Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG): $5
General Mills (GIS): $5 (Roth)
Exxon Mobil (XOM): $5
Kellogg (K): $5 (Roth)
SJW (SJW): $5
Clorox (CLX): $5 (Roth)
Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD): $5
Colgate (CL): $5 (Roth)
Kraft-Heinz (KHC): $5
Northrop Grumman (NOC): $5 (Roth)
Both SCHD and SJW crossed the full share threshold. Exxon Mobil is freakishly close, but not quite there yet, next week. Other than that, we just keep chugging along.
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"Building wealth is a marathon, not a sprint"
You've likely heard or read this more than once. Wealth doesn't happen overnight. It takes years of effort and consistency. It's important to remember that because if you get impatient, you start making mistakes and shooting yourself in the foot. As great as it would be to envision your money moves as some sort of dramatic "Dragon Ball Z" style power up, that's just not how it works, at least not in the early to mid-stages.
While this is important to keep in mind while on your journey, one thing that I'm surprised doesn't get brought up more is the fact that it's a downhill battle. That is to say that the further along you go, the easier it gets. Compound interest starts to kick in, the dividend reinvestment snowball starts to get rolling, company increases have a bigger and bigger impact as your portfolio builds. Soon, you do start to see more drastic progress. It gets even better when you realize that it is just going to happen automatically going forward.
This applies to liabilities as well as assets. The longer you stay focused on eliminating debt, the easier it gets. The balances start to shrink, which means that the amount of interest that you get charged starts to dwindle as well. You start to see more and more progress as time goes on. Soon, you're eliminating entire payments from your monthly budget and improving your cash flow dramatically. Going back to the earlier comparison, it's almost like chucking off a set of weighted clothing during a fight.
Yes, building wealth is a marathon, but it's a weird kind of bizarro marathon where you start off exhausted and gradually get your energy back as you run towards the finish line. Maybe it's just me, but that's a nice little extra motivator. Knowing that the waters get smoother ahead does make it easier to hunker down for the short term and endure the rougher waves to ensure that you get to that point.
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ConEd (ED): $4
General Mills (GIS) $4 (Roth)
Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG): $4
Kellogg (K): $4 (Roth)
HP (HPQ): $4
Clorox (CLX): $4 (Roth)
Schwab US Dividend Equity Fund (SCHD): $4
Colgate (CL): $4 (Roth)
SJW (SJW): $4
Northrop Grumman (NOC): $4 (Roth)
ConEd broke the full share threshold. A bunch of the others today came very close but didn't quite make it. Hopefully, next week should see that come to pass. We've got a ways to go as far as the Roth goes so those'll be staples in the months ahead.
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ConEd (ED): $5
General Mills (GIS): $5 (Roth)
Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG): $5
Kellogg (K): $5 (Roth)
Realty Income (O): $5
Clorox (CLX): $5 (Roth)
Main Street Capital (MAIN): $5
Colgate-Palmolive (CL): $5 (Roth)
Exxon Mobil (XOM): $5
Northrop Grumman (NOC): $5 (Roth)
Both MAIN and O crossed the full share threshold, so that's pretty cool. Love reducing the amount of post-decimal digits. On a similar note, I'm hitting the same positions in the Roth and won't be adding any new ones until a position crosses that aforementioned bar. I don't want to make the same mistake I made with the main Robinhood account and overload on fractional positions.
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I intended to have the automatic recurring buys be the brunt of my investment moves...buuut I gotta pull the trigger myself every so often. I do still plan to put more focus on defense, given what's coming, but I think I can move the needle on this front as well.
ConEd (ED): $3
General Mills (GIS): $3 (Roth)
Realty Income (O): $3
Kellogg (K): $3 (Roth)
Main Street Capital (MAIN): $3
Clorox (CLX): $3 (Roth)
Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD): $3
Colgate-Palmolive (CL): $3 (Roth)
HP (HPQ): $3
Northrop Grumman (NOC): $3 (Roth)
One interesting development, and I'm surprised I didn't mention this before, is that Robinhood now offers IRA's. Even better, they match a portion of your contribution (1% to be exact). Naturally, I decided to take advantage of it. As noted above, I decided to go with the Roth. I was tempted to just slip money in over the course of the year and then fire it in a massive DBZ style blast of capital in December, but DCA has been working well so far and if I play it right, I may still be able to do that, albeit to a much lesser extent. We'll just have to see how things play out over the course of the next few months.
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I missed out on being able to do this last year due to technical difficulties, but it was always interesting to tally up the total for the year. As such, let's see how things went in 2022.
