Recent Purchase

This is going to be another great month for dividends!  I took some of those dividends and combined them with my monthly cash infusion to purchase 55 more shares of linn energy:

I purchased the shares at a price of 36.50.  Oil/natural gas stocks have taken a hit recently; to me that just makes it a good time to purchase them (think CVX, COP, etc.).  I hope they stay low for a few more months so that I can get into more!

Anyway, the shares purchased will provide an additional $159 a year in dividend income, bringing my projected dividend income for the next 12 months in my taxable accounts to $20,691.12.  This number is the total dividends I would receive over the next 12 months if all of the companies I own shares in keep their dividend payouts the same as they are now.  This is more than I earned at my first somewhat real job, which I started just 10 years ago in the fall (I've moved several times since then).  Its incredible to me to think about how hard I worked at that job, and now I make more than that for doing pretty much nothing.

Have a great weekend!

April Dividend Update

Well, another month has come and gone, so its time to take a look back at April to review my dividend income.  I must say, this was far and away my best month ever!  It would be great if I could do this every month!  Anyway, without further ado, my April dividends:

Taxable Account:
ERH - $63.30
O - $10.21
GE - $17.00
NM - $18.00
CIM - $165.00
Bank stock - $3798.00

Total in taxable account - $4,071.31

Roth IRA:
ARR - $111.00
STB - $18.50

Total in Roth IRA - $129.50

TOTAL:  $4,201.01

Wow.  The next few months won't be anywhere near as good, but I'm working on it! 

Recent Purchase

Well, it took me a few months, but I finally decided to make a purchase:

I added to my position in Linn energy by purchasing 160 shares on Friday at 39.70.  Its a little more than I would have liked to pay, but a few things on that to keep in mind:
1.  I plan on keeping these shares for the long haul.  That being said, the dividends that an MLP pays out are not taxed, instead, they go against your cost basis, such that when you sell them, you pay taxes on the capital gains plus the distributions you received from owning them.  Since is pays a distribution in the next few weeks, my new cost basis will be 38.975.
2.  This is a stock I feel pretty comfortable with.  They're a natural gas exploration company that has natural gas prices hedged through the next few years, meaning that the business' success hinges upon the ability to find natural gas rather than demand.  I'll take my chances with that.

So what does this purchase mean for my portfolio?  Well, this purchase will provide $464 of dividend income a year, which actually brings my dividend income for the next 12 months to $20,531!  This purchase and some recent dividend increases, I've surpassed the 20K mark, which was actually my goal for this year!  I guess my modified goal for the year is to try and get to 22K by december, but that might be a bit out of reach.  Soon enough though!

New Plans with the old 401k

Haven't been posting much, partly because I've been pretty busy, but also due to the markets running wild, and I'm waiting for a bigger pullback than we've seen recently.  I'm sitting on a lot of cash right now though, so I'm hoping to make a purchase within the next week or so.

After much thought, I've decided to roll the old 401k into the new one.  The new plan has more choices (and better choices) than the old one, so that's good.  I changed my mind though from my initial plan, which was to just roll it into an IRA.  I've decided against this due to tax implications.  I currently do not have a non-roth IRA.  Not having one is actually an advantage if your adjusted gross income (AGI) is too high to regularly contribute to a roth.  As it stands without one, next year when my AGI is too high to contribute directly to a roth, I can open a non-deductible IRA, and then immediately convert it to a roth, since there is no cap on the conversion.  Since I don't get an initial tax break on opening the non-deductible IRA, there will be no tax bill on the conversion.  If I were to do this already having an IRA, then there would be a taxable event, as the government would consider the total of all of my IRAs (the non-deductible and the rolled over 401k) when determining my tax bill, and I have obviously received a tax advantage from the 401k, so I would have to pay taxes on a portion of the conversion.  Does all of this make sense?  More importantly, am I right?  Hope to be back to more exciting stuff in the future.

March Dividend Update

Another month has come and gone, and now its time to give an update on my dividend progress.  March is typically a small month for me, although I did manage to collect more dividends than I did in December, a quarter ago.  Without further ado:


Taxable account:
O - 10.19
ERH - 53.63
DUK - 21.25

Total from Tax account - $85.07


Roth IRA:
ARR - 122.10
STB - 18.66

Total from Roth IRA - $140.76

Dividend Total - $225.83

Not bad!  However I really don't like to count the dividend total from the roth IRA since if something really went wrong, I couldn't rely on it for cash flow.  This total should go up some next quarter, but not a lot, since none of the stocks on my current watch list pay quarterly dividends in Jone.  April though is looking like its going to be another banner month for me, so stay tuned!

Update

Its been a while since I've posted, I've been pretty busy lately.  I moved last weekend; so far I really like the place (better than the last one).  Financially speaking, the rent is cheaper here, its smaller so heat and electric should be less, and its also much closer to work, meaning that I'll spend less on gas.  Also, the new job is going great so far, I'm starting to get into the groove there.  Also, the new paycheck is nice.

Its been a while since I've made a stock purchase.  I'm waiting for my April 15th dividend check from the bank, then I plan on combining that with some savings to make some purchases next month.  Should be exciting!  I plan on posting my March update within the next few days.

Bank Stock Splits 3:2

Just a quick update to say that my bank stock split 3:2 as of March 1.  I received my new shares earlier this week, and have updated my portfolio page accordingly.  This happened once before, and it worked out pretty well for me then, as the share price gradually rose to where it was before the split.

Other than that, the new job is going well so far; I was able to reconnect with a colleague at the new job with whom I worked with at a previous position, which was nice.

No purchases yet this month, I'm thinking of holding off until next month for a pullback and to build up some capital.