The Dividend Family Guy

Dividends grow like leaves on a tree. Why Change The last and only Dividend Family Guy stock screen was posted when I had started writing this blog.  A lot of it still holds true but like everything else it should be reviewed (annually for me) and adjusted.  Always learning and growing is a good way to become financially independent.  I have learned quite a bit in a year and some of that will be applied to version 2 of my stock screen. First Change My struggle continues on whether or not to include all companies listed in Dave Fish's U.S Dividend Champion's spreadsheet  ( All CCC worksheet).  Most of the companies with the most potential for growth tend to be Challengers (5-9 years of dividend growth).  These are also the most likely to cut dividends as it has not baked into the culture long enough.  I am not saying this doesn't happen to the kings (Diebold for example) but it is much rarer. Building a solid core first, then once it is established take so

The goals for this year are simple and focused.  I hope by doing this I will achieve them.  Unfortunately I do not think I will be able to bump up my investment rate.  However my plan for the year will set me up for the future by freeing up income.  Additional planning will also ensure that income stays free for investing.  Some surprises are good but financial ones that reduce your free cash flow are not.  Here they are in no particular order as they are all important to me. 5% weight loss by end of the year I want to live.  Plain and simple.  I want to see my kids graduate from college, get married and have kids.  I want to live to retirement so I can enjoy the fruits of my labor (dividends).  Less fat means better sleep for me and less risk of cancer .  Having kids means my sleep is disrupted by them.  It is not so bad now that the youngest is 3.  However I still wake up tired in the morning and my wife says I snore big time.  I talke

The year 2014 ended several weeks again and I finally have time to sit down and total up my numbers.  I am happy to announce that I did not incur any new debt for the year!  In fact my income was a whopping $700 more than my expenses.  I feel pretty good about that considering my career change that set me back 10% of my income .  I hope to see my savings & investing grow more this year with my car paid off.  However life tends to always change on you so who knows what 2015 holds for me. Initially I had written about my budget and what my targets were.  When I started tracking I realized I was nowhere close to hitting those targets and when through several adjustments in how I track.  The budget goals were simply not realistic since they were not based on the past.  This year's budget should be better and more predictable.  Having information will allow me to set achievable finance goals. Category Initial Target Comments Needs

Sunny day at work. It has been a good day so far.  Donated blood, the sun is shining and summing up my dividends for 2014.  It was a big jump from last year (mainly because I actual bought something).  Now that I got the ball rolling it will be tougher to top a   814% year of year growth for all accounts.  This was largely in part to my IRA which I can't touch until much later in life.  If I just do the YOYG for my taxable account I get a more realistic growth of 224%.   I was never enjoyed math even though I had to go up to Calculus III in college.  So I appreciate the gift of the internet which let me know how to calculate growth .  I haven't set a goal yet but as long as I contribute at least the same amount as last year I will be very happy. My largest payers this year were Windstream in my taxable account and SeaDrill in my IRA.  Well that will be changing this year since SDRL eliminated the dividend .   Well as I have read in your posts and comments many tim

December was a good month for dividends however it wasn't so much a good month for saving.  This time of the year is the most expensive for me.  A big family with even a bigger extended family makes for a BIG month in the Guilt Free Spending Money category.  I did save up for a portion of the gifts but went about $200 dollars over budget.  My wife says I should spend equally among all of our kids.  My reply is the older kids "toys" are more expensive.  If they get equal number of gifts the older kids would therefore cost more.  If I spent several hundred dollars on the little ones toys they would get heaping mounds of plastic toys they would not play with.  Still working on the right balance even after 14 years of raising them.  In retrospect I probably could have spent less on the older kids and they would have been just as happy.  For example my daughter has yet to touch several of her presents and her favorite cost under $20 (see picture above).   Any advice all yo

It was a good month.  December was my best month of the year in my taxable account.  This was mainly because of a cash payout for the transition of my  El Paso Pipeline Partners LP stock over to Kinder Morgan, Inc.  My IRA took a hit from Q3 because of a dividend elimination by Seadrill (SDRL).  A loss of $100+ in dividend income does sting a little.  That was one of the stocks I bought just looking at the yield before I had any idea how to research a company.  I am still pretty upset about that and haven't decided what to do with the stock (since I have no sell guidelines defined).  At this point it has dropped so much it is nowhere near what I paid so I am holding for now until oil recovers.  If I were to sell I would not generate enough capital to be able to purchase good dividend paying stocks with minimal expense. In my IRA I got my first dividend from my most recent purchase of Crown Crafts Inc. (CRWS.)  It was a whopping $1.44.  I think that could get me a Wendy&#

Happy new year to everyone and I hope your holiday season was relaxing and enjoyable.  I have spent the past two weeks on vacation playing with my kids mostly.  I started to take decorations down and went back to work today.  The next couple of months are always fun as it is tax time (REFUND!) and bonus/review time at work.  This is a major source of my investing income so for me at least I like winter. I wanted to share with you some of the things I need to accomplish in order to have goals for the year.  I am already late on goals since the new year has started.  If I actually set goals this year that will be an accomplishment.  So hear is a quick list of what I need to do to get there. Write this post Create a goals page Set three SMART goals geared around dividend income, health (mental and physical) and finances. The health goal also includes anything pertaining to my family.  I would love to set a blog goal but family time always takes precedence over blog

So I used nRelate to help share additional posts at the end of each post for my readers.  I liked it because it worked and it was FREE.  Their service ended December 31, 2014.  Now on their site they give some alternatives to use but they look to be for WordPress. S hould I move to  WordPress ? Any content sharing tools you know of that are free?   The searching I did all led to ones you have to pay for. Thanks in advance for any replies.