Weekly Purchases

Here are my automatic investments for this week.

• CVX:  2.73 shares @ $91.37 --- Yield  4.68%
• UNP:  2.61 shares @ $95.43 --- Yield  2.31%

Total capital invested is $500 ($250 in each company) and the combined yield is 3.29%. My yearly dividend income will increase by $16.45.

Due to unforeseen expenses popping up, I had to cut back on this week's purchases. I may buy a larger position tomorrow. TD has been in the $38 range, NOV could go below $40 any time and everything else energy related continued to get hammered.

Here are some other companies that I am watching closely....DD, VZ, KMI, JNJ, CAT, BBL, and ESV.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Stock Purchase: CAT

Today I added some more shares to my CAT position.

• CAT:  20 shares @ $77.96 --- Yield  3.95%

Total capital invested is $1566.16 and will add $61.60 to my yearly dividends. It's hard to believe the yield for CAT has reached 4%. Hopefully it stays in the $70s or lower for a while longer so I can keep building my position.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Weekly Purchases

Here are my automatic investments for this week.

• KMI:  6.97 shares @ $35.88 --- Yield  5.46%
• CVX:  2.66 shares @ $93.99 --- Yield  4.55%
• XOM:  3.05 shares @ $82.08 --- Yield  3.56%
• IBM:  1.53 shares @ $163.80 --- Yield  3.17%

Total capital invested is $1000 ($250 in each company).  The combined yield on these purchases is 4.19% and will add $41.85 to my yearly dividends.

Just like clockwork, IBM falls off a cliff the day after earnings. I love the yield and the low payout ratio. Now if they can get their act together and start growing revenues everything will be great. If not, I just added shares of Alcoa with a better yield. :-)

It has been well over a year since I have added to my Kinder position and this price is still quite a bit higher than my basis. Even so, this is the highest yield that I can remember thanks to constant dividend increases.

I finally closed out my BP covered call yesterday and made a $46.60 profit.

I also added $500 to my Lending Club account that should be available to invest tomorrow.

Stocks on my radar......big oil, and others near their 52 week lows.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

KMI raises dividend 2.08% --- New yield is 5.23%

Today KMI announced yet another dividend increase. The quarterly dividend will increase from $.48 to $.49. The new yield is 5.23%.

Even though the share price has mostly increased over the last year or so, I think this is the highest yield I have seen. I believe even when the price was in the low 30s last year the dividend was around $.42 so the yield was around 5%. I may have to start adding to my position again.

The ex-dividend date is July 29th and the pay date is August 14th.

Since I currently own 235.84 shares, my yearly dividends will increase by $9.43.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

The Game of Chicken continues: NOV Purchased

Today I added to one of my Ugly Ducklings.

• NOV:  35 shares @ $43.86 --- Yield  4.20%

Total capital invested is $1542.05 and this will should add $64.40 to my yearly dividends.

I almost picked up some shares of ESV as well. The shares were trading in the $19.80s early today. If the shares drop back down to that level or lower, I will look to add around 75 shares. I'm also keeping my eye on TD. Under $40 is where I will pull the trigger.

Hopefully the excitement continues.....

I also invested $500 in my Lending Club account today.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Weekly Purchases

Here are my automatic investments for this week.

• RDS-b:  4.31 shares @ $57.98 --- Yield  6.48%
• CVX:  2.61 shares @ $95.64 --- Yield  4.48%
• XOM:  3.02 shares @ $82.75 --- Yield  3.53%
• UNP:  2.56 shares @ $97.49 --- Yield  2.26%

Total capital invested is $1000 ($250 in each company). The combined yield is 4.19% and will add $41.88 to my yearly dividends.

Well it looks like the latest turmoil in Greece has come and gone at least until the next panic in Greece arises. :-) Stocks are rallying, oil is falling, so in other words....business as usual.

I will try to keep averaging down on my energy companies, but I may make a larger purchase soon. Canadian banks continue to badly lag behind American banks so I may look at a Canadian bank. I already own shares of TD so I will most likely add to that position. Also Aflac has been drifting down recently.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Lending Club finally arrives in Texas

One of my goals for 2015 was to open a Lending Club account and try to build up a loan portfolio of $10,000. I opened an account back in late December, transferred a few hundreds dollars over to LC to get started and to my disappointment I was informed that Texas residents could not invest in loans.

I have to admit that I was pretty bummed, but I had a feeling that eventually LC would become available to Texans. A couple of nights ago I checked my email and was pleasantly surprised to find a notice from LC informing me that Texas resident could now invest in loans. Again I made a transfer a few days ago and it should hit my LC account in the next day or so.

