Keeping Your Eye On The Prize

Before last year I never really had a budget.  Starting in 2014 I started using YNAB.

I won't go so far as to say it changed my life but establishing an amount of money to spend each month for a category and then watching that allocation get adjusted multiple times per month has really helped me.  I really don't like seeing when I spend over my allocation (because I manually enter all my transactions) and the YNAB method puts it squarely in your face so you can be really aware that you went over.

Couple this with Loyal3 where I get to send any money for the month I didn't use there to buy more stock == double win.  This year I've been able to see and track my net worth grow and even though everyone's portfolios took massive hits this month, my net worth increased. It's really a good feeling.

Net worth tracking since May 14 via YNAB

July EOM Wrapup

Survived another month!

July was especially fun with the unexpected KRFT payment. I was going to be on the bubble to reach my $1500 yearly goal but now I'll far exceed it.

Charts

Purchases

Loyal3
-Normal buys
BUD
DIS
KO
UL
INTC

-Took a speculative position in FTR. I mostly took the position due to dividend yield and that i can buy it commission free and DRIP via Loyal3. Its also nearing all time lows. I don't insist on waiting for a bottom but this one was near lows so figured I'd take the purchase.

FTR

Taxable

Canadian Banks are/were on sale due to a rate cut announced in  July. So i purchased:
BNS
RY
BMO

Ford  (F) was cheap, so I added some additional shares

I also averaged down on :
IPPLF
EBGUF

Lastly,  a speculative position on CSD http://guggenheiminvestments.com/products/etf/csd  CSD is a spin off ETF and allows me some exposure to companies i wouldn't want to buy individually or too difficult (for me) to track.

Of course all the above (with the exception of F) is in the red with how the market is :-/ I'll keep looking for opportunities when sectors are on sale.

I've updated the portfolio spreadsheet Google doc.