SIX MONTHS AT THE NEW JOB, THINGS ARE DEFINITELY LOOKING UP!

One of my goals I set at the first of the year was to find a better job.  Not necessarily a higher paying one, but one that I enjoyed and had more prospects than my old job.  I started my new job in March, so August marks my 6 month anniversary.  Everything is going well.  Stress levels are way down, job satisfaction way up.  I get less per hour, but I have way more in benefits, so it more than makes up for the lost wages.  I also get way more hours than I did at my old job and have more opportunity for advancement, so I'm actually making more money than if I'd stayed on at the old job.

With the extra income, I am finally getting caught up on some of my medical expenses from the heart attacks.  I'm at the point now that I can finally start putting more cash in my retirement account.  I set up an automatic plan to deposit cash twice a month in my investment account and have made deposits to my regular savings account.  Got in some extra hours this week that I wasn't expecting, so I'm taking half the cash from that to make an extra payment on my credit card bill and the other half goes to savings.

Still doing outside work on my own.  I've got a dog sitting job this week and plan to divide the money from that up between paying off debt and adding to my investment account.  It's amazing that one simple goal can lead to big changes in your lifestyle.  Once I get better situated financially, I'm planning on moving to a better neighborhood.  Right now I'm thinking a move closer to work would be the best idea.  Reducing the cost of my commute would allow for more money to pay off debt and increase investments.

So my next life changing goal is to move closer to work.

MY CURRENT TOP 10 HOLDINGS

A couple of times a year I like to review my holdings to make sure I'm not getting too tied up to any one investment.  Then I make a list of my top ten holdings, which should in no way be construed as advice to invest in any of these stocks.  It is for information purposes only.

My current top ten includes:

 1.  UVE:  Remains my number one holding even after selling off enough shares to recoup all my out of pocket costs.  However, I'll continue to hold this stock forever since my yield on original cost is fantastic and I have none of my own money tied up in it.

 2.  LLY:  Continues to be a great performer, but has plateaued recently.  This is one of my core holdings and I'll likely never sell this stock.

 3.  NCZ:  Bond fund, nice yield, ho-hum performance.  I'll hold for now, but am looking for better performing fund.

 4.  AOD:  Happy with this funds performance and monthly payouts.  It's a keeper as long as the dividend holds.

 5.  NYCB:  Have held this stock for years and will continue to do so, as long as the dividend continues.

 6.  GE:  Seems like everybody owns a little piece of GE.  

 7.  HWBK:  Hometown bank, got in at a great price, will hold this one for the long term.

 8.  WFC:  What can I say, if Warren Buffett likes their long term prospects, so do I.

 9.  T:  Good dividend, core holding.

10.  RRD:  Initially a speculative play, but I'm holding for the dividend.  Did see nice gain on share price since my initial buy in.

There you have it.  My top 10 holdings.  The only stellar performer in the bunch is UVE, up 374% since my initial purchase.  Some of the others have done quite well and I'm pleased overall.  Although I'm heavily weighted towards financials in my top 10 holdings, I'm not worried about it because the remaining investments in my portfolio tend to balance it all out.

EMBRACING MY JEWISH HERITAGE

It was only in the last two years that I discovered my grandfather who immigrated from Germany was actually Jewish.  Although he was not a practicing Jew and I have no intent to convert to the Jewish religion, I do identify with my Jewish ancestors.  I would be 1/4 Jewish, 1/4 native American, 1/4 Irish and 1/4 British.  From what I know about these four groups, I feel more drawn to my Jewish ancestry, even though I identify as Christian by faith.

With that in mind, I've decided to learn more about the history of the Jewish people and about their religion.  As I mentioned, it is not likely that I'll convert from Christianity, but I would like to know more about where I came from.  I've had opportunity to learn about Native Americans, Ireland and Britain and now I'd like to know more about the rest of my heritage.

JULY DIVIDEND INCOME SETS NEW RECORD HIGH!

