Another REIT Purchase: WPC

Today I started in a new position in W P Carey Inc.

• WPC: 20 shares @ $63.48 --- Yield  6.00%

Total capital invested is $1,276.55 and will add $76.20 to my yearly dividends.

This is the second REIT I have purchased in two days. I bought HCP yesterday which apparently was a tad bit early. HCP after dropping quite a bit over the last month dropped again today with many interest rate sensitive stocks. Unlike yesterday, I was able to buy around the lows of the day.

Last year I invested about $1800 in ARCP and ultimately dumped the shares at the beginning of this year. Actually I really don't have much of a REIT exposure. I picked up shares of HCP and DLR in the summer/fall of 2013 and largely avoided adding REIT shares until yesterday. I decided to just stick my toe in the water with today's purchase as there appears to be sharks swimming in the water.

The good news is after taking an ass whipping in my energy holdings over the last several months, they have been rebounding recently and providing a nice lift to my portfolio. ESV actually touched $27 today and I almost had a heart attack!

So what do I go and do?? Jump into the REIT sector. It was very scary during the back half of 2013 and appears to be volatile once again. PERFECT!!!

I guess at the end of the day I can only invest in so many "bread and butter" stocks.

Let the fun begin!

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

XOM raises dividend 5.80%---New yield is 3.32%

Today it was Exxon's turn to come up to the plate and they delivered.

Exxon Mobil declared a quarterly dividend of $0.73 per share. This is a 5.80% increase from the prior dividend of $0.69 and the new yield is 3.32%

The ex-dividend date is May 11th and the pay date is June 10th.

Currently I own 62.09 shares of XOM so my yearly dividends will increase by $9.93.

How much pressure is Chevron feeling right now??


Also from the propane front, APU delivered some very welcomed news.

APU raises distribution 4.54%---New yield is 7.41%

I missed the announcement on Monday that APU is increasing its quarterly distribution from $.88 to $.92. This is a 4.54% increase and the new yield is 7.41%

The ex-dividend date is May 7th and the pay date is May 28th.

Since I own 76,99 shares my yearly dividends will increase by $12.32.

Stock Purchase: HCP --- $16,000 Forward Passive Income

Today I added more shares of HCP.

• HCP:  120 shares @ $41.73 --- Yield 5.42%

Total capital invested is 5014.55 and will increase my dividends by $271.20. I have not added to my position since late 2013 so I feel it is ok to increase my REIT holdings.  Today's purchase increases my total share count to 330 shares and will pay me roughly $745 a year in dividends. HCP  also represents about 3.33% of my total portfolio.

As a side note, I just passed $16,000 in forward passive income assuming no further dividend cuts. Right now I believe my holdings are secure. This is another conservative purchase and I will continue to make mostly safe and boring purchases for the duration of the year.

My current intentions are to reach $17,500 in forward passive income by year end.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

IBM raises dividend 18.18% --- New Yield is 3.03% & Weekly Purchases

Here are my automatic investments for this week.

• SO:  4.50 shares @ $44.44 --- Yield  4.88%
• PG:  2.48 shares @ $80.72 --- Yield  3.28%
• WMT:  2.52 shares @ $79.36 --- Yield  2.47%

Total capital invested is $600 ($200 in each company). The combined yield on the purchases is 3.54% and will add $21.26 to my yearly dividends.

Even though PG and WMT did not raise their dividends by very much, they are both still very high quality businesses and should provide reliable and increasing dividends for many years to come. The fact that WMT has dramatically underperformed TGT in the last year also is a factor with my purchase. PG has been left behind by everything for the last couple of years. Typically companies like these don't accept losing ground to their rivals lightly. We shall see.

Companies on my radar for next week include to ones listed above as well as NOV, JNJ, CAT, AXP, PM, XOM, PFE, and KO.

Then again, I may not buy anything.


