The Dividend Family Guy

Income & Expenses My income is pretty consistent now however I wish I could say the same for my expenses.  A few more bills trickled in from the birth of my daughter.  Only another 1100 dollars for general hospital services.  I ranted about the healthcare industry last month so I will not do it again.  So what else was over or under?  Let's take a look. Auto K Both the minivan and car are doing great.  Just fuel expenses and the cost of gas is low in my area.  I saw it for $1.89 just yesterday. Personal J Over budget in several sub-categories this month.  The first one being healthcare which includes my son's braces.  I pray this goes back to normal in November as the Christmas season is upon me and anything I had saved went to pay hospital bills.  We continue to go over in childcare because of unbudgeted diapers and just buying clothes for my ever growing children.  So far we are $2000 over budget in this sub-category.  This will definitely need to

Hopefully this will be the last month were not much has happened.   Just sitting back (not really, been raking leaves) and collecting income.     Another purchase I should not have made presented itself to me.   CRWS I noticed hasn't raised its dividend in years.   If only I could go back in time before I knew what to look at for a good purchase and change those decisions.   You live and you learn so going forward these won't happen again.   Until they cut the dividend I will just keep collecting it. Company Held In Dividend Paid (Qtr) Amount Received Shares of life purchased October GPC IRA 0.615 $6.98 0.0842 UBSI IRA 0.32 $7.69 0.881 CRWS IRA 0.08 $1.48 0.1829 Not a dividend growth stock T IRA 0.47 $50.91 1.5192 WGL IRA 0.463 $48.91 0.786 EROC Taxable 0.0

Income & Expenses September the bills from the birth of our child came rolling in.  Even as I write this I am still getting bills from the hospital in October.  Even though I saved to be able to pay the deductible I got lost in the rest of the explanation of my medical benefits.  Basically I learned HSA's suck.  Especially the ones with a high deductible. When I switched jobs I looked at the regular health insurance where you do a copay and the insurance company covers the rest.  I added up the higher monthly costs for those and the HSA (monthly cost plus the $5500 deductible.)  The HSA was $1000 cheaper per year and my company puts up to $1600 into the HSA if you get a physical and do some other online activities to learn about better health. Sounds good right?  Well even after you pay the $5500 out of pocket (I saved for that) you still have to pay %20 of anything on top of that up to $12,000.  What??  Yeah that is crazy.  Basically I am footing most of the bill

Another great month of not working for money (well at least from dividends collected.)  I still had to go to work to earn a living for the family and generate additional cash to invest on dividend growth stocks. The stocks listed below are ones that deposited money into my account or were reinvested during this month.  I do not count dividends I having received yet (kinda like stock, not worth much until you sell them.) Company Held In Dividend Paid (Qtr) Amount Received Shares of life purchased September CVX IRA 1.07 9.83 0.1312 6th straight quarter without an increase! MSFT IRA 0.31 7.69 0.1785 TGT IRA 0.56 9.87 0.1279 Yeah 7.6% increase! ED IRA 0.65 51.46 0.8215 ORI IRA 0.185

Income & Expenses I just realized today that I did not send this out shortly after I totaled up my dividends .  Time flies when you go to work, rush home help out with the kids, crash into bed and then start it all over again.  I truly enjoyed the few weeks at home after the baby was born.  No rushing around and I spent more time with the kids.  August was when the baby was born so expenses will be going up.  Diapers, baby food, etc plus the additional cost of health insurance for the baby.  I did save up enough to cover my health insurance deductible so that won't cause any further debt.  Income was normal with 2 paychecks. I was over budget in 5 categories this month which caused me to go over my overall budget by $200.  Guild Free Spending Monday was $90 over as the kids and I dined out several times while my wife was in the hospital and we visiting with her.  Added to that was my zoo membership.  For a mere $80 I get unlimited visits to the zoo for the family

Company Held In Dividend Paid (Qtr.) Amount Received Shares of life purchased Notes T IRA $0.47 $50.23 1.4459 WGL IRA $0.46 $48.51 0.8678 NWN IRA $0.47 $48.92 1.1008 AGNC Taxable $0.20 $5.67 EROC Taxable $0.07 $0.39 EVEP Taxable $0.50 $0.37 HRZN Taxable $0.12 $6.99 KMI Taxable $0.49 $14.01 Penny increase or ~ 2% div hike VNR Taxable $0.12 $0.27 As you can see in the above table an extremely uneventful month.  Stocks I own generate dividends (sometimes increasing them like

I had read an article that stated it would roughly cost me 250 thousand dollars to raise a kids these days.  I found this chart on Wikipedia that gives a breakdown on costs by income bracket and expense type.  Very interesting stuff.  With that said I am pleased to announce my daughter was born a week early.  My wife and the baby are doing fine and we are all adjusting to lack of sleep (hopefully for the last time.) People are asked us if we were crazy to have another child.  At times I wondered that myself.  How could I afford to raise another child in consumerist America.  The key is to reuse as much as you can live like are parents were raised.  When I was a kid we never ate out.  My mom or dad cooked all of the meals.  We still eat out maybe once or twice a month so if things got tight that could easily be eliminated.  I am finding my cooking skills are better than all fast food places and even most chain restaurants.  I still haven't mastered the ultimate pizza crust s

Income & Expenses My paychecks from my new job have smoothed out and I now have a good understanding of what my monthly income from work will look like.   My healthcare costs roughly quadrupled with the move.   This was compensated by a higher salary but it still hurts to see how health costs vary from small companies (with less claims) to larger ones.   Dividends for July were a slight drop from last year but that did not affect my income in any major way (yet.).   I think when I am living off of them any dividend cuts or stock splits will have to be watched very closely to avoid income loss. As for expenses there were no surprises there.   We did a planned vacation that was covered by income for the month.   It was in state since my wife is in her third trimester and we needed to stay close to home.   Next year it will be back to the beach (thinking Maine this time).   One of the perks of my new company is I can book hotels through their system for personal travel