As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. What does this mean? I recommend products (only ones that I like) and if you purchase a product through that link, I earn some money.
The stock market indices such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 are at some record breaking highs. At times like this, people often get into a frenzied like state and throw money around trying to get in on the action. What am I doing about it? Basically nothing. Although I do have a good amount of cash sitting in my bank account here in Korea earning 2% interest or so, it…
If you takes the extremes out to their most extreme points, there are 2 different ways to invest. One way is timing the market. That is, you try to figure out when the market is at its lowest and then you buy stocks. Conversely, when the market is at its highest, you try to sell and take profits. The other side is dollar-cost averaging. These people think that timing the market is way too difficult…
One of my favorite metrics that I use when determining which dividend paying stocks to buy is the payout ratio, which according to Investopedia is: “The proportion of earnings paid out as dividends to shareholders, typically expressed as a percentage.” It’s maybe helpful to think of it as similar to finances on a personal level. You have some money coming in each month and you can either spend or save it. Maybe you spend 50%…
This month, I earned $310.41 in passive income. Everything was pretty normal except for my Iherb earnings, which increased significantly to $24.99, mostly due to their free shipping special for most of May. Anytime I can earn over $300 for very little effort on my part is good news! Here’s how May 2014 compared to previous years. May 2013: $386.06 May 2012: $380.02 May 2011: $243.11 May 2010: $49.22
When you’re buying stocks, there are a lot of different kinds of orders you can use. I generally understand the basics of most of them, but in actuality, I only use 1 type, a limit order. For the dividend stock investor who is investing for the long-term, it’s all you really need. Check out Investopedia for all the different stock market order types. Here’s how a limit order works: 1. Buying stocks. If stock ABC…
Lately I’ve been listening to the podcast, “The Suitcase Entrepreneur” and I’d highly recommend it. It features Natalie Sisson, who is doing well along the path of building passive income streams and being an online entrepreneur who travels the world, having lots of interesting adventures. Her podcasts are generally short and concise, but contain lots of interesting information and so far, I haven’t encountered any episodes that I’ve stopped 1/2 way through (a rarity for…
One of my friends recently asked me about how much money I would need to invest to earn a certain amount of money each month. It’s actually quite easy to explain, but the actual calculations are a little bit complicated. I invest in dividend paying stocks and ETFs that pay a certain amount of money out in dividends/year. I hold some things on the lower end, such as VWO (Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF) at 1.2%…
How to Buy Stocks: Explained Simply I get a lot of questions from my friends and readers of this blog who are new to the investing world about how to buy stocks. There are a few options for buying stocks, but the one I like the best (by far) is using an online discount brokerage. You can go with a full-service brokerage, but they are far more expensive and also quite unnecessary. Full-service brokers help…
When you have dividend paying stocks in your portfolio, you get a share of the earnings paid back to you in the form of a dividend, usually around 3-4 times/ year (although it ranges from monthly to annually). They will automatically be added to your stock brokerage account and will impact the positive (you don’t have leverage), or negative balance (you are using debt/leverage). The exception to this is if you have an automatic dividend…
My passive income for the month of April 2014 was $274.64. You can see the breakdown of that in this Passive Income Report, as well as compared to previous months. Here is the data from previous Aprils: April 2010: 5.29 April 2011: 214.34 April 2012: 328.1 April 2013: 251.97 Overall, this month was a bit lower than other years due to decreased dividends. This year, March was a huge month for dividends, so it was…
I’m sure everyone would agree that pets are not cheap because you have to pay for things like: food, vet care, toys and a myriad of other things. I have 2 cats and I’m a big believer that it’s really possible to take care of them, cheaply. Here are some of my tips: 1. Order pet food online. In Korea at least, it’s far cheaper to order in bulk quantities online on a place like…