IBM Dividend

In other news IBM announced that it will be raising its quarterly dividend from $1.10 to $1.30. This is simply amazing!!! This is an 18.18% increase from last year and the new yield is 3.03%.

The ex-dividend date is May 6th and the pay date is Jun 10th.

Currently I own 37.33 shares so my yearly dividends will increase by $29.86. This increase alone increases my yearly dividends by $8 more than this week's purchases. Very nice!!!


DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Options trade: GM

Today I sold the following covered call in General Motors

• 1 Sell GM Jan 15 2016 $40 Call (Open) --- $.98 --- Net proceeds --- $90.30

Unlike my first experiment with GE (deep in the money call) I took a much more conservative approach this time. Currently GM is trading around $35.75 as I type so a lot of price appreciation would have to occur to lose these shares. Quite honestly it wouldn't bother me to lose them at $40.

At first glance the premium of $90.30 doesn't seem overly impressive by itself.  However, when you consider 100 shares of GM currently pays $144.00 (yearly) after its recent dividend raise the combination of the two is actually very nice.

Going forward these are the types of option trades that I plan on making. Lower risk plays that will give my yearly income a boost.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

First Options Experience with GE

I can honestly say that I have never been interested in trading options. For one thing I never really understood them and secondly it seems more like a gamble than an investment strategy.

There are numerous bloggers that not only invest in dividend paying companies, but sprinkle in a few options here and there as well.

What seems to be most prevalent is to sell calls on stocks that are currently owned or sell puts on companies that would like to be acquired.

One of the owners of the company I work for has many different options in companies like AAPL, BIDU, and GOOG. He has been encouraging me to jump into options but I really didn't feel comfortable since my main investment strategy is to accumulate stocks that will provide an income for my future life. To me, these two strategies always appeared to be in conflict with each other.

I eventually asked him to look up some of the premiums on companies like T, KO, RDS-B, and a few others. After watching more than a few transactions over the year from different bloggers, I decided to start off in the shallow end of the pool using a cover call strategy.

Two weeks ago when GE spiked after the news of  Jeff Inmelt's plan to reduce GE Capital I decided to sell a covered call. The price was trading in the $27-$28 range at the time. The usual transaction people would make is to find a date sometime in the future and a price that is high than the current trading price. A premium amount would be set based on the time and price requested. Since GE was at the high end of its multi year range, I felt like it might drift back down.

I should have set a strike price in the $30s in Jan 2016, but I did not do this. Instead I did something totally stupid and sold an in the money call which has been bothering me ever since.

Here are the transactions that took place.

• 4/10/2015 --- SELL GE SEP 18 2015 CALL (OPEN) ---2 @ $5.89 --- Proceeds --- $1169.55

So essentially I was paid a premium of $1,169.55 to sell 200 of my GE shares for $22. Immediately after I opened this trade Sharebuilder showed the Option at the bottom of my screen with ITM.



I have been watching this option every day for the last two weeks and every day it said I had a loss of $1300.

Between the ITM (in the money) icon and the fact that my option value never changed values, I thought that I screwed something up and had my shares called away. Shares of GE actually traded above $28.50 so this just reinforced my original thoughts that I had lost my 200 shares @ $22.00 and received the $5.89 premium less commissions.

I actually felt pretty stupid and kept waiting for my shares to disappear. Each day for the next couple of days I would check my Sharebuilder account expecting to see my shares disappear. They didn't so I would then check the option value and it continued to remain unchanged at $1300.

This actually created some confusion because GEs shares had started falling and were in the $26 range. I kept thinking if I haven't lost my shares when it was trading above $28.50, why am I still showing a $1300 unrealized loss when GE's price keeps dropping.

Finally I decided to click the button that says Close just to see what would happen. Again I wasn't certain whether I still owned my shares or not. I did this on Tuesday when the shares were trading around $26.50.

