Monthly Archives

December 2013

How Did I do With my 2013 Goals and Objectives?

by Evan December 31, 2013

Every year I create Goals and Objectives for myself. In January of 2013 my goals and objectives were split into a few different categories:

Personal Life
Professional Life
Blogging World
Online Income World
Financial Goals

How did I do with my Goals for My Personal Life

2013 is going to be a year of change for my family and I. We should be closing on our new home in the next few weeks.

Mission accomplished. In early January of 2013 we closed on our new home. I’ll have set numbers in a few weeks, but I am pretty sure I paid down more principal in the 11 months I have been at this home versus the 5 years in the other home (30 year 3.375% vs 40 year 5.75% mortgages.)

I need to lose some freaking weight. It really bothers me that I completely failed over the years with regard to this goal. I think what bothers me is that I have the tools and knowledge how to overcome the failure.

For the first time in a few years I think I actually accomplished this goal…kinda. My weight is the same or close to it but the clothes are getting looser (and who doesn’t like hearing the compliments from people that notice).

In my goals and objectives post I talk a lot about going hard with Krav Maga, however, I underestimated the distance from the new home to the school I was attending. But I discovered CrossFit in June and like most who get into it, I love it! I am only 6 or 7 months deeps, so I am well aware my infatuation with it can/will diminish, right now I love it.

My eating habits got a little bit. I go out of my way to avoid grains when I can – not “paleo” but cleaner (I’ll be honest it goes to complete shit after 3 drinks lol). My sleeping habits still suck.

How did I do with my Goals for My Professional Life

I split this into two categories – Career and Law Practice

Career

I do want to increase my knowledge on retirement account options (412is, Defined benefits, etc) so I will make it my goal to read up more on the topic.

Fail.

Law Practice

My first goal for the new year is to get a standard website up there. I know enough about the internet where I don’t have grand illusions that the site will bring in clients, but the first thing anyone does when they leave a consultation meeting is google you – there is no excuse not to have a site up and running.

Fail.

It really bothers me that I failed on 2 pretty specific (and easy) professional goals. Pretty unacceptable since I am the one being depended on for the most part for my family’s well being. My goals and objectives for 2014 are going to have step it up for 2013’s shitty performance.

How did I do with my Goals for Blogging

I have been publishing too many guest posts recently. My goal is to make sure that with all the guest posts that come through I match the content with at least 3 or 4 new posts a week.

I haven’t done the math but I think I am in that 2 and a half to 3 posts a week. This past year it seems my posts have mainly been about updating readers with my situation and investments. So while I didn’t him my goal I am comfortable with what I have done.

Going to ignore [under the hood maintenance] on MyJourneytoMillions for the upcoming time.

Fail, but that’s alright. I should have known that I like toying with the back end of the site. It is something I am pretty sure I’ll never stop.

How did I do with my Goals for My Online Income World

My Wife’s personal blog has some great metrics and I have recently started to monetize it (without her full consent lol). This year my goal is to help clean up under the hood.

eh, give myself a B. I have helped out her site a lot but it isn’t making the traction it should. I’ll save it for my goals post but I think I need to refocus on this.

In addition, I have two sites (PregnancyPool and Manceptional) that are sort of floundering out there with no real love going to either. I have to either decide to get them both going or just drop them so I don’t even think about them. So my goal is either to get behind each one of them with both time and resources or just cut the fat.

Manceptional I just carved out recently. PregnancyPool is still out there. I teamed up with uber computer website genius Jesse, but the partnership was less than fruitful. I can’t fault Jesse since he had an opportunity that he just couldn’t turn down but I got moved way back in terms of priority and I was left with a site built in a language that would take me 3 years to reverse engineer lol.

How did I do with my Financial Goals

When I wrote the post I was 18 days from closing. My financial world was going to change hardcore, but I have myself the following goals:

Working with The Wife come up with a number that represents approximately 6 months of our needs for an emergency fund which stays in cash and does not grow
Increase dividend investment lot purchases to $500+ multiple times a month
Go back to 2008 Evan and reevaluate all our ongoing monthly bills to look for inefficiencies and holes
Increase our life insurance death benefits – I , and The Wife, are woefully underinsured given our new home purchase.

