Portfolio Update

As I am getting back into the swing of things I decided to update the Div Kid portfolio. Check out the new info! Im glad Im able to get back to writing to you all. I find it relaxing to sit down and go over my finances. How many people can say the same?

Look for more updates soon!

I am a 21 year old kid who seeks to create a life of financial independence via passive income. The accumulation and growth of quality dividend yielding stocks will be the main source of income and this is my journey

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Life. School. Action.

Back again. I have lots to say but I will be honest and say Im unsure how to say it. As I said in my last post school has been more demanding than ever. On top of classes, summer internship interviews are underway as well. So far my interviewers have been; Rolls Royce, BHP Billiton, and Union Pacific Rail Road. Notice that some of these companies are even in my portfolio, talk about a good talking point. Interviews left are Boeing, and round two with Union Pacific! It goes without saying that I've had a lot going on. 

These interviews keep me going. They show that the hard work is paying off. School leads to internships, internships lead to jobs. No matter what is taking place in life you need to keep your goals in sight. It is easier to get knocked off track when the going gets tough, but those are the times you need your goals most.

This post should act as my return to regular posts. I feel that I've got everything back under control and look forward to continuing my journey with all of you!

I am a 21 year old kid who seeks to create a life of financial independence via passive income. The accumulation and growth of quality dividend yielding stocks will be the main source of income and this is my journey.

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Sometimes Life Happens

When you are 21 years old, sometimes life happens. College happens, family emergencies happen, summer ends and then work plus 21 credits of school happen. Ive missed out on a few of my normal posts due to life happening in the last month or so. 

No matter how tough it gets I know that it will always get better. I am so fortunate to have my friends and family with my. I am fortunately able to attend a great university and fortunate enough to be able to write this blog. So while yes an unexpected break took place please know that sooner than you expect Div Kid will be back to normal. I really just need to settle into my new schedule and get acclimated to college life again. Thank you for sticking with me and look for new updates this week on; July Incomes and Expenses, Personal post #3 and much more!

I am a 21 year old kid who seeks to create a life of financial independence via passive income. The accumulation and growth of quality dividend yielding stocks will be the main source of income and this is my journey.

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Recent Purchases: July

With July having come and gone I can now tell you the ways I was able to deploy capital in order to create cash flow! Earlier in the month I showed you all my watch list and in total I was able to deploy $1309.69! This is the first time I have tallied the total invested in a given month and I must say I am quite surprised. Unfortunately though this will not continue. 

The last week in July was my last regular paycheck for the summer. I will have $0 in regular earned income until I return to school and when I return my income from my job as an RA should be minimal. Because of this I have now decided to consider a part time job for this coming semester. This would be a significant addition though as I already am taking 21 credits, have a part time job as an RA and enjoy being a normal college student every now and again. The possibility is there but more consideration is needed.

I have decided that due to the amount of transactions I make I will begin posting purchase updates at the end of each month rather than along the way. This will make updating you all easier for me and my updates will be (in my opinion) more worth while.

So here are the companies I purchased this July.

Mostly smaller purchases this month. I decided to mix in traditional DGI holdings with some other popularity plays. These positions are undoubtedly 'starters' as I would like to own more equity in many of these companies. My shares in V, KO and SBUX came during the epitome of Greek drama. My only issue is I wish I bough more shares!

What have you been buying lately?

Do we share any purchases?

Do you dollar cost average into your positions?

I am a 21 year old kid who seeks to create a life of financial independence via passive income. The accumulation and growth of quality dividend yielding stocks will be the main source of income and this is my journey.

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Personal Post #2: Why Do We Invest?

July. What a great month. Smack in the middle of an already killer summer for me. So far Div Kid's girl friend visited the great PNW, the 4th of July is always an exciting time and I decided to not study abroad (more on that later). Summer is ending for me though, as I am to report to school sooner than I would ever want. To take my mind off the thought of summers end I decided to pose a question to you all and I encourage you to leave a comment below so we can discuss this at length!

Why do we invest? While it may sound elitist to say investing is about money, it is about money. Money in, money out, cashflow, dividends, growth, financials, percentage points, ratios. All of it is tied to money. Does that mean we invest just to make or have more money than we did before? I would tend to argue against that. While we all have our own reasons. I would argue that we invest to some degree for Time. 

Now I know what you are saying. "The last personal post was about time.. how can this one be about time?" 

Well, to the astute observe I say yes. This post is about time, but regarding very different sense of the topic. While I cannot read minds and tell you why you invest exactly, I bet it is pretty similar to my reasons. You are most likely a Dividend Growth Investor and thats why you are reading this. Already we have a pretty large amount of things in common if the above is true. I can tell you why I invest, lets see if there are any similarities by the end of this shall we?

