Trappings of a Random Saturday

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People often ask me how I can afford to travel so much, so this Saturday I stayed home. This is how it turned out:
0800 Slept in, decided today I was going to “make” some money by turning in my empty aluminum cans (I had three big trashcans full of them).
0830 Got to the recycling center in Riverside, CA but the sign said it didn’t open until 0900 so I went to the car wash.
0835 Car Wash was $9. (Total -9)
0845 Still wasn’t 0900 so I decided to get a “15 minute” oil change at Jiffy Lube. Cost was $52. (Total -61)
0855 Jiffy Lube informs me that somehow I have lost my valve stem covers so I go on Amazon to buy new ones. Cost was $7.88. (Total -68.88)
0930 I get out of the “15 minute” oil change and go back to the Riverside recycling center. Long line, but the center is not open.
0945 I decide to go to the recycling center in Moreno Valley. I am amazed at how many aluminum cans people can stuff in their car. I am given $8.71 for my recycling. (Total -60.17)
1000 Invite Denise out to check out the new empanada shop that opened downtown. Cost $16 (-76.17)
1130 Notice my gas tank is under 1/4 , refill to full. Cost $40 (-116.17)

1200 I get home and AJ tells me that he twisted his power chord adapter for his laptop that he uses for school. Cost $20.65 (-136.82)

1400 I realize that it is Fast Sunday weekend and I know the two empanadas I ate earlier is not going to tide me over for 24 hrs. and I don’t want to cook so I ask Denise to order fast food Chinese. Cost $16.73 (-153.55)

1800 Denise asks me what I did today and I realize it isn’t much so I decide to make this blog post. $153.55 to do nothing. That is more than my plane tickets to Morelia, Mexico plane tickets cost. I think there is better ways to spend my time. I don’t care too much about the $153.55 , I can get that back. I can’t however get my time back, that is gone for good. The way I see it is I was going to probably have to spend the $153.55 regardless, I would just rather spend it seeing something new.

DOGE Coin

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DogeCoin-header-min

In 2013 DOGE (pronounced dough ghe) coin was created as a joke response to Bitcoin. When it first came into creation it had $5 billion tokens and 14.4 Million tokens to be created every day. The creator of the coin thought it would be a cute way to introduce people to cryptocoin and then he dropped it. Actually he gave a lot of it away, including enough to send out the Jamaica Bobsled team.

Anyhow, I bought it as joke as well, but the joke is on me because my $40 is now worth $8,000 . I have about 20,000 DOGE, so even if it goes to $1 I am not going to become a millionaire but I am very interested in what it is going to do. I have already gained back my original investment so everything I have now is basically free. It should be interesting to see how this works out.

The current market capitalization makes DOGE the #8 largest cryptocurrency. My prediction is we will reach $1 this year and probably stabilize closer to $5.

If you are interested in trying to get this token yourself you can try on Robinhood. I am not a big fan of Robinhood but it is the only market that I can do it on right now. Here is my referral link if you want to try it out. https://join.robinhood.com/johnp12

 

NOTE: This is not investment advice, my whole investing strategy is I play around with a little bit of money here an there and just see what happens. I am not an expert and I guarantee nothing.

Where Do I Fit in the World?

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I finally got my budget spreadsheets finished for 2018. Not that it matters much because with monthly dividends I will not be getting my finalized tax forms until at least mid-February and with the government shutdown I probably will not  be filing until at least mid-march, but I can get some estimates going so I know approximately what I owe to Uncle Sam. Good news on that is even though I get lazy, I forget stuff, I don’t even post every month like I should, but the good news is my money is always working for me.

The other good news is a lot of my money (about $200K worth) is in tax exempt accounts, so I don’t think I will owe Uncle Sam that much.

The total for December dividends was $4,836.24, total for the year was $7,024.25. As you can see the majority of those dividends came in December. That is the big month for me for dividends, but since that is when most yearly dividends come in I expect that is how it goes for most people.

One of the games I like to play is to see where I am at in the world. With a monthly dividend base at about $585, I am at about the same level as someone at Bulgaria. 55 out of 89 (countries that report), not too bad. It is kind of comforting to know that if all heck broke loose I wouldn’t be completely homeless. I did notice that Egypt was at the bottom of this list at $173 a month, kind of strange to me because I imagine Egypt not to be the richest country in the world but it does have resources. This is not the real bottom though since there are countries that are reporting. For example according to the UN the GDP of Tuvalu is $38 per year, how does anyone live on .10 a day let alone a whole country?! That is a crazy thought to think about.