There are a million and one things to invest in that are far sexier than Dividend Paying Stocks. A quick list off the top of my head: IPO’s, options contracts, shorting, commodities, emerging markets, Bit coin and day trading. A lot of these things can actually make you a lot of money IF you know what you’re doing. And while I know the basics of most of that stuff, I’m certainly no expert and would…
Dave Ramsey is all about the emergency fund and I would most definitely agree with him. He advocates having $1000 in the bank until you pay off all your debts, excluding the mortgage. And then once that is done, build it up to 3-6 months of living expenses. These past few years, I’ve been really focused on making and saving my income from the day-job to invest in Dividend Paying Stocks and must admit to…
When it comes to how psychology relates to the stock market, there are 2 emotions that dictate most individual investor’s decision: fear and greed. The so-called “Smart-Money” (hedge fund/mutual fund managers) should be making better decisions than the individual investor, but not always. Fear is rampant when the stock market is in fast decline and it leads people to do crazy things such as sell when stocks have hit their lowest points (ie: the crash…
I have a few holdings that fall under the category of “industrials” and I love them because they just seem to plug along, making me money off dividends, increasing their earnings and causing me no stress or worry. Exactly the kind of companies I want in my portfolio. 1. Boeing Airlines(BA): 2.7% of my portfolio. Although they’ve had some problems in the past few years with their new airplane catching on fire, etc, they’re still…
I’m an investor, which means that I invest my money in the stock market for the long-haul and don’t really care about the short-term fluctuations in the market. I lose no sleep if there is a crash and actually feel quite happy because I can pick up stocks that I want cheaply. Trading, on the other hand is for the purpose of making money off the fluctuations in the market. You can make money when the…
I have a few things in my portfolio that are kind of hard to classify, so I’ve just included them under the category, “Consumer Staples.” They are things that consumers buy, usually habitually and over long periods of time. 1. Kimberly Clark (KMB): 4.8% of my portfolio. Everyone uses things from this company: tissues/feminine products/baby stuff, etc, which is basically the reason that I bought it. This company is one of the most “recession-proof” companies…
Gold accounts for 5.6%, and silver 2.2% of my portfolio. I am really not as well-versed in this area as I am with dividend paying stocks and ETFs, so will just offer some very general thoughts. I use ETFs (GLD/SLV) to invest in them because it’s annoying and expensive to physically hold it. Of course, you could just buy them from a store in your town or whatever, but I’m no expert and would actually…
ETFs are basically an alternative to mutual funds that have emerged in the past 10 years or so. Instead of active management like a mutual fund, they follow the passive approach. That is, they just follow and index of some sort, such as the S&P 500 or only buy a certain type of bonds or something like that. They can help a dividend stock investor by providing much needed diversification and it’s a much better…
Financial companies get a bad rap- often for good reason The whole financial sector gets a bit of a bad rap from the press, investors as well as the general public and for good reason: ridiculous compensation packages/poor financial management/extreme risk-taking/government bailouts. However, it’s too big of a sector to overlook and the key is looking for the less-risky companies that have a proven record of good management. Here are the financial stocks in my…
Building Passive Income: 2 Main Factors 1. Living frugally so that you have more money to invest in things like dividend paying stocks. 2. Putting the time in to develop the passive income streams through building websites, books, Iherb, Amazon, etc. Going Out in South Korea Usually Involves Drinking Living in South Korea as an expat (I’m originally from Canada), one of the things that frustrates me is that “going out” usually involves hitting up…
I was just listening to the Empire Flippers Podcast, episode #87 where they are talking with Dave Hermansen about building Niche Websites and the importance of understanding SEO. This is a topic that I truly know very little about, but which I know is of extreme importance if I want to eventually make my living online. Along with becoming proficient at WordPress and learning a programming language or two, this is my big goal for…
I’ve talked previously about my pharmaceutical holdings as well as the oil & gas companies that I hold. You can also check out my complete portfolio, but today I’m going to talk tech. AAPL (Apple): 5% of my portfolio. Check out the Dividend Monk’s AAPL report. INTC (Intel): 2.5% of my portfolio. Check out the Dividend Monk’s INTC report. Tech companies are generally thought to be the high-flyers, which means that they often warrant a…