What popped up next was an estimated amount needed to close the account. It said I didn't have enough cash to make the transaction. Yes I used the premium to buy other stocks. I should have not done this. Apparently I can't transfer funds from my bank to close options like I can when I make weekly investments. The good news is that it said I needed $990 to complete the transaction. At least I knew that I still owned the shares.

I guess it's good that I tried to close the option because now I know to keep some funds available if I ever need to close out future options. I set up a transfer so I could try again. Anyway today just before close the thought of always being in the money bothered me too much so I closed out the position just to get it off of my mind.

• 4/24/2015 --- BUY GE SEP 18 2015 CALL (CLOSE) --- 2 @ $4.90 --- Cost --- $988.45

As I listed above, I had to pay $988.45 after commission to close the account and I originally received $1169.55 so I pocketed $181.10 for my 14 day experiment.

To put this in perspective I will be receiving around $99 in dividends on Monday from my 400+ shares of GE. This 2 week experiment netted me almost twice that amount on just 2 options or 200 shares.

Going forward I am going to continue developing a strategy that includes options along with my regular investments. While I haven't posted about it, I actually have Jan 2015 calls on BP@ $48 and VZ at $50.

I guess the summary of my experiment is be careful because you can EASILY lose shares you own and EASILY buy shares of a company you might not want to own. The one thing I am happy about is that I am keeping all of my GE shares. Seeing that option premium in relation to the dividends I will receive is pretty powerful to say the least.

Anyway that is my first experience with options and it was a learning experience for sure. While Shareholder is great in my opinion for buying stocks, I don't think it is the best option (no pun intended) for trading options.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

JNJ raises dividend 7.14% --- New yield is 2.99%

Well more good news came today via JNJ's dividend increase. Today JNJ announced they will be increasing their quarterly dividend from $.70 a share to $.75 a shares. This is a 7.14% increase and will bring the new yield up to 2.99%

The record date is May 26th and the pay date is June 9th.

This news is outstanding and with a 3% yield I am certainly going to continue adding more shares in the near future. I currently own 70.94 shares so my yearly dividends will increase by $14.19.

Hopefully IBM, XOM, and CVX deliver good news in the next week. All three of these companies have been battling their own issues throughout the last year, but typically deliver strong increases. I am expecting a double digit increase from IBM and low single digits from CVX and XOM.

Hopefully I am right.

Any thoughts on MAT??

Last September I bought 165 shares of MAT thinking it might be a good contrarian investment. The price at the time was around $30 and I have watched plummet to $22 at the beginning of this month only to come storming back in the last three weeks.

I can't completely wrap my hands around this stock. Is it a value trap or a turn around story. The good news is they have paid a couple of dividends already and are paying another one in June. But is that really what I want to invest in? A company that was fortunate to make another dividend payment for at least one more quarter. I don't know.

My hunch is this should be a $40 stock, but I would not be surprised to see $20 either. I am seriously considering selling my shares which are trading around $28.50 and taking an $80 loss counting the dividends I have already received.

I have tried to take steps to add lower beta companies to my portfolio this year and I might be better off adding another utility or perhaps more shares of companies like JNJ, CAT, or KO. The yields are lower, but the risk is much lower as well. Also any of these three could provide a stable YOC of 5% within the next four or five years anyway.

I think I am 80/20 leaning towards selling off the whole position. I really hate selling stocks and need to work harder at adding positions that I can keep for many years.

Weekly Sharebuilder Purchases

Here are my automatic investments for this week.

• JNJ:  2.98 shares @ $100.76 --- Yield  2.78%
• WMT:  3.84 shares @ $78.11 --- Yield  2.51%

Total capital invested is $600 split evenly between the two. These purchases have a combined yield of 2.65% and will add $15.87 to my yearly dividends.

I decided to start a position in TIS yesterday, so I cut back a little on the purchases today.

Companies on my radar for next week include JNJ, WMT, SO, T, KMI, CAT, NOV, and AXP.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

SO raises dividend 3.33% --- New yield is 4.85%

Well another one of my worker bees announced a solid dividend increase today. Southern Company announced that it is increasing its quarterly dividend from $.525 to .$5425 a share. This is a 3.33% increase which is impressive coming from a utility company.

