May EOM Wrap Up

May EOM Wrap Up

May was my biggest dividend payout to date at: $161.60 :-)

Charts:

Dividends by Month

2015 Dividend Goal Progress

Purchases:

I had a side hustle pay out some money plus an equity grant so I made some purchases in taxable accounts

This month I bought:

F @$15.53  for a starter position.  Weekly chart is looking pretty weak so I'd be willing to add more in the 14.00-14.50 area. 

Some reasons for the purchase: 

http://www.thestreet.com/story/12993172/4/8-recession-proof-stocks-to-prepare-your-portfolio-for-the-next-cycle.html?startIndex=0 and 3.92% dividend yield.

WBK @$25.64 for some foreign (AUS) financial exposure. Weekly chart is looking weak (you'll detect a trend here) Looking to buy more below $25.00. Did miss the ex-dividend date though :-(

Reasons:
One of the four big banks in Australia, but the only one on NYSE and 5.72% dividend yield. I want to continue to get more foreign exposure although I will probably primarily do this via PID or IDV


HSY @$93.37 in my Loyal3 account  I would love for it to get back down to $90/91 area and i'll buy more.

Reasons: 

chocolate!

NVDA @$20.54 

Reasons:
I'm bullish on NVDA for long term with their attempt to become the NFLX of gaming.  Its also a tech company that at least pays a little (1.53%) to own it.


PG @$80.28

Reasons:  it was $8 dollars cheaper than i bought it for my IRA back in Dec/Jan.  Its on sale at the moment.  Weekly chart is looking weak though. I plan to add more between $75-$78. 3.34% dividend yield.

JNJ @$100.91  

Reasons: I own it, like it, its 6 dollars cheaper than I own it in my IRA.  Looks like it found its bottom around 98 for the time being. 2.97% dividend yield.

Normal Loyal 3 purchases for May:
K, KO, DPS  

Reasons: I buy whatever is red on my tracking chart for that month to average down.

Things I wish I knew in my 20's

Continuing on from my first post on things I wish I knew when I started working are things I wish I knew in my 20's.

At this point I was getting a steady paycheck and was in the military. Some topics I really had no clue about include:

1. The key to saving is living on less than you make.

To anyone that practices any sort of frugality you know this one already but I think it is lost on the majority of people in their 20's.  Now to be fair I had several bosses that told me to live on my previous salary and save the difference. I mostly heeded this advice but banked the cash only to piss it away on other things later.  Plus I was mostly brought up to equate stuff with caring/love. So buy all the things!

To be fair its suuuuuuuper difficult at that time in your life not to blow all your money on stuff.  Going out with friends, traveling, eating out, you can finally afford a nice-ish car, etc.  Happy to hear advice on how you bypass this stage to pass on to the little ones.

Either way, its true, the key to saving is living on less than you make.

http://www.successwithmoney.com/live-on-less-than-you-make/
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/rule-1-spend-less-than-you-earn/
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/06/01/raising-a-family-on-under-2000-per-year/

The part that's missing in that advice is to properly do something with that extra money. I touched on this in the previous post about wishing I knew something...anything...about retirement accounts but understanding the power of compounding is also key.  After a brief stint with FirstCommand where I was sold high load funds and life insurance I didn't need I eventually did end up with a Roth IRA in an S&P fund.  Unfortunately I put the financial education journey on pause there and really didn't pick it back up for 10+ years.

2. Avoid credit card debt at all costs.

This should be obvious but sometimes it is not.  In college everyone is throwing credit cards at you. You need to strike a serious balance between building credit and buying crap you don't need or have money for on credit.  It took me many many YEARS to finally get out of credit card debt.

Credit Cards are a tool that can be used to build credit and earn reward but they must be used appropriately and not as a way to buy things you don't have money for.


3. Establishing a budget

What the heck is a budget?! The key to #1 and avoiding #2 is the budget. AKA why I can't have any fun :-)

To be serious though, I never could understand why I made OK money in my 20's (and now good money) but never had any. It wasn't until I started tracking where it all went that I had my answers.  The One-Page Financial Plan by Carl Richards is an ok place to start. Its very simple, lay it out there and track the money just to see where it goes. Then go looking for things to cut out.  When I decided to try to meet with financial planners many of them asked if  I had a budget and the better ones would only see me after I had it to bring in with me :-)

 If you want some more ammo Dave Ramsey's books are ok as well.  Plus there are tons and tons of resources on this now on the interwebs.