Dividend income for the month of July set an all time record high for my portfolio, thanks in part to the special stock dividend from HWBK.  Income for July beat out the previous record month of December 2014 by 10%!  Total shares owned increased by 1% through reinvested dividends.  Nice to see the steady growth of cash flow and total shares owned.

August is off to a good start with 4 dividend payments collected.  While I'm continuing to reinvest all dividends in individual stocks, I have diverted some fund dividends to cash account in order to purchase more shares of AOD and SPHD as I talked about in a previous post.  While they may not be the top performing funds, they are doing well and I have a lot of faith in the underlying assets of both funds.  Add to that the monthly dividends paid by both and I think it's a good direction for me to go in for now.

JULY 2015 SET TO BREAK ALL TIME HIGH DIVIDEND INCOME RECORD FOR ONE MONTH!

July 31st I'll receive the final 4 dividends for the month.  I've calculated the monthly total based on previous dividends and it looks like the total will break my all time high record for dividend income in a single month!  I'm pretty excited about that, although I'm not quite sure how it happened.  According to some of my earlier projections, dividend income for the year will be up only slightly over last year.  So I hadn't expected to be setting many records along the way.  But that's the way it works out sometimes.  You can accurately project so many things, but sometimes you have some disappointments and sometimes you have some pleasant surprises.

I'VE BEEN ENTERING A LOT OF SWEEPSTAKES LATELY

I've been entering a lot of sweepstakes lately, although not the ones most people would enter.  See these are small drawings from gas station, grocery store and dollar store receipts.  The prizes range from $500 to $3,000, usually in a gift card, but sometimes in cash.  To enter, they normally require you fill out a short survey on your visit to their store.  Doesn't take much time and any win would make it worth the effort.  I figure the odds of winning one of these prizes is way greater than winning the lottery, since most people won't bother to enter.  Then too, any of the prizes would most likely be a life changing event in my case.  Granted it wouldn't be a big life change, but imagine free gas for a year to someone on a tight budget.  That's definitely a life changer.

So far all I've won is a Bose wave radio, which was nice, but not as good as some of the other prizes.  I sold the radio as soon as I got it for $100, so it was a quick turnaround to cash.  Merchandise prizes I'll most likely sell for cash, but I plan to use any gift cards for gas, groceries, etc. to offset my normal everyday shopping expenses.  Freeing up cash to pay off debt or add to my investment account.  I believe persistence will pay off, so I keep entering.  It's all free, so any prizes won I consider a good return for my time.  

BUY 3 FUNDS, GET 60% STOCKS, 40% BONDS AND 3 MONTHLY DIVIDENDS!

If you read much about investing, you've probably seen the recommended 60% stocks and 40% bonds touted at one point or another.  The idea being that as you age, you divert more of your portfolio in to bond funds for more secure retirement income.  It's my opinion that, if you're a dividend investor, you never really need to increase bond holdings unless it just helps you sleep better at night.  As a dividend investor, I plan on drawing dividend income only, so cashing in my holdings to support my retirement is not part of the plan.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand.  While reading annual reports from 2 of my stock funds, I was impressed with the quality of the stocks held in each fund and it occurred to me that adding a bond fund with the 2 stock funds would make a very well balanced portfolio.  It would also make it easy to invest in a 60/40 split of stocks and bonds.  You simply divide your investment cash 30% to each stock fund and 40% to the bond fund.  You wouldn't have to sell stocks and buy bonds to re-balance and maintain the 60/40 split.  With funds paying monthly dividends, all you'd have to do is divert the amount of dividend income from one investment to the other as needed.

In my case, I own stakes in AOD (stocks), SPHD (stocks) and NCZ (bonds).  So my plan is to let the rest of my portfolio increase on it's own through reinvested dividends, while I build up my stakes in each of these funds.  I'll be buying quality dividend stocks with monthly payments, increasing my monthly income from bonds and balancing out my portfolio for less volatility and maintain good growth prospects.  It really is not a big change to my overall plan, more like a minor tweak, since it fits in well with my current investment plan.