The record date is May 18th and the pay date is June 6th.

Since I currently own 55.65 shares my yearly dividends will increase by $9.46.

I just recently initiated a position in SO after being quite skeptical about its valuation and relatively low dividend yield. It hit a high of $53 a couple of months ago and fell about $10 since that high. I finally bit the bullet and now have a relatively small position.

This is by no means a glamourous company, but it is hard to argue with the starting yield and a rather impressive 3.33% dividend increase. To put it in perspective, this past Friday the 800 pound gorilla we know as Procter and Gamble provided a very uninspiring 3% dividend increase.

Companies still in the batter's box for this month are IBM, CVX, XOM, JNJ, and APU. Hopefully they are carrying big bats.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY



Stock Bought: TIS

Today I initiated a position in Orchids Paper Products.

• TIS:  100 shares @ $23.30 --- Yield  6.01% (initial position)

Total capital invested is $2336.95 which will increase my yearly dividend by $140.00.

I originally learned about the company about a year or so ago from one of Dividend Mantra's posts. I have never invested in a thinly traded company before, so I had no idea what the trade price would be looking at the bid/ask screen. It was bidding $23.20 and asking $23.80 this morning so I decided to use a Limit Order this time. I put my order in at $23.30 and it finally picked it up thirty minutes later.

This in my opinion is speculative and the dividend growth as of right now in non existent. However I am willing to roll the dice with these types of investments and at 6% yield I feel the risk reward is justified at this price.

I keep telling myself to stay away from companies like MAT, ESV, and TIS and I have been for the most part this year. I just get the itch every once in a while to jump into the speculative side of the pool and here I am once again.

Feel free to give me your opinions on this purchase: Thumbs up or thumbs down??

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

PG raises dividend 3% --- New Yield is 3.21% (YAWN)

Today PG announced that it is increasing its dividend 3% from $0.6436 to $0.6629 per share. This is the 59th consecutive year of dividend increases.

The record date is April 27th and the pay date is May 15th.

Since I currently own 124.35 shares my yearly dividends will increase by $9.60.

A 3% yield and a 3% raise...come on???  Well at least they kept the yearly streak alive. I must admit that I am disappointed in the decision, but I guess PG is being cautious right now. Quite honestly this reminds me of GE's paltry raise. Maybe I should manage my expectations better. I would expect something like this out of AT&T, but Procter?? Hmmmm....Better luck next year, I guess.

The next batters up to the plate are JNJ, XOM, CVX, IBM ,and APU. Hopefully they have better news than Procter.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

New Purchases: SO, PG, & WMT

Today I reinvested the proceeds from my recent mutual fund sales.

• SO:  50 shares @ $43.94 --- Yield  4.78%
• PG:  25 shares @ $83.47  --- Yield   3.07%
• WMT:  25 shares @ $79.16 --- Yield  2.48% (initial position)

Total capital invested is $6283.60 and the combined yield is 3.47% and will increase my yearly dividends by $218.00.

These are very boring companies that should have no problems making and increasing dividend payments for many years to come. I have been patiently waiting for WMT and SO back down to decent levels.

Walmart will be a nice complement to my TGT shares. SO, in my opinion, is a good substitute for the junk bond holdings I sold off and being taxed at 15% instead of 33% is a nice benefit as well.

Also, I apologize for so many posts recently. If I don't post things in real time, I am subject to forget about them and I am trying my best to update all portfolio puchases, sales, and dividend announcements in real time. I think this actually may be an OCD thing. So be it.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

KMI raises dividend 6.67%---New Yield is 4.42%

 

 

 

Kinder Morgan, Inc. (KMI) today announced that its board of directors approved an increase in its quarterly cash dividend to $0.48 ($1.92 annualized) payable on May 15, 2015, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on April 30, 2015. This represents a 14 percent increase over the first quarter 2014 dividend of $0.42 per share ($1.68 annualized) and is up from $0.45 per share ($1.80 annualized) for the fourth quarter of 2014.

