The dividend lifestyle

April Dividend Income

2013-05-10T07:54:00.000-07:00

I know, its taken me a while to post this, but I wanted to get my April Dividend income out there:

Taxable:
ERH - $75.00
CIM - $135.00
O - $12.69
GE - $19.00
AT - $14.51
bank stock - $3924.60
total from taxable - $4180.80

Roth IRA
STB - $18.14
ERF - $21.38
GGN - $28.32
ARR - $77.70
total from Roth IRA - $145.54

TOTAL FOR MONTH OF APRIL: $4326.34

As you can see, it was a great month! I'm also in the midst of making some great home improvements, all while still contributing to my taxable account. I think I may have bit off more than I can chew with my goals, but we'll see when the end of the year gets here!

I'm still alive

2013-04-21T04:49:00.001-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted recently, I've been pretty busy with the house. Things are starting to settle down though, and I hope to be back to updating regularly soon!

Recent Purchase, SDRL

2013-03-09T05:10:00.002-08:00

As I alluded to in last week's post, I made another purchase for the portfolio at the end of February:

I picked up 70 shares of SDRL. Seadrill limited is a deepwater drilling master limited partnership. Its one I have had on my radar for quite some time. I bought the shares at a price of $36.30. This will add $59.50 per quarter to my dividend totals. With this purchase, my projected dividends in my taxable accounts for the next 12 months is $22,813.90. Awesome total; even with buying a house I still feel like I can hit my dividend goals for the year! I guess things are still going steady almost 3 months into the year.

February Dividend Income Update

2013-03-02T09:18:00.004-08:00

Yet another month has passed, meaning its time to update my dividend income. Without further ado:

Taxable Account:
ERH - $75.00
LINE - $725.00
CLMT - $450.45
AT - $12.52
O - $12.66

total from taxable account - $1,275.53

Roth IRA:
STB - $18.40
ERF - $21.57
GGN - $28.32
ARR - $88.80

total from Roth IRA - $157.09

Total Dividends for February - $1,432.62

No complaints about this month here! This was a big month for me financially, I purchased a house that I will close on at the end of March. I also picked up a part time job that I hope to be blogging about in the near future. Future topics for the blog also include a purchase that I made early this week, and also a sale. Stay tuned!

A new home at last

2013-02-17T05:20:00.000-08:00

Well, I started looking almost 6 months ago, but I've finally found a home to purchase. Its a 3 bedroom Cape house, very close to my job. I'm obviously pretty excited about this; I was fine with renting, but it wasn't really making sense financially any longer, as rent of my 1 bedroom apt isn't much less than the total of mortgage/taxes/insurance. Plus, rents are probably going to continue to increase yearly here, while my mortgage is fixed. You could make the argument that I could move and try to find something cheaper, but this will be my 3 move in the past 3 years; I'm kind of tired of moving.

This isn't the actual house, but it looks pretty close. An actual picture coming soon!

You might be wondering, where does this leave my dividend investing? Well, first of all, no shares of stocks were sold to pay for any house-related expenses, as I have been saving for this for a while. Second, dividend investing is still going to be an important part of my investment strategy (probably even more so now), as I have taken on quite a bit of debt and need to "diversify" some away from relying predominantly on my income from work. That being said, I imagine that I'll probably have to do a bit less dividend investing in the short term as I look to also pay down my home some. I will say though, that I have some fresh capital in my account that I'm ready to use soon... stay tuned!

Recent Purchase - ERF

2013-02-08T12:06:00.000-08:00

Here I sit in the northeast US, sent home from work at 1pm due to the upcoming snow storm. I figured this would be a good time to post about a recent purchase I made in my roth IRA at the end of January.

I purchased 244 shares of Enerplus Corporation (ERF) for $13.54 per share. Enerplus is a oil/natural gas exploration company, operating in the United States and Canada. Its a former Canadian Royalty Trust that became a corporation after the tax structure for CANROYs changed. This is still a relatively risky play, but its one I'm comfortable with. It pays a dividend of $0.09 a month, so this position will provide $21.96 of dividend income for my Roth per month. Its good to see my roth dividend income increasing, as this will all be tax free income!

