Updated 12/31/18 Personal Financials and 11/30/18 Comparison

-
Hello Everyone! I've been off the page for a week or so enjoying my time off work around the holidays, and came back to see that I've actually gotten a few views on the page! Woo!

I've updated my personal financials for December month end, and wanted to make a post showing the month by month changes in my financial position. See below for a comparison of December vs. November.

Comparison





































As you can see, my investments have taken a hit due to the general decline in the market over the past month. However, I see this as an opportunity to make some purchases in index funds and dividend stocks that are yielding higher than normal (hence the decrease in my cash position over the period). I picked up a few shares of International Paper (IP), which I wrote about in this post, and later in the month I started a small position of dividend aristocrat Automated Data Processing (ADP) in my JP Morgan account during December. Also during the month, I added shares of Vanguard ETFs VTI and VOO into my Traditional IRA. I will update my portfolio in the near future to reflect these recent purchases.

On the debt side, my credit card debt fluctuates from month to month based on my spending, which can change due to travel for work and timing of personal expenses, but it is paid off in full every month so I never pay any interest or fees. I knock $1,000 principal off my home loan every month, so this decrease is one you will see every month. 

All in all, even with the market declines, I was able to increase my net worth ever so slightly since the end of November. As I start the new year, my plan is to stay disciplined and make the rest of my IRA contributions early in the year. Further, as I am entering my busy season at work, it is a great time for me to save money (since I have virtually no free time to do anything) and build a nice cash position. A goal of mine for 2019 is to further diversify into other sources of income outside of dividend yielding stocks, so the plan is to build a sizable cash position so that I can be ready to deploy cash once I've done all my research and decided on a new investment. 

I hope everyone had a great holiday season, and a happy new year! Do you have any exciting goals for 2019? I'd love to hear about them!

- FI Anon

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dividends Galore!

-
Image
There's a link I keep up on my favorite bar, a list I visit very frequently. In fact, it's often one of the first places I go when I've got some extra cash on board, and I'm looking to invest. And when I looked at the link recently, something jumped out at me! What is this link I'm talking about? Let me share it with you here . If you haven't clicked already, the link takes you to a listing of the 'dividend aristocrats', sorted by their current dividend yields. NOTE: Please ignore the error on the VFC yield (sorry, it's not yielding 26%). I checked a number of others on the list, and the rest seem to be accurate. Dividend Aristocrats: What are they? To be considered a dividend aristocrat, a company must not only pay a dividend for 25 consecutive years, but increase that dividend for each of the past 25 years. As you can gather from the criteria, these dividend aristocrats are mature, cash generating companies, the likes of AT&T, Exx...
Read more

How Dividends and Reinvestment Can Protect Your Investment in a Down Market

-
Image
When I talk about investing with people, I always get the same comment. "It just sounds too risky. What if the price goes down?" I mean, it's a valid point, right? Nobody wants to lose money. The whole point of investing is to make money. And unfortunately, the risk of losing money is enough to keep some people out of the stock market completely. If only there was a way to avoid the pain of seeing your market value decline, while still getting all the benefits of a roaring bull market. What if I told you that there is a way? Well, sort of. Dividend Growth Stocks: Rewarding Shareholders In Any Market If you've read some of my other posts about investing, you may have picked up by now that I typically invest in dividend growth stocks. So not only am I usually looking for stocks with a better than average yield, but I also take into consideration a company's consistency of increasing their dividends on an annual basis, and projecting whether I think it is pra...
Read more

Weekly Watchlist - Week of July 6, 2020

-
Image
Fresh off a long holiday weekend, I'm back and at it again screening for undervalued dividend growth stocks. Stocks were up big yesterday, Monday, July 6, but futures this morning tell a different story. Hopefully the latter trend continues and more stocks fall onto my watchlist, as this week's list already contains a few familiar names if you've followed my prior weekly posts.  If you have not yet begun to give my weekly watchlist posts a read, you can familiarize yourself with them here  and here , and please continue to read going forward! As always, feel free to drop a comment if you have any thoughts or suggestions.  Further, if you're just getting into dividend investing, and are in need of a brokerage account with no commissions or fees, free dividend reinvestment (DRIP), and fractional shares trading,  then  check out this link and you'll get a FREE share of stock when you sign up for Robinhood using my referral link.  With little time to spare befo...
Read more