that I am very familiar with since I grew up in San Diego where the company calls home. There were also other potentials that were fairly priced but only QCOM grabbed the monthly funds.

Wealth: Stock Purchase

Hello again, dividend reapers. Today I wanted to go over the purchase of my newest acquisition into the dividend scythe: Qualcomm Inc (QCOM). I've detailed a description of the company, where it currently stands, and where I was able to make my entrance in the video above. If however you want to read instead of watch, the following is a quick breakdown of the company.

Wealth: Stock Alert

Hello again loyal followers and guests. Today I want to talk about one of my potential buys - Tupperware! I have reviewed this company in the past but recent times have changed my outlook on where it stands. This leaves me at a new opinion of the company as a whole and it also left me wanting to share my thoughts.

Tupperware (TUP) is a manufacturer and distributor of multiple Tupperware brands such as the ever so recognizable containers and other not so recognizable lines that follow cosmetics and personal care products. While the company itself has shown little to no real motion other than hills and dips over the last year, the company as a whole still has a lot of buying potential.

One of the key items that has always seemed to stick with me is the product's inability to become irrelevant regardless what portion control items try to do. While our waist lines seem to get bigger and bigger, our ability to make more and more food continues to astound. This leaves the product itself with an ever increasing market. Pair this with the potential for a recession (which will inevitably come) and one has a recipe for a great buy. This is why I intend to purchase shares in the near future.

Happiness: Wine Tasting

Wine - some people love it and some people hate it. Personally, I love the stuff. It can be the perfect fit to a great day or the perfect requirement for a bad one. Whether you have any experience with it or not, wine tasting an be a great activity for the seasoned or the inexperienced and it doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg to do it. One must simply go into it with an open mind and the willingness to give up a little bit of time to have a lot of enjoyment.

To begin, one must simply have access to wine. You can go to a winery or simply go to the store and pick up a few bottles that you find that look like they might be interesting. The cost doesn't matter - good wine can be found in some of the most surprising places. Don't let anyone tell you any different. Then, once you've got your hands on a bottle (or a few), it's time to start tasting. There are a few things to know however before you start your tasting. By following these steps, you can almost ensure that you will be able to get the most bang out of your buck. Let's get started.

Wealth: January Dividend Income

Part of investing in dividend growth stocks is trusting in the process. There are going to be some good months and there are going to be some bad months. The trick is to try to align for dividend payments to be about equal every month. This is a trick that I have not yet mastered. As one can see from last years dividend payments, I might be a little off as far as consistency goes.

I can't give up though. The dividend snowball is a slow moving process at the start as you try to build up a good enough roll to get it moving. While months like this January may have felt small in comparison to some other months or small in comparison to where I thought it might be by now, it is still an amount of money that I wouldn't otherwise have.

It's good to keep this lesson at the forefront of my mind as I don't want to start straying from this path. If I think too much about other "get rich quick" schemes, I may find myself potentially falling for them and that just simply will not do! It simply will not do at all - not one bit! One has to remember the other types of dividends that have been given through the month.

Happiness: Hobbies

I am a man of many hobbies. In fact, my wife could argue that I have one or two or three too many hobbies to fit into one pee sized brain. I believe however that hobbies are one of the world's most important keys to being happy.

Hobbies have been around for what I can only assume is as long as mankind has had the ability to think beyond their more basic needs. Where historically our ancestors may not have had time to think of much other than food, shelter, and survival, most of us have the luxury of thinking beyond those necessities. If that is the case for you, you might have hobbies that include dancing, bike riding, working out, crafting, auto mechanics or much more.

Personally, my hobbies include working out, game design, hunting, playing the guitar, self help studies, and psychology. Whether you share any of these hobbies makes no difference. In fact, there are probably few in the world who share my exact same list of hobbies. That's just yet another great part about them. Hobbies can help make us unique, exciting, and fun to be around. This can then influence others around us in a positive manner. That's not to mention the positive effect that a hobby can have on you, yourself.

Wealth: Happy Hour

Making sure that you have additional income for investing while still having a fun filled life can be tough sometimes. Whether it's batting away friends that want to go out to eat or simply trying to work more to gain more income, making sure that there is money left at the end of the month can be harder than it sounds. That's why there is happy hour.

