I AM DONE PAYING USURIOUS INTEREST RATES!

Been on a kick to pay off my debt, starting with my highest interest rate account and working my way down.  Today I got a letter from an online retailer/payment website saying their charge accounts are being taken over in July by another bank and they're raising the interest rate to 24.95%!  I have been doing business with this company for over 20 years and have bought literally thousands of dollars worth of merchandise and transferred lots of cash through their payment website.  That all came to a screeching halt when I read their letter.  I will NEVER buy another product from their retail website and as soon as my account is paid off, it's cancelled.

I am sick of being charged usurious interest rates for no good reason.  I have years of payment history, never late, always paying more than the minimum.  Several paid off accounts and paid loans but my credit score is still only near 700 and I still get no breaks on the interest rates.  While at the same time, the banks want to pay me less than 1% on my savings.  It's insane and I've had enough.  I'm paying them all off and to hell with them.  I have money, I don't need to borrow theirs and I certainly don't need any more stuff.  So if I can't afford to pay cash for something I want, I don't need it.

If being angry about the high interest weren't enough motivation, I figured up how much I'll be able to add to my investment accounts each month, once all the bills are paid off.  It's a staggering amount!  So to all those greedy banking bastards, I'm saying, "Sayonara Suckers!"

RECENT TRADES INCREASE MONTHLY DIVIDENDS OVER 2.5%!

Once again I was able to make some trades and increase monthly dividends by over 2.5% with no cash out of pocket.  I did this partly because my online broker is handing over their accounts to Etrade later in the year and I wanted to consolidate my portfolio.  But I also have been on the lookout for ways to increase income from current dollars invested.  So today I sold my stakes in CNP and GLW in my taxable account and used the money to buy more shares of CHI.  In my IRA account, I sold T and WFC and used the cash to purchase more shares of ZTR.  Both moves together lead to monthly payouts instead of the quarterly payouts I was getting from the individual stocks and lead to an overall increase in monthly cash flow of over 2.5%!

While I have nothing in particular against Etrade, I think it would have been better for Capital One to give their account holders a choice of brokerages to transfer their accounts to.  I'm leaning towards TD Ameritrade and would transfer my accounts now, however since I'm in the habit of re-investing dividends, I own a lot of fractional shares that I don't think I could transfer over.  Capital One plans to pay cash for fractional shares before transferring accounts to Etrade, so I guess I'll have to wait until that all plays out and transfer my accounts back to TD Ameritrade after they've gone over to Etrade.  Kind of a hassle, but I'm not seeing any other way to make the switch.  That's why I think Capital One should have offered more choices.  

WHAT I'VE LEARNED ABOUT GENERATIONAL WEALTH FROM AGATHA CHRISTIE

I never read Agatha Christie's books when I was young, but I happened across a collection of them at a thrift store last year and received another stack of her books for Christmas, so I've been enjoying reading many of her books and short stories since then.  While the books themselves are wonderfully well written and give a glimpse of the British lifestyle of her era, I noticed a recurring theme about the way the gentry viewed wealth and investing.  They didn't look at their investments as something to be sold to provide for them in their old age, rather they were viewed as a source of income.  In other words, they lived off the income their investments produced and passed the investments on to their heirs when they died.  Thus perpetuating generational wealth.  

That is the way I view dividend investing.  I have no intention of selling my investments when I retire and living off the proceeds.  I intend to live off the income they produce, or a portion of the income and leave the rest to my heirs, so the next generation benefits from all my hard work.  Think of what it could mean to a country's economy if all their citizens did the same.  In the book, "The Richest Man in Babylon", the king wanted the man with the most wealth to teach others how to create wealth in order to make his kingdom one of the richest in the world.  Imagine how much better off the world would be if everyone were taught the importance of saving and investing rather than becoming wage slaves, living paycheck to paycheck and dying broke.

Don't want to stray too far from the point.  I just found it fascinating that there was a time and place where people thought more about generational wealth.  While I hope to be around many more years, I'm excited about the prospect of leaving a meaningful inheritance to my family.  

APRIL 2018 TO SET NEW RECORD HIGH FOR DIVIDEND INCOME!

With April typically being one of the lower months for dividend income and after last month's near record high, I wasn't expecting to do quite so well this month.  However, I did a quick estimate today after posting dividend payments from PSEC and ZTR and April will set a new record for dividend income.  Not only will it beat out March 2018, it will be nearly double April 2017's income and will beat the all time highest month to date, December 2017, by more than 3%!

This leads me to believe all the recent trades I've made were a good thing.  Especially when you consider that income increases from some of the trades don't even kick in until next month.  Which means that this month's record may be short lived.  While May has only 41 dividends compared to April's 43, the amounts will be higher and I'll collect the last dividend from VZ.  If that doesn't break this month's record, June surely will with it's total of 46 dividend payments.

Read an article on AEG today which makes me wish I'd bought more shares around the $4 mark.  While my stake is up considerably, I have no plans on selling.  I originally bought the shares as a way of collecting back some of the fees charged on my 401k.  My 401k is run by TransAmerica which is owned by AEG.  So I bought the shares of AEG on the cheap with the idea of collecting the dividend to get back some of the money they charge for managing my 401k.  I also own a piece of AEG through JPS, one of my convertible securities funds.  After seeing how much AEG earns per share compared to what they pay out in dividends, I think it's well worth holding on to in it's own right.  Looks like it could turn out to be a very good long term investment, although I wish they paid dividends more than twice a year.

RECENT TRADES BOOST MONTHLY DIVIDEND INCOME BY 8%!

In my last post, I was excited about boosting monthly dividends by another 2%.  So I'm extremely elated about recent trades increasing monthly dividends by over 8%!  It gets even better, since the income from cash invested, from the stocks that I sold will go up by nearly 300%!  I sold my stakes in MRK and VZ and used the money to buy more shares of PSEC and ZTR respectively.  (Incidentally, I just collected a dividend from MRK this month and held on to VZ long enough to collect their dividend in May.  My trades should complete in time to collect my first dividend on the ZTR shares this month and PSEC in May.)   

I know what's being said about PSEC, but I find it hard to believe that one of their company insiders is willing to risk $204,000,000 of his own money unless he thinks something good is going to happen with the company.  O.K., I know with over 34,000,000 shares he's collecting over $2,000,000 per month in dividends, but that still isn't reason enough to invest so heavily unless you think the market is undervaluing the shares.  Another company insider owns over a million shares as well.  I could be wrong here and am by no means encouraging anyone to follow my move, but I'm willing to take on the risk to follow the insiders.

As for ZTR, a global dividend and income fund, I'm after the 12.37% yield there.  Since they're near their 52 week low, I'm willing to take the risk there as well.  Like I said earlier, I'm not encouraging anyone to follow my lead on these or any other investments.  My 401k is invested quite conservatively and I have conservative investments in my other investment accounts to help balance the risk on some of the higher yield plays.  We'll see how it all works out.