The Lord knows I couldn’t stay behind the scenes or on the sidelines for this long, as it has been quite some time since I made a full on stock purchase. I was itching for an action and I knew the end of the year was coming and wanted to go out with a “bang”. I woke up on December 30th, after having analyzed the stock market the day before and knew what I was after and it was in a different industry that I have not truly been exposed to before. Enough with the opening, let’s dive into my recent stock purchase and find out what, why and how much!
Bert’s Portfolio Review and Assessment
2014 has been a CRAZY year for my portfolio, Lanny’s portfolio, and many other participants in this great community. For many of us, we have pushed ourselves to the limit and infused as much capital as possible into our portfolios to get the dividend growth snowball running. After all, as dividend growth investors, we know the power of dividend reinvesting and all the benefits, so stretching ourselves to invest as much as possible early just makes sense. Before we begin 2015, I wanted to take some time to perform a portfolio review to assess the current state of my portfolio and perform some quick tests to see what tweaks my portfolio may need in 2015 or what areas I should be focusing on with my next round of capital deployment. With that being said, let’s peel back the layers my portfolio and dive in!
Lanny’s Dividend Income Summary – December
Hello everyone! It’s the final month of 2014 and it was a great one at that! I have finally received my last dividend payment and am able to conclude on the amount of income my portfolio was able to bring for the month. The journey is a long one and being able to reflect on the capstone 12th month of the year and to see what leaps/bounds one was able to make is a humbling experience. I know we all love to read these posts from the writers in the community, so let’s get to the December Dividend Income Summary!
Expected Dividend Increases in January
First off, Happy Holidays everyone. Regardless of which holiday you celebrate, take these few weeks to spend as much time with your family, share as many stories as possible, and create life long memories! Once again, the calendar is turning and a new set of Dividend Aristocrats are getting ready to announced dividend increases. So let’s take a look at which Aristocrats announced dividend increases in December and which Aristocrats are expected to announce dividend increases in January.
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The Impact of the Dividend Growth Rate
Ah-ha! An epiphany over my head came yesterday, a little after 7:00pm. A few days ago, I showed Bert that I added a column to my portfolio spreadsheet that showed this year of 2014’s dividend growth rate for each stock. One other column that I have in my spreadsheet, as well, is not just the weighting each stock has in my portfolio, but also the weight each stock has of income in my portfolio. After adding in the dividend growth rate to my portfolio on each stock, I decided to weight each growth rate by mistakenly the weight it had in my portfolio via market value. When talking with Bert yesterday, I realized I made that mistake and changed it to apply to the weight of income it had in my portfolio. I began to think of what this tool meant, how it can be used and the actual impact it has on the path to financial freedom! 
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Crushing $5,000 in Projected Dividend Income
What a year it has truly been. A few late dividend announcements has allowed me to conclude that my forward looking dividend income stream has hit a new milestone that going into 2014 – I had no idea existed. Heck, my initial 2014 dividend projected goal was $3,350 which kept being subsequently moved up as the year progressed. You can judge my post by the title, but let’s see what projected dividend income milestone I have reached.
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Frugal Living Tip: Asking for a Discount
I am relatively new to the frugal living lifestyle, as I didn’t even begin tracking my savings rate and monitoring my expenses with a fine tooth comb until a few months ago! But now, since I have accepted the Dividend Diplomats’ 60% Savings Challenge where I aim to save 60% of my income each month, I have been trying to find new, innovative ways to save. Recently, I have found success saving using one new method: Asking for a Discount (If the title didn’t give it away)! Let me explain.
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