As you may have noticed, it has been a bit since I have been active in blogging. Now there is really no good reason, but that time is already gone. Now once I get my regular computer back working I will have all the stuff to update my income and expenses for the past two months, as well as update my net worth. With that said I have updated my Portfolio showing the stocks purchased from the ROTH IRA transfer as well as my automatic Loyal 3 purchases. I hope to continue with my previous schedule with Tuesday and Thursday blog posts, resuming, today!
And I think the theme of last month had me personally a little off. I just can’t seem to post every day and while thinking about living while I am dying, I would rather live a bit more in the moment. Anyways, as of today I have found myself with some extra time in the short term so I hope to get everything up to date shortly as well as some posts set up for the future as well.
Loyal3 buys in October
I continued my regular stock purchases with Loyal3 purchasing the following: .1777 shares of Kraft (KRFT), .2164 shares of Microsoft (MSFT), .1652 shares of Kellogg’s (K), .3212 shares of Mattel (MAT), .2478 shares of Unilever (UL), .1085 shares of Pepsi (PEP), .1226 shares of Disney (DIS), .2343 shares of Coca-Cola (KO), .1336 shares of Walmart (WMT), and .1096 shares of McDonald’s (MCD).
Just $10 into each of the aforementioned stocks, or $100 in total and that is on a continuing automatic plan to ensure I earn interest on my checking account. The system is really a win-win for me as I automatically invest fee free in these companies while continuing to earn interest in my checking. These purchases together add as a whole about $3.14 in additional annual dividend income. Not bad, every little bit helps in the long run.
Roth Transfer Finally Complete!
This process took some time but it has finally completed in October. Back in July I talked about the fees in my wife’s existing ROTH account and then looked into options of where to roll this money into. I had settled with Options House at the time due to the low $4.75 trading fee, but I need to make sure they will provide the $150.00 roll over credit. I am not sure if it the process took too long since the funding was supposed to be done in a certain amount of time. I will have to inquire about that, but hey, $150 is $150. Anywho, here are the transactions that occurred inside this ROTH account:
Aflac (AFL)
This is more of an increase of a position as I already owned shares of Aflac in my other ROTH. But with the decrease in share prices in October (although I did not buy during the best part of the dip, but did so in the first dip earlier in the month), I saw it as an opportunity to increase my position in this stock. I purchased 22 shares, for $1,279.32 of this insurance company adding another $32.56 in annual dividend income.
Deere & Co (DE)
Like Aflac, this purchase was an addition to a previous position as the price of the business decreased I saw it as an opportunity to add more shares. For $1,326.03 I received 16 more shares of ownership in DE. This purchase currently adds another $38.40 in annual dividend income.
Baxter (BAX)
This is a new position for me in the healthcare industry in which I had no exposure through direct investments. The price / earnings was a bit higher than I prefer to spend when looking for investments, but they have a good history of increasing dividends and with an aging population perhaps it is not too high? I may have overpaid slightly on this one as the current value is less than the purchase price, but I am not too concerned about this long term wise. I purchased 17 shares for $1,243.20 and this will add another $35.36 in annual dividend income.
Chevron (CVX)
The energy sector has been trading at very desirable P/E ratios for awhile and have actually trended down a little more after this addition to my portfolio. I already had a position in XOM, but decided to pickup a competitor in CVX for some diversity as well as the strong dividend history of Chevron. As I see alot of value in this sector I invested $1,413.49 for 12 shares increasing annual dividends by $51.36.
Visa (V)
With a much longer dividend yield and short history of dividends it would seem like this wouldn’t be the wisest dividend investment to make. But it is important to consider future dividend returns, and considering at how much V is increasing their annual dividends, the yield for the initial cost of capital has the potential to surpass many other investments within maybe 10 years depending on the growth rate. Now I don’t expect 20% growth rates forever, but if they can provide a solid 5 year span on 20% dividend growth before starting to taper down this investment can provide some great dividends in early retirement. That and V has alot of areas to grow internationally unlike many other consumer giants whom have already encompassed the globe and need to reinvent themselves and deliver new products to grow. That time will eventually come for V, but right now they can grow with their core business. And every time I swipe earning cash back, I can be happy that I am also helping my dividends too. This purchase was the most expensive of the month at $1,483.50 for 7 shares. With the initial annual dividend of $11.20 already growing I am confident that it will begin to provide a good source of income in the future.
All together the purchases of stock in the ROTH account initially added another $168.88 in annual dividend income, however since these purchases there have been alot of announcements of dividend increases.
Dividend increases (and a decrease)
There has been alot of dividend changes it seems this past month with 7 recent changes in dividends.
