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

So.. ask away!

I will get things started.

Q: So, Kipp, being a cool guy and all that you are, what is up with how much you spend in gas?  Aren’t you more frugal than that?

A: Well thank you Kipp, I know that I am pretty cool, but it is nice to hear someone else say it.  Anyways… most of our fuel expenses is with the wifey’s commute.  It is 25 miles one way, so 250 miles a week.  Not the most frugal commute, but it will do for now.  I won’t force her to look for another job just to save a few bucks.  Happy wife, happy life, right?

Ok, now your turn readers!  I will be gone for a bit in the morning tomorrow so I hope I have some questions to answer when I get back!

Update #1:

Q: From Femme Frugality – What is your favorite past post?

A: Hmm… that is a difficult one I would probably say my Life is Short – You Only Live Once would be my choice.

Update #2 (kind of difficult on a tablet)

Q: From Brian: what’s your favorite and least favorite thing about Michigan?

A: Favorite would have to be the lakes, but I don’t think I would actively choose to live here if I wasn’t close to family because of all of the snow!

Q: From Lorraine: How do you handle family and friends who whine about or complain about money and hint that you should give them some?

A: I don’t appear rich (and I’m not yet either) so that helps with not getting direct requests for money.  If they want to complain or talk about money I will try to help them out and have good conversation about money.  I got one of my wife’s sisters on mint and she was complaining about how much her student loans are so I suggested trying to pay off a single loan to increase cash flow which basically hit a brick wall.  Can’t win them all.

Q: From May: Has anything about blogging surprised you?

A: Time is definitely more than I expected, but I am probably not the most organized in blogging yet.

Q: From Tre: What is your greatest financial accomplishment?

A: When I graduated college I had enough cash in the bank to wipe out my student loans.  I did not however, because I had just gotten married and the wife had some unsubsidized loans that carried a higher interest rate and it grew during school so it was the better decision to pay those off.  But I could have been at zero student loans right after college which is great when your support is only the cost of books.

Q: From DebtDebs: How are your friends at handling finances?  Do they or your family know about your blog? If not, why?

Update #3

A: Well friends-wise, best one passed… almost 9 years ago, but he wasn’t really the best with money, but hey we were late teens early twenties and the only thing we were taught money was for was for spending.  My new best friend, well he has gone through quite a bit, divorced and got stuck with the house.  Was in school while working, then the company he worked for closed during the recession, so he was continuing to goto school while looking for a job on unemployment.  Graduated and couldn’t get a job in his field, ended up getting foreclosed on.  Also his house was a duplex and he rented the bottom half.  The person he previously considered his best friend was in the army and he and his wife ended up renting the bottom unit and while his friend was gone his wife cheated on him and wasn’t paying the bills.  So basically when his friend got back he lived with him in the top half and he had to evict his wife’s friend, whom wiped out all of the money he made while overseas.  Then his friend living with him wasn’t helping him pay any bills or do anything even though he didn’t have a job… it was just a great big ole mess.  He is now in Ohio so I don’t get to see him that often now, but try to make it down in that area at least once a year as he is down there plus one of my wife’s cousins & husband along with their kids whom we grew closer to during college.  And her cousin’s family is not great at managing finances it seems either, but that is an entirely different story.  I think part of that has to do with small amount of time to make the best decisions when you are either working a ton, or going to school full time while trying to raise more than just your family.

Now the second part, as far as they know they don’t know about the blog.  For one – I think it would be kind of a difficult conversation to have with my friend because, well, given his situation and how far back he is in life.  And it isn’t like he isn’t doing frugal things, he took his car off insurance and just walks to work.  And of course student loans.  His choices are truly limited as he was born with one lounge so that gives him alot some difficulties for physical work and would probably be denied to go into the army because of it.  Family wise if they wish to seek out this time of information and happen to stumble upon my blog (if they found it… they know it would be me, I have my picture here) I would gladly talk to them about it.  But they need to be wanting to know about personal finances to listen.  I don’t shy away from conversation about finances with family and do subtle (and some not so subtle) hints to my and my wife’s family about some things… like at least invest in your 401(k) to get your match… and try to pay off a single student loan to increase cash flow… stuff like that.  Don’t always know what action they end up doing, I think if it ISN’T brought up you can probably assume no action.  I got my bro investing to get the company match and linked him to MMM’s article on the simple math behind early retirement to show him the rates you need to save and how many years until retirement.  That is the closest to the blog realm I have gotten with a family or friend.

On a side note with my friend in Ohio, the odd thing is about how our friendship began.  I used to work with his ex-wife at a grocery store during college and through her is actually how we became friends.  Kind of funny how things work out, huh?

Q: From Kirsten: Do you splurge on anything?  If so, what?

A: Well… I like to think we purchase alot of luxuries each and every month if how are spending is.  For example just last month we bought a couple of new bicycles (yea I know, still need to get pics up).  One thing that I like to do, and this is something my friend, whom I mentioned in my reply to Debt Debs, and I used do together is watch UFC fights.  Now I don’t order the PPV… it is cheaper to goto buffalo wild wings and eat than to pay for a PPV, but that is a regular splurge for me I would say.  Also we consistently get pop each week and or usually some alcohol which isn’t necessary, but more of a splurge.  I would also say we don’t hold back on traveling to see family either, so we don’t restrain our gas budget and say no to visiting.  Even all of our direct family is fairly close by, the cost still adds up, but the time with family is worth more than the gas.

More personal splurge areas, one would be my wife’s scrap booking stuff.  We picked up a cuttlebug embossing and die cutting machine this summer at a garage sale and she has been getting stuff for that every month.  For me – I spend probably too much on computers.  We both have desktops that I had built.  Although I used to be more into computer games, I am not so much now so my computer should last a decent amount of time.

An InLinkz Link-up

Additionally I have signed up with twitter and facebook.  Although, it is worth mentioning that I am not a big fan of facebook and I haven’t been updating that regularly… yet.. but I would probably be more motivated if I had some followers!  That and I haven’t found a way to auto post my latest posts onto the page yet, but I have found a way to do so for twitter but honestly I was doing good on twitter before the auto post thing.

So here is a quick breakdown of the pages I have added or updated recently:

About

Although an About page has existed since I created this website, I went back and revamped it a little bit and tried to tie into articles that I think are relevant to learning more about me, my plans, and my goals.

Sub-Page from About: Contact

This is just another way for people to get in touch with me.  At first I was going to not do this as a sub-page, but my current theme would create a new row for a 7th page so I decided to nest it under about.  Plus I am not currently seeking freelancing or other employment so I don’t need a neon hire me sign – not yet anyway.

Net Worth

This page is what it says it is.  Just a one stop shop for people wanting to snoop around and see how much I am worth.  Don’t get too excited, I don’t have 6 figures to my name, but I do plan on changing that in the near future!

Savings Rates

How much you save is key to obtaining financial independence at an early age.  So my monthly battles are shown here along with the first post being the first 1/2 of this year.  The reason I lumped it all together is because I started blogging in July and I wanted to complete the year for year-to-year comparisons in the future.  The great thing about this being in percent is that it is easy to compare.  Sure circumstances can change over time, but the percentage one saves is key to success over the long haul.

Frugality and Resources

You can call it my sales page if you prefer.  It is basically a few things, some of which from other blogs, where I have implemented a specific frugal strategy, a few amazon affiliates links to books or products that I find useful in saving money, and also any articles I write about frugal living.  This is intended to be a quick reference page to help visitors find resources that can help save money or find some good reads.  I would recommend checking your local library first for books, that is what your taxes are for anyways.

Portfolio

My portfolio exposed!  I have throughout my stock purchase articles talked about all of my individual holdings, but now those can be viewed all in one place, and it should automatically update to the markets.  It appears that on occasion it will just show as “loading” as maybe the connection to the tables isn’t always synced.  But it is a very nice system overall.

So Why are you Blogging about Blogging?

Well, any other blogger will tell you that all of this back round stuff takes time.  And I being that I have limited time, when I take time away from blogging to do these other things to improve the blog, I don’t necessarily have time to write as well.  That and I probably need to prioritize my time better.  It always feels that I don’t have enough free time and I need to keep working towards financial independence to obtain more of it.

I do not plan on doing these types of update often.  I will more than likely have a theme change in the future, but everything is functional for now.  It is something that I desire to change in the future and may or may not write about it at the time.  A theme change is usually quite obvious to visitors while these page updates may slip by if you go straight to the articles.

Photo credit: Stuart Miles / freedigitalphotos.net

Well this was certainly a surprise, Kirsten at Indebted Mom and No More Waffles both nominated me for the Liebster Award.  So from my understanding, this is kind of like a networking award to promote new bloggers, but hey I’ll take what I can get!  There is no lack of appreciation here, because I am grateful that other bloggers are enjoying what I am doing here.  The problem for me is to find 5 NEW blogs that I follow that appear to have not received this award to-date.

Anyways, I feel that this is a great way to provide more information about myself to my readers as well as connect with other bloggers in the community, so that is why I decided to go ahead and do a post about the award.  With that said, I have 10 questions to cover, so I better get to work!

Questions from Kirtsen @ Indebtedmom

1.) What is the best advice you have been given/read since starting your blog?

I think that would goto Gretchen at retired by forty blog.  She gave me an extremely detailed list of things to do to improve my sites traffic and a daily check list.  I kind of had a general idea of things to do, I just didn’t really know how well a strong social media presence can help bring in traffic.

2.) What is your favorite book?

For some reason, both question # 2’s are the hardest for me… To be honest, I am not a huge fiction reader.  So I will probably have to go with something lame like The Millionaire Next Door, because this book really tells you that to be rich you probably shouldn’t be appearing rich, but really there is more to life than money (*SHOCKER ALERT!  Personal Finance Blogger saying there is more to life than money!*)

3.) What is the one food you can’t say no to?

This one has to be pizza… which I have only said no to once as I had just eaten, but I was highly tempted to still grab a slice.  Some was offered to me yesterday and I didn’t say no even though I made pizza for dinner yesterday too! (And left overs today, yum!)

4.) Who has been your biggest supporter through your debt repayment (or blogging) journey and why?

Debt repayment has to goto the wifey, Mrs. Frankly Frugal Finance.  She puts up with my personality quirks and my desire for us to obtain financial freedom and generally agrees with what we do.  She just isn’t as enthusiastic as I am.

Blog-wise, probably Dividend Mantra, he is always quick to respond to questions and is very helpful in general.  I mean, he has no real stake in helping out a new blogger get started, but he takes the time to give advice regardless.

5.) Do you keep your Cheese Whiz in the fridge or in the cupboard after you’ve opened it?

I am like Kirsten who solves this problem by not consuming Cheese Whiz.  But I do store syrup in the cupboard instead of in the fridge.  Which I always thought was normal from my parents, but it seems like everyone else likes to refrigerate it.  I don’t know why, but I don’t like putting cold syrup on my hot pancakes (or waffles).

Speakings of Waffles, Questions from No More Waffles:

1.) When is the last time you ate a waffle? (there we are with the waffles again)

Proof.

Hmmm… it was 3 or 4 weekends ago.  Unfortunately I don’t have the exact date, but I do have an awesome waffle maker, it is just annoying to clean so I don’t use it super often.

2.) Who is your personal hero?

Wow… yea how do you pick someone for this one?  I would probably have to say my dad, because he has helped me strive to be better.

3.) What is your personal finance philosophy in (in 10 words or less)?

Achieve financial independence through a balanced approach.

4.) What has been your favorite blog post so far?

I’m with No More Waffles on this one for the “massive archives”.  Let’s see… I think my best one so far is So I Won the Lottery, but best page views has to goto July Stock Purchases due to it being linked from one of Dividend Mantra‘s weekend reading posts.

5.) What is your favorite type of beer (both type and brand)?

I am actually not a big beer drinker, I prefer sweeter drinks like Moscato Wine or Mike’s lemonades (lately I have been fermenting juices).  With that said, the best beer I have had was a seasonal beer at 57 Brew Pub & Bistro, was a Vanilla Porter beer, no brand name attached because they brew their own beer there. (Just missing they’re in that sentence)

My Nominations

Well, as I said this part was going to be difficult to find some blogs that are new that haven’t been nominated (at least that I can tell).

1.) Dear Dividend, he has been blogging since May of this year and puts out some great content concerning Dividend Stocks.

2.) DivHut has been blogging since April and puts some perspective to you use products from dividend companies in everyday like as well as analysis of companies.

3.) Living At Home, because what other blogger will somehow work on a side-gig for video game collectors?  He is also the newest blogger on this list having started in June.

4.) Happy Healthy Wealthy Girl, a good mix between topics and stock investing, also has a page on some healthy snacks (which I should look at more closely, I got a few pounds to lose).  She has also started this blog back in April.

And from here I think I am out of new bloggers that are putting out consistent content that I think have not been selected so far.  So even though this last blogger started early this year, he doesn’t seem to fit what falls into the new blogger criteria, but whatever.

5.) Impersonal Finance, I really like what Ryan is doing with the content here, lots of insightful and interesting posts.

There are other blogs that I have been visiting regularly, but I think that they have all been nominated so I won’t bombard them with extra questions to answer knowingly.

Speaking of questions, I get to choose 5 for these bloggers!  Here we go:

1.) What is your favorite color?

2.) What is your quest?

3.) Do you know what the first two questions are in reference to?

4.) What is your favorite blog post to date?

5.) Do you have any big travel plans once reaching financial independence?

So there you have it, questions answered, new questions, fun stuff.  If you haven’t checked out any of the blogs mentioned, I would recommend doing so.  Plenty to read and learn!

Update: I received a new nomination from Debt Discipline and from Million Dollar Ninja, the answers to their questions are below from them in the order listed (aka Debt Discipline’s Q’s first):

1.)  What was the biggest amount of debt you were ever in?

Just under $133,000 in December of 2013. That is right after getting the mortgage and just before student loan repayment began, so it was the highest point for sure.

2.) What’s your goal with your blog?

My goal with my blog is to utilize it to share my story towards financial independence and to hold myself accountable during the process. On a side not, I do hope in a few years it may be able to generate a little cash to at least pay for itself and maybe help with my financial goals, but that is more long-term.

3.) When did you first become financially literate?

I guess I have always been a bit of a saver and understood some things about finance. In fact when I transferred from community college to a 4-year undergrad program I did so with $11,000 in savings and no debt. All of the student loans that are on my balance sheet are from the wife’s education and the car loan was my bad… I could have potentially avoided it if I wasn’t trying so hard to prepay down her non-subsidized loans and kept more of an emergency fund. But anyways, only recently I am learning about investing. That is a piece that is still a work in progress.

4.) What’s your dream job?

That is a good question that I do not know the answer to. I think that when I reach financial independence I will do a search for my dream job. It would have to be some sort of part time gig that I highly enjoy and would feel rewarding. It would also need to be flexible so that I can travel when I desire as well.

5.) Optional Create your own question – did not create my own, you will have to settle for the 15 other questions I answered

1.  What made you start your blog?

Main reason is accountability. By putting everything out there it gives me an extra incentive not to waste money :).

2.  Do you have any special talents?

Besides being able to walk into inanimate objects and leap over small rocks in a single bound? Not much. I do hope to one day do some sort of martial arts again. I enjoyed Tae Kwon Do as a kid and depending on my future kid’s interests’ maybe that would be a good time to start it up again.

3.  What is your dream job/career?

 think I had this same question from Debt Discipline. Basically that is something I can have the joy of finding when I am financially independent. I would say it will have to involved working with people because I enjoy helping people. I am kind of intrigued by some bloggers doing personal finance coaching. That would be something high on my to try list.

4.  If you were to start a band, what kind of music would you play?

Well that is an easy one. I am a big fan of 90′s rock so some sort of rock or grudge type band.

5.  Have you read any good books lately that you would recommend? (It doesn’t have to be personal finance related)

Well in the past year I have read a decent amount of books (for me at least). I think the Millionaire Next Door would be at the top of my list to recommend.