September 2018 Dividends

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As always the dividends:

Robinhood Account:
Total – $64.35

Charles Schwab Brokerage Account:
Realty Income $3.96
Interest Payment $.03
Total – $3.99

Charles Schwab ROTH IRA:
Realty Income $2.20
Cedar Fair LP $3.56
Interest Payment $.08
Total – $5.84

ICMA 457K Account:
Total – $390.49

Overall Total: $464.67

I love those big quarterly reports. Dividend wise September was yet another big month. 164% higher than the same month last year. Gotta love that!

What I don’t love is the fact that interest rates are going up. I am not sure the stock market is ready for that kind of inflation. It is starting to show in some of my biggest dividend owners. As much as it hurts me to give up that $28 a month dividend for Orchid Capital (ORC), I felt it was time to sell. I have also put in a put option on the stock as I feel it could fall even lower. I will be taking  a hard look at all my REITs in the upcoming months.

August 2018 Dividends

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OK, it isn’t the end of August but as far as dividends go, it is the end for me. August isn’t a great month for dividends for me, but it is OK because I still get some dividends, plus as you will see I also got a different surprise.

So first the dividends:

Robinhood Account:
Artesian Resources $2.39
Sandridge Permian Trust $5.42
HCP $9.25
EPR Properties $2.16
Realty Income $6.60
Orchid Capital, Inc. $27.99
AGNC Investment Corp. $7.20
Consolidated Communications $3.87
Interest Payment $.10
Total – $64.98

Charles Schwab Brokerage Account:
Realty Income $3.96
Interest Payment $.03
Total – $3.99

Charles Schwab ROTH IRA:
Realty Income $2.20
Interest Payment $.02
Total – $2.20

ICMA 457K Account:
Total – $0

Overall Total: $71.19
Not as cool as last month when I was over $100 but I know that next month is going to be huge. Why? Because most stocks (and most of mine are common) pay out in March, June, September, and December. Plus, I made 9% more in dividends this month than I did last year in August, so I can feel confident the dividends are still growing.

Not a dividend stock (yet), the big star stock for the month was AMD. I am over 49% gain just this month. I first bought this stock April 13, 2015. At that time I was experimenting with Bitcoin. As I was researching Bitcoin, then Litecoin, then Ripple, etc. I started to notice a trend, everyone was using AMD microprocessors in their mining rigs. The name was not unfamiliar to me. AMD was a rival to another company called NVDIA. They went head to head with each other in the 90s making graphic cards and NVDIA won, only to have both companies see major losses in the recession of 2008. I decided to do some research in the company and learned about how AMD builds graphic processors for use in embedded systems. A GPU with an integrated graphics processor is genius. This is not new technology, Intel is doing the same thing, the thing is AMD is doing it better. A smaller company than INTEL, AMD was poised to build better chips faster than anyone else.

In 2015 all the analysts were having none of that, my first purchase was made at $2.77. Downgrades came fast and furious saying AMD was going to lose their patent rights to INTEL, they had no market share, and no one could build a better chip than NVDIA. September 15th, 2015, I made another large purchase at $1.85. I was called an idiot and crazy but I trusted my research. It wasn’t until March of 2016 the stock came back to my buy price again. By April 2016 I had doubled my money, flip the stock, had some left over let it ride. Next flip came faster in November 2016, then again in March 2017. April 2018, I decided to make another buy at about $9.50, my current average is $7.33 for all my stock. Since I have already cashed out my earlier flips all the money I have in right now is basically profit on top of profit. I am up 231% on that.

Unbelievable, if only all my stocks could do that. I am however realistic, I know that nothing goes up forever. This is just one stock and INTEL and NVDIA are not going to just sit back and let AMD take market share from them. The next few quarters will be interesting, but I think AMD has a lot more space to run.

Fair disclosure, I am invested long in all the stocks mentioned in this post. I am not paid for this post, but if someone wanted to I would let them. Then again I doubt if many people read my posts, so I don’t think that is going to happen any time soon, I am just writing for the fun of it, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Oops I am Lazy but My Money Isn’t

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Oops, I have been lazy but as the title says, luckily my money isn’t lazy. As long as it is invested it continues to work regardless what I do, which I will discuss later really isn’t much. Here are some number so you can get an idea of where I have been with dividends (from all accounts):

Jan 18: 87.82
Feb 18: 47.61
Mar 18: 317.95
Apr 18: 94.90
May 18: 63.80
Jun 18: 758.62
Jul 18: 116.41

As you can see in February I was a bit low. I moving around some of my stocks that month so I ended up being a little low. Re-assessing your stocks every once in awhile I think is a good thing. I like to look at where my stocks are and see if they still stand the test of why I buy them.