I do this religiously now with YNAB. The manual part is what works for me but its ok to try a few tools to see what sticks and fills the need.


4. Understand Roth vs Traditional IRAs.

TLDR;
**Do the Roth until you make too much**

Reference: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/retirement/03/012203.asp

Where to put the money?

• No idea:  Target Date Funds via low fee mutal funds or ETFs
• Some idea: Proper mix of domestic, foreign stocks and bonds via low fee ETFs
• Lots of ideas: ETFs and dividend growth stocks (see below)

Also understand lower the management fees the better:

Reference: http://www.thesimpledollar.com/why-fees-matter/

5. If employers do any sort of matching, make sure you contribute enough to get that match no matter what.

You want that free money to accumulate as much as you can for as long as you can.

Relevant blog posts:
http://blog.mint.com/saving/goodbye-college-hello-future-why-retirement-savings-matters-in-your-20s-051215
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/retirement/5-retirement-savings-ideas-for-young-people-1.aspx
http://www.kiplinger.com/article/saving/T063-C006-S001-10-financial-commandments-for-your-20s.html
https://www.millersmoney.com/money-weekly/free-money-for-your-401k

6. Understand dividend growth investing or at least the buy and hold mentality.

-Learn basic stock analysis

-Learn what a trend is and wether a stock is in an uptrend and downtrend
-Learn about timeframes and how we care about Daily..really more  Weekly/ Monthly charts when it comes to investing.
-Learn about the Dividend Aristocrats and its ok to devote a portion of saving/investing to these Dividend Growth stocks
-Read A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing by Burton G. Malkiel
-Read The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. by Benjamin Graham

Motif rebalances & creation of a new Motif

For end of April and May I did some motif rebalancing and created a new Motif.

First up was:

 

Only change here was to add BUD to the Motif.

Up next is my betting on the future Motif, which I think is all red at the moment :-/

I rebalanced this Motif to add a bunch of solar companies. I really liked the Tesla powerwall announcement and it spurred me to look into some of the other solars.  I plan to dollar cost average this Motif over the next few quarters until it hits full position and then I'll just wait and see what happens. This is a long term bet portfolio and I think I've mentioned that I'm willing to ride this one out and really have no plans to sell anything in the portfolio (for now).

 

If you are curious as to which solars and why, here you go:

TSLA (why cars + batteries)
SCTY (why walmart partnership)
SUNE (why Kohls partnership)
FSLR (why Apple partnership)
SPWR (why warren buffet involvement && J&J + many others)
VSLR (why up on the year)
CSIQ (why up on the year)

Lastly with some cash back from uncle Sam I created a simple credit card companies motif consisting of V, MA, AXP, and DFS.  Long term I don't see the world doing better with credit card debt (meaning I think we will continue to pile it on) so I think they are a good buy and hold opportunity.

 

April EOM Update

Total dividend income for April was: $109.68.

It is pretty fun to watch these grow since Jan's income was 35.79 (mostly because i had missed the ex-dividend date on most of the purchases when i rolled over the old 401k).

Excel skillz chart:

This month I took refund money and added money to my two Motif's see:
http://hackyourfinances.blogspot.com/2015/04/march-update-2.html

The majority of the cash went to the one that is performing well vs my "bets" one but I'll continue to add to that one until it reaches my max position/bet size. I'm still bullish on 3D printing long term.  I may also rebalance to add in some solar stocks, still thinking about it.

I also made contributions in my Loyal3 portfolio to:

DIS
UL
KO

For the most part Loyal3 doesn't dividend reinvest, but did for KRFT. I just take any dividends and add it to the next purchase i make.

That's all for now, thanks for reading.

Things I wish I knew when I started getting a paycheck

Things I wish I knew when I started getting a paycheck

1. I wish I knew retirement accounts existed and the power of compounding && time doing its magic

My first entrance into any sort of investing was in my military days with First Command (http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/First-Command-Reviews-E37701.htm). In retrospect it was better than nothing but if you do some Googling it wasn't a great service. They put you in high load mutual funds and sell whole life insurance (which i really didnt need with Army Life insurance). I got half the message that they were less than optimal advisors but decided "it was too hard" or "I didn't have time" to learn a better way to invest my money. I ended up purchasing a S&P 500 Roth IRA  but not putting nearly enough  in (aka the max every year).

