The Dividend Family Guy

I had 2 announcements come my way last week for stocks in my taxed portfolio. The first was from AGNC - American capital Agency Corp announcing the quarterly dividend will be remaining at $.65/share. The second was by Windstream Holdings. They also maintained their dividend of $.25/share. AGNC is a real estate investment trust investing primarily in agency mortgage-backed securities. Because it is a REIT it is paying a high yield of 11.77%. It has been maintaining this since the cut in September of 2013. It has only been cutting the dividend so I do not see good things in the future. I bought this in my early days of investing and was only chasing yield at the time. Needless to say it has grown at all for me and the stock price has remained the same. I only have a few shares so I will reevaluate this if the dividend ever gets cut. Windstream Holdings (WIN) is my largest position in my taxed portfolio. It's current yield (8.9%)is a little bit lower than AGNC but still pretty hi

I have been slow at writing this for a good reason.  I am not proud to share with all of you that for the 3rd month in a row my expenses exceeded my income.  I did not include my dividend income this month but plan on doing so in the future (and probably revising past months for this year.)  What is going on you say?  Well lets break it apart as always and see where I saved and where I could have done better. Needs As my kids would tell me "Sad face".  This month I am about $600 over budget.  Fixed things like mortgages, home insurance, car loan, braces were right on budget (and aren't going away any time soon.)   Below are the 3 categories that could be variable each month. Category Budget Actual Utilities $825 $962 Groceries $900 $937 Misc. $650 $1076 Total Over $600 Utilities This month in addition to my gas, ele

So I own a few shares of Horizon Technology Finance Corp. They recently announced the monthly dividend of .115/share. This has been the same since they went to monthly payouts in 2013. This purchase was back before I knew too much so I bought it based on 3 things. High dividend yield. Currently around 9.65 Dividend frequency. Thought it would build compound faster at a monthly rate Share price. Thought I could buy more shares initially which would help in the long run. But it doesn't lead to greater returns in the long run. My post on does price matter shows some good examples. What I know today that would have deterred me from this stock. Do more research when the yield is higher than 4%. Sometimes there are reasons and sometimes it is a sign of a bad or declining company. The payout ratio has been way above 100% since 2012. A good investor should focus on companies that keep this below 75% unless it is a REIT or MLP. Horizon is a finance company loaning out money to

It is almost the middle of September and I am finally getting around to posting last month's dividends .  Boy does time fly when you go to work Monday-Friday and then spend time with your family in the evenings.  Once the weekend hits we try to do something fun on Saturday and then Sunday is church and catch up.  Sometimes I do miss the days when I was actually bored and had to think of things to do.  If I had taken that time in my youth when I was bored and read about dividend investing and saving money things would be different now.  The earlier you start investing the better off you are in the long run.  Time is an investors best friend. So there are the numbers.  Another good month for the IRA with $136 dollars of income I can't touch until much later in life.  I am still including it as seeing those dividends grow is a morale booster for me.  My IRA is about 4 times the size of my taxable account so it will always outpace the one I hold at www.sharebuilder.com

Brain Churn While reading Dividend Mantra's Price and Value post a question popped in my head.  If I was new to investing and had say $1000 dollars to invest would it be better to buy 10 shares at $100 of a company or 100 shares of a different company at $10?  Some assumptions to make were each grew at the same rate for the dividend growth rate and the companies were equally valued (qualitative and quantitative.)  The reason for this is as a beginning investor my capital is sometimes limited so I want to buy valuable stocks but also want my portfolio to grow as fast as possible. Using one of my favorite tools for screening I turn to the U.S.DividendChampions spreadsheet maintained by Dave Fish.  I thought about what price range would be attractive to newbies and what price would be hard for them to bite at.  The prices chosen were $20 or less also known as the "cheap stocks" and those that were priced over $80 "Who wants to own just 1 share." Sortin

I am not sure why but when I woke up this morning the song If I Had A Million Dollars by the Barenaked Ladies was going through my head.  Always thinking about money and what it can buy for you I decided to take a look at a couple of ways of investing it.  I wouldn't be buying any houses, cars, or refrigerators with it.  Instead what if I invested it in an S&P 500  index fund or in individual stocks. S&P 500 Index Fund First you would need to pick one with the lowest cost.  Vanguard 500 Index fund is usually what comes to my mind.  Whenever I have a choice at work I always pick the ones with the lowest expenses.  Vanguards are the best and this one is only .05%.  The fund looks to track the performance of the S&P 500 Index.  It is a passive fund that looks to replicate the index.  So as the index shifts in sectors so would this fund.  The admiral fund (VFIAX) was created on 11/13/2000 according to their website.  Unfortunately this has been a rough decad