How is everyone else doing finding value in this market?

if you're in the Northeast US like me, stay safe this weekend!

January Dividend Income Update

2013-02-02T07:02:00.000-08:00

With the first month of 2013 coming to a close, its time for another dividend income update! January was a great month for me!

Taxable Account:
O - $10.62
ERH - $75.00
AT - $12.60
NM - $18.00 (paid Dec. 31)
GE - $19.00
CIM - $135.00
bank stock "X" - $3924.60

Total in taxable account: $4194.82

Roth IRA:
ARR - $88.80
GGN - $28.32
STB - $18.81

Total in Roth IRA: $135.93

Total January 2013 dividends: $4330.75
Total January 2012 dividends: $3739.92

Wow, what a great increase from 2012, and a great overall total! If only all months could be this good. This month, I did not make any purchases in my taxable account, as I focused on my Roth IRA contribution. I'll be making a purchase in my taxable account this month; it will be interesting to see where I can find value in this market. Hope you're 2013 investing got off to the same good start that mine did!

Recent Purchase - GGN

2013-01-19T04:23:00.003-08:00

After loading up my roth IRA with my 2012 contribution last week, I made a purchase. I bout 161 shares of GAMCO gold and natural resources (GGN) for $13.60 per share. This brings my total number of shares of GGN to 236. My total number of shares will now bring $28.32 in dividends to my roth IRA every month. I still have enough cash in the acount to make at least one more major purchase. I have an idea of what I want to buy with it, I'm just waiting on a good price. What are you guys buying?

Contributing to my Roth IRA

2013-01-12T05:24:00.003-08:00

I was able to contribute to my roth IRA this week, thus eliminating goal number 1 from last week. It wasn't as straightforward as it is for most people, as I make too much income to regularly contribute to a roth, so I wanted to write about my experience doing it. I feel like this could serve as a guide for others who want to do the same thing.

So on Monday, I walked into my discount broker's office, and asked to open a traditional IRA, and then immediately convert it into my roth IRA. They seemed to understand what I wanted to do here, and I walked out of the office thinking "wow, that was easy." About 5 minutes after I left the office, the person who set up my account called me to ask how much I wanted withheld for tax purposes on the conversion. I said zero, as I explained to him that the contribution I made to the traditional IRA was non-deductible, and would be made with after tax dollars, therefore there was no need for withholding anything. He said he had never heard of doing that, so I told him I would check with my accountant and get back to him.

I then called my accountant. It took me about 30 minutes to explain to her what I wanted to do. She said she wasn't sure, but that she would look into it and call me back. About an hour later, I got a call from her saying that she had looked into it further, checked with some of her colleagues, and that yes, what I wanted to do was perfectly fine, and to go for it! I went back to the broker the next day and set everything up. On Friday morning, the money hit my roth IRA.

So to sum it up, to contribute to a roth when your income exceeds the limit:
1. Contribute to a traditional IRA.
2. Make the contribution non-deductible - to do this, you'll need to file form F8606 at tax time.
3. Convert this traditional IRA with the non-deductible contribution to the Roth. You've now contributed to your roth IRA even though your income is too high to do so normally.

** NOTE - if you have any previously existing traditional IRAs, this won't work. You cant just "choose" to convert the non-deductible IRA contribution to the Roth, if you have previously contributed to an IRA, you will only be able to convert a portion of the traditional IRA to a roth without tax implications. For example, if you do this and already have $5000 in a traditional roth, $2500 of your conversion will be from the non-deductible contribution, and $2500 will be from the previously created (and so far not taxed) traditional IRA, for which you will owe taxes on the conversion.

The only thing I'll say is that make sure you let your accountant know that you're doing this at some point. I knew this going in, but I'll need to file form F8606 to make the IRA non-deductible.Other than that, I think I'm all set to go. Be on the lookout for a post about what I buy with the money in my roth!

2013 Goals

2013-01-05T05:43:00.000-08:00

Since another year is in the books, its time to make new goals for 2013. I've had some of these in the back of my mind for a while now, so I wanted to get them down here. As last year, I'm sure they'll sort of change and evolve as the year goes on, as the market can change dramatically over time. I'm obviously not going to let these goals get in the way of good financial sense, but I will do my best to accomplish them.