No, I don't mean happy hour in the bedroom sense. Although, that is definitely a happy hour! What I mean is going out to eat while the local eateries offer discounts during their "slower" hours of the day. Where the restaurant benefits from gaining a customer where there normally wouldn't be one, you benefit from the nice price deduction on the same or somewhat lesser portion sized meal.

Happy hour has many possible origins. Some say that it originated from the United States Navy in early 1913 when a group of stay at home mom's (homemakers?) organized a get together semi-weekly called the Happy Hour Social. Others believe that it was simply made by restaurants as yet another hallmark way to make some more dough!

Wealth: Stock Purchase

At first glance, the Dividend Reaper monthly budget was looking pretty terrible. First, the Christmas trip back to my home town took a nice deep cut into the vacation fund. Second, I purchased a new rifle for Christmas. Third, we had to decided to get my wife her first pair of designer jeans.

That last one was definitely a splurge. Honestly though, it seems like a good investment. Mrs. Dividend Reaper takes extremely good care of her things and we hardly ever have to replace any of her things. Pair that with the fact that she deals with me and you have a recipe for deserving a nice pair of jeans (for the first time in her life). If we're being extremely honest however, my purchase of a new rifle took the cake as far as large line items.

I digress. We're here to talk about what we did with the remaining balance after all was said and done in December and the beginning half of January. That I am happy to admit is not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Admittedly, it was much less than normal. However, both the wife and I worked both the Christmas and New Years shift so we obtained even more than usual through the nice boost that overtime pay provides.

Wealth: Budgeting

Budgets; everybody has one, has had one, wants one, or never wants one. Whatever your feelings on the subject, I personally feel that having a budget can benefit absolutely everyone. Budgets can assist with tracking assets, liabilities, payments that you’d forgotten about that have actually been burning a hole in your pocket, and much more. To not have a budget is to invite holes into the bottom of your pristine life boat.

Sure, there are those out there that are perfectly fine out there without having a budget. They however are very likely the type of person that already has a very controlled manner of spending habits but even they could learn a thing or two by keeping track of their finances with a budget. A budget can have so many positive side effects.

One of the most important things that a budget provides is a sense of security. A budget gives you a deeper sense of security by reminding you constantly about how much you can spend without getting yourself into trouble. If you are checking it as one should, you will always have a good idea of where you stand each day of the month. You’ll know immediately if you have the funds available to go a little wild. You’ll also know when you should take a pass and not join the guys on the night on the town and instead opt to meet up with them the next morning for a cheap breakfast.

Another important role of a budget is to show you where you are spending the most money. Hell, it was only a year or so ago that the wife and I were bleeding money through our eye balls through random trips to the local Walmart. Thanks to the budget however, we were able to zero in on it quickly and now we hardly spend anything besides our once a week grocery trips. It’s allowed us to save an extra $300-500 per month. That’s an extra $300-500 that go directly towards our investments that can help us retire even earlier.

Health: The Yama Challenge

Dividends can come in many forms. What most people associate them with are the financial form - different size payments that slowly help you build your snow ball for retirement. However, life can give dividends in more than just financial ways. I feel that one of the most important dividends that life can provide is through physical fitness. That's why I came up with what I have dubbed, the Yama Challenge.

Yama is Japanese for mountain. The reason that it's called the Yama Challenge is because the entire program revolves around climbing mountains. Don't worry - it doesn't require that you book a trip to Everest. That would cost more money and take more time than most of us have. Instead, the challenge revolves around using a stair climber machine. The stair climber machine is used to keep track of how many floors you climb per day and per week. Eventually, you'll be using those floors to reach a combined total number that is greater than the total height of Mount Everest.

First, let's get into the math. Most stair climber machines average about 10 feet per floor. If we assume that each floor is 10 feet, we then take the total feet of Everest and see just how many floors it would take to reach the top. Don't worry about looking it up. I've done the math and it would take approximately 2,903 floors to reach the summit. While this feels a bit daunting, it is actually very surmountable if one gives it an honest effort.

Happiness: Keeping the Bucket Full

I promised that things would be different moving forward on this blog. The first thing I wanted to do differently was to start logging each of my posts as either health, wealth, or happiness. This will help separate the types of posts that I want to capitalize on for the Dividend Reaper Project.

The first post I wanted to make is a post on keeping your bucket full. If you don't know what a bucket is, it is more than just an instrument for holding water or other such things. The bucket I am referring to is a metaphorical bucket. It's a bucket that is there to measure your happiness. If you are extremely happy and you feel that you have all that you need, you can be said to have an extremely full bucket.

