NLY WILL BE NEXT STOCK PURCHASE WITH MONEY FROM SWAGBUCKS

After a few hours of research, I've decided to make NLY my next stock purchased with money earned on Swagbucks.  Although this REIT pays quarterly instead of monthly, it has a 9.62% yield on current price of $12.19 per share.  It also has a very low P/E of 4.22 with sufficient earnings to more than cover their quarterly dividend of 30 cents per share.  Since REITs throw off a lot of income as a rule, it will make a good addition to my ROTH IRA where the income will be tax free.  I should be able to easily earn enough on Swagbucks to make my initial purchase before the ex. date of 12/28 to collect my first dividend in January 2018.

SEPTEMBER 2017 SETS NEW RECORD FOR DIVIDEND INCOME!

The month of September set a new record for dividend income, beating out the previous record set in July of this year, by a little over 2%!  Total number of shares owned increased by over 2% from the end of August, through reinvested dividends and additional cash purchases.  It's been 5 years since I started rebuilding my investment portfolio after suffering a couple of heart attacks and spending all my savings on medical bills.  I continue to be amazed at how well it's all going!  At the current rate of accretion, I should surpass the value of my old portfolio in less than two years!  Dividend income will surpass income from the old portfolio by the end of next year.  Couldn't ask for anything better than that.

For the end of the month I collected a whopping 15 dividend payments!  What's even more exciting is, the first of October it happens all over again!  Talk about keeping a person motivated.  The whole process is really starting to snowball now, with monthly dividend income up over 35% since January of this year!  I sometimes think I should try something different to maybe gain a little edge, but at this point, I believe I'm better off sticking with my original plan.  You really can't argue with the results.  I set out to build a portfolio that would throw off a bunch of cash each month and that's exactly what has happened.  So I'm going to keep the ball rolling.  

DEBT TO ASSET RATIO DOWN SINCE SEPTEMBER 2016!

Money has been running a little tight since I bought a newer car, so I decided to do a comparison of debt from September of last year to September of this year.  While some account balances dropped dramatically, others remained about the same.  That in itself was depressing enough, but it was even more alarming to discover my total debt had increased by 24% in one year.  

However, total investment assets had increased during that same time span by a whopping 94%!  So while total debt increased, my debt to assets ratio dropped from 3.77 to 2.45.  Since I continue to pay the balances down as much as possible each month and add to my investments at every opportunity, this should continue to improve.  But to hurry that along some, I've decided to do the "debt snowball" and pay extra on my lowest balance until it's payed off.  Then I'll take the money I was paying them and add it to the next lowest balance until it's eliminated.  By continuing this process, I should be able to be debt free before I retire in 5 years!  

Even though I'm still not happy about the debt, having a plan to eliminate it, puts a positive spin on an otherwise depressing scenario.  It's also nice to know that my debt to assets ratio continues to improve on a monthly basis.  (To figure debt to assets ratio, divide total debt by total assets.)    

QUESTIONING CLM AND CRF'S LATEST REPORTS TO SHAREHOLDERS

I've been a shareholder in both CLM and CRF for quite some time now.  As a dividend investor, I love the high monthly dividend payments even though I know they're not really representative of the funds earnings.  It's just nice to get those big payments every month.  However, I had considered selling both after looking over their most recent reports to shareholders.  Once again, they both report substantial returns which I would ordinarily be quite happy with.  The problem is, they always seem to report positive returns while the value of my shares continue to diminish.  Maybe I'm missing something here, but if the fund is making money, should the value of your shares be going up instead of down?  O.K., I understand that a major part of the big monthly dividend is a return of capital, which reduces my average cost per share.  I'm just wondering if I continue to take dividends in cash, will my shares eventually dwindle down to nothing?  Not really sure how that will work out.  

Instead of selling, I decided to keep both positions for now.  To reduce the risk of a total loss, I'm taking the precaution of collecting monthly dividends in cash and putting them to work elsewhere, at least for now.  What made me decide to keep the funds was the fact that they're both pretty highly rated on Morningstar.  I trust Morningstar ratings pretty well, so I'll hang on to them for a while longer and see how it goes.

