BIG FRIDAY OF BUYS

 After spending the past five months covering the costs of my mom's care, I finally got to reimburse and also invest more to cover her ongoing care.   

In the past, I decided to balance out my portfolio by limiting my ownership to about $4,000 for each holding.  Of course there were some exceptions, but my overall goal was to have some balance.  Once I hit that $4K, I would move on to others.   

I did this because when I first started this investing thing, I had all my eggs in one basket.  Then I had 2 baskets...  then I decided that was totally idiotic, and diversified the stock to about 30 companies.  Then 40.  Then 50.  Now I'm up to about 100 different holdings.

This provides a strong buffer in case some company goes tits up.  If one of my 100 companies falls into the abyss, I only lose more or less 1%.   It does also mean that I get to experience a few big stock pops every year.  It's all in moderation and relatively safe.

Usually when I get some cash from dividends, I will look for the best value at the time and invest in that company.  Now that I received a chunk of funds, it is time to go shopping.   

This time though, I decided to increase the $4K limit to $5K.   Instead of taking my time to research 100 companies, I decided to top many of them off at $5K.  I figured if I already liked it enough to hold about $4K, I can bump it up to $5K.  Spending an eternity looking for the best deal of the day would never end and would lose out on gains.  So I just went down the list alphabetically, took a quick glance, and usually bought some shares.  I did skip some where I just missed an ex-dividend date or was really overvalued.   Eventually they will look better.  

To sum it up:  I made 17 stock purchases totalling $80,188.50 that will add $1,544.51 to my annual dividends.   That's a huge day.  That adds $0.17 1/2 cents per hour of income, whether I am working, sleeping, or just living.   Just for being alive.  Every little bit counts.

 So here is my list of purchases:  

The big purchases of Target (TGT), Bank of America (BAC), Discover (DFS), and Williams-Sonoma (WSM) were the replacement of the holdings I sold back in July.  I promised myself to make them whole once again.

I will be doing this again during this next week with the rest of my holdings.  Then the compounding will really kick in.

I will be updating the month end buys in early December and should be quite the post.

OCTOBER 2021 DIVIDEND INCOME

I freaking LOVE  October.  I LOVE Halloween.   I love the leaves turning red and yellow.  I love the chance of dressing to warm up.  I love knowing the holidays are nearly here.  I love my kid gets to trick or treat a couple more times before she outgrows it.

I also freaking LOVE earning dividend income.  Getting paid 4 times a year by companies you own a tiny portion of is a wonderful sense of security.  Doing it 100 times over, and those teeny portions really can add up.  Especially when they keep increasing the dividend paid out.

This month was the perfect example of patience, and dedication to increasing the return.   In October, I received 30 payments for a total of $1,201.85    

That's a 74.18% increase over 2020 ($689.99).   Mind blown.  Well, not really.  I saw this coming.  And moving forward, the year to year increase will be more moderate, but steady.  

This thing really is a snowball rolling downhill.     Here's the details:

My biggest haus was yet another "special" dividend from ORI of $322.50.  These special dividends are common enough that "special" is not the proper term for it.   All I know is that it makes me feel very special.

More so than the big special chunks, I really like getting a steady flow of income to reinvest.  

I took nearly all of this $1201.85 and purchased more shares of holdings I own.    In a month or so, I will be doing a large post of my purchase activity.   Keep tuned for that.

Until then, stay safe and do what I do - take your spare cash every day and buy a share or two instead of spending it on stuff like a bag of chips...