Good Job Evan!

The Wife and I came up with a new cash goal – and with my bonus the other day we met that goal.
Increase Dividend Portfolio Purchases – Check! While I didn’t increase to multiple $500 lots, what I have been doing is buying more of the stocks I choose ($750 to $1,250 lots every month).
I started to look at cash flow inefficiencies but haven’t found inefficiencies like I used to. In my opinion, I just spend too much on certain categories. Not better just a different problem.
I updated the amount and kind of insurance The Wife and I have.

Pretty happy that i hit my main goals. I also gave myself a reach goal

My reach goal is to purchase an investment property. I am working with a partner (or two) on this one so I am not sure if I’ll be able to get this one done. I would have preferred not to work with a partner but I won’t have the liquidity necessary (given goal number 1 above) to purchase a property around me.

This one I failed on but I am not that upset about it. Instead of focusing in on the investment property I have been loving the investment club I started with my 2 brothers and some buddies! Granted it is 1/1000th of the risk and reward, but it is also 1/1000th the stress lol. So things just change but I am not upset that this one didn’t work out.

my goal is grow my net worth by 40%. This goal and objective is not all that important to me, as it really doesn’t provide for an actual plan to accomplish but rather just a number I’d like to hit.

~~I will have a final number in a few days (and I’ll update this post then) but holy hell did I fail on this one! I will be happy when I calculate if I am up 10% lol.~~ In 2013 my net worth only increased 8.32%! Ouch. All my investment accounts have increased a crazy amount (from contributions and the market flying high), but my debt/spending increased (closing costs were $20k+ and $10K or so in renovations/furniture). Looking back in a few years if I had to guess this will have been my worst year for the net worth but that’s alright since housing is done for a long time to come!

How did you do with your year?

December 31, 2013 10 comments

Personal Finance

Any Easy Way to Save on Your Verizon Fios Bill

by Evan December 27, 2013

When I moved last year I signed up for Verizon Fios for my triple play package. Being a new customer I got a great deal without signing a long term contract, however, I knew I was at the end of that initial “new customer” term. After looking into the situation it seemed that my price was going to shoot up for less services! Unacceptable.

How I Saved Money on my Verizon FIOS Bundle

The first thing I did was attempt the “fake cancel”. Everyone who has tried to optimize their monthly nut is well aware of the fake cancel. For the uninitiated, it is the classic move of calling up retentions and asking leading questions about how to cancel the service. This simple move will get you a decreased price in the majority of subscription based service. In this particular situation Verizon gave me so half ass offer that was not enticing at all. The CSR said something that got my attention,

If you were a new customer I could replicate your current deal and get you a gift card for a couple hundred dollars

What a minute! I am not a new customer but The Wife is! The CSR wasn’t sure if the system would let her, so I told her to check it out. It seems Verizon considers new customers by social security not address, so I was able to get a new customer price without any of the hassle of actually quitting!

Getting New Customer Pricing Without Being a New Customer

I am going to assume that there are companies that have figured out this ploy but next time you are trying to save money on a subscription based product offer your spouse or roommate as the “new” customer.

December 27, 2013 4 comments

Dividend Investing

My Dividend Stream is Growing but is Still So Unexciting

by Evan December 17, 2013

Unless I receive any additional dividend payments in the next 13 days, my dividend income has increased 50+%! But I am pretty bummed about it. How could that be possible? The problem is that the whole number is still damn unexciting. In 2012 my (very distant) perpetual income machine provided $458.18 in dividends for the year while in 2013 that number increased to $760.44. Enough for 2 dinners at a fancy steak house is not what dreams are made of.

My Current Holdings and Yield on Cost

I have never tried to calculate my yield on cost until this post. Yield on Cost, as defined by Investopedia is,

The annual dividend rate of a security divided by the average cost basis of the investments. It shows the dividend yield of the original investment. If the number of shares owned by the investor does not change, the yield on cost will increase if the company increases the dividend it pays to shareholders; otherwise it will remain the same.