One stock recently I felt I had to move on from was Dean Foods (DF). I liked the company but the writing is on the wall, people are just not so enthusiastic with dairy these days. Put in a few tariffs on our exports and I don’t see much a future for the company (at least not for the next 3 or so years. On the other hand I continue to love Southwest Airlines, which is great because their stock ticker is LUV. I have definitely increased my position in them lately. I think their model of budget, but still including the basics is going to work well for them. They are also really good at buying fuel contracts, so that acts as an extra bonus.

It is a bit of research but that is really not that much work because to me it is like a hobby. I like looking up information on different companies. A fun hobby that just happens to be netting me about $200 a month. I should also mention that the majority of my position is somehow related to the SP500, either through a mutual fund or just SPY, that just means I am investing in the economy as a whole, which to me is a very cheap way to go if you don’t have a solid opinion. All in all, not bad for sitting on my couch surfing the internet.

One Stream Secure

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COLAToday I got a 4% COLA. COLA stands for Cost of Living Adjustment. Not much but it is the little things that add up. The last few years have been great for the economy but not so great for government workers. It takes many years before wages catch up to government workers but when it does it is a big thing.

The reason why it is a big thing when it happens is not much due to the raise in hourly rate that it produces. That is great, but for me it is more about my final compensation rate, the rate at which my pension is calculated. Pennies on the hourly, but that will recalculate into $1,000s when my pension is calculated.

In fact I calculated my pension right now and I am looking at $2,000 a month. This was my goal when I first thought about getting a job with a pension.

Why $2,000? I figure that I can live most anywhere with $2,000 a month. I wont be driving lamborghinis or living in Beverly Hills, but I can make a pretty good living with that amount. Despite my personal obsession of securing money, having a lot has never really been my goal. To me it is just about security.

Having one stream of income is good but it is always good to build up multiple revenue streams. So I will continue to build up alternate revenue streams. In addition to my pension income I am building up my 457K account (made up of mostly ETFs and mutual funds), an active stock portfolio, a dividend stock portfolio, a crypto currency portfolio, and a side website design business. Hopefully all these different investments will become revenue streams unto themselves to help support me later when I decide to stop my current revenue stream, AKA my real job.

December 2017 Dividends

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Five months without a blog post!! This blog must be over, nope, just lazy, sort of… Anyhow, the good news despite what I do (or don’t do) the dividends still come in and they still accumulate.

The truth is the last few months I have been using my extra investing time playing the crypto currency markets. From my initial investment into bitcoin at $7K to my expansion out into alternative crypto currency investments it has been a pretty crazy world. Unlike the stock market investing in the crypto currency markets is a whole different ballgame. Back in 2012 I bought some coins at about $10 each. I remember in 2014 there being some talk about if it was going to be legal to own a bitcoin and so I sold them at about $150. I made a good profit but today one bitcoin is worth $13K. Had I kept those initial coins I would have now had about $12 million dollars. Instead I reinvested a few months ago at about $7K. Bitcoins jumped going as high as $19,000. I did a lot of selling and buying. I did not make anywhere close to $12 million dollars but I did manage to accumulate some new coins. In the end I now have a few ETH.X (also known as etherium), a few thousand XRP (also known as ripple), and a few thousand ETN (also known as electroneum). I also have a few thousand extra dollars that I am not sure what to invest with but I decided to keep in it in my crypto locker in case I need to make a few more quick trades.

This however is not what the title of my blog post is about. I am doing this blog post to talk about December 2017 Dividends. December is always a great time for dividends. Actually, it is always my best month. This is mainly due to my 457K account which consists of mostly mutual accounts that pay dividends in December. Add in a few special dividend payments and it makes for an awesome month. So without further ado here is how I did:

457K Account:
104.76+158.83+1364.09+588.15+131.08+917.49=$3264.40
Robinhood Account: $64.72
AGNC (American Capital Agency Corp.) – $5.94
DF (Dean Foods Inc.) – $2.70
EPR – (Entertainment Properties Trust) – $1.36
FUN – (Cedar Point) – $5.34
HSY – (Hersheys Inc.) – $1.97
KO – (Coca Cola Inc.) – $5.18
O (Realty Income Corp.) – $4.66
ORC – (Orchid Capital Inc.) – $28.56
WFC – (Wells Fargo & Co.) – $1.95
WTR – (Aqua America Inc.) – $2.46
YUM – (Yum Inc.) – $3.90
YUMC- (Yum China Holdings, Inc.) -$.70

Charles Schwab Account: $3.89
O – (Realty Income Corp.) – $3.82
Interest – .07

Total From All Sources: $3,333.01
Total Dividends 2017: $4,599.37
Percentage Increase from 2016: 57.61%

A 57.61 % increase in dividends and all I did was go on with my normal life. Pretty cool.

Also to recap last year. All my investments netted me an 18% increase in net worth over last year. Not bad at all.