Since I currently own 234.76 shares, my yearly dividends will increase by $28.17.

KMI is an absolute beast of a company. The dividends should blow by $2.00 a share in no time at all.

Between GM and KMI, my dividends this week have increased by over $63.00 and I didn't have to invest one single extra penny!

Dividend growth at its best.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Weekly Sharebuilder Purchases and Funds Sold

Here are my automatic investments for this week.

• RDS-B: 4.03 shares @ $62.06 --- Yield  6.06%
• BBL:  5.77 shares @ $43.29 --- Yield  5.73%
• SO:  5.65 shares @ $44.23 --- Yield  4.75%  (initial position)
• JNJ:  2.49 shares @ $100.56 --- Yield  2.78%

Total capital invested is $1000 ($250 in each company) and the combined yield of these purchases is 4.83%. This will add $48.30 to my yearly dividends.

I also sold $6000 worth of my mutual fund holdings ($3000 of CAIBX and AHITX). This sale will reduce my yearly dividends by approximately $285.

I plan on reinvesting the proceeds by the end of this week. One of the biggest factors in selling off some of the junk bonds is the major tax disadvantage. Keeping high yield bonds in a taxable account when my top rate this year was 33% is not a good idea. I may look at investing the AHITX proceeds in higher yield municipal bonds or increase my utility holdings which have similar yields but are taxed at 15% .

SO doesn't look very cheap here, but considering it was in the $53 range a couple of months ago, I decided it might be worth while to start building a position. I think it is a decent substitute for my high yield bonds.

Stocks on my radar for next week include the ones listed above as well as PG, PM, T, CVX, and XOM.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

GM raises dividend 20% --- New yield is 3.96%

Today GM announced that it will raise its quarterly dividend from $.30 to $.36 a share. This represents a 20% increase and makes the new yield 3.96%. GM had previously mentioned that it would be raising the dividend, but it was not made official until today.

The dividend will be payable on June 23 for shareholders of record on June 10

Since I currently own 146.13 shares, my yearly dividends will increase by $35.07.


This is obviously great news and it appears that many of the troubles with the ignition recalls are starting to fade away as GM is performing at a high level right now.

I must admit buying shares last year was difficult as the company announced a seemingly endless number of recalls that I believe approached 20 million vehicles. I view myself as a bit of a storm chaser, whether it is buying Target after the security breach, GM during the recall debacle, or most recently buying energy companies amid collapsing oil prices.

This strategy sometimes works well and sometimes does not. Unfortunately deep values rarely appear with pretty bows attached. I find they typically cause a little heartburn and restlessness.

I think lower gas prices could really help the bread and butter products which of course are large trucks and SUVs. GM still looks like a decent value at current prices, but I have a fairly large position already and probably won't add too many more shares.

Google Analytics is Working

Talk about an over reaction on my part. Apparently it takes a day for Google Analytics to become functional. It is working great today! YES!!! Double YES!!!

My ESV position loses 35% of its value and cuts the dividend 80%....Meh.

Kraft rises 40% in a day due to a merger with Heinz....ho hum

My GE shares rise $1200 on paper on Friday.....yawn

I can successfully start Google Analytics...........HOME M F'ing RUN!!!!

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Random Blog Stats

 

 

Another month has gone by and I picked up a few hundred more page views in March than in February. As I have mentioned in previous months, these Blogger stats are inflated and I have tried a couple of times to use Google Analytics just so I could have some more accurate data. I have also on several occasions documented my ineptitude with anything related to blog IT stuff.

One of my goals this year is to use the HTML button more and learn a few new skills to help enhance the blog. Usually my progress resembles something like "One step forward, Ten steps backwards."