If on the other hand you feel that you have nothing left to give, you could be said to have an extremely empty bucket. I like this metaphor best when it comes to talking about the current state of happiness that one may have because it is probably one of the easiest concepts to immediately understand. I also feel it is incredibly versatile. In less than five seconds, I can tell someone what it means when I refer to having a full bucket and they get it.

Looking Back and Moving Forward

The blog has officially reached its one year mark. One year ago this blog didn't even exist. My dreams of what the portfolio could become were small and unrealized. I can't put into words how proud I am to have kept it running this long. 

I won't say that it was without trying moments though. At least once per month while following other bloggers I would read about the doomsayers who sold out their entire portfolios expecting huge drops. It's really nerve wracking to constantly read about those who go through with it and sell it all with the expectation that they are taking the right move and selling at the highest. It makes you wonder about your own portfolio. Do you sell out with them? I wasn't seeing any signs of the doom that they saw coming. Yet I was a young investor with a limited knowledge base to pull from. It makes you wonder if they see something you don't. 

Obviously, as you can tell, I didn't break under the pressure. I held strong and continued to hold all that I had previously thought to be worthy of adding to the Dividend Scythe portfolio and I'm glad that I did. The portfolio has more value now than it ever has. If I would have sold out, lord knows where it would be today with how the market has responded. 

At the same time, I think about the other young investors out there that may have read the same posts and actually gone through with it themselves. This is why I try to hold a higher standard to the posts that I make when I purchase or evaluate potentials. Even though I myself try not to tell others what to buy as I don't want to freely give investment advice, there are tons of other blogs out there that are very vocal about what to buy and what to sell. It's just crazy to see how others can be influenced by what others say, regardless of their understanding of that individual's actual intelligence of the future. After all, none of us can say exactly what is going to happen in the market tomorrow. No one to my knowledge has that ability. 

I bring this all up because I think we as bloggers have a larger purpose. We can influence others in ways that we don't initially see. That being said, I think that I really want to expand the blog beyond just investing. I want to start doing more with it. I'm not exactly sure where I want to go with this blog beyond following my portfolio but I want there to be a larger purpose. At this point I'm thinking that I may expand it by adding videos or other blog posts that are outside the financial realm. I just think it would be cool to make something more than just a simple recap of what's going on in the Dividend Scythe. We will see where this ultimately goes next.

2016 Dividend Income

Where in the world did 2016 go? I feel like it was just yesterday that I was staring down the barrel of January 2016 wondering where dividend growth investing would take me and my wife. One minute I'm getting married and the next minute we've crushed any expectations of income I had prior. I've just completed putting all the numbers together in the spread sheet and I am happy to report that it is all good news. 

Total 2015 Dividend Income: $62.25

Total 2016 Dividend Income: $322.91

What an eye watering difference a small year can make in terms of passive income. This is only with regular additions of income towards the greater purpose of passive income for early retirement or additional freedom. That's also $322.91 that my wife and I had to do nothing to generate. Passive income really is one of the best things in the world! 

Other changes in the portfolio have come from the addition of new companies to the portfolio. Where it started with only a small hand full of companies, the portfolio now holds a respectful 17 different companies that have met my stringent requirements. I believe that they all hold the potential to be long term positions in companies that should continue to pay dividends. Where this might not be the case for all of them as the unexpected is almost guaranteed to occur, the hope is that the majority of them hold their ground and only get better and better.

Moving forward into 2017, the mission is to continue growing the dividend scythe portfolio. At this time I have a goal of 20 total companies in the finalized portfolio. Once that number is reached, I intend to add to the positions that I feel open ample opportunity for entry. If none offer what I'm looking for at that time, I plan to expand further outwards before upward. Only time can tell however. Other than portfolio outlooks, I plan to post more often than I have in the last few (admittedly slower) months. These posts will be much more geared towards personal finance as a whole rather than just investing as I feel that personal finance success is the ultimate goal and dividend investing is just the vehicle. 

Hopefully I will continue to see all of your friendly posts and hear your input on the ideas that I share. Feel free to comment and say hello. I'd love to also see the results of your own portfolios if you're willing to post the results here. Happy 2017 everyone!

-Dividend Reaper