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. 

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.