WATCHING INVESTMENTS GROW

Nothing is more motivating than seeing your investments grow.  For the first 9 months of the year, I tracked my investment growth in two ways.  First by total dollar amount and second by monthly growth in dividend income.  For the year I've been fortunate to see growth in both areas and it has been quite an inspiration towards continued investing.  It occurred to me that I could easily track growth a third way by creating a spreadsheet to track monthly growth in the total number of stocks I own.  While monthly statements do not show specifics as far as positions in individual stocks, I started the spreadsheet with the month of October and will work from there.  Now I'll be able to get a clearer picture of total investment growth by seeing all increases in positions month to month from cash investments and reinvested dividends.  

While all this may seem like a lot of work, I enjoy doing it and get a lot of positive reinforcement from viewing the results.  It also helps me keep closer track of my investments and should alert me to possible problem areas along the way.  My goal with current investments is to buy and hold for as long as possible, forever would be good.  I want to avoid trading in and out of stocks and funds as much as possible to keep costs low and boost investment returns.  Not to mention, less trading simplifies everything dramatically.  So from the onset, I've tried to make good investments for the long term.  We'll see how it goes from here.