A few months back I decided to start using Google Analytics and quite honestly, I had trouble even getting the account opened. That is fucking ridiculous. Anyway each month I see reports that others show regarding new unique users, blog traffic, etc. and I find myself jealous. It would be so cool to be able to have something like that.

Recently GEN Y FINANCE GUY suggested to me that I start using Google analytics. He was also kind enough to show me a diagram to help me set it up. The best part is he mentioned that it would only take about 5 minutes to set up. Clearly he doesn't know who he is dealing with.

After spending about 45 minutes on the Google site, I decided to take a break from the computer before throwing the monitor through my office window. I am at work so this would be an H R violation especially if someone outside my office were to get hit with flying glass.

Why do I continue to subject myself to this type of frustration??? I don't know, but the other day at work I told my IT Director that I might take a course in HTML programming.

His simple response: "Why the fuck would you do something like that?"  It looks like he has a pretty good feel for the situation. I'm going to shelf that idea.



So below is the progress that I have made today. I probably am close to finishing, but I don't know for sure.


Right now I am in the Admin page of Google Analytics under the Tracking Info tab and I can see my tracking ID number and there is a sentence next to it that says:

• STATUS:  Tracking Not Installed

The Google Analytics tracking code has not been detected on your website's home page. For Analytics to function, you or your web administrator must add the code to each page of your website.

Then it says

This is your tracking code. Copy and paste it into the code of every page you want to track.

What follows is a long ass HTML code looking thing that resembles a foreign language.

Just for grins I copied and pasted this code to my most recent post just to see if anything would happen. I had a feeling nothing would happen and I of course I was right.

Also on my Blogger site under Settings - Other, I can see my Analytics Web Property ID with my AU code in the the box. It looks like everything should be working but it isn't.

So anyway enough bitching about my pathetic computer skills. Last month I received $24.51 which is a drop from February's total. April is starting off better as I have reached $13 already and hopefully can surpass $30.

March 2015 Income and Expenses

The amounts below are cash amounts and are net of taxes, insurance, 401k contributions, HSA, etc. In other words, the amounts are what get deposited and withdrawn from my accounts.

Day job (take home pay) --- $12911.59
Dividends/Interest --- $2024.95

Total net income --- $14936.54

Expenses --- $2986.81

Savings $11949.73 --- Rate  80.00%    Savings/day job income --- 92.55%


Historically March is a better month than February, but this month I made less income from my day job. The good news is my passive income came in really strong. Expenses were better than expected and came in under $3,000 for the first time this year. This allowed my overall savings rate to reach a new high for the year at 80%. Not much to complain about here.

My passive income covered 67.8% of my total expenses. Needless to say this was really cool. I truly believe if I did not have my day job, I could have covered 100% of my expenses with just passive income. It is amazing how much money is spent for the privilege of going to work each day.

March was also one of the few months I can remember in which I truly had no outlier expenses. Food was normal, we dined out a few times, auto expenses were minimal, and work related lunches came in under $200 so I am certainly pleased with the results.

For the first time in my life after constant nagging ongoing encouragement from my wife to get a lawn service, I capitulated. While I cringe at the thought of paying someone $100 a month to do something so easy, I must admit I love coming home looking at a nicely manicured lawn and not having to worry about finding time to do it myself. I will really appreciate having this service during the July-Sept months, which are nothing short of brutal here in Houston. Now if I could just get her to hire a weekly maid service, everything would be perfect. :-)

Going forward, I think 65% will probably be the norm as I have several home improvement projects on the horizon. I also plan on at least one vacation that could be a budget buster. We'll see.


April Outlook

Looking ahead to this month's expenses, the elephant in the room will be taxes. I have already sent a $6,200 check the U S Treasury which is more than double all of March's expenses. Technically this is a 2014 tax expense, but it affects my bank account right now. Hopefully the rest of the month is as calm and uneventful as March.

I also look forward to receiving my first ever Adsense deposit. I am sitting on about $95 earned for the year so I should hit the $100 mark and I believe this will trigger a deposit for next month.