To calculate yield on cost for a stock, an investor must divide the stock’s annual dividend by the average cost basis per share and multiple the resulting number by 100 (to get a percentage).

So if I bought 10 shares of Stock ABC for $30/share and it had a dividend yield of 3% I could expect $9.00. Then lets say in 5 years the powers that be decided they liked a 3% yield but the stock had increased to $40 a share I could expect to receive $12.00. However I still only originally put in my original $30 so instead of a 3% yield I am actually receiving a 4% yield on cost.

As you could imagine the shares that had the greatest unrealized capital gains are likely to have a higher yield on cost. The reason is simple, your (my) original cost basis never changed other than small incremental dividend reinvestments.

My Actual Yield on Cost

Symbol	Description	Cost Per Share	Current Yield (12-17-13)	YOC
AFL	AFLAC INC (Margin) (Margin)	$38.13	2.23%	3.88%
BDX	BECTON DICKINSON CO (Margin) (Margin)	$75.51	2.06%	2.91%
BMS	BEMIS COMPANY INC (Margin) (Margin)	$39.52	2.75%	3.54%
CB	CHUBB CORP (Margin) (Margin)	$60.28	1.89%	2.92%
CBSH	COMMERCE BANCSHARES INC (Margin) (Margin)	35.99	1.92%	2.33%
CTBI	COMMUNITY TR BANCORP INC (Margin) (Margin)	$33.97	2.94%	3.77%
DVY	ISHARES SELECT DIVIDEND ETF (Margin) (Margin)	$54.42	3.13%	3.97%
ED	CONSOLIDATED EDISON HLDG CO INC (Margin) (Margin)	$57.81	4.51%	4.29%
HCP	HCP INC COM (Margin) (Margin)	$43.93	5.82%	4.73%
IDV	ISHARES INTERNATIONAL DIVIDEND ETF (Margin) (Margin)	$31.06	No Yield???
JNJ	JOHNSON & JOHNSON (Margin) (Margin)	$68.22	2.89%	3.87%
KO	COCA COLA CO (Margin) (Margin)	$41.15	2.85%	2.72%
LEG	LEGGETT & PLATT INC (Margin) (Margin)	$25.96	4.07%	4.62%
MCY	MERCURY GENERAL CORP (Margin) (Margin)	$38.14	5.09%	6.50%
MMM	3M COMPANY (Margin) (Margin)	$92.17	1.99%	2.73%
NFG	NATIONAL FUEL GAS CO (Margin) (Margin)	$47.53	2.17%	3.20%
NWN	NORTHWEST NAT GAS CO (Margin) (Margin)	$45.24	4.3%	4.07%
PG	PROCTER & GAMBLE CO (Margin) (Margin)	$61.65	2.95%	3.89%
SDY	SPDR SER TR S&P DIVID ETF (Margin) (Margin)	$52.25	2.43%	3.06%
SON	SONOCO PRODS CO (Margin) (Margin)	$31.19	3.03%	3.98%
TGT	TARGET CORP (Margin) (Margin)	$64.55	2.77%	2.66%
VFC	V F CORP (Margin) (Margin)	$93.92	1.79%	4.47%
WAG	WALGREEN COMPANY (Margin) (Margin)	$33.15	2.22%	3.74%
WMT	WALMART STORES INC (Margin) (Margin)	$74.33	2.42%	2.53%

I am receiving an average yield on cost of 3.75%. I shouldn’t be able to complain about that, but I obviously am since the whole number is still so low.

I think this exercise has given me new inspiration that the exercise I do every month with regard to trying to find an equity worth dumping $750 to $1,000 in is the best place for my cash right now (this may change in the future if I buy a B&M business or a rental property). Since it is currently the best place for cash right now it is my responsibility next year to get spending back under control so I can start putting a multiple of that number into the account every month.

*I should mention that the calculations in this post do not include roth IRAs, traditional IRAs or my 401(k).