The most significant reason I invest is to create time. No Im not crazy, Im serious! Well, mostly. I can't create time, but I can invest with the goal of creating free time! Time away from work, time away from my commute, time with my family, time enjoying life. Someday I will be able to live off of the income that my investments provide. This will allow me to quit my day job (such as Dividend Mantra) and live my life how I see fit. Call me a nonconformist, but there is something quite attractive about waking up and deciding to do what I want to do for a living. All while companies like  KO, PG, CVX pay for it! 

In my adult life I want to, travel, build a car, photograph the world and dividend investing should allow me to do just that and more! In 20 years when I retire (all variables permitting) I will still be racking in the (pay)checks from my stock purchases years ago. This is what investing for free time looks like. You get to do what you want to do when you want to do it and no one can tell you otherwise. 

Now it's not to say that investing in mutual funds or ETFs won't yield this same situation, but income producing assets are much more interesting to me. Why would I plant a tree, watch it grow, cut it down and sell the wood when I could just pick and sell the fruit? In the end the difference is retaining the tree (stock shares) and incurring less taxes! 

Investing is something that I do because it will allow me to live the life everyone wants to live deep down. Make a commitment early and it's much less scary. I promise.

See any similarities here between why we invest?

Do you own any mutual funds or ETFs?

If yes what is your ratio? Dividend stocks/Funds?

I am a 21 year old kid who seeks to create a life of financial independence via passive income. The accumulation and growth of quality dividend yielding stocks will be the main source of income and this is my journey.

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July Stock Watch List

It is again a new month, a new opportunity. Another chance to deploy my depreciating cash and exchange it for dividend growth stocks. Even though I have only been investing in dividend yielding companies since March, I am already seeing how powerful this investing strategy is. Not only have I collected $42.01 in dividends, but I collected this passive income simply by being a shareholder. I understand that this is just the beginning, but with the high quality companies I have chosen this number will only go up. 

So with the passing of July 1st I started looking at companies I was interested in adding to my portfolio. Admittedly though this was set back a tad due to the 4th of July. Nevertheless my list this month is full of mostly undervalued and always popular companies. 

This month I am going to really be looking for a little higher current yield as my purchases that ended June were a bit on the growth side of things (watch for an upcoming post on these purchases). Furthermore I am extra interested in the financial sector as my portfolio is still lacking in that area. 

July Stock Watch List

Bank of Nova Scotia 

This is a company I initiated a small position in a while back. I currently own 2 shares of (BNS). Don't laugh, this position comprises 1% of my entire portfolio. With a current yield of 4.41% and a payout ratio of 47.5% BNS has that hard to find combo that we are all looking for. Great current yield and room to run. While admittedly the dividend growth rate is not fantastic. With 3 consecutive years of growth and a 4.6% growth rate BNS has some explaining to do but I am willing to give them a chance. 

Travelers Co.

(TRV) is pretty hot right now in the DGI community, and for good reason. Travelers has a current yield of 2.44% and a rock bottom payout ratio of 26.2%. 6 consecutive years of growth are backed up by an annualized 3 year dividend growth rate of 10.6%. A position in TRV would be the first insurance company in the Div Kid portfolio and a seemingly great place to start. 

Visa 

I may have missed the boar on the outstanding run the stock has had over the last year but I am still interested. My time horizon is 20 years and because of that I can afford to take a risk on a company like this. (V) is up over 25% year to date and is making a name for itself in the DGI community as a possible contender. Sporting a currently minuscule yield of .72% widespread adoption has yet to be seen. With 6 years of dividend yield growth it's safe to say V is certainly considering making a splash.

Other companies that do not currently fit my immediate interests but are up for consideration.

SBUX
QCOM
CAT
DIS
VTR
KO
AAPL
UNP

ABC: Bold denotes current holding

What have you purchased recently?
Are any of my considerations on your list?
Any big updates with your portfolio or strategy?

I am a 21 year old kid who seeks to create a life of financial independence via passive income. The accumulation and growth of quality dividend yielding stocks will be the main source of income and this is my journey.

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Income and Expenses: June

The end of another glorious month has come and gone and I now have another opportunity to share with all of my readers how much money I have spent, saved, put to work, or squandered away. I find that this is a very valuable activity because not only do I pour over my financial statements for the month, but sharing my spending and saving habits keeps me accountable. This accountability is what I am really after. At my age I would say I am doing pretty well and for me that is an issue. It makes it easier to fall off of the path that I want to follow. I have extra money that I could spend in meaningless ways. This month was a challenging one as I found myself picking between enjoying being a kid and planning for my financial future (more on that later).

