Tuesday, September 30, 2014

EGAS DIVIDENDS STARTING IN OCTOBER!

Completed my purchase of a stake in EGAS with the proceeds from the sale of POT.  Just finished checking the dividend history and it looks like I'll collect the first dividend payment from EGAS around the end of October.  This will bring my total dividend paydays to 168 per year!  If you add the 24 paydays from work, that brings my total paydays per year to 192, or a payday every 1.9 days.  Now it's a simple matter of increasing the amount of pay on dividend paydays.  I may not have much control over pay increases from work, but I have quite a bit of control over dividend paydays.  They increase themselves every month through reinvested dividends, I just need to work on maximizing the amounts by making sure I'm holding quality dividend stocks.  

My big focus next year will be on improving the quality of holdings in my portfolio.  I'll be looking to add all the wish list stocks mentioned in an earlier post, with long histories of increasing dividends.  These will all be long term holdings.  I'll also continue reinvesting dividends to increase my stake in current holdings, boosting income every single month of the year! 

Friday, September 26, 2014

SOLD POT TO BUY GAS

No I'm not getting in to the business of selling marijuana, I sold my stake in Potash (ticker symbol POT) to buy a stake in EGAS.  Not only did I eliminate tax payments to Canada, I boosted dividend income by 2% per month.  I like the current yield on EGAS stock and I think there's plenty of room for the share price to grow.  

The purchase of EGAS also boosts the number of dividend payments per year from 160 to 168, since EGAS pays monthly compared to Potash's quarterly dividend.  Reinvested dividends will boost monthly dividends at a more rapid rate since money will compound monthly instead of quarterly.  

I'm still considering replacing some of the bond funds with dividend stocks, perhaps some of my wish list stocks, but that would reduce the number of annual dividend payments since the wish list stocks pay quarterly compared to monthly.  So that idea is on hold for right now and I'll continue with my previous plan of taking bond fund dividends in cash to purchase stakes in the wish list stocks.

While I'm looking forward to the big 3 end of the month dividends next week, dividend income for the last month of the 3rd quarter will be down compared to March and June of this year as a result of the stocks I sold in July.  Since that small setback, monthly income has been rising steadily, so I'm excited about boosting it even more with the purchase of EGAS.

MONTHLY DIVIDEND STOCK: GAS NATURAL, INC. (EGAS:NYSE)

All of the monthly dividend payers I currently hold in my portfolio are bond or stock funds.  I did some research into stocks paying monthly dividends, ruling out energy trusts, REIT's and investment trusts which I prefer to avoid.  I came up with one promising candidate.

Gas Natural, Inc.  (EGAS:NYSE)  EGAS  currently pays a 5 cent per share monthly dividend for an annual yield of 4.64% on the recent price per share of $11.82.  They have a P/E of 20.0 and their payout ratio is 58%.  The company's 2013 earnings of 71 cents per share easily covered the dividends.  

EGAS distributes and sell natural gas to residential, commercial and industrial customers in Montana, Wyoming, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine and North Carolina.  They have majority ownership interest in many natural gas producing wells and gas gathering assets.  They also own gas pipelines in Montana and Wyoming.  

While growth in share price and earnings over the past few years might not seem so attractive when compared to overall growth of the S&P 500, EGAS has held up better during past market downturns providing some protection in case of such an eventuality.  All things considered, EGAS could be a good addition to my long term holdings, providing 12 additional dividend payments per year.  Of course since I'm limiting my current portfolio to 20 stocks, I'm considering replacing one of my bond funds with EGAS.

Saturday, September 13, 2014

WELLS FARGO'S BIG MOVE TO BOOST REVENUES

Just read that Wells Fargo (WFC) is making a big move to boost revenues by investing 100 billion dollars in asset management firms.  Right now it's just speculation as to which companies they'll be investing in, but it's a good move on the part of corporate directors, since fee income generated from assets under management is sure to boost the bottom line.

This move to change is on the heels of a slow down in regular earnings, so it's nice to see they're taking action to protect shareholders interests.  I've been a shareholder in WFC for quite some time and consider it one of my core holdings.  It is also a large holding in more than a few of my mutual funds, so I have a vested interest in future earnings.  I'll be watching to see how their plans unfold.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

TWO MORE DIVIDENDS FOR THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER!

Collected two dividend payments this week from long term investments in LLY and CNP.  Re-invested dividends to purchase more shares of both stocks.  Did a quick check on The Motley Fool website to see if future prospects are still good for these stocks.  Both look good, with LLY having increased it's animal drug business in its' deal with Novartis and CNP improving its' business through cost cutting and adding new customers.  Also liked the fact that CNP recently increased their dividend, which increases the yield on my initial investment!