1. Buy a House. This isn't exactly new; I've been looking for a place since September. I guess the goal here is to buy something that makes financial sense without going overboard, but still getting a good place to live. I live in the North East in a pretty expensive area; money doesn't go very far when buying a home. I have a pretty sizable down payment saved up, I'd like what I have saved to cover at least 20% of the cost of the house. At the same time, I don't really want a place that's going to require me to put in a lot of money to make it livable. Hopefully I'll be able to get this done sometime in the first half of the year.

2. Contribute to my roth IRA. I plan on doing this as early as next week. Unfortunately, its not as easy as writing a check and dropping it off at the broker's office; I think my adjusted gross income is over the limit for a 2012 roth contribution. In a nutshell, I plan on contributing to a non-deductible IRA and then converting it to a roth. I'll post here on how it goes. As far as what I'll invest it in, I will probably go with monthly paying, higher yielding dividend stocks. As I receive and accumulate these dividends, I plan on using those to purchase fairly priced, lower risk dividend growth stocks (PG, T, INTC, etc.).

3. Plans for my taxable dividend investing:
a. Diversify. If you look at all of my 2012 purchases, most of them (especially in the beginning of the year) were in the same few stocks (LINE, CLMT, ERH). This isn't to say that I regret my decisions to buy those stocks, its just that I certainly realize the risk I'm taking with only having a few stocks. I think only owning a few things is fine when first starting out, but now I've been taking this seriously for a while, and its time to branch out some.
b. March/June/September/December dividends. Keeping with the diversification trend, I would like to try and focus on investing in companies that pay in the months I have listed here, as those months are my smallest payouts. Again, I'm not going to invest in companies just because they pay in these months, nor am I going to invest in companies that pay in these months in favor of a better-valued stock that pays in another month, it would just be something I'd like to do if possible. By the end of the year, I would like to be receiving $700 a month in dividends in these months by March 2014.
c. Total dividends. As of right now, I am projected to make $22,234.17 in non-roth IRA dividends for 2013. By this time next year, my goal is that I am projected to be making $26,000 in non-dividend income. I realize that this is an extremely aggressive goal, but I am confident that in addition to the money I'm going to put into my account to invest each month that my dividends will continue to grow. Last year I set a goal to make 2K more in dividends than I did in 2011 (from 18K to 20K) and I blew that number out of the water by May. This goal will be a lot tougher than the one I set last year, but I'm confident that I'll be able to hit it.

Well, those are my financial goals for 2013. Wish me luck! I'll be interested in reading everyone else's 2013 goals.

December Dividend Update

2013-01-01T09:59:00.003-08:00

Happy New Year!

Well, now that 2012 is in the books, its time to reflect back on the month of December and the year as a whole. 2012 is a year that I'll remember for turning the corner, both financially and in life in general. In this post, I'm going to give an update on my dividends in December, and also on my total dividends received for the year. First, for December:

Taxable Account:

ERH - $75.00
O - $10.60
INTC - $22.50
FGP - $50.00
DUK - $21.42

total from taxable account - $179.52

** - I actually received more dividends this month from companies that typically pay in January, but I'll be reporting those next month here to keep things consistent.

Roth IRA:

ARR - $99.90
STB - $18.82
GGN - $9.00

total from non-taxable account - $127.72

TOTAL FOR DECEMBER: $307.72

Kind of small, but better than September! Compare this to December 2012, in which I earned only $195.89 total (compare here).

Now, the yearly totals:

Taxable Account: $20,349.50 (2011 total - $16,016.10)
Roth IRA Account $1,544.83

Wow, a 25% increase in dividends from my taxable account, that's quite the raise! I doubt I'll see that much from 2012 to 2013, as 2012 was the first full year I took dividend investing seriously.

I'm hoping to work on my goals and post them this weekend. I'll be interested to see how everyone else made out in 2012!

Final Post on 2012 goals

2012-12-20T05:43:00.002-08:00

I just wanted to make one final post on my 2012 goals, just to sort of put them to rest as I get ready for 2013. I had 5 goals for 2012, and I already gave an update on them here. I just wanted to talk about goals 4 and 5 here, as the first 3 goals were pretty much already met.