This post will cover all cash flow from June 1 to June 30.

Income

In the month of June I brought in $1,129. This is a 55% decrease in income compared to last months reporting. If you remember correctly though, last month I reported having a large deposit from cash accrued while at school. Removing that outlier deposit (as I did last month to reach a more realistic savings rate) the difference in income month over month is a 182% increase! This is mainly attributed to an increase in the consistency of my temporary work assignments that I noted would be coming. 

In addition to salary and savings account interest I had little income. The second largest source of income resulting in $370 of deposits comes from private sales of a few items such as an antique beer sign. Finally I received 9.02 in dividends from my ROTH IRA with Vanguard. I will update on my taxable portfolio dividends (which are growing!) soon.

Expenses

Here is the damage for the month. In June I spent $715 which is a 306% increase month over month. This is hard for me to write as I did get a bit off track this month in the spending. But I must add a bit of an asterisk on that number as my largest purchase wasn't even paid for until July. This month I decided to purchase an Xbox One. I know I know. I just wrote an article about spending meaningful money and not buying new fancy things such as this but there is a reason. I bought the new Xbox with the idea of selling my current Xbox and rolling that money into the new purchase with a little new money as well. In the end I found a good opportunity to upgrade and took it. I feel that in the end this will be meaningful money because I took the time to find a great deal and plan out the finances of the purchase. In the end I will only be paying $150 for the new system.

Aside from my $338 Xbox One, I spent money on mostly gas to get back and forth to work. Restaurants eating out with friends and entertainment. At first writing this article I felt guilty spending this much money. With my increased income and expenses my saved income rate this month is still 63%. This leaves me with an average saved income rate of 75% for the year. This is still encouraging and I am still on track in saving 70% of my income this year.

What was your saved income rate this month?
Have you spent money on anything you regret recently?
What goals have you set recently?

I am a 21 year old kid who seeks to create a life of financial independence via passive income. The accumulation and growth of quality dividend yielding stocks will be the main source of income and this is my journey.

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Spend Meaningful Money

Recently I spent a decent amount of money on something that was not an income paying asset. Being home for the summer affords me a great opportunity to spend time with family and last Saturday I did just that. I have said before that instead of spending money on "things" it is important to spend money on experiences. To accrue experiences. This last weekend I made plans for me and my grandfather to visit LeMay, America's Car Museum in Tacoma, WA. While I can't put a value on the time I get to spend with my family being frugal is still sensible. On the day I spent $71.00. That includes the price of admission, lunch and the completely necessary ride on the F1 racing simulator. Not only was this money well spent, I would do it again in a moments notice. 

I skimp on "things" such as eating out for lunch, and buying unnecessary stuff to do exactly what me and my grandfather got to do. The money that I do spend is more often than not spent on things like this, and it truly makes me happy.  I feel so guilty spending money that is not spent in a meaningful way. It is almost as if I am robbing my future self of a work free life. 

I was in a similar situation just under a year ago. I came across a windfall of ~$1500 and had a multitude of ideas on how to spend the money but could not quite decide. After a few weeks, and many suggestions by friends, I decided to break from the norm and not go buy a new TV or game system. In the end I purchased a year long membership to the Arizona State University Men's Rowing Team and never looked back. I was even able to save a remaining $500! In exchange I competed in three states, six regattas, and gained a ton of exciting experiences. This situation was the definition of accruing experiences. Not only was I able to compete in a collegiate sport but I was able to participate in something I had never done or even considered doing. I now have wealth of team building, and competitive experiences that I would have never gained had I spend that $1000 on a new TV and video games.

I tend to be very frugal and when I buy food for lunch or a new iPod I have a seriously hard time pulling the trigger. When I buy an income yielding asset like CVX and WMT stock, it is much easier. I know that money will be returned to me and I will be rewarded. It is a much different transaction in the end.

The moral of the story here is, pay yourself first. Resist the urge to buy the hot new thing that everyone needs. Buy things that are meaningful to you, whether thats a plane ticket home to see family or admission to a car museum with grandpa. Spend meaningful money.

Have you spent any meaninguful money recently?
What meaningless money could you cut back on spending?
Do you consider meaningful vs meaningless purchases? 

I am a 21 year old kid who seeks to create a life of financial independence via passive income. The accumulation and growth of quality dividend yielding stocks will be the main source of income and this is my journey.

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Recent Purchases: June

This is the first of many posts in which I will outline my recent purchases in the stock market. Hopefully I can keep up with these as I tend to (due to available capital) buy shares in smaller quantities than most.