Grand total comes to $761.98. 2020's total was $215.02 so that's not too bad for 2 years of growth. Sadly, I wasn't able to provide separate totals for taxable and retirement accounts as there was a transition period where I lumped it all together. Speaking of retirement, you can clearly see the impact of the IRA transfer and when it kicked in. Could 2023 see the grand total crack the $1,000 mark? SRLP is out of the equation, so I am starting off with a setback, but we'll see how things play out. Should be interesting, to say the least.
2022 has officially wrapped. From a macro standpoint, it was kind of a dumpster fire. However, on the micro front, things went surprisingly smoothly. The job consolidation ended up being a big boon and it enabled me to make fairly steady progress on both fiscal and physical fronts. There may not have been any DBZ style leaps, but there was definite progression. The MVP title has to go to Capital One. Them doing away with their IRA savings accounts allowed me to move the needle in ways that I wouldn't have been able to otherwise. While I liked the security of the savings accounts, I do think this is better. More growth and it isn't like the investments in those accounts are particularly risky so I don't need to sweat it.
Enough of that, though, this is the dividend post, so it stands to reason that we get to them. December is always a showstopper for investors be they veterans or neophytes. Last year's record breaker was a testament to that. Will this month's live up to the hype? Let's find out, shall we?
Kroger (KR): $1.78
SJW (SJW): $3.57 ($0.69 taxable/$2.88 IRA)
Intel (INTC): $0.41
JM Smucker (SJM): $0.20
Sherwin Williams: $1.20 (IRA)
Pfizer (PFE): $1.26
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ): $0.65
Microsoft (MSFT): $0.04
Exxon Mobil (XOM): $8.21 ($2.75 taxable/$5.46 IRA)
Yum! (YUM): $0.18
Emerson (EMR): $0.33
Unilever (UL): $0.20
AGNC: $1.31
JP Morgan Exchange Traded Fund (JEPI): $4.88 (IRA)
Scott's Miracle Gro (SMG): $7.92 (IRA)
Walgreen's Boots Alliance (WBA): $1.53
Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD): $5.54 ($0.62 taxable/$4.92 IRA)
Target (TGT): $0.44
IBM: $0.18
3M (MMM): $0.48
Chevron (CVX): $0.44
GlobalXSuperdividend (SDIV): $0.13
Coca Cola (KO): $5.00 ($1.48 taxable/$3.52 IRA)
Realty Income (O): $3.62 ($1.39 taxable/$2.23 IRA)
Wendy's (WEN): $1.33
Main Street Capital (MAIN): $0.26
ConEd (ED): $0.69
NextEra Energy (NEE): $2.64 ($0.09 taxable/$2.55 IRA)
Stag Industrial (STAG): $0.13
McDonald's (MCD): $0.42
Home Depot (HD): $3.80 (IRA)
Hershey's (HSY): $2.07 (IRA)
Flowers Foods (FLO): $1.48
iShares Core Dividend Growth ETF (DGRO): $4.29 ($0.35 taxable/$3.94 IRA)
VF Corp (VFC): $2.77
Vanguard Utilities ETF (VPU): $0.59
Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF (VYM): $6.93 ($1.08 taxable/$5.85 IRA)
Stanley Black & Decker (SWK): $4.80 (IRA)
Invesco High Dividend Low Volatility ETF (SPHD): $0.15
Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG): $0.68
Vanguard S&P 500 Growth ETF (VOOG): $0.08
Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO): $3.82 ($0.48 taxable/$3.34 IRA)
Vanguard Total Market ETF (VTI): $5.29 ($0.64/$4.65 IRA)
Vanguard US REIT Fund (VNQ): $1.22
Wisdom Tree (DON): $0.11
T. Rowe Price (TROW): $4.80 (IRA)
Kraft-Heinz (KHC): $1.77
SpartanNash (SPTN): $1.08
Lockheed Martin (LMT): $0.45
Domino's (DPZ): $0.10
DFA US Small Cap: $25.12 (401K)
T. Rowe Price Value Fund: $114.39 (401K)
American EuroPacific Growth: $7.48 (401K)
Baird Aggregate Bond Fund: $3.52 (401K)
So, when all is said and done, I received a moderate $32.44 in taxable accounts. Retirement contributions on the other hand, threw in $219.32. Grand total comes to a whopping $251.76. That is how you end a year. It didn't quite hit the 2X mark compared to last year, but it was pretty darn close. That T. Rowe Price fund in the 401K is mind blowing. The growth isn't quite what it was last year, but that's still a pretty sizable leap. Of course, now one can't help but wonder what next year's number will look like. But we have a way to go before that point and quite a lot to do in the meantime.
