July 2016 Recap ---- Goose egg edition

Well f$#%, like April my dividend total for July was $0. That is not the best way to start out the back half of the year. Oh well, I will keep planting seeds and the dividends will come in time.

Today was my last day to hopefully receive some sort of dividend payment, but when I opened my Sharebuilder account, I noticed the VZ (August payment) was sitting there. At least August is starting off with a bang!

Just for reference, here are the results from last July. Wow a 100% drop....I have shitload of work to do. I keep changing my 2016 dividend goals and now I am thinking $3500-$4000 by year end. I wish PM and T would break down and come back to more reasonable levels, but those rascals have been damn resilient. I'll keep adding here and there and am ready for a massive drop that I still believe will happen as we get closer to the election.

Anyway here is the summary of investments I made in July.

• M --- $3483.70 
• RDS-b --- $2008.92
• NEA --- $1607.12
• DEO --- $1584.99

Total July capital invested in my taxable account is $8684.73 and should add $420.76 to my yearly dividends.

Forward dividends are around $3200.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

First Lending Club update

Last year Lending Club finally became available to Texas residents. Initially I started out with a small investment of $1000.

Over the last six months or so, I have been adding $200 a week and now have a balance of just under $5900.00.

I have been investing $25 at a time and now have 263 total notes and climbing. While there are many different strategies and investment criteria that can be sifted through, I chose to go automated and let the computers spread the capital across a variety different loan grades.

Right now, as you can see above, My current return is 6.77% after all defaults and pass due loans have been written down. This is about what where I thought the returns would fall. It is uncanny that LC advertises a projected return of 6.68% under the Platform Mix.

There have been times when this number has been over 9% and below 3%. It tends to stay around 7% most of the time. It will be interesting to see how the loans perform during an economic slowdown. Fortunately they have held up pretty well for me.

I will continue to invest $200 a week until I reached $10,000. At that point I will probably continue investing new capital, but may stick with higher credit borrowers.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Recent Buy --- M call exercised

Today I exercised my option to buy 100 shares of M.

• M: 100 shares @ $32.00 --- Yield  4.72%

Total capital invested is $3200 (stock price) + $253.70 (option premium paid) + $30 (exercise charge) for a total of $3483.70. While the purchase price yield is 4.72%, the yield based on total capital invested is only 4.33%.This purchase will add $151.00 to my yearly dividends.

The stock price is trading around $37.30 range as I type this. Like many retailers, M has been hammered dropping from the $70s down to a low of around $30.

It appears as though M is in a recover stage right now, but slower foot traffic in malls will continue to problematic for companies like M. We'll see how this plays out.

Forward dividends are $3200.00.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

June 2016 Income & 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) --- $11754.60
Dividends/Interest --- $272.27

Total net income --- $12026.87

Expenses --- $7298.00 (Taken from Mint)

Savings  $4728.87 --- Rate  $39.31%

Expenses continue to stay elevated and I feel like I am losing the battle. I won't quit trying though!! However, summer vacations and a seemingly endless gauntlet of birthdays are overpowering me.

I feel pretty confident that I can hold the line at $5000 in expenses this month, but I have plans for an August Disney World trip which should be pretty expensive next month. The good news is that I have already paid for and included the 5-day hotel, park tickets, and food expenses in the previous month's report.

I'm sure by taking my girlfriend, her daughter, and her little sister that the budget will go to hell. Getting 3 girls to avoid shopping while on vacation is futile. LOL Anyway, the great experiences will far outweigh any annoying expenses that pop up.

On a positive note, I had the biggest income month of the year and July is looking pretty strong as well. Houston is by no means out of the woods. Things are beginning to stabilize a bit so we'll see how the back half of the year goes.

Regardless of what happens with the economy, I will continue busting my ass and investing in dividends paying stocks. Just give me a big pullback and I'll be happy!

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Recent Buy --- Shell

It's been a while since I have added to my energy positions, so I decided to add some Shell shares to my portfolio today.

• RDS-b:  35 shares @ $57.20 --- Yield  6.57%

Total capital invested is $2008.92 and will add $131.60 to my yearly dividends.

While Shell has had NO problem cutting jobs during the past year, it hasn't seemed willing to cut the dividend. This is a good thing!

I certainly don't think Shell is super cheap right now, therefore I am slowing easing into the position unlike 2 years ago when I went too heavy into energy too soon. It's hard to believe that this company was yielding over 10% around 6 months ago when it was trading in the mid 30s.

Also, I recently manually calculated my dividend payments and this purchase puts me back over $3000 in forward dividends.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Recent buy --- NEA

Today I added a tax free muni fund to my portfolio.

• NEA:  110 shares @ $14.55 --- Yield  5.15% (Tax exempt)

Total capital invested is $1607.12 and will add $90.00 to my yearly dividends.

Munis have been on an insane run lately, but NEA has finally dropped about 4.5% in the last 3 days from $15.22 to the $14.50 range. I would love to further increase the position if a larger pullback happens.

Forward dividends are around $2750.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Thinking about dumping PFE...

Originally when I bought the 300 shares back in March I was looking to get the portfolio jump started in a big way. Buying a high yielding Dow component always interests me and seeing Pfizer trading around $29 and yielding 4% seemed like a no brainer. The current yield is now around 3.3%

I honestly thought the stock would flounder in the high 20s to low 30s throughout the year. Collecting $360 in dividends is very cool, but now that my capital gain has exceeded $2000 in less than 4 months I am getting an itchy trigger finger.

I recently purchased 100 shares of ABT last month and 25 shares of GILD, so combined with my 300 shares of PFE I am a bit heavy in this sector. PFE has now exceed XOM as my largest position.

Maybe I'll just cut the positions in half and buy something else. I have an open $32.00 M call that would yield me close to 5% and the stock price is in the mid 35s.  This would allow me to lock in some profit and increase my yearly dividends.

The struggle to make this sell decision is bigger than expected...

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Recent Buy --- DEO

Today I added to my position in DEO.

• DEO:  14 shares @ $112.72 --- Yield  3.05%

Total capital invested is $1584.99 and this purchase will add $48.16 to my yearly dividends.

What a difference a couple of weeks can make. I bought my last 15 shares a $103 and DEO like pretty much everything else has skyrocketed. This isn't a super cheap price, but I do like nibbling on a defensive position that I plan on holding for years to come. 

My plans are still to keep adding to names I own in small chunks each month while unloading with both barrels when opportunities like Brexit surface.

Forward dividends are approximately $2650.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY