Dividend raise - T

I'm very excited to announce my very first dividend raise!

AT&T raised their dividend from $0.46 to $0.47.
This is a 2.1% raise. Sadly but true, this is more than my paycheck raised back in January..

It is also twice as much as my bank offers me in interest. Dissatisfaction about this low interest was one of the main reasons to start this journey, so I'm very happy about this raise.

At the 2nd of February AT&T paid me a total of $22.56 for my 48 stocks.

These raises are the power of DGI, so I'm very excited to plan my next investment, in order to receive many more raises in the future.

Did you have any recent raises?

Thanks for reading!

Recent sell - TICC

Back in July I did a small investing experiment.
Despite all the alarms around this company, I bought a few stocks of a company called TICC.
Main reason for this was: I had not enough capital left to buy a blue chip stock, but the 12% dividend also looked very attractive.

This extremely high yield obviously has its reasons. The stock has been declining ever since I bought it.

Bought it at $9.80 and I sold half a year later for $7.44.
Total dividend paid: $1.16. Net result: -$1.20.

Lessons learned: don't invest in companies with extremely high dividend yield. Not even when they have more than 10 years of dividend paying history.

Despite the loss, this lesson seems to be much more valuable than this single dollar.

Have you had any risky operations going?

Thanks for reading!

Recent buy - January

Chevron  (CVX)
Buy: 10 shares @ 107.73

With the low price of crude oil, this was an obvious purchase. Thanks for all the advices in the comments. It's much appreciated!

Thanks for reading!


Disclosure: Long CVX

New investment oppertunity

One of my goals is to keep the portfolio as diversified as possible from the start of my investing career. In order to achieve that, I used to compare stats of companies in very different sectors, because I did not own shares of any of these sectors, so it did not matter which I bought.

This comparison however, does not make very much sense.
Stats like PE and growth percentages make more sense if you compare KO & PEP, rather than MCD, UVW & DE.

Current sector diversification

For this graph I used the sectors from David Fish's CCC list.
So I'm looking for an investment oppertunity in one of these sectors, as I do not currently own them.

• Energy
• Industrials
• Information tech
• Materials
• Utilities

As the oil price is plumming, Energy seems a very good sector to start investing in. Let's compare a few companies in this sector.

Chevron Corporation (CVX)

CCC Category: Champion (>25 years dividend increase)
Yield: 3.82%
P/E: 10.33
5 year DGR: 9.62%

Heimerich & Payne Inc (HP)

CCC Category: Champion (>25 years dividend increase)
Yield: 4.08%
P/E: 10.45
5 year DGR: 67.35%

Exxon Mobile (XOM)

CCC Category: Champion (>25 years dividend increase)
Yield: 2.99%
P/E: 11.63
5 year DGR: 10.22%

British Petrolium Inc. (BP)

CCC Category: None, but they pay dividend since 1993.
Yield: 6.36%
P/E: 12.03
5 year DGR: unknown

As I am still constructing the foundation of the portfolio, I'd like to keep investing in Champion companies, so I won't be investing in BP for now.

Any thoughts on the others? I've noticed other bloggers picking up CVX recently, but these numbers favor HP, don't they?

Thanks for reading!

Dividend income - September, October & November 2014

This is the true power of DGI. I haven't been very active for the last couple of months. Despite that fact, the money was still working for me! All I had to do was wake up every day and do my daytime job.

September 2014

KO $12.50
TICC $0.58

Total: $13.08

October 2014
T $22.08

Total: $22.08

November 2014
KO $12.50
JNJ $11.20
TGT $14.56
AFL $7.41
MCD $9.35

Total: $55.02

After starting back in June, I would not have believed that this long term strategy could end up earning $55 in just a few months time. It was one of my goals to create an annual passive income of $200 in 2015, but I just increased this goal to $300, to reflect my new expectations.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas with your loved ones.

by Chopeh @ deviantart

Recent buy - August

Despite the fact I had to buy a new bike, I'm happy to announce a recent buy.

My job is asking a lot of my attention, so that's why I haven't been very actively blogging recently.
Hopefully I'm able to blog more in the near future, as I love to be part of this great community.


McDonald's (MCD)
Buy: 11 shares @ 94.77

This stock is in many portfolio's for a reason.
They increased their dividend for 39 years in a row and this year is no different.

Thanks for reading!


Disclosure: Long MCD

Income & expenses - August 2014

My bike got stolen
I live in a big city. As I was cleaning my garage, I had to park the bike outside. Unfortunately I forgot to put the bike back in the garage after I finished my work. So the bike was kept outside for about a week. More than enough time for some douchebag to steal it. A costly and stupid mistake from my side.


Normal account income
€3099 Salary
€100 Loan payment
€25 Loan payment

Normal account - expenses
€1013 Rent + utility bills + state tax
€527 Groceries + personal hygiene + cash withdrawals (usually spent on  groceries as well)
€351 Gas + car insurance + state car tax
€295 New bike
€200 Fun money (going out dinner, theater, sports, etc.)
€99 Payment to a student loan
€93 Cable TV + mobile phone + fast internet access
€68 Medical insurance (covers full cost of any hospital visit for example)

I withdrew some more money than usual. This is why the 'groceries' are more expensive than usual.

Broker account - in & out
€800 - For a new investment opportunity

Savings account - in & out
€200 - Remaining money at normal account at salary pay day goes to savings account.

Thanks for reading!