Interest clocked in at $2.20
Aside from DRIP and 401K contributions, there were no buys this month. Crazy, right? I was expecting a sizable expense in regard to the car, but thankfully, that turned out to be fairly minor. I also thought it best to build up a cash supply to give myself a buffer for the year, both for the looming macro threats as well as the endeavors that I laid out for myself.
I'm not sure the mid-quarters can keep up with this, to be honest. It's a little sad. It put up a valiant fight and held the title for quite some time, but it seems like December has cemented itself as the record breaker for the years to come. Maybe one year, I'll focus my stock buys exclusively on mid-quarter payers to bring it back into the fight, but that's something to ponder later on down the line.
Let's see what we can do in 2023. There will be headwinds, to be sure. This may be the toughest year to date, but there's still a way to win.
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With the start of a new year, it's a fitting time to lay the groundwork for forward progress. As such, let's dive in to see the moves I plan on making going forward.
15% to 401K
It wasn't that long ago that Publix capped an employee's 401K contribution to 10% of their income. They upped the cap to 30%, but I've been doing 1% increases each year. This time, I'm doubling that rate. 15% seems to be the magic number as far as building retirement savings goes and it also means that Baby Step 4 is done. Sure, I'm using those as more of a loose guideline than a hard and fast rule (I'm what the fandom calls "ish"), but hey, a finished step is a finished step. It should hopefully make an impact come next year's tax season and it'll boost the numbers in that account a bit faster.
$15 a week to Fundrise
A 50% increase, woo! Yeah, OK, it's not a game changer, but at this rate, I will get to the "basic" account level this year. That'll enable me to partake in the iPO as well as their innovation fund, so that's something to look forward to.
1 share of Realty Income weekly
I've seen quite a few investors as of late adopt this strategy of picking a position and buying it every week, regardless of price. It's dollar cost averaging and it seems to work pretty well. Is my portfolio too small for this? Maybe, I mean, there's still dividend reinvestment, Publix stock, and I'll only be doing this until I hit 100 shares. After that, I'll shift the strategy to another position. Thus, it'll even out eventually. I should note that total refers only to E-trade. Robinhood and IRA holdings aren't going to be counted as I view each branch of the overall portfolio as its own thing. With monthly dividend reinvestment and quarterly increases (that will make bigger impacts the further along we go,) it should be a pretty smooth journey. It'll still take a little under 2 years just going by basic math, but I think it's a good way to really get the ball rolling.
Sadly, E-Trade doesn't have an automatic recurring buy option, so I'm going to have to do this manually. It's a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, but having it happen on its own would have been nice.
$7/Day to VTI
With the market as volatile as it is, some are taking the dollar cost average strategy even further and making daily buys. These lean towards ETF's, as opposed to single companies. Again, seems to work pretty well, so why shouldn't I do it, right? VTI's a solid one to use as a baseline. It's not a huge move, but it should move the needle.
$1/Day to Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Dogecoin (DOGE)
And you thought the stock market was volatile. Yes, crypto is on a downward slide, but that seems to be the nature of the beast. It falls, then shoots back up dramatically. This is dollar cost averaging in its most literal form. The upcoming price drops won't devastate me, but I should still see some gains on the upswing.
$1/Day to iShares Gold Trust (IAU) and iShares Silver Trust (SLV)
Admittedly, this isn't an income generator, but it is a bit more asset diversification. Both are pretty solid investments and act as fairly good hedges against inflation. I think we can agree that some of that wouldn't hurt right now. I like this as I can make the investment without opening up another account. I have quite enough, thank you.
$50/Month to Best Buy
Best Buy is a unique position in my portfolio. It isn't under the E-Trade or Robinhood umbrellas, instead standing on its own. That's because that's my first stock holding. Barnes and Noble may have gotten this investing odyssey started in earnest, but this is the real OG as far as my investments go. Despite this, I haven't really done too much with it. I only recently started reinvesting the dividends, but other than that, it's just been sitting there. Well, no longer. Now I'm going to start watering this plant. Like Robinhood, I can do automatic recurring buys. Monthly is their only option, though, so that's what I'm going with. It's OK, it's still a step up from what I was doing before. This will also help mitigate Realty Income becoming too heavy in my holdings in the short term.
So, there you have it. It's quite possible that this is the extent of my market moves for the year. With the big economic poop storm looming, I'm thinking I should shift my focus towards bolstering my defenses. Beefing up savings accounts and attacking liabilities will probably be the main focus. We'll see how things play out though. At least, this way, I can stay in the market without worrying too much. No panic selling here.
All indicators point to 2023 being a bumpy ride. Hopefully, this makes things a bit smoother.
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