Saturday, October 29, 2016

OCTOBER SECOND HIGHEST MONTH FOR DIVIDEND INCOME IN 2016!

Just collected the last nine dividends for the month of October and it came in as the second highest month for dividend income this year, only behind July, with it's 2 special dividend payments from MAIN and HWBK!  Income from CLM more than doubled with recent purchase of stake for my Roth account!  As exciting as all this is, I should see another increase in monthly income in November with AGD's first monthly dividend, although with only 22 dividend payments for November, it's sure to lag behind July and October.  However, I'm looking for December to set an all time record for a single month with a whopping 30 dividend payments!

To start 2017 off right, I'd like to buy stakes in two more monthly dividend funds before the end of the year.  Given I don't really have the cash right now, this is a pretty ambitious goal.  But I think it's possible, with some tight budgeting and taking advantage of extra cash from my Christmas bonus and cash balances from dividend payments.  I've been pretty happy for the past three years with the advances made from reinvesting dividends, but I'd like to take some of the money I've built up recently and purchase one stock entirely with cash earned from dividends.  Something about buying a monthly stream of income with no money out of pocket really appeals to me.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

DISMAL STOCK PRICE PERFORMANCE, BUT CASH BALANCES GROWING NICELY

The last few weeks haven't been good to stock prices, but it only serves to bolster my decision to convert dividend payments to cash for the time being.  Yes, I want to buy shares at lower prices but how much lower are prices going to go?  At this point, I have no idea, so I'm collecting cash and taking a wait and see approach.  If this sounds crazy to most dividend investors, I would point out my last post which referenced all the cash Warren Buffet has built up with Berkshire Hathaway this year.  There's a reason Buffet has accumulated so much wealth, he's very smart at buying stocks at the right price.  So if I'm accumulating cash waiting for better prices at the same time as Warren Buffet, I figure I'm in very good company.

Going forward, it looks as though I'll have enough cash from earned income to buy stakes in AGD and SPLV before the end of this year.  So I'll be able to boost dividend income for the last two months of 2016 and it will add another 24 dividend payments towards my goal of 365 per year.  Buying the stocks before the first of the year will also have a significant impact on total dividend income for 2017 and bring me much closer to my goal of doubling income for the fourth year in a row.  I've done the math and it is doable, but we'll just have to wait and see how things go.  Regardless of who wins the presidential election or how well the stock market performs in 2017, I still expect to continue growing dividend income as well as accumulating bigger cash balances in my investment accounts.  So far, the balance of my 401k account is minimal compared to my other accounts, but I expect that to change by the end of 2017.  It may eventually become my largest account, but whatever it ends up being, it will add to passive income during retirement.  

Thursday, October 13, 2016

IF BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY IS PILING UP CASH THEN SO AM I

Last month I posted about not reinvesting dividends for a while, while I waited to see where the market was headed and to see what the Feds were going to do with interest rates.  I figured I could get a better price if the market drops and that it's never a bad thing to have a big pile of cash.  

If I had any doubts about my decision, they were quickly squelched after reading an article from the Associated Press this morning about Warren Buffet's company, Berkshire Hathaway.  They were talking about how Berkshire had amassed nearly $73 billion in cash by mid summer and were generating an additional $1.5 billion per month.  There was speculation as to what Warren Buffet planned to do with the cash, whether he'd buy out another company, or purchase millions of shares of stock in one of the companies in which he already owns shares.  Whatever he decides to do with the money, I'm sure he'll eventually put it to good use, he always does.

At any rate, my takeaway from this is that it's not always necessary to reinvest dividends in the same company from which you received them.  I do believe it's good to continue reinvesting that money, but my plan is to build up cash and reinvest it in new stocks and funds to create additional streams of income.  I currently own shares in 27 different stocks and funds and would like to increase that to 35 by the end of next year.  By purchasing the additional stocks and funds in 2017 I'll boost my total number of cash dividend payments to around 371 per year, more than a dividend per day!  Collecting most of my dividend payments in cash will help me reach this goal as quickly as possible, since I don't have to come up with all the cash from earned income.  

Thursday, October 6, 2016

OCTOBER OFF TO GOOD START WITH 8 DIVIDEND PAYMENTS!

Although we've been whip sawed by the stock market for the past week or so, October is off to a good start with 8 dividend payments for the first week!  This includes the first dividend from monthly dividend payer EAD, added last month to my ROTH account.  Cash balances are up from collecting dividends as cash rather than reinvesting.  This has helped to stabilize my accounts to some extent.  I plan on continuing to collect cash dividends for the remainder of 2016.  We'll see how things are going after the first of the year and I'll decide whether to start reinvesting dividends again. 

Speaking of 2017, I've decided to totally change my investment schedule to make 2017 the year I start collecting a dividend a day.  I'm up to 299 dividend payments a year now, so I only need to add 6 monthly dividend payers and I'll collect 371 payments per year!  I'm so excited about the idea of getting a payment for every day of the year, I'll probably make a few of the new stock purchases before the end of this year.  I should be able to complete this purchase plan by June or July of 2017, but even if it takes all year it will be worth it.  This new goal should also go a long way toward doubling total annual dividend income, which I'd like to do again next year.

We'll find out soon enough who our next President is going to be.  Which candidate wins probably won't have much to do with the performance of the stock market for the next year or two.  I'm not expecting to see any major gains during 2017 or 2018 as far as stock prices go.  But that's actually good news when you're a dividend investor still in the accumulation phase.  The less expensive the stocks, the higher the yields and the more shares you can buy with your investment cash.  Not sure yet what the new year will bring politically or economically, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be another great year for dividends.