What I appreciate most about dividend investing is seeing the steady month to month increase in cash flow from reinvested dividends.  I mentioned in my last post that I am diverting dividends to my cash account to purchase shares in my "wish list" stocks.  While this may seem to go against my normal investment philosophy, what I didn't mention in the earlier post is that I only diverted part of the dividends with the rest being reinvested to continue growing current positions.  So, while income will not grow as rapidly as before, it will continue to increase on a monthly basis as positions in current holdings increase the monthly reinvested dividends.  About a year from now, I expect to have a big jump in monthly cash flow as all the dividends from newly purchased "wish list" stocks begin to flow in to my IRA and my regular account.

Will the market be up or down, I don't really know.  One thing I'm pretty sure of, my dividend income will be much higher by this time next year.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

WISH LIST STOCKS

I mentioned in a recent post of wish list of stocks with a history
of increasing dividends that I’d like to add to my portfolio.
Since I don’t have the cash readily available to purchase
positions in these stocks, I had to come up with a plan to make
my wishes a reality.  So I diverted dividend income from my
bond funds and 2 of my stock funds to my cash account.  I then
set up automatic orders to buy INTC for my IRA account and
CLX for my taxable account.  As dividend payments
accumulate in my cash account, the purchases will go through
automatically when the dollar amount of each investment is
reached.  As soon as I’ve purchased a position in each of these
stocks, I’ll change my automatic investment to include the next
two stocks on the list:  ADP and GPC.  The final two, WPZ and
MSEX will follow next.

The advantages of this plan:  I won’t have to take any cash out
of pocket to purchase these stocks.  I should be able to add all
six stocks to my portfolio in less than a year and will increase
the number of dividend payments collected per year from 160
to 184.  Which works out to an average of 15.33 dividends per
month!

Monday, September 1, 2014

FIVE DIVIDEND "PAYDAYS" THE FIRST DAY OF SEPTEMBER!

The month of September started out right with 5 dividend payments from WFC, RRD, and a few of my fund holdings.  Always like to see those payments at the beginning of the month, it gets me excited about the possibilities for the month ahead.  September is one of the big dividend months.  I should collect a total of 16 dividend payments for the month.  With 5 down, I'm looking forward to 11 more dividend paydays for the month!  What's not to get excited about.

I seem to be having a small run of luck for some reason.  Won a second chance drawing in the Lotto last month, not cash but still a nice prize.  Also been finding quite a bit of cash while walking my dog.  Mostly change, but a couple of $10 dollar bills too.  Saving the change for a vacation.  Haven't had one in quite a while, so I'm saving up to take Pickles and I on a nice little excursion.  

Renewing the job search this month.  Hope to have better luck this time around.  Still getting more hours at my current job, but things are slowing down, so don't know how long that will hold out.  Would like to have a second job or new job before my hours drop too low.

Making good progress on reducing debt.  Took a lot of positive steps in that direction all last month and at the beginning of this month.  Am starting to see some results there as well.  Be glad to have the final bills out of the way so I can divert that money to my investment account. 

Have a new wish list of stocks with a long history of raising dividends.  Want to add all 7 of the following to my long term portfolio as soon as possible.  The list includes:  WPZ, CLX, INTC, ADP, GPC AND MSEX.  

DIVIDEND INCOME UP OVER 30%!

DIVIDEND INCOME UP MORE THAN 30% FOR THIRD
QUARTER!

Given setbacks to personal earned income in the past few
months, I was pleased to see third quarter dividend income is
up more than 30% when compared to the first 2 months of the
second quarter!  I don’t attribute such success to any special
investment skills on my part, it’s more a matter of sticking to
the plan.  So far the plan has worked well and I don’t see that
changing anytime soon.

Paying off final medical bills from my heart attacks has been
painfully slow.  Partly because there were so many of them and
partly because of my reduced earned income.  However, there
is light at the end of the tunnel and my goal for September is to
pay off the next smallest bill.  With a little luck, by December
I’ll be in a much better financial situation.  I should have at
least 2 more bills paid off, bringing my total monthly payments
from 11 down to 9.  During the first 6 months of 2015, I should
be able to pay off 2 more bills and reduce credit card debt
dramatically.  With only 7 monthly payments, the remaining
credit card debt should drop rapidly starting in July of next
year.  That may seem like a long way off, but I’ve found if you
plan for the year ahead, it’s much easier to keep things in
perspective.  You don’t worry so much the day to day problems
and you keep focus on where you want to be.  Staying focused
on future goals makes it much easier to get from where you are
to where you want to be.