COLLECTED 15 DIVIDENDS IN THE PAST 7 DAYS!

It's been a great week dividend wise, with 15 dividend payments received during the past seven days!  That's whats so exciting about dividend investing, the money just keeps rolling in.  Whether I take the cash or reinvest it, I just keep collecting more and more each month!  With recent stock purchases, I'm up to a total of 481 dividend payments per year or an average of 40 dividends per month.  While most of the dividend payments are still pretty small, the monthly total is a significant amount.  It's already enough to cover some of my monthly bills.  Just got to keep growing the payments through reinvested dividends and additional cash investments and I should be doing quite well by the time I retire in 5 years.

The 401k is moving right along.  While total return for 2017 is only around 1.39%, twice monthly payroll contributions have increased total account value quite nicely.  This is really my wild card account.  While I got to pick where to invest my money, I have very little control over the account otherwise.  So whatever it eventually grows to, it will have involved very little effort on my part.  Hopefully it does well.

I'm about to collect another $25 from Swagbucks, which I'll divert to my investment account.  I'd like to add a third monthly dividend stock purchased with money made from Swagbucks.  I like the idea of creating streams of income from money earned outside my regular job.  This is money I've earned from working online at home.  It would be great to see more income from sources outside my regular job.  So I'm working to make that happen.   

PSEC STAKE INCREASES MONTHLY CASH FLOW 3%!

Last month I purchased shares of PSEC for my Roth account, but after doing a little more research, I decided to buy a stake for my IRA account as well.  Total shares purchased will boost monthly dividend income by 3%, which is exciting in itself.  However, the real reasons I decided to purchase more shares was due to heavy buying by insiders and because of an article I read saying that the stock was trading at a discount to net asset value, whereby you were getting $1 in assets for 93 cents.  Sounds like my kind of deal!

When I looked up the insider buying, I noticed one officer of the company had accumulated over 7 million shares.  This would put his stake in the company around $50 million.  I figure if this guy who really knows what's going on with company is willing to risk so much money, it's probably O.K. for me to risk a few hundred.  At any rate, his investment is earning him $420,000 per month in dividends (7,000,000 x .06)!  That works out to 5 million 40 thousand dollars per year!  If the stock remained roughly where it is, it would take him less than 10 years to collect all his money back in dividends.  If it moves up some, he stands to make a killing.  I don't have anywhere near that kind of money to work with, but whatever I make, I make.    

SEPTEMBER 2017 OFF TO GREAT START WITH 11 DIVIDENDS!

While the month of August didn't generate any new records, the month of September looks promising.  Collected a total of 11 dividend payments on the first day of September, with 31 more to follow!  Was happy to see my first dividend from INTC and PFE, since adding them to my portfolio.  Looking forward to many more to come from these two.  

No major plans for this month, although I have put into play an idea I had for increasing overall yields while lowering average price per share.  I followed the effect reinvested dividends had on average price per share and naturally, when prices are rising reinvested dividends increase average price per share, lowering dividend yields.  So my idea was to only reinvest dividends in stocks who's prices have gone down and collect cash dividends from stocks showing price increases.  While, on the face of it, this may sound like a bad idea, since I'm reinvesting in stocks who's prices are dropping and not buying more shares of stocks showing a profit, I think it will work out in the end due to the fickle nature of the stock market.  I've invested long enough to know that prices go up and down frequently, with seemingly no real rime or reason.  That being the case, why not pick up more shares when the prices are low and stop buying when the prices are high.  If some of my shares jump way up in price, I can always sell and collect cash profits in lieu of future dividends.  Since initiating this plan two weeks ago, my cash balances have doubled in all three of my personal investment accounts.

While August didn't set any new records, I am pleased to report my total number of shares owned has increased by 46% from the beginning of 2017 to the end of August!  Average monthly dividend income has also increased by over 40% during the same time frame!