What I plan to do about for my kids:
I've already started trying to educate my oldest on investing with her Motif. I also **plan** to initially fund her IRA once she starts working as well as do more education on the power of compounding. I should have some good ammo by that point with my own retirement accounts plus this blog. Hurray for fancy graphs and mad excel skillz.


2. I wish I knew that even saving $100 a month or per paycheck would have probably made me a millionaire now.

I started working at 14, so over the course of my life so far there were tons of opportunity to bank cash into an IRA for the future but I didn't.  I have little to show for it except for maybe some hazy  memories of nights out on the town.   There are many many resources on compounding both in IRA and with dividend growth investing. Here is one that is a decent example:  http://www.businessinsider.com/amazing-power-of-compound-interest-2014-7 and another http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/04/02/the-extraordinary-power-of-compound-interest/


What i plan to do about for my kids:
See above

3. I wish I knew/understood that buying stuff is really a waste of money.  Most of my life I spent every dollar I made mostly on stuff i didn't need instead of stashing it away.  This is mostly a result of upbringing and my parents views on money.

What I plan to do about for my kids:
Education when we are shopping, reminding grandparents to not equal love with **stuff**, tell stories about my shitty finance habits once they are old enough to understand better.

March Update #2

Total dividend income for march was: $131.06 :-)

I mentioned in the previous post I started a few Motif's. The first was a Dividend Motif based on services people use and Asset Management companies I think will do OK in the future.

 

The second was a bet on the future, mostly with 3d Stocks and NVDA. NVDA because they are working to become the NFLX for gaming and a few of the various 3D printing stocks because i think the service will become more important/profitable in the future as the technology progresses.

I'm prepared to lose all the cash I put into the bet on the future Motif.

 

I also continue to buy stocks with Loyal3.  This month I added to positions in:

Intel
Target
Unilever
Disney
Mattel
Kellogs
Kraft
Coca Cola
Dr. Pepper/Snapple

This is more than usual as I ended up with some additional capital to use.

Kraft I'm sure was a happy surprise for anyone that owned it with the Heinz/Kraft merger.  Not sure if I'll continue to add to the Mattel position.  High yield but the company isn't doing to great right now and frankly I'm unsure of its future prospects. If anyone has an opinion I'd be happy to read it.

March Update #1

March Update #1

I'll cover passive income in another post as the month isn't over, but there were enough updates to break it into two pieces and I know most people don't read really long blog posts anymore.

First, I've created a Hack Your Finances Facebook page.  There is now a Facebook link in the menu list.  If interested, you can check it out here:
https://www.facebook.com/hackyourfinances

Go ahead and give it a like if you use Facebook.  I've decided to post most of the [Shared] things there instead of muddying up the blog with them.  So unless its really really good you'll see the shared links on the Facebook page from now on.  I'm also in the process of setting up a twitter account for Hack Your Finances. To tweet out blog updates and shared links.

Second, based on this post:
http://hackyourfinances.blogspot.com/2015/03/getting-kids-interested-in-investing.html

I've started giving Motif a try.  First with a portfolio to get my daughter interested in investing.  I've also created a few additional Motifs. I made an all REIT one for fun but thus far do not intend to fund it because I don't feel like messing with that taxes. But it was fun to build and tweak it for max return or max dividend and to see how it compares to the S&P.

 

I'll post on the other Motifs I plan to fund a bit later... or if you are super curious comment below and it will motivate me to post about them sooner.  Initial impressions are that I like it. This is mostly because it gives you fundamental details about the stocks (PE, yield, charts, etc). My main gripe with Loyal3 thus far is the complete lack of any fundamental or technical analysis you can do on the site as well as no ability to see your cost basis as you buy shares month to month. I did it manually for March purchases but I dislike manually doing things that can be and should be automated.  I'll do the Loyal3 purchases in part 2 along with Motif purchases.

Third,
March has been an interesting month. I've watched the portfolio value change from 4 figures green to almost 4 figured red then back to green.  Volatile to say the least.  No real point other than acknowledgement that  i'm pot committed to the long play on this.


Thats all for now, thanks for reading.
-CG