The Dividend Family Guy

I grew up in a family were both parents smoked.  My grandparents smoked and so did my aunts and uncles.  I remember at holiday gatherings the smoke being so thick you could not see from one end of the living room to the other.  Slight exaggeration but it was pretty foggy.  I did not enjoy any part of it and have never tried a cigarette in my life.  It is very addictive though so I don't see tobacco products going away any time soon.  It is a personal preference and I am fine with that so long as it doesn't affect my family.  There is money in tobacco though so I thought I would take a look in my rankings to see if any stood out.  There is only one that made the top 100, Universal Corp.  The others all have high yields but looking at their other numbers who knows if they can pay that yield long term.   Of the six we are looking at today only UVV and MO are dividend champions.  That is a good indicator that dividend ...

Gas was $2.80 for me this weekend.  That was with my gas card's 3 cents/gallon discount.  Going through my ranking system for the month 3 big oil companies were in the top 100 list.  High yields?  Good value?  Let's take a look at how the 3 end up in a battle against each other using the DFG ranking system .  I do need to work some more on that page once I have some more time. The companies I will be looking at are all well-known companies.  ConocoPhillips (COP) , Chevron Corp. (CVX) and of course ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM).  All of them are energy companies that have businesses that deal with exploration of oils and gasses, production, refinement, etc. though out the world.  XOM and CVX are both dividend champions (25+ straight years of higher dividends) while COP is an up and coming contender (10-24 straight years of higher dividends.)   Value ExxonMobil has the best value when I put the ranking together.  The price to...

I always look forward to this bi-annual event of 3 paychecks in one month.  My last one was in May.  Overall it wasn't a bad month.  I did come in a little over budget (about $608.95 to be exact ).  There was one of those unexpected expenses that come out of nowhere.  My wife's 2006 minivan wouldn't accelerate.  Allot of things with houses and cars seem to break in the fall with the first cold spell.  This car repair was costly.  What am I talking about all car repairs these days are costly.  If it didn't happen I would have stayed within my budget.  Oh well.  I save for car expenses so when these things happen I do not go further into debt. Expense Breakdown Overall things are pretty much the same.  You will see the percentage increase a lot for cars (like 11%).  Most other categories were pretty much in line with the previous.  I spent a little more on food.  I made a onetime purchase of about $60 w...

One of those odd months where I had more dividend come in my smaller taxable account vs. my IR. Here is a quick breakdown. The biggest company being Windstream where I have a large percentage of it in my taxable portfolio. I did switch this dividend to not be automatically reinvested. Instead it went to cash and I used it along with my remaining cash to purchase shares of MCD when it had a good dip this month. I haven't written about McDonald's yet but there are plenty of articles already out there on it. I did not have a goal for total dividends set for this year since this is the first year I am actively investing in a dividend portfolio. Regardless I am doing quite well with $627.62 of income from my taxed account. This is light-year's past my total dividends from last year. The IRA is doing better at $1,168 but if I were to lose my job or retire early that income doesn't do me much good until I can withdrawal it penalty free. What was your best buy this mon...