Weekly Roundup - March 15, 2014

As usual it's been a really busy week.  Of course who's isn't?  I could really use some extended time off to just relax, regroup and make some progress on some things I'm working on for the blog.  I'm excited to start working on a monthly newsletter and I hope to get some other things going as well.  For now you can sign up here to receive new posts straight to your email and hopefully come April I'll have a newsletter that I feel good enough about to send out.  I'm also working on some other ideas but those will have to stay secret for now.  If you sign up for the posts/newsletter then you'll be the first to hear about what's going on.

It was a fairly slow week though when it comes to investing.  I haven't made any purchases this whole month actually, but the good thing is that the dividends just continue to roll in whether I'm paying attention or not.  I was able to save over $6,400 from my paycheck in February and that helped me to set a personal best for monthly net worth increase.  With the combination of high savings, annual 401k profit sharing coming through and of course the markets moving higher I was able to have over a $25k increase for the month.

Thanks again to everyone that stopped by, commented, or shared posts from here today.  I truly appreciate it and don't think I could say it enough.  Thanks to all of you I'm going to go on and increase my monthly page views goal higher to 100,000 by the end of the year.  I originally set the goal to be 50,000 but I don't think that was enough of a stretch goal so I'm going to revise that higher.  So keep on coming back and share my posts with everyone you know and help me reach my new goal.

Also, special thanks to Bryan from IncomeSurfer.com for guest posting here this week.

Now on to the links!

Freedom: Best Pursued with Wild Abandon by Write Your Own Reality - Amen!  As they say "there's more than one way to skin a cat".  Some are using with index investing, others real estate, and let's not forget dividend growth investing.  The key is to come up with a plan and chase down that freedom that you're after.

Real Estate Investing:  The First Investment is the Scariest by FI Fighter - As someone that's on the lookout for his first investment property I completely agree.  I continually run the numbers to see if I missed anything and even when I know the numbers look good, it's still a huge investment to make.  It's not like stocks where you can go and sell shares that day on the open market if you feel like you made a mistake.

How I find great investments by Income Surfer - Before you start investing, especially in individual stocks, you should learn as much as you can and come up with a plan.  Whether your investing style is growth stocks, value plays, dividend growth, options or any of the other ways you can invest in the market, don't have the short-sightedness to keep jumping from style to style.

Positive US trends and inconsequential emerging markets by Retire Before Dad - If you listen to the financial news there's always some kind of calamity that is going to bring the stock markets to their knees.  The most recent one was the slowing growth in emerging markets back in late January/early February.  Of course if you look at the broader picture there's a bunch of tailwinds for the US economy.  That's not to say the economy/stock markets are going higher over the short tern because I've got no clue.  But chances are the US and global economy will be even larger 5 years from now.

Rashard Mendenhall is my hero by Done by Forty - You won't find too many people that would turn down the prospect of making millions each year.  But that's exactly what this newly retired NFL player did.  He's made his money and most importantly saved his money and was able to get out while his body wasn't completely beaten up.

Why we should forecast our financial future by Dividend Ladder - This ties in with Income Surfer's post about coming up with a plan, except in this case it's the very long-term that you've got in mind.  I'm not sure if most people are just afraid of what they might find out, think they have plenty of time before they need to worry about retirement or whatever reason.  If you aren't aiming for something, how do you know if you're on course?

Warren Buffet's 2013 Shareholder Letter:  Another Classic by Dividend Mantra - Besides the operating performance of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., Warren Buffet gives the everyday investor great insight to his thoughts on investing and valuing companies.  This year was no different and Jason goes over the nuggets of wisdom that he found.

An Ode to March 9, 2009 by A Wealth of Common Sense - I had completely glossed over the fact that we had passed March 9th this last weekend.  It's been a wild ride since the markets his their lows 5 years ago and investors that stayed the course have been handsomely rewarded.

Tupperware Dividend Stock Analysis by Dividend Growth Stock Investing - The history of Tupperware looks pretty good with a 5 year dividend growth rate of 23% and a current yield of 3.36%.  But what does the future hold and how's the current valuation?

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Comments

  1. Thanks for the inclusion JC. We had some great posts and articles this week
    -Bryan

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bryan,

      Thanks again for the guest post. There's always so many great articles and it's so hard to keep up with them and do writing of my own.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  2. Thanks for the mention JC! Much appreciated! Enjoy your weekend!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. writing2reality,

      No problem and thanks for including me in your post. It's a real honor and still amazes me that anyone would reference me for anything.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  3. Always nice to follow the links!
    Some contributions were already known, others not ...

    Best whishes
    D-S

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. D-S,

      There's so many great blogs and it's a full time job just reading all of them. Of course we also have to find time to do our own writing too.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  4. Glad to see you are making money hand over fist. I love how you mentioned your dividends keep rolling in whether you do anything or not. It's the absolute beauty of dividend investing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Marvin,

      That truly is the beauty of DGI! Whether I go and do work or not, the groundwork was laid before to keep income coming in.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  5. JC,

    Thanks for including me.

    Congrats on all the success thus far. $25k increase in net worth for one month is astounding. It wasn't that long ago when it took me an entire year just to gross that much money!

    Keep it up!

    Best wishes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DM,

      That $25k was awesome although I don't expect it to continue. It looks like March won't even be half that unless the markets pick up the second half of the month.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete

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