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

Recent Buy: GNC

You want to talk about a stock that is down and not yet out? Let's talk about the newest addition to the dividend scythe - GNC. GNC if you don't know is a supplement store that is primarily based in the US. While it has taken a massive hit in the last couple years, the stock is not yet done for. The stores themselves are profitable, the brands they carry work (first hand experience), and they have a customer base that won't be filled by online shopping until the kinks of online shopping can be worked out.

For the typical body builder, online is the way to buy supplements. Unfortunately, bodybuilders are also huge procrastinators. That means when it comes time to buy, they usually find themselves trucking down the neighborhood GNC and buying a quick fix to get them to their next online order. While this isn't primary, it does serve a much needed purpose. I myself have been caught in this same trap and I'm not even a body builder! That being said, there are numerous other types of customers that they market to. Specifically, I'm talking about those who are overweight who are looking for an entrance into the world of supplements with the help of a friendly shop keeper.

While their recent past shows continuous decline in sales, the stores just got a much needed change. An internum CEO has been assigned that turned around Petsmart and I have every bit of confidence that he can do the same thing with GNC. Most notably, a full revamp of their stores has just been completed with a 24 closure of all stores. Even though it's a bet, I'll take the bet while I cash in the heavy dividend payment.

Bring. It. On!

Dividend Income: November

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. With the arrival of December comes the monthly honor and duty of counting up the dividends received over the past month and recapping the movement that got us here. That being said, overall, the month was a pretty decent month in relation to others. Here's a quick recap of our payers.

• AT&T - T - $14.88
• YUM Brands - YUM - $3.57
• Abbvie - ABBV - $5.70
• STAG Industrial - STAG - $1.74
• Total: $25.89
• Total Dividends for 2016: $269.08

I know it doesn't look like much in the grand scheme of the portfolio but it looks like a lot to me because it shows the building block style of investing. Only a year ago I was looking at less than $100 total dividends for the entire year (it was actually only barely over $50. That means that this year alone has already completely shattered last year's results. If I can continue that trend, the additional investment income that dividends provide start to become a snowball that rolls itself. 

With kids on the horizon, it's important for me and my wife to put away as much as possible right now so it's locked in during the months/years that it will be even harder to find the additional income to invest. Although we have yet to be successful in having kids, it's an almost certainty in the near future and I would be an idiot to not prepare ahead of time for that life adjustment. Anyway, that's all I've got for today.