4. Contribute as much as possible to my roth IRA. I was able to contribute the maximum $5000 for 2011; what I bought with it is detailed here. I plan on doing the same thing for 2012, but like 2011, it will have to wait until 2013, when I get a better idea of my MAGI.

- I plan on making my 2012 contribution next month. I think that my MAGI will be over the limits for the Roth IRA, but I plan on doing the non-deductible IRA contribution and then shortly thereafter converting it to a roth. I'll write about it after I do it.

5. Increase my dividend income by $2000 next year. When I wrote this, I was making $18,000 a year in dividends. Due to a few nice dividend increases and purchases, my projected dividend totals for the next 12 months is now $20,700! I obviously blew this goal out of the water, and I'm now aiming to add $1300 in more dividend income for the year, for an even $22,000.

- Well, my projected dividend total for the next 12 months is now $22,234! I blew this goal out of the water twice in the same year! I'll have another goal around this number for 2013, and hopefully it will be one that is a little more reasonable for a 12 month time period.

So there you have it, the 2012 goals completed. I'll be coming out with my 2013 goals soon!

Recent Purchase - FGP

2012-12-17T12:55:00.000-08:00

I recently made a purchase:

I picked up 84 shares of ferrellgas (FGP) at $18.00 per share. This will provide an additional $42.00 in dividend income per quarter, or $168 per year. This will probably be my last purchase of the year, and a while, as I plan on focusing any investing efforts next month on my roth ira. The portfolio page has been updated accordingly.

What is everyone else buying?

Recent Purchase - LINE

2012-12-08T04:24:00.000-08:00

This post has taken me a while to write, but as promised, I'm finally here to write it! Last month, I purchased an additional 51 shares of LINE at $39.03 per share. Obviously wish I would have waited a few weeks to make this purchase, as the price has gone down some, but I'm still satisfied. This purchase gives me an even 1,000 shares of LINE in my portfolio, which means it will probably be the last purchase of LINE that I will make for a while, as while I like the company, I don't want to get too overweight with it. This buy will provide $147.90 in additional dividend income per year, bringing my projected dividend income for the next 12 months to $22,066! This brings me over my 2012 goal, and I still plan on making a small purchase in December.

Other than that, things are still pretty much the status quo here; still looking for a house, still happy with my job. Be on the lookout in the next few weeks for my 2013 goals!

November Dividend Income Update

2012-12-01T04:52:00.001-08:00

I've been pretty busy lately between work and looking for a house, so I haven't posted much recently. I did make another purchase this month that I haven't written about yet, but I hope to soon. Any, my dividend income for the month of November:

Taxable Account:
O - $10.60
CLMT - $429.66
ERH - $75.00
LINE - $688.03

Total in Taxable Account - $1,203.29

Roth IRA:
ARR - $99.90
STB - $18.48
GGN - $9.00

Total in Roth IRA - $127.38

Yet another great month! Next month won't be anywhere near as good, but I'm working on that. Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving and great November dividend income!

Recent Purchase - AT

2012-11-10T03:57:00.000-08:00

Well, that was the correction we were looking for!

I took advantage and picked up 154 shares of atlantic power (AT) at 12.74 per share. This will provide around $14.50 per month in dividend income, or $174.02 per year. I know that I didn't get it at its absolute bottom, but I'm happy with this purchase price.

I get another infusion of cash in my taxable account at the end of this week. Hopefully prices will stay depressed for the time being and I'll be able to get more good deals!

What did you guys buy on the correction?

October Dividend Income Update

2012-11-03T05:13:00.000-07:00

Another month has passed, and its time to update my monthly dividend income. I had a great month this month; I wish they were all this good. Without further ado, my October Dividend income:

Taxable Account:

CIM - $135.00
Bank Stock "X" - $3,798.00
GE - $17.00
O - $10.60
NM - $18.00
ERH - $75.00

Total in Taxable Account - $4,053.60

Roth IRA:

ARR - $99.90
GGN - $9.00
STB - $18.91

Total in Roth IRA - $127.81

TOTAL - $4181.41

Another great month! ARR's dividend got cut, but I'm not terribly concerned. The mREIT environment is a little shaky right now, so its not a company specific thing. Second, its still a large dividend, one that was large enough to pretty much purchase the shares that I have in GGN, as those shares that were purchased this month were almost exclusively purchased with the dividends I have collected from ARR throughout the year. Anyway, a long-winded way of saying I'm not concerned.

