I (Chickenwizard) was born back in February 1969 to a middle class family in Seattle. We were definitely not rich, but not struggling either. We lived in a middle class part of a nice neighborhood so it was a few blocks away from the millionaires and a just a few blocks from the cheap rentals. My father was a letter carrier after a 22 year stint in the Navy. His retirement was pretty much set up with two fairly nice pensions. This allowed us to afford my college education.
After college, I worked a few starter jobs that just barely made ends meet. Caterer, pizza delivery driver, worked at a printing press making the "Go Sonics" posters for the basketball games. My father passed from a lengthy illness when I was 20. I stayed close to my mom to keep an eye on her, as I had promised pops before he died. Mom was a Greek immigrant with zero education and limited English skills. I, being an only child, had no choice but to stay close by.
The idea of saving on my own was a distant fantasy. I took his retirement for granted and my own was so far off, I never saw it in my distant sights. I knew that someday I may inherit the house, and treated that as my retirement. quite the hedonistic lifestyle for a few years. That's what happens when you're young and the world is your oyster.
In 1998, I started working for a now huge online retailer and were offered a large mount of stock options. After 6 years of being paid barely enough to make rent, and surviving off my girlfriend's income for meals, I could not go on. I was fully vested with my stock and broke free of the "Golden handcuffs.
I then got to work helping people out and became an admissions counselor at a drug rehab clinic. The pay was more than double and life was much better. Bought a home and got married. But I still did not think much about retirement. My stock was my pension and it was growing quite well.
Fast forward 10 years. The day that I came to my senses, I recall saying to myself, "Welcome to the rest of your life"..... OMG. I'm screwed. The game is over..
I was straddled with a mortgage. We could easily afford it, but it took both of our incomes. If we were to have a kid, I would have to either pay the house off, or go back to renting.
I was not about to go back to renting and "payin' the man". My stock was now worth quite a bit and was able to sell the shares and pay off my house. What I was left with was a good chunk of money, but not nearly enough to retire on.
I started looking into reinvesting the money. I did not have enough for real estate, but enough to Wall Street.
My first 2 purchases were a chunk of AT&T and about $30,000 of shares (1750 shares) in this new car company, Tesla. I saw the prototype of the luxury car and thought it would be a success. In hindsight, it was an idiotic investment when it is half of your money. Man did I luck out...
It was life on a high wire. I spent all day watching the price of Tesla go wildly up and down on any bit of news, but was overall growing quickly. This was like playing a high stakes game of craps in Vegas. Win big, or see myself lose it all.
Meanwhile my investment of 1,000 shares of AT&T was not doing any of the fluctuation, and paying me a nice fat chunk of money every three months. Nothing like seeing a $450 dividend hit my Fidelity account. Tesla gave me none of that pleasure. Just ulcers.
The game of putting all my eggs in a basket had gotten to me. I wasted time at work watching it go up and down and up and down and felt it was driving me to a type of manic depression. Finally, I could not see Tesla becoming more overvalued than where it was, and decided to sell. I did make a killing. I cashed out at around $210 per share and ended up with about $365,000. It was like hitting a slot machine jackpot and walking away at that very moment. I had gotten the money back from paying off the house, and breathed a massive sigh of relief.
So what do I do with the money? I definitely wanted to do some fix ups around the house. The house had rotting and soft siding on the rainy side and in desperate need of a paint job.
I re-sided the house, painted it, and upgraded my electrical panel and finished the basement. Then for fun, I took the family to Hawaii for a couple weeks and bought a hot tub. $50,000 gone in 6 months...
IT struck me that the money was burning a hole in my pocket. I needed to invest it or it would be piddled away in a mater of years. I had to invest it back into the stock market. I sunk it all into AT&T.
I had always heard about diversifying, but it never struck me as a reality until I had done it for myself. I needed to spread it out.
A friend of my mom's had suggested I look into the "Dividend Aristocrats". I started learning about dividend growth investing, and checked out some blogs of those living the FIRE lifestyle. It made perfect sense and I knew this is the direction I had to go. It was time for me to learn what all these financial numbers are all about.
I began spreading out from just AT&T to my watch list of about 40 companies. Phew...
The sense of relief was immense. My dividends started coming at nearly a daily clip and I came to the realization:
I AM BEING PAID FOR BEING ALIVE. Whoa. What a trip.
Why had I not thought of this earlier?
Since then I have added 50 more companies to increase my moat. I did make some investments I now would not have. The lure of a giant dividend brings back the gambling feeling of TSLA. So over the past year, I have balanced out my portfolio to a place where I feel safe.
I now have the retirement I once did not even think about. And a paid off home.
My goal now is to make enough to pay for my kid's college without her getting a loan, and be able to earn enough dividends to replace my income 100%.
I am well on my way. And this had become the most fun hobby I have ever had. The hobby that will be left for my daugher someday in the future.
I hope you follow my path and join in some good discussions about dividend investing, and hopefully we all learn something.