Fantastic!!!! After literally making hundreds of stock purchases over the last few years, it feels pretty good to add another form of passive income to my dividend machine. There certainly is nothing wrong with a stock only portfolio, but the thought of creating a new form of income that is unrelated to the stock market is awesome. Starting on a new journey can definitely rekindle the fire inside of me and who knows how this will play out.

I suppose this will be similar to investing in REITs. Higher income streams and obviously higher taxes as well at least while I still have my day job. I am ok with that. In a few years it will be nice to not only receive interest income to live off of, but I will also receive principal each month which could help with future cash flow needs if I choose not to reinvest the payments. For now, like my with my stock portfolio, I plan to reinvest everything that I receive to grow the snowball.

I started browsing through the endless number of loans and started thinking this is going to suck trying to come up with my own underwriting guidelines, check the loans throughout the day, and then attempt to accumulate many loans at $25 a piece. On top of that you then have to wait to see if the loans get fully funded which can take up to a couple of weeks to complete. Quite honestly, I am not a very patient person.

It only took me about fifteen seconds to realize that there is no fucking way that I am going to be dedicated enough to constantly check on new loans throughout each day, filter, and patiently hope to finalize a bunch of $25 loans.

For now, I have decided to take the automated approach and just let LC do the work. The Platform Mix looks pretty good to me and according to LC should return somewhere between 6-9%.  The mixture includes mostly B and C type loans which is right up my alley as it is not too risky, but still has the potential to bring in solid returns.

I have to admit I am very stoked to add a new and unique component to my dividend pipeline. My first thought is that I may not be able to add $10,000 by the end of the year, but then again knowing me I can see myself getting there by the end of August. :-)



DEFY MEDIOCRITY

GM option trades

I made a couple of GM options trades recently.

First, a couple of days ago, I closed my Jan 2015 $40 covered call which gave me a net profit of $64.60.



Next I wrote a $37 Jan 20 2017 covered call this morning that is shown below. If I hold on to the option until maturity I will earn $273.55. So far I have not held any options to maturity. I also still have open covered calls in BP, BBL, and now GM again. These can be found on my Options tab above.

To lose the shares, GM would most likely have to trade above $38.50. I have no problem losing the shares in that price range. Also if I don't lose the shares, the 200 shares will pay $432.00 in dividends over the next 6 quarters. Including the option premium, I could potentially receive $705.55 in total income from GM over the next six quarters.. That sounds pretty good to me!!!

If the share price drops considerably from the current $31 level, I will close the option early and realize whatever percentage of the option that I have earned.

Hopefully I have explained everything accurately.


Action: Sell to open
Description: GM JAN 20 2017 37.00 CALL
Quantity*: -2 contracts
Execution time: 07-10-2015 10:04 ET
Price: $1.41
Total Commissions & Charges: $8.45
Total Transaction Amount: $273.55
Trade Settlement Date: 07-13-2015         


So far in 2015 I have earned $385.90 on the four completed options trades.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Paychex raises dividend 10.53% --- New yield is 3.52%

Today PAYX announced that it is raising its quarterly dividend from $.38 to $.42. This represents a 10.53% increase and the new yield will be 3.53%

The ex-dividend date is July 30 and the pay date is August 20th.

I currently own 93.64 shares so my yearly dividends will increase by $14.98.

This is another solid raise for PAYX and follows an 8.57% raise last year. My only regret is that I don't own more shares. :-)

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Stock Purchase --- GM

Today I added shares to my GM position.

• 100 shares @ $31.33 --- Yield  4.60%

Total capital invested is $3139.95 which will increase my yearly dividends by $144.00.


Well here I go again chasing another ugly duckling. I know this company is probably not on anyone's radar, therefore it is smack dab in the middle of mine. :-)

GM's original IPO price was $35 way back in 2010. It has gone from paying no dividend to a $.30 quarterly dividend. Earlier this year GM raised its dividend 20% making its new quarterly dividend $.36.

Last year it had a seemingly endless list of recalls that resulted in many deaths and impacted around 20 million vehicles.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Weekly Purchases

 

 

Here are my automatic investments for this week.

• RDS-b:  4.57 shares @ $54.68 --- Yield  6.88%
• BBL:  6.80 shares @ $36.76 --- Yield 6.75%
• BP:  6.43 shares @ $38.89 --- Yield  6.17%
• CVX:  2.67 shares @ $93.57 --- Yield  4.57%

Total capital invested is $1000 ($250 in each company). The combined yield of these purchases is 6.09% and will add $60.09 to my yearly dividends.

I knew it would be ugly in the oil space after watching the futures while getting ready for work. I thought that when I checked on my portfolio it would be really bad, but was surprised to find that utilities and REITs are actually performing well today.