It was a busy month for me, I made 3 purchases overall; GGN for my roth, INTC and FGP for my taxable account. I still have some money in my taxable account, so look for November to be another busy month as well. How was your October?

Recent Purchase FGP

2012-10-27T05:41:00.001-07:00

When I purchased intel last week, I also made another purchase:

I picked up 100 shares of FGP at $18.27 per share. Ferrellgas is an MLP (I've written about those before) in the propane business. They pay a quarterly distribution of 50 cents a share, and have been for several years. This is a little bit more of a risky play, as their balance sheets look a little shaky, but I feel that the business model is strong, and the company will maintain the distribution.

As far as my portfolio goes, my projected dividend income for the next 12 months now sits at $21,741. I probably could hit 22K by the end of the year, but I'm not going to push it. I still have a fair bit of cash currently sitting in my investment account, so I could make another purchase soon. Any suggestions? Aside from that, october was another great dividend income month, and I'll be writing the update shortly.

Recent Purchase - INTC

2012-10-21T04:52:00.001-07:00

As I said, I made a couple of purchases on Friday. I'm going to talk about one of them here today:

I purchases 100 shares of intel (INTC) at $21.30 a share. This is a new position for me, the stock has been falling for a few weeks now, so I felt like now was a good time to get in. One of the major reasons for the price drop has been the slow down of PC purchases, as more people opt for using tablets and their smart phones for their computing needs. However, I have faith in intel; I feel like they'll be able to get their chips into those devices as well. Further, their competition doesn't have anywhere near the talent or resources that intel has. The only thing that really concerns me with intel is this "take it or leave it" business model they cling to; I feel like it leaves the door open for a competitor to come in and work better with customers to create a better overall device. However, there's no one in the space right now that poses a real threat to intel.

With a purchase price of $21.30, my yield is 4.2%. The purchase will give me a dividend income of $90 a year, bringing my projected dividend income for the next 12 months to $21,541.17! This figure also includes the recent CLMT dividend increase.

I'll shortly be writing about my other recent purchase. Also, I still have some cash left in my account that I hope to use before the end of the month.

My Swagbucks Experience

2012-10-19T19:35:00.000-07:00

I've been away for a while, but there are a few posts that I've been meaning to write, as I've recently made a couple of purchases. But I wanted to write about swagbucks. I wrote about signing up for swagbucks here. I've now been using it for a few weeks, and I wanted to write about my experience with it. Just so you know, I am in no way being paid for writing this article.

I would use swagbucks here and there, really only when I was sitting around at home and was doing something else, like listening to the radio. My objective was to earn 4500 swagbucks, which would net me 10 X $5 amazon.com gift cards. I got the lion's share of my swagbucks by signing up for a discover card, which got me 3600 points (I never did activate the card). Other than that, I sort of very slowly accumulated the 4500 points required to get me the $50 dollars worth of amazon credit. It took me until about the middle of september to get there.

One thing that I noticed early on was that a $5 amazon gift card was 450 swagbucks, while a $50 amazon gift card was 6000 swagbucks. Some quick math would suggest that the higher amount gift card was a swagbucks rip-off. I actually contacted customer service about this, and they said it was indeed correct, they want a lot of people to be able to get the gift cards. I figured, "ok, well, I'll just get 10 X 5 dollar gift cards instead of one 50 dollar gift card." I knew that you could use as many gift cards at a time as you wished with amazon, so I was at least clear on that front.

While the swagbucks service rep didn't lie to me, she also didn't tell me the whole truth either. It turns out that you can only request 2 amazon gift cards a day from swagbucks. Ok, no problem, I'll just request 2 a day for 5 days. Then, it turns out you can only request 5 in a calendar month. So clearly, there is an advantage to getting just one $50 gift card as opposed to 10 $5 gift cards. You wont find any of this on their website either (unless you try to order more than 2 per day or 5 in a month). It ended up not being a huge deal, but it certainly left a sour taste in my mouth.

