I know I said it in my June Dividend income article as well. But still….HOLY COW, I can’t believe the year is halfway over. This quarter will always hold a special place in my heart though considering I got married in May. Can’t believe that was a month ago too. WOW! After the quarter is over, we like to take some time here and check up on our 2016 goals to check our progress and see if we need to make any necessary adjustments on the fly. With six months remaining, there is still plenty of time to steer ourselves back onto the road if we have started wandering off.
goals review
Goal #1: Projected Dividend Income of $3,250 – Last quarter was pretty disheartening, at the end of March I was sitting at $2,591 in forward income and felt like I was staring up a mountain if I ever wanted to reach my goal. Luckily for me, I made some serious progress towards knocking this goal. At June 30th, my forward dividend income was $2,941, or 90% of my targeted income. How was I able to close the gap on this goal? First, I made two massive purchases of stocks for stocks with great yields. I purchased 123 shares of Citizens and Northern Bank and 50 shares of Target Corp and each purchase added $128 and $120 in forward dividend income to my portfolio, respectively. I wasn’t messing around with my two buys this quarter, that’s for sure! Further, I received my employer’s 401k match a few weeks ago, which was just north of $1,100. With a yield of ~2.1%, the match added $23 in forward income to my calculation. Man oh man Lanny wasn’t kidding when he wrote about why your employer’s 401k match provides a huge, free benefit to dividend growth investors like us.
Goal #2: Invest in 5 New Dividend Aristocrats in 2016. My purchase of Target also helped me make some progress towards knocking out this goal as well. I would say TGT classifies as a Dividend Aristocrat considering that their most recent dividend increase represented their 45th consecutive annual dividend increase. Boom. If you recall, in the first quarter I initiated a position in T.Rowe Price. Thus, at June 30th, I am at 40% of my goal. However, with excess capital freeing up now that my wedding is over, I am feeling a little more confident that I am going to be able to hit this mark by the end of the year. Surely I can find 3 more Aristocrats to invest in, right?
Goal #3: Investing in 2 Companies with a Sub 2% Dividend Yield. I was at zero to begin the quarter and I was at zero at the end of the quarter. That shouldn’t be surprising based on my Goal #1 update. I’ll be honest, my lack of progress here was a result of the fact that I wanted to see some progress in my forward dividend income figure. I didn’t chase yield, I just pursued great dividend paying stocks with a higher yield over low yielding stocks such as Starbucks and Visa (both of which appeared on one my watch lists during the quarter). The intent of this goal was to diversify my dividend portfolio to include some dividend stocks that pay a lower yield but offer a higher dividend growth rate. So hopefully I will be able to find some great bargains in the low dividend yield, high dividend growth rate Dividend Aristocrat aisle of the market over the next couple of quarters. I need to make progress here and in Goal #2 soon!
Goal #4: Invest $15,000 in “New Capital” in 2016. By now, I think you all know which stocks I purchased during the quarter and their impact on my dividend income. So I am going to cut right to the chase. After purchasing CZNC and TGT during the quarter, I have officially invested $7,890 in “New Capital” during the year (New Capital is defined as money transferred into my investing account from my checking account. This does not include regular 401k contributions or re-invested dividends). As of June 30th, I now find myself just over halfway there…Boom, right on target!
Goal #5: Earn $1,000 in Other Income. Ugh, this goal is extremely aggravating to me. I thought I was on to something here during the second quarter. After I published my article about how I enjoy listening podcasts, one of our followers pointed me in the direction of the Listen Money Matters podcast. The very first episode I listen to was about a family that buys clearance items at Target, Walmart, and other stores and flips them on Amazon. I left the episode so inspired that I downloaded the Amazon Seller app, drove to Target, and scanned every single clearance product to see which products would net me over $10 per piece. That day, I ended up buying three products for $50 and listed the products online expecting them to fly off the shelf. Well, lets just say my gross sales for the quarter were $0….the products are still listed! By the way, I listed them over a month and a half ago….man. I probably need to research the products a little more next time before I just jump into a venture. Oh well! I still have some work to do here to hit my goal of $1,000 during the year. It takes some time, but I am going to keep at it and good things will happen.
Goal #6: Learn One New Song on Piano. What I am about to say is not going to be a great sign about the status about my progress, but I can’t remember the last time I sat down to play piano. Learning a song on piano requires a lot of time, aka committing a block of time each day or two, and I just haven’t had that. It sucks, but what can you do. Plus, my wife has taken it upon herself to use my piano bench as an extension of her personal shoe rack and now I can’t even sit down at my piano if I wanted to play (Of course I could move them if I wanted to).
Summary
There we have it, my second quarter goals review. While I slacked on the last few goals, I am really excited about the progress I made towards achieving my investing goals. Hopefully the capital that was infused in my portfolio during this quarter sets the table for a strong second half. I am ready to hit the ground running and make even more progress during the 3rd quarter!
How did you perform during the second quarter? Did you crush your goals? If not, have you figured out what changes you are going to make in the coming months to get you back on track? What are your thoughts on my progress? Any low yielding Dividend Aristocrats on your watch list?
Bonus: I’ll give major props to someone if they can guess the band I was listening to while writing this article. I’ll give you a hint, I love rock music that was produced before the 2000s. Hopefully that narrows it down for you!
Bert