- Aflac (AFL) has increased their dividend per share per quarter to $0.39 , up from $0.37. With 45 shares this adds another $3.60 in annual dividends.
- Strum Ruger (RGR) has decreased their dividend per share per quarter to $0.14, down from $0.45. With 25 shares this costs me $31.00 in annual dividends.
- Visa (V) has increased their dividend per share per quarter to $0.48, up from $0.40. With 7 shares this will add $2.24 in annual dividends.
- Microsoft (MSFT) has increased their dividend per share per quarter to $0.31 up from $0.28. With 5.5581 shares before the increase the annual raise was $0.67.
- Kraft (KRFT) has increased their dividend per share per quarter to $0.55, up from $0.525. With 2.7452 shares this adds $0.27 in annual dividends.
- McDonald’s (MCD) has increased their dividend per share per quarter to $0.85, up from $0.81. With .1064 shares prior to announcement the annual raise is $0.02
- Unilever (UL) has decreased their dividend per share per quarter to $0.3637, down from $0.3842. With .477 shares this costs me $0.04 a year.
Looking back I should have not made the RGR purchase being there was already one dividend cut before the purchase was made. I also should have taken my loses when the first cut during ownership had occurred. Now they had some abysmal earnings this last quarter and as a result they had cut their dividend dramatically. Looking forward with the current pitiful dividend I don’t see too much downside holding onto the stock. I have already experience the downside in losing the majority of the annual dividend income and the current stock price is quite low. I think this provides a situation in where I should hold onto this for the time being and when they start to preform well in the future sell them and don’t look back. Should have done so after the last stock cut, but there isn’t much to lose at this point and more to gain from my point of view.
Regarding Unilever I noticed that they are sporadic on their dividend payments after my initial stock purchase. This is a small position obviously, but I would like to complete at least one entire share and then perhaps move onto another offering through Loyal3. Others that have my attention include YUM, DPS, and TGT. We shall see, it will probably be after the January purchase to complete a share and then make a decision if I want to change my automatic purchase to something else or not.
How about you, how was your savings this past month?
Full Disclosure: Long AFL, DE, BAX, CVX, V, KRFT, MSFT, K, MAT, UL, PEP, DIS, KO, WMT, MCD – Not long on RGR… willing to sell at cost if you are interested 
Photo Credit: suphakit73 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I’ll say I had the same issue with the challenge – it was hard to drag myself onto the computer and even respond to comments. And it really made me question continuing to blog at all.
However, we did pay off our first student loan, so I got some motivation and more blogging material, so I’m still in it!
Great job Kirsten! That has to feel really good to get one of those gone!
Kipp,
Good to see you blogging again.
Great job on the stock purchases. I think all of them are long-term winners, to varying degrees.
Just a note on Unilever – that’s not a dividend decrease or a spotty payout. Rather, the company declares their dividends in euros, and then it gets converted to the shareholder’s native currency (dollars, in our case). So currency conversion will cause fluctuations, but UL continues to increase the payout in euros.
Best regards!
Ok, good to know Jason. I didn’t realize that Loyal3 had foreign stocks in their portfolio. Interesting to see the currency fluctuation.
Great to see you blogging again. Looks like you’ve made some excellent transactions in October. Great stuff. Really like your purchase in V.
As Jason pointed out above, with these ADR shares, the dividend amount can fluctuate due to currency conversions.
That is good to know, I wrongly assumed that Loyal3 only contained US stocks, which obviously it does not if UL is foreign.
Glad to see that you’re back to blogging again. Those are some quality buys for October! And the dividend increases are nice too!
Raises are always good! Thank you for stopping back Henry!
Nice to see you at it again Kipp. I have been tied up myself. I really like your purchases, so much so that I picked up a small chuck of Visa myself. I’m also excited about the dividend raises, and own most of the stocks you mentioned.
Have a great week
-Bryan
Thanks Bryan! I think Visa is a really good long term buy, they have alot of room to grow in their core business before even really needing to branch out. Plus it helps me even more when using a credit card at the store. Not only do I get cash back I am now helping VISA with those transaction fees which will help me! Win-win-win!
Hindsight is always 20/20. I know RGR has been fairly popular among many dividend bloggers but their history of dividend raises and decreases are all over the place. Definitely not the stability you want from a dividend payer. Still, you made some solid purchases in your Loyal3 account. Thanks for sharing your recent update with us.
I agree Keith. But as I mentioned at this point there isn’t much risk is holding onto them. The remaining dividend payout is low and that sector of business will grow again in the future. Once it does recover some though I will be looking to move on!
Glad to see you back! I was wondering what had happened (figured nothing bad, just life) but still.
Thanks Cecilia! Yea, need to be less lazy…