Sunday, May 11, 2014

April update

Hola everyone,

Happy Mother's Day to all the mother's that happen to come across this small blog.

Just a update from April.  A little busy so haven't been able to post or interact with other blogs as much as I'd like but I feel I can at least do a monthly update on what went on this past month.

I bought another $200 to the loyal3 account, broken into the same 14 companies.

I added $26.38 to the Fund.  Every bit helps right?  lol

I added $780 ($390 each to my wife' fidelity account and $390 to my roth account)

Let's see what else...Chevron with  a decent 7% raise on their quarterly dividend.  Awesome.

More after the jump....



Changes to our savings plan. As you know, I've been looking at putting in the bare min $2500 per tax year to take advantage of the $500 tax credit on contributing to a 529.  Well, it looks like the bill is headed in the right direct, but the bill's start date appears to be in 2015.  We never really started the 529 plan like actually setting it up and putting money into a account.  We just put money away in an online savings account until we knew more about the bill.  With that being said, we will use the money we allocated for the 529 towards principle on the house.

It's been rough on the house to say the least.  I have impeccable timing.  I bought my house in the bay area 2005.  It was $660k.  After rising a little bit, to just over $800k in 2007, I felt I made a great decision to buy when I did, only to see in fall to under 300k at it's lowest.  Yup my equity took a hit and then some.  It's been better the past 2 years, not where it once was but hopefully, it will get back to a break even point.  I was able to finally refinance under HARP in 2012 at 4.125% over 20 years (No PMI under HARP).  Currently, I have $359k left on the loan with a home value of $377k (according to zillow).  Anyway, we are thinking of refinancing one more time.  My current lender has a rate of 15 years at 3%.  However since my house doesn't have 20% equity yet based on my current mortgage yet, we will put more towards the house so we can get more equity and we might be able to refinance and not paying the PMI (the penalty for not having a 20% equity on the house).  Personally I think it's ridiculous for myself to pay PMI when I put 20% down on a 660k house in 2005 just to avoid it the first time around.  Now they are saying because my house is worth crap, I have to pay PMI if I refinance.  Tell me that's fair when the banks were taking advantage of other home owners (pretty much going out of their way) and giving them nice ARMs only for them to go down in flames when the balloon payment came up.  I stayed because i knew what I was getting myself into and I signed that contract.  Nobody put a gun to my head.  Anyway, I can go on a long rant, but I won't.  I have come to the conclusion, we can't put away towards our roth's, taxable accounts, etc. until we are able to get rid of this mortgage.  Before my wife starting working, approximately 60% of my take home went to the mortgage and not saving much of anything.  Right now since I've been tracking, with my wife working, we have been able to finally save some of our take home, 20%-25% to go towards savings and investments  and not live month to month.  If we are able to put more towards our mortgage, the equity will build up faster as the housing market recovers and with the additional payments.  and we can refinance and be able to save more towards the goals of this blog, towards financial independence and being able to pay our future kid(s) college education.

So let's get to the good part.  Dividends.  I got another high month  It's not saying much but we all have to start somewhere.

Her'es the breakdown.

SPLS (The Fund) - $5.10
KO (loyal3) - $0.16
PEP (loyal3) - $0.14
WMT (loyal3) - $0.13
KO (my Roth) - $7.87
PM (my Roth) - $11.88
Total  - $25.28

That's almost $12 over my previous high of last month and I already made more dividends than all of last year.  As always, all dividends received in the fund and my roth are DRIPed and dividends from loyal3, go towards monthly purchases.

All related tabs have been updated.

How was your month?  Hopefully, it was great.

Have a good one.

8 comments:

  1. Congrats on the dividend high. Those Loyal3 buys will soon snowball in to something big.

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  2. Hi Gareth. I sure hope the loyal3 buys snowball soon.

    Loyal3 made some changes to the use of credit/debit cards. You can use amounts of $10,$25, and $50 if you have automatic investments using credit/debit cards. The change are in effect in mid June. I'll make changes to my investments then.

    Thanks for stopping by.

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  3. It's true that every little bit counts. From dividend pennies dollars will come. Just keep at it. Thanks for sharing your recent purchases.

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    1. Thanks DivHut for stopping by. It's been a pretty busy both personally and professionally lately. I apologize for not replying sooner. I agree every little bit helps for sure. I have actually raised my monthly contributions to loyal3 ($400/month) and added some more companies to the portfolio. I'll update my portfolio this weekend, but I have added mondelez, nike, doctor pepper snapple, apple, yum, hershey, and bud to the mix.

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  4. Thanks for sharing your recent purchases and dividends received. Don't worry about the amounts. As you said you have to start somewhere. It's amazing that with little or no money added to your dividend stocks you will see the income from each rise on its own. This is power of time and compounding. Just keep at it.

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    1. Thanks again for posting DivHut. I'm looking forward to when my monthly contributions will start snowballing into something substantial. I looked at my portfolio with loyal3, I believe it's a little in the red but as long as these solid companies don't cut dividends, I'll be a happy camper. Just means I can buy more shares while it's down.

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  5. I have nominated your blog for a Liebster Award! Please visit my site here http://dividendmongrel.blogspot.com/2014/08/i-got-nominated-be-very-affraid.html to get more information. Thanks and keep up the great work!

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    1. Oh wow. Thanks so much for stopping by Dividend Mongrel. I'm so honored you have nominated me. I only started this blog to keep my accountable on my goals with investing. I never really thought anyone would follow me. Although I haven't posted as much as I have liked, I have continued to put money away towards my future. Thanks again. It's much appreciated.

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