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.
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…
Board games are one of my favorite forms of entertainment for the following reasons: they involve using your brain, there’s an element of competition, the atmosphere is conducive to chatting and socializing, it’s a great way to meet new people and it fits in kind of perfectly with the frugal lifestyle. I’m lucky in the city that I live in that there are a couple of active groups that meet up regularly for some gaming…
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…
At this point in my life and career, I feel like I’m being pulled in many directions. A large part of it is that I’m actually quite good at organizing things like groups of people and arranging big events, as well an online stuff like blogging/social media which are skills that many people don’t have. Plus, I can teach quite literally anything that would possibly be offered in the realm of “English” at Korean unis.…
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…
I’ve lived in South Korea, working as an English teacher for almost 10 years. For the first 7 years or so, I lived extremely frugally. Like, I always rode public transport and tried to avoid taxis, didn’t have a smart-phone, stayed in the school provided housing and had no pets. And like I would really consider it seriously any time that I spent more than about $5. My weakness was travel, but I almost always…
Part of not having a TV has to do with living in Korea. It’s just kind of a hassle to get it all set-up with cable, etc. and it just seems not even worth it because there aren’t that many channels I’d actually watch. And even when I’m in Canada or the USA, there really isn’t that much I like to watch. So, it’s not really a big deal. But, I love not having a…
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…
One of the big debates that I have in my head all the time is whether to work more at my day-job, or whether to spend more time building up my passive income streams through things like building niche websites, self-publishing books and HubPages. My job at a Korean university is kind of ideal actually because according to my contract, I only have 9 teaching hours, although I usually get forced to do 11 or…
For my February report, please see this post. But, onwards to March. You can see all the details here, but the total minus interest paid to my broker was $466.44 US. The large majority of it was in Dividends, and a big portion of that was NPK (National Presto Industries), which paid a special dividend of over $100. Compared to previous years: March 2013: 251.97 March 2012: 455.72 March 2011: 156.86 March 2010: 7.02 Similar…
Clothes are definitely one of those things that you can spend hundreds of dollars every month on, or almost nothing. I definitely fall into the latter category, as my students and good friends I’m sure could tell you. I rotate among the same 3 sweaters, 4 pairs of dress pants, 8 or so shirts, and 2 pairs of shoes at work. And for casual wear, it’s much the same, but even less. Maybe 2 pairs…
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…
The other day in my book club, someone mentioned the book, “The Secret.” While I haven’t read it, the basic idea seems to be about the power of positive thinking. The impression they gave was that that book took it way too far and just repeated the same couple ideas over and over again, but it got me thinking about the role of positive thinking in my own life. Generally, I think I’m a positive…
I know a big part of frugal living is most definitely not having too large of a house. It costs more to maintain/heat/cool/light/clean and it’s really quite easy to just fill your space with more stuff. Here in Korea, space is at a premium because there are so many people crammed into a country with 70% mountains and the average house sizes are far, far smaller than what you’d see in Canada or the USA.…
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…
I’ve been a faithful Blogger user for years and have had this very popular blog on that platform since 2008. My Life: Teaching in a Korean University. So, it goes without saying that I definitely know the ins and outs of blogger and that I generally like it. It’s extremely easy to add Amazon and other affiliate links (with the widgets: add HTML option), and of course, they support Google Adsense (Blogger is owned by…
I know there is much debate in the building passive income and extreme early retirement circles about whether to focus effort on the “side-hustle,” whether that be investing, or starting online businesses or turning a hobby into a money-maker or whether to focus on the day-job and get on the promotion/pay raise ladder. For the past 7 years or so, I’ve been focusing on the latter and using that money to invest in dividend paying…
I’ve talked about in previous posts about the relationship between frugal living and passive income, cooking at home to save money and frugal hobbies. But, today is the dreaded “B” word which=budget. While I love the idea of a budget, as a general theory and believe it can be very important when trying to live a frugal lifestyle (as does Dave Ramsey), I don’t do it. This probably seems quite strange for those who know…
Basically all online stock brokers offer what they call “Margin” which means that you can borrow money from them to buy more stocks or ETFs or whatever you want. Of course this isn’t free! Brokers charge interest ranging from extremely low (ie: Interactive Brokers) to extremely high (will remain nameless). The reasons to not do this include “margin calls,” which is when you borrow too much money relative to the amount of actual money that…
