The Weekend Reading – July 19, 2014

We are now going to create a Weekend Reading post of our favorite weekly reads and show the community – which one’s we’ve read and which one’s we’ll make a mention!  These are articles that sparked our interest, intrigued us, challenged us and even taught us a few lessons.

 The List

Our big motivator and journey-man Dividend Mantra had a great article about Saving More being more Effective Than Earning More.  He used great examples about how someone can be saving 25% of $40K, but then gets a raise of $10K, boosting his savings to $20K per year, which still is only 40%, not a bad mark, but still someone who has saved 50% of their income and continues to do that ultimately gets to financial freedom faster.  It all comes down to learning how to save 50% with lower amount of income, so that your expenses aren’t as high and you break down what you need/don’t need.  Thus, any pay increase should even break the 50% barrier and reduce your time even more.  Great read to learn why it’s better to save than to earn.  If you have both – save and earn more – then you are on a rocketship to financial freedom.

Cashville talks about work/employment Burnout and how saving, planning and having options can reduce your stress.  Being in public accounting – the dynamic is non-stop and the last 9 days I have worked until 1 am twice.  I find at the place I work – the dynamic of our office is quite interesting and we don’t have the most highly motivated individuals, thus the burden of work projects gets tossed back up stream because the reliability isn’t there.  Suffering from work burnout is bad.  Great read.

DivHut has posted an article about Canadian Century Club stocks – or stocks that have paid out dividends for over 100 years!  It’s quite interesting to see that all Canadian century club stocks are banks over there, which luckily one of us diplomats owns one (Lanny – CM).  They are all relatively undervalued with P/Es below 15 and yields of 3.5%+ .  Great post if you haven’t gone into the Financial Institutions area and are looking for a quality bank with great history.

RetireBeforeDad has continued his track record of increasing the monthly income from his investments and is geared to continue to make more moves into rental properties and also he highlighted the potential Bank of America dividend increase request.  We shall see if that gets approved, but they are the last monster bank to raise their dividend.  It should be interesting to see what happens there.  Check out his page to see the different investments he entails and is embarking on into the future!

Retire By 40 had a great article about Why we Buy Useless Stuff.  It is a very interesting read and shows why the US continues to buy junk, which ultimately fills the space that we live in, to the point where we either have to expand our living environment or get a storage unit to place all of this “Junk” that we continue to buy.  When one is about to make a purchase – you should ask yourself – do I Need this or is this just a want?  It’s all about knowing what you WANT out of life – possessions or experiences?  I tend to opt for experiences when I have the chance.  Lately, I’ve been buying too many things I think that I Believe I need, but really I more than likely don’t.  This helps me re-evaluate the things I have to see what I can give away to the needy or sell online.  Nice post.

See DividendLife use math to show which is better – Dividend Yield or Dividend Growth?  Div Life also provides spreadsheets within the post so that we can tweak to see our own horizons.  In the summary you can see – it all comes down to investing time period, goals, and possibly risk levels.  Very interesting read to really get into a calculated formula for projections.  Check it out.

Please check out these posts!  They were very fun and great to read.  Hope you all have a great weekend, talk soon!

-Diplomats

14 thoughts on “The Weekend Reading – July 19, 2014

  1. Hi Lanny & Bert,

    Thanks for including my post in your summary! My question “is growth is better than yield?” is really like asking “how long is a piece of string?” since the answer depends on your goals. But I thought it would be useful to work out some methods to compare between the two.

    Keep up the great work on your blog and best wishes on your independence journey!
    -DL

    • DL,

      I agree — that’s a funny way to put it – How long is a piece of strong – the length will vary person to person, even if we are holding the same string. I like the math, it puts it in a quantifiable way to measure your goals and prospective stock.

      I appreciate the stop by – we will all keep at the blogging and investing, need to beat “time”!

      -Lanny

    • Cashville,

      Of cours Addison! We love reading your blog and you have different aspects to life that you bring in. And by different I mean – “real” life examples from yourself that us readers can relate to. You’re kicking butt, lets continue to stay focused on our goals!

      -Lanny

    • DM,

      Of course man! You are a great mentor to us and the community – it’s great that many of us share common goals and can continue to see things in the market place as well as in life to help us get there in the best possible way. Hope you’re having an awesome weekend! Talk soon.

      -Lanny

  2. Hi Bert and Lanny,

    Great summary of very interesting reads. I use an excel sheet to compare dividend growth vs yield, but the work of DividendLife is more extensive and I specifically enjoyed the table which I will definitely use for future reference. Thank you very much!

    Dividend Venture

    • Div Venture,

      All about the resources you use to get you to the decision you need to make. It’s been interesting to see so many different takes on individuals goals/metrics used/analysis tools – that we can all share and learn from others – find out what works for us, what doesn’t, what improves our analysis and what can make things “clearer”. I know that the constant discussion of Dividend Growth vs Yield will be an ongoing battle, but as long as you have fundamentally sound, financially strong companies – we should be good either way : ) Thanks again for swinging on by! Talk soon.

      -Lanny

    • DivHut – not a problem! Always love reading your articles and I’m sure you won’t be stopping. It’s great being a part of this community, especially with so much information – it’s helpful to have many of our members summarize what’s going on out there. Thanks again!

      -Lanny

  3. DDs,
    Thanks so much for including my piece in your list this week. That BAC story kind of flew under the radar. We should be hearing the news in the next few weeks. Feeling confident it will be approved. I’ve been waiting a long time for the dividend to start up again (maybe too long!). Enjoy the weekend.
    -RBD

    • RBD,

      Of course – thank you for placing out articles that strike our interest all of the time! I am excited as heck for BAC, as I love the industry – especially since I am an auditor in the industry – and have been a long follower of the big bank dividend trends. They’re the last one and I feel good as well. We shall see! Thanks again for the post RBD.

      -Lanny

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