The required $210 was transferred to my 2nd Home savings account this week. (All relevant pages have been updated). This is the last of the intended savings transfers, mortgage over-payments and investments so I remain on track for my 2016 goals.
I also set up a transfer of $190 to my brokerage settlement account. This transfer should take effect tomorrow and will bring the total in that account to $340. It really is just a holding account until I purchase shares. Again with trying to reduce the impact of the fees, I want to make a larger purchase of shares in March so these monies will combine with my "normal" transfer mid-month to allow me to do so.
Also, it gets the money out of my checking account where I am likely to find it frittering itself away. Far better for it to be sitting at Vanguard where I will put it to good use within 15-30 days. (I am going to try to do this at least once a month even if I have not designated a stock or ETF to be purchased. I just do not want to spend leftover money on *crap* when it can go to something that will pay me dividends.)
Work has been keeping me busy so I haven't had a chance to post what I've been reading. (It's also been frying my brain a bit so I don't really recall all that I've read...le grand sigh....) In the near term it looks as though I will be sticking to a weekend-only posting schedule. This is actually fine for now since I don't have that much money to invest/save and only take action a few times a month.
Pru
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Focus on being smart
Updates, Some changes, And new pages
Well the mortgage got paid (and overpaid!) this week. But I still have some transfers left to do. Those will be done next week to allow enough time to clear the bank accounts.
All of the Pages have been updated to reflect balances as of yesterday. Sadly, all the investments have been taking a bit of a battering lately. Think long-term Pru!
I have also added 2 new Pages: Dividends & Capital Gains and Actual Savings & Investments.
I'd like to focus a bit on getting dividends - more for the idea of what they could represent in the future - actual income to pay my expenses. (I don't want to get too crazy because as I've been reading in the paper, in bad times dividends get cut or eliminated.) I have a money market settlement fund (need this for a brokerage account), and the cash in there generally is used up quickly by stock purchases. While I do not expect to earn much on this account, I'm still counting it! I earned $0.05 (5 whole cents!) in January.
Yesterday I also received $4 from Starbucks (I have 20 shares). Honestly I didn't realize they paid in February. (Most of the dividends received are in the calendar quarters so next month there will be lots of activity.) I have all the stock/ETF/mutual fund dividends set to reinvest automatically since I don't need the income now. But tracking it is fun (and important).
That $4.05 would definitely buy me a large cup of plain coffee or tea. Not a fancy cup of coffee but possibly a small cappuccino. Or it would get me a bag of rice that would last for easily 10-15 meals.
What would it buy you?
Now a bit about my investing strategy. Since on a monthly basis I'm investing small sums (well compared to some folks), I want to make sure that I feel somewhat "accomplished" with this investing. And I want to be smart about the $7 fee I'm charged each time I make a stock trade.
Decision has been made to buy in larger chunks to build up my current portfolio of stocks. In 2016, I'd like to focus on building up my shares of Intel (INTC), Unilever (UL) and my dividend ETF (VYM). Goal is to have 100 shares of INTC, 75 shares of UL and 50 shares of VYM by the end of the year.
This of course means that my portfolio will be heavily weighted towards those three but I'm OK with that since it should be a short-term issue. In 2017, I'll build up the other stocks and that will help with the diversification.
Also, I am planning on making a speculative trade within the next month (probably). I saw something that was trading very low ($3-5/share range). I expect that it will remain low for some time because it's energy focused but it could significantly increase over the next 5-10 years. I'd like to buy 100 shares for fun. Yup fun - I know this money could be lost. Stay tuned...
Pru
All of the Pages have been updated to reflect balances as of yesterday. Sadly, all the investments have been taking a bit of a battering lately. Think long-term Pru!
I have also added 2 new Pages: Dividends & Capital Gains and Actual Savings & Investments.
I'd like to focus a bit on getting dividends - more for the idea of what they could represent in the future - actual income to pay my expenses. (I don't want to get too crazy because as I've been reading in the paper, in bad times dividends get cut or eliminated.) I have a money market settlement fund (need this for a brokerage account), and the cash in there generally is used up quickly by stock purchases. While I do not expect to earn much on this account, I'm still counting it! I earned $0.05 (5 whole cents!) in January.
Yesterday I also received $4 from Starbucks (I have 20 shares). Honestly I didn't realize they paid in February. (Most of the dividends received are in the calendar quarters so next month there will be lots of activity.) I have all the stock/ETF/mutual fund dividends set to reinvest automatically since I don't need the income now. But tracking it is fun (and important).
That $4.05 would definitely buy me a large cup of plain coffee or tea. Not a fancy cup of coffee but possibly a small cappuccino. Or it would get me a bag of rice that would last for easily 10-15 meals.
What would it buy you?
Now a bit about my investing strategy. Since on a monthly basis I'm investing small sums (well compared to some folks), I want to make sure that I feel somewhat "accomplished" with this investing. And I want to be smart about the $7 fee I'm charged each time I make a stock trade.
Decision has been made to buy in larger chunks to build up my current portfolio of stocks. In 2016, I'd like to focus on building up my shares of Intel (INTC), Unilever (UL) and my dividend ETF (VYM). Goal is to have 100 shares of INTC, 75 shares of UL and 50 shares of VYM by the end of the year.
This of course means that my portfolio will be heavily weighted towards those three but I'm OK with that since it should be a short-term issue. In 2017, I'll build up the other stocks and that will help with the diversification.
Also, I am planning on making a speculative trade within the next month (probably). I saw something that was trading very low ($3-5/share range). I expect that it will remain low for some time because it's energy focused but it could significantly increase over the next 5-10 years. I'd like to buy 100 shares for fun. Yup fun - I know this money could be lost. Stay tuned...
Pru
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