Saturday, June 29, 2019

June 2019 Dividends

Another month towards the inexorable march towards financial independence...

There is nothing like getting a dividend payout almost every day.    My March/June/September/December dividend payments are the most consistent throughout the month.   July is going to have a 9 day stretch with no payments.  But I'm not complaining...

I'm being paid for simply being alive!   Cool.


6/3/2019AFL$23.76
6/3/2019AWR$13.75
6/3/2019GWW$7.20
6/3/2019INTC$26.78
6/3/2019PSX$16.20
6/3/2019WMT$10.60
6/5/2019ADM$29.75
6/5/2019CMI$34.20
6/5/2019UPS$35.52
6/5/2019UL$25.25
6/6/2019DFS$22.00
6/6/2019SO$64.48
6/6/2019SBSI$35.65
6/7/2019AMGN$26.10
6/7/2019BA$51.38
6/7/2019PFE$19.80
6/10/2019CVX$32.13
6/10/2019EMR$16.66
6/10/2019IBM$45.36
6/10/2019TGT$33.92
6/11/2019AGNC$32.00
6/11/2019JNJ$33.25
6/12/2019HE$48.00
6/12/2019MMM$31.68
6/13/2019CNP$36.51
6/13/2019MSFT$9.20
6/14/2019AVA$36.04
6/14/2019MAIN$20.00
6/14/2019ORI$42.20
6/14/2019O$15.14
6/14/2019TSN$10.13
6/17/2019APLE$40.90
6/17/2019MCD$48.72
6/20/2019HD$16.32
6/21/2019GM$42.56
6/21/2019FLO$15.58
6/25/2019MAIN$25.00
6/25/2019RDS-B$45.12
6/27/2019EAT$17.48
6/27/2019LVS$50.05
6/27/2019PSA$40.00
6/27/2019QCOM$45.26
6/28/2019BAC$8.10
6/28/2019CLDT$21.45
6/28/2019NWE$35.08
6/28/2019PEP$47.75
6/28/2019TROW$35.72
6/28/2019TRV$12.30





$1432.03

Southern Co (SO) was the big payout of the month at $64.48 followed by Boeing (BA) at $51.38.   But overall, it's very balanced and consistent.   Next month comes the big kahuna of WHF...
See ya' next month

Friday, June 21, 2019

My Story

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. 

Thursday, June 20, 2019

May 2019 Dividend Summary

Below is the summary of the dividends I received during May of 2019.


The Feb/May/Aug/Nov months are always the slower ones for me.  I would like to balance out the quarter, but of my 92 investments, this is the way the ball bounces.  My watch list will not particularly change things either (more on my watch list in a future post...)

T$102.00
VZ$46.39
CVS$12.00
CBRL$21.25
AGNC$162.00
RTN$9.43
CZNC$40.77
CLX$19.20
APD$10.44
ABBV$42.80
APLE$40.90
CL$9.46
HRL$9.45
MAIN$20.00
NNN$39.00
OHI$99.00
PG$33.57
O$15.14
AOS$6.38
SKT$23.08
AAPL$51.59
CAT$17.20
SBUX$23.04
COST$5.20
PAYX$40.30
CLDT$21.45
CAG$12.33
IDEX$5.00
WSM$16.80


TOTAL$955.17





It is also quite hard to compare this to previous years (been doing this for the past 4 years) since I did some "rebalancing" and cleaning up investments made back when I did not have a clue as to what to look for.  

Over the next few posts, I will be introducing myself, posting my portfolio and watch lists, and go into what I am looking for when investing in dividend growth stocks.   And some other fun stuff.  

Also, I'll be looking to get a domain for all of this.

See ya' soon.
John