I like to think that it is not how much of what you buy, it is what you buy that matters in the end. Everyone is saying it, the stock market right now is generally considered to be expensive. Either way it makes no difference. Finding high quality and consistent dividend payers (and growers) is possible. Furthermore, I find that I am continually adding to positions I already own. This is called averaging down. Because my positions in the stock market are small relative to what they will become I aim to average down when  share prices drop from my purchase price around 6-10%. This is the case as long as nothing significant has caused a change in said share price. To over simplify it, if AAPL stock drops 5% over night for no reason one may consider adding to their position. In contrast though, if share price drops due to the discovered use of illegal child labor in production lines you may want to hold off. Each case will differ though so I suggest you evaluate averaging down for yourself.

On to the Purchases!

I recently added 1 share to my position in Chevron Corporation (CVX) at the price of $99.55. I now currently own 3 shares of CVX with an average cost of 105.04. I feel that I have a great opportunity with the slump in the oil industry. The value in this sector is great and my portfolio reflects this with positions in CVX and Exxon Mobile (XOM) and Kinder Morgan (KMI). A quality company with a lovely current yield of 4.28% this company is one which I would consider "un-killable" in my 20 year timeframe.

Furthermore. I recently initiated a position in Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) at the share price of 72.13. I currently own 2 shares of WMT and will look to add to this when more capital becomes available. WMT has been on a great run lately but missed expectations in Q1 leading to continued drops in price which started in January of 2015. Wal-Mart is boasting a current yield of 2.71% and is a good example of a company willing to constantly reward share holders. WMT has had 40 years of consecutive dividend raises and shows no sign of slowing down! I look forward to owning more of this company.

As I trade with Robinhood App I paid $0 in commissions which allows me to keep more of my money!

I can't wait to keep you updated on my journey until next time.

What have you purchased lately?

Do you own shares in these companies?

What are you watching as June passes its mid point?

Full Disclosure: Long all tickers listed

I am a 21 year old kid who seeks to create a life of financial independence via passive income. The accumulation and growth of quality dividend yielding stocks will be the main source of income and this is my journey.

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Personal Post #1 : A Millennials Most Valuable Asset

Have you ever heard your parents or grandparents say something similar to “…there is no time like the present”? It is more than likely that you have. Why is that? Well aside from the ideas of being active and getting something done, for millennia’s, the statement holds a more significant meaning. More than just a meaning though, an opportunity, the key that everyone is searching for.

Recently I noticed I have been spending more and more time reading online. Topics include increasing blog traffic, undervalued dividend stocks, how to monetize a blog, the list goes on.  More specifically, I have been interested in finding value in the stock market. As a self-proclaimed subscriber to the dividend value investing school of thought this should be no surprise. Sooner or later I began to realize that I was not spending time online reading and learning as I have previously stated is valuable. Instead I was searching for something. I find, especially at my age, it is easy to attach to an idea. Recently that idea has been finding that next stock, that next opportunity to put my money to work. I cant quite put my finger on why but I almost feel pressured to deploy my capital.

Today I took a step back. After a bit of brainstorming and thought I discovered what I had been searching for. Not only had I discovered it but also I realized I already had it.

Time. My most valuable asset, I have had it all along. Chances are if you are under the age of thirty it is your most value asset as well. Time is everything and we only get so much (or little) of it.

In the investing world time is your best friend. If you are able to invest early in your life, time will be your life raft in the sea that is the stock market. The earlier you start, the bigger the raft.  There is a seemingly unlimited amount of information that continually tells us to buy in early and weather the storms. For many young value investors like myself this cannot be reiterated enough. As a dividend value investor I am, indirectly getting paid to do everything that I do. Currently my payments are small but they should grow from here forward. That is one of the ideas that got me interested in looking for high quality dividends. You will be paid to sit on the couch, or spend time with your family. It doesn’t make a difference.

Outside of the investing world when the value of time comes up I tend to think of opportunity cost. Right now I am not investing (though I am collecting dividends) but I have decided to take the time to write this article. What else could I be doing right now? Well I could be weed whacking for the man up the street for $12/hour. I could be playing video games, or any number of things really. The opportunity cost of any activity is the value of the next best use of your time . In other words, opportunity cost is the value of something else you would rather spend your time on. I emphasize the word spend because when you think of your time as a currency that you can not get any more of, the idea starts to take shape. Currently writing this blog post is worth more to me than $12/hour. That wont always be the case but you have to understand that these days you need to decide what is valuable to you. Is it video games? Twelve dollars? If your time is your most valuable asset; you should treat it as such.

What is your most valuable asset?

Do you consider opportunity cost when making decisions?

Do you think other millennial’s realize how valuable time is?

I am a 21 year old kid who seeks to create a life of financial independence via passive income. The accumulation and growth of quality dividend yielding stocks will be the main source of income and this is my journey.

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