Do you remember when you were young and you made minimum wage at your first job? I do. I was making almost nothing working at my old football coach's dive of a laundry facility. Every day for four hours a day I would make my way to the shop, tag people's dry cleaning, and bag it for the facilities crew to complete over night. It wasn't much but it created a wage that I was able to live off of at the time (under my parent's house). Imagine if we could create a copy of ourselves to work another job for us? Wouldn't that be great? Even if they could only ever hope to generate a minimum wage, wouldn't it be great to have that has supplemental income? This is how I like to think of my dividend investing.
The purpose of dividend investing is generally to create extra income and maybe in the future, retire off of that income. When we think of that income however, I like to think of it as a copy of myself, working at the old dry cleaners or whatever starter job you want to think of, creating income for the first time. Granted, this starts off at a tiny amount that could hardly be lived off of anywhere other than under our parents roof but it's still something!
If we assume that the average American works 1700 hrs total a year (average hours per year in 2015 that surveyed individuals answered to Business Insider) we can reach a total working wage that our little dividend creator is generating. Let's use the numbers from last year's dividend income created by the Dividend Scythe. Last year the portfolio generated a total of $62.25. If we take that amount and divide it by 1700 (hours on average worked by individuals) than we can come up with an hourly wage for the portfolio.
After calculations are complete, we come up with a total of $0.036 an hour. Granted, three cents an hour is hardly a good hourly wage but just like my old self working the dry cleaners, it can grow to a higher and higher wage over time. I know this is a small activity to run through your portfolio but I think it's fun to see what our portfolios translate to when we plug in the numbers. I just can't wait until it gets to the $0.10/hr mark! I'll be such a proud clone father!
What about your portfolios? How much did your clone earn per hour in wages?
Looks like I made $0.31/hour. Clearly not a lot, but cant wait to watch this grow just like yours!
ReplyDeleteCheers
-TDM
Whew! You're crushing my three cent worker! One step at a time though, right? :)
DeleteA full time employee generally works 40 hours a week so that is 2,080 hours per year. I have always been a "full-time" employee and will be until the end.
ReplyDeleteI love this concept of converting your dividends into an hourly rate. That is how I am used to factoring other monies as well.
For me $6,626 D / 2,080 hrs = $3.19 per hour. Another metric I add to my key metrics. Its a fun one.
Others I like to convert are bills. My VZ bill v. VZ dividends, my NWN bill v NWN divis. That's fun too. Seeing a utility company basically pay half you bills by dividends! Ha