It took a few days to get the gift cards after I requested them. Why there was a lag in time I don't know; they were just e-giftcards that were emailed to me. Once I got all 10, I loaded them into my amazon.com account, and ordered a 1-ounce silver bar. I got the silver bar a few days later, so no problems with amazon.

So, with all that being said, I have a few final thoughts. It was nice getting a bar of silver for doing little to nothing. That being said, my swagbuck days are probably over. That customer service "white lie" left a real sour taste in my mouth. It wasn't really a big deal, but my concern is if I were to keep doing this, would they change the rules while I was in the middle of collecting swagbucks? If they did change the rules, would they even notify me of the change? Anyway, I'd rather stick with global test market, I get a check about every other month for 50 bucks, its pretty straight forward, and its cash, not gift cards.

Anyone else have experience with these types of sites?

September Dividend Income Update

2012-10-06T04:33:00.001-07:00

September was a pretty quiet month on the for investing for me, as I only made the one small purchase on the last day (GGN). Dividend income was small too, however it was better than last quarter. My dividend income:

Taxable Account:

DUK - $21.42
ERH - $75.00
O - $10.58

Total - $107.00

Roth IRA:

ARR - $111.00
STB - $19.05

Total - $130.05

Overall total - $237.05

Total for September 2012 - $73.77

Wow, my dividend income in my taxable account was up almost 50 percent from last year! Its great to see this progress.

And next month will be more active, as I'll have fresh capital for my taxable account.

How was your month?

Recent Purchase - GGN

2012-09-29T05:24:00.000-07:00

I didn't make any deposits into any stock trading accounts this month, but Friday I was still able to make a purchase. I made the purchase completely through dividends accumulated in my Roth IRA. I bought:

75 shares of GAMCO Gold and Natural Resources (GGN). This is a closed end fund from the Gabelli fund family. I made the purchase at $14.34 a share. This purchase will provide 9 dollars a month of dividend income in my Roth IRA. The fund invests primarily in shares of gold and natural resources companies, and makes additional money by writing covered calls on shares in its portfolio. It pays a monthly dividend of 12 cents a month.

More purchases coming next month!

All quiet on the home front

2012-09-22T12:57:00.001-07:00

September's been a pretty quiet month for me on the investing front. On one hand, the market has been on fire, which results in less value to be had. On the other hand, September has been a pretty expensive month for me, with car insurance, new tires, a wedding last weekend, and quarterly taxes due. Because of all this, I haven't made any new purchases, and the blog has been pretty quiet. But fear not, activity is brewing. If I don't buy anything next month, I'll definitely be making some purchases next month. On top of that, I've started looking at some affordable houses to buy. I just can no longer make sense of paying the amount of rent that I do and keeping a ton of money in a bank account doing next to nothing, when I could be living in a place of my own, building equity for not that much more money than the rent (if anything more at all). This does not mean that my dividend investing days are over, I still plan on investing as I always do. Wish me luck!

August Dividend Income Update

2012-09-01T05:53:00.002-07:00

Yet another month has come and gone, meaning that its time to update my monthly dividend income. Another great month:

Taxable account
ERH - 63.30
O - 10.23
CLMT - 408.87
LINE - 644.53

total - $1126.93

Roth IRA
ARR - 111.00
STB - 18.69

total - 129.69

Total Dividends for the month: $1,256.62

As I said, another great month. This compares to August of 2011, where my monthly total was $714.01. I think almost all of my purchases in the past year have been of companies that pay distributions in August, so the increase is a little bit skewed, but its still nice to see good progress. September is never the best month for me from a dividend perspective, so it won't be as good as this, but I'm working on it. How was your month?

Recent Purchase

2012-08-25T04:41:00.000-07:00

Well, the markets are still running wild, and its been tough for all value investors to find deals. However, I was able to get in on a slight dip this week in one of my favorite stocks:

I picked up 60 shares of Linn Energy (LINE) at 39.18 per share. This will add $43.50 per quarter to my dividend income. My projected dividend income for the next 12 months is now a staggering $21,368.01. I don't think that I'll make 22k by the end of the year, but its still impressive none the less. On deck for next week is my monthly dividend income update - its another good month!