The Dividend Family Guy

It is week 3 of my unemployment.   House projects are coming along nicely but there seems to be an endless stream of them.   The stream is a result of having lots of kids I prefer to spend time with and putting off most of the stuff until now.   No complaints here though as it gives me something to do in between phone screens. It appears that I have aged myself out of most jobs.   By that I mean I cost too much and am over qualified.   While that is flattering I may have to set aside my ego and take a step back in my current career to provide for the family. In short I won't be buying any stocks this month.   With cash now being king I am saving every penny I can in case I need to dip into emergency funds once the severance package is spent. I am still working out (free weights) and talking to friends which keeps my spirits high.   Also we had an Easter celebration with my side of the family last weekend.   Seeing all of them always makes me happy. Pleas

Using the Frugalmaster machine (your mind) often results in a happier life and a fuller wallet.   You use this machine every time you decide to delay gratification of stuff and instead focus your energies on what makes you happier. My wife and I recently did an exercise together where we list 5 things that make us happier.   What was not on the list was our home, stuff, or money.   What was both on our lists was spending time together as a family.   There was once a show called Growing Pains with the theme song of As Long as We Got Each Other .   Social connectedness is one of the things humans need.   So as always I am trying to retrain my mind to focus on family and less on stuff. I admit though that I am not perfect (as is evident in my monthly expenses).   Let's have a look and see where improvements could be made. Category Spent FrugalMaster Notes   Housing/ Insurance $2,260 Still paying extra $

Landscape at Home and Garden show The goal of dividend growth investing is to create an income stream from many companies that increase their dividend each year.   To protect the income stream they should also be a diversified set of stocks across the many sectors of the industry.   Let's see what companies worked for me and deposited those profits into my brokerage accounts. This month I was visited by the telecommunications dividend fairies (VZ and T).   While tight competition keeps them from large dividend increases, they provide a nice yield to purchase other dividend growth stocks. My largest REIT holding (OHI) also did some heavy lifting and rewarded me with a decent chunk of change.  My REIT sector is near my target weight in the portfolio so those dividends will go toward other opportunities. Company Ticker Dividend Increase Dividends Received Alliance Holdings GP, L.P. AHGP $.01

Company Name Symbol Industry No. Years Dividend Yield Sector EPS% Payout +/-% vs. Graham Chowder Rule Principal Financial Group Inc. PFG Financial Services 10 3.27 Financials 26.19 (29.4) 23.0 Prudential Financial Inc. PRU Insurance 10 3.39 Financials 32.00 (41.0) 16.8 Helmerich & Payne Inc. HP Oil&Gas 45 4.34 Energy 33.86 (27.1) 62.8 Altria Group Inc. MO Tobacco 48 4.19 Consumer Staples 49.53 128.1 12.5 Consolidated Edison ED Utility-Electric 44 3.82 Utilities 13.03 (52.3) 6.5 Portland General Electric Co. POR Utility-Electric 12 3.42 Utilities 23.09 (33.8) 7.7 Archer Daniels Midland ADM Agriculture 43 3.23