Refinancing My Mortgage After Two Years and Saving $48 per month

This is an article that I am very excited to write.  And I owe a huge thank you to Lanny for helping me make it happen.  Ever since the rate cut in July, we have all been bombarded with emails asking us to refinance our mortgage.  “Why you need to refinance with Quicken Loans.”  “You’ve been pre-approved with Chase.”  Even Ally Bank, where we have both held our investment portfolios at one time, offered us a sweet refinance deal.

With an interest rate of 3.89% on a 30-year mortgage originated two years ago, I never thought that refinancing would work for me.  But as interest rates continued to slide and the refinance market exploded, rates finally reached the level where it was economically beneficial for me to make the move.  Here is why I am refinancing my mortgage after two years and unlocking some serious cash along the way.

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What are the Differences Between Mutual Funds and ETFs?

This year, we launched our financial education series.  The purpose was to educate investors on various aspects of dividend investing or just investing in general.  Some articles have been as fundamental as “What is a Dividend?”  while some articles took a deeper dive into a topic, such as “What is a REIT and How Are Dividends From a REIT Taxed?”   Today’s article will take a step out of the dividend specific topic and explain the differences between mutual funds and ETFs.  Both types of investments are important diversification options and are similar (but with some key differences).   And of course, as you would expect, there will be a dividend twist at some point in this article!  Let’s start peeling back the layers!

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Dividend Payout Ratio: Explaining the Most Important Metric

In a recent article, Lanny broke down what a dividend is and highlighted what is so great about receiving a dividend.   When I first started learning about dividend investing, there were a lot of articles and emphasis on assessing a company’s dividend payout ratio.  So I thought I would take some time today, provide a definition for the payout ratio, show how to calculate the metric, and some other details/tricks of the trade that we have picked up over the years as we continue to invest in dividend growth stocks.

Read:  The 3 Metrics of our dividend stock screener, which includes the dividend payout ratio!

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Recent Buy (KMI) & Crossing an Investing Milestone

It turns out that Lanny was not the only one with an itch to buy.   I have been watching the market closely over the last few weeks calculating an entry point for one of the stocks on my watch list, WalMart, when another great dividend stock appeared out of nowhere.  Just like Lanny, I couldn’t resist purchasing one of the darlings of the dividend growth investing community.   This week, I also invested in Kinder Morgan (KMI).

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Investing Lesson Learned: Always Have a Watch List Prepared

This week, I learned a valuable investing lesson that caused me to miss a great opportunity in the market.   Luckily, this lesson did not result in a realized loss like lessons in the past, so I can’t complain too much.  However, I did miss a golden opportunity to capitalize on Mr. Market taking a crazy turn (even more so than a few months ago).   What lesson did I learn and how will I apply it going forward?

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Dividend Diplomats 5 Important Money Lessons

One of the foundations that we have built our website on is the importance of investing in dividend paying stocks at a young age to maximize the power of compounding dividends.   That’s why we have preached frugal living as it has allowed us to maximize the amount we are able to invest now so we can reach financial freedom sooner.   While we have been successful recently saving a large percentage of our income, it hasn’t always been this way.  Through our experiences (Bert has had a lot more of these than Lanny by the way) or by watching others, we have witnessed many financial missteps of people in your twenties.  One of the best thing about the community we are in is that we share knowledge, and we have learned a ton about life, finances, and dividend paying stocks since we started this blog a year ago.   So we wanted to share with you the top 5 lessons we have learned over the years in hopes that you can get your dividend snowball rolling as soon as possible.

money mistakes

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