I don't know that I have seen Shell, CVX, or BBL with yields this high ever. Iran and Greece are definitely sending shockwaves through the markets. XOM is about to be trading in the 70s and NOV looks like it is in a "death spiral" and may be trading in the 30s pretty quickly.  I LOVE IT!!!

Companies on my radar for next week include anything related to the energy and Canadian banking sectors as well as KO, WMT, GM, INTC, and DD.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

June 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) --- $15027.40
Dividends/interest --- $1855.27
Closed options income --- $140.26

Total net income --- $17022.93

Expenses --- $3239.46

Savings --- $13783.47  Rate --- 80.97%


So what happened during the month of June? Well first of all, it was by far my highest income total of the year and was also the most money I have ever earned in any month at my job. To be fair, $1935 was actually a bonus that I had earned back in April, but I received the payment in June. Like I mentioned in the opening paragraph, I just add up the monthly debits and credits in my checking account regardless of when the money was technically earned. Even without the $1935, this was still my best income month for 2015.

On the passive income front, I was just a tad shy of $2,000 including my earned option premiums. Nonetheless, I am ecstatic over the results and will continue to invest heavily (unless I change my mind yet again). I keep saying that I would like to work on building up cash so we'll see how things play out.

Expenses were subdued this month much like the "quiet before the storm" and I was able to reach the very difficult 80% saving level for the second time this year. During July and August, I will have a couple of annual and semi-annual expenses to deal with...namely my yearly home owner's insurance premium, my semi-annual auto insurance premium, and finally a lot of vet bills that were incurred here recently. Sadly at sixteen years old, my dachschund passed away. He will be missed terribly by my wife and I. We would gladly take 0% savings rates for months on end if the little rascal could still be with us for a while longer. This is a sobering reminder that in the end, money is just dirty paper and numbers on an account statement. Relationships are the most important things in our lives.

In any event, I hope each of you continues fighting hard for financial independence knowing there are no silver bullets or lotto tickets involved in the journey. Fierce determination combined with relentless effort is what it takes.


Here are my savings rates for 2015.

January --- 46.72%
February --- 67.78%
March --- 80.00%
April --- 35.97%
May --- 71.72%
June --- 80.97%

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

June 2015 Recap

 

Here is the passive income I received during June.

• CAIBX --- $414.16
• AHITX --- $246.88
• BP --- $163.96
• RDS-b --- $123.15
• DLR --- $85.00
• CVX --- $78.82
• TGT --- $75.40
• DVY --- $64.64
• MAT --- $62.70
• JNJ --- $56.97
• PFE --- $52.64
• GM --- $52.61
• MCD --- $51.55
• IBM --- $48.53
• XOM --- $47.77
• MSFT --- $46.50
• ESV --- $39.72
• SO --- $38.89
• AFL --- $26.13
• NOV --- $22.36
• CAG --- $15.86
• PEP --- $15.81
• WMT --- $15.37
• WM --- $9.85

Total combined dividends and interest is $1,855.27

Earned option premiums

• VZ --- $86.60
• ESV --- $53.60

Total income unrelated to me wearing a tie around my neck is $1995.47.

New capital invested

• HCP --- $3752.95
• UNP --- $1920.55
• WPC --- $1742.20
• RDS-b --- $1495.20
• CVX --- $1023.55
• VZ --- $1017.05
• JNJ --- $700
• KO --- $500
• SO --- $450
• XOM --- $250
• WPC --- $200
• BBL --- $200
• WMT --- $200
• BP --- $200
• PG --- $200
• CAG --- ($2756.57)

Total new capital invested is $11,094.93.


I'm pretty excited about the results from last month. While it would have been nice to hit $2,000 like in March and December, over $1800 is still fantastic. As much as I have tried to convince myself that I will slow down on the new investments, the fact remains that I have not. Oh well, what can I say I am addicted to dividend investing. I guess there are worse addictions in the world.

I have no idea what exciting opportunities will arrive in July, however I am eagerly waiting to put more capital to work. Also the Baxter spinoff and hopefully the Kraft special dividend will be paid this month.

Every time I think oil has bottomed, I seem to fall through another trap door. Shell, CVX, XOM, and BBL are at stupid levels right now. I will probably continue nimbling on these names some more. I feel like a deep sea scuba diver that is about 300 feet under water and I continue to see shiny objects at the 400 and 500 foot levels. I need to check the oxygen in my tanks before I dive down too much deeper. :-)

I hope everyone out there continues investing in their futures. Remember the first 40 hours worked each week are for survival. What we do in our spare time is how we create long term success!

DEFY MEDIOCRITY