YTD Savings Rates

Jan --- 46.72%
Feb --- 67.78%
Mar --- 80.00%

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Weekly Sharebuilder Purchases

Here are my automatic investments for this week.

• CAT:  2.47 shares @ $80.96 --- Yield  3.46%
• XOM:  2.33 shares @ $85.76 --- Yield  3.22%
• JNJ:  1.99 shares @ $100.57 --- Yield  2.78%

Total capital invested is $600 ($200 invested in each company). The combined yield is 3.15% and will add $18.92 to my yearly dividends.

After a rather active month of investing in March, I will probably take it easy this month and keep adding to positions with my weekly purchases. If I continue to reduce my mutual fund holdings this month, I will probably redeploy the proceeds into companies like PG, KO, JNJ, and EMR.

Oil continues to bounce around, but seems to be holding its ground in the $45-$50 range. If Exxon stays in the $80s I will probably continue to add to my position. CAT also looks really good around a 3.5% yield.

Companies on my radar for next week include the three above as well as PM, SO, GM, and NOV.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

March 2015 Passive Income

 

March really seemed to fly by this year. The market has been bouncing around all over the place and my portfolio has been equally choppy with oil falling, then climbing, then falling. Companies like BBL, BP, and PM are behaving like biotechs with massive moves within a short period of time. Then you look at Kraft, a supposedly boring food company, and it is up 40% for the month.

At the end of the day, the unpredictable swings within my portfolio don't matter much to me. What matters most is these companies are working damn hard to provide passive income that will one day support my wife and I for many years to come.

This was a really good month for dividends especially since I surpassed $2000 for just the second time ever. I wasn't sure I would hit 2K again as my junk bond payment is received on the last day of the month and it pushed me just passed the threshold. In December I surpassed 2k as well, but I needed a special dividend from one of my mutual funds and a massive payment from ESV to hit that number. Well ESV has since cut its dividend by 80% and there was no special dividend. So overall I am really pleased with the month.

A lot of credit this month goes to companies like BBL, BP, and RDS-b. I have been investing heavily in these companies for many months and the results are finally showing up on this month's ledger.

I also started ramping up my purchases in March once I noticed that my tax bill will be quite a bit lower than anticipated. I bought a ton of PM and CAT and can't wait to see the effects of these purchases during the next couple of months.

April is off to a good start as well. I have already received over $100 in dividends from Coke and Baxter and made a sizable investment in JNJ.


Anyway, here is the passive income that I received for March.

Taxable Account

• CAIBX --- $559.06
• AHITX --- $273.03
• BBL --- $193.33
• BP --- $162.48
• RDS-b --- $85.41
• DLR --- $85.00
• TGT --- $75.40
• CVX --- $73.44
• MAT --- $62.70
• DVY --- $59.81
• PFE --- $52.22
• MCD --- $51.10
• MSFT --- $46.50
• GM --- $43.50
• IBM --- $41.00
• ESV --- $39.54
• XOM --- $32.64
• AFL --- $26.13
• CAG --- $15.75
• NOV --- $15.18
• PEP --- $14.64
• WM --- $9.78
• JNJ --- $7.31

Total monthly passive income for March is $2024.95


New Capital Invested

• PM --- $7750.28
• CAT --- $4322.50
• RDS-b --- $2110.30
• XOM --- $750
• NOV --- $750
• CVX --- $500
• CAIBX --- (5997.00)

Total capital invested is $10,186.08.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Stock bought: JNJ

Today I purchased more shares of JNJ with the proceeds from my mutual fund sale.

• JNJ:  50 shares @ $99.01 --- Yield  2.83%

Total capital invested is $4957.49. This purchase will add $140.00 to my yearly dividends. Including today's purchase I now have a total of 63.49 shares.

I was also considering adding to KO or PG, but ultimately went with JNJ because of the better valuation and lower share count.