December 17, 2013 10 comments

Dividend Investment Portfolio

December 2013 Dividend Watchlist

by Evan December 16, 2013

After my November 2013 Dividend Watchlist update I bought:

18 Shares of BMS for $711.39 with commissions
15 Shares of HCP for $581.10 with commissions
Sold 24 shares of MCY for proceeds of $1,114.27 after commissions.

I think this was the first time I ever sold, even a part, of a position that wasn’t due to a dividend cut. I already provided my reasoning why I sold a long term dividend hold in an entire post, but the crux of the discussion was that the stock seemed overvalued to ignore.

As I have mentioned in the past this (along with every other) update takes a snapshot of certain metrics on a certain date. This update was prepared on the night of December 15, 2013 The spreadsheets below do not update automatically.

My Dividend Investment Portfolio Screening Criteria

The company has paid increasing dividends for the past 20 years.
The stock has to have a Price to Earning that is lower than their industry average. The Price to Earnings Ratio has to below 20 regardless of industry average.
The Operating Margin has to be in line with the particular stock’s industry average. I want companies that are profitable as compared to their peers.
Price to Book – Should be below 4, but if it isn’t it must be in line with industry average (or lower).
This monthly update the Dividend Yield should be above 2.5% (changes whenever I update the list depending how many stocks I have left after the first 4 steps).

You may notice that some of the stocks aren’t eliminated if they barely fail a metric test. This is because I don’t want to eliminate a stock that is within a range that eyeball since I am taking a snapshot.

Tweaks Which occurred in June of 2013

A few months ago I changed a few variables. I have included them here just as a reminder to myself.

For the past few years I have focused on the the Dividend Champion list (before that I used the the Dividend aristocrat list). The dividend champion list is updated monthly. Starting this month I have lowered the amount of years that a company has to have paid increasing dividends to 20 (from 25).
I eliminated any stock with a P/E over 30, then I lowered it to 25 and now I am at 20 regardless of it beats the industry average.
In the past P/B was “reasonable” but as lot of commenters pointed out this eliminates companies with naturally higher P/B. I should have listened to my readers earlier! As such, I now use the industry average for all stocks with a P/B over 4.
Yield is now my last criteria (as opposed to P/B).

Definitions of Metrics Used for my Dividend Investment Portfolio

Since not everyone knows what I am talking about above I have provided definitions (all quotes taken from Investopedia):

Dividend Champions are those dividend paying American companies that have increased their dividend for the past 25 years. Unlike the Dividend Aristocrat list they do not have to be part of the S&P 500. I have included a part of the dividend contenders list.
P/E is Price is “a valuation ratio of a company’s current share price compared to its per-share Earnings.”
Operating margin is “a measurement of what proportion of a company’s revenue is left over after paying for variable costs of production such as wages, raw materials, etc. A healthy operating margin is required for a company to be able to pay for its fixed costs, such as interest on debt.”
Price to book is a ratio used to compare a stock’s market value to its book value. It is calculated by dividing the current closing price of the stock by the latest quarter’s book value per share.
Dividend Yield a “Financial ratio that shows how much a company pays out in dividends each year relative to its share price. In the absence of any capital gains, the dividend yield is the return on investment for a stock. Dividend yield is calculated by dividing Annual Dividends per Share by Price Per Share”

First Stock Screen: PE Ratio

The first Stocks I their eliminated were those whose Price to Earnings Ratios were out of line with their industry average. I also eliminate companies with PEs above 20 regardless of their industry average.

Second Stock Screen: Operating Margin

Next I eliminated those stocks whose operating margin was not better than its peers in the industry. I want the companies I invest in to be more profitable than their peers. This way unless there is a huge problem with the industry they’d be less likely to stop doing something (i.e. paying increasing dividends) that they have been doing for the past 20+ years

Third Stock Screen: Reasonable Price to Book or in line with their Industry

I was looking for those stocks whose price to book value is low as to further evidence that it is undervalued. In an effort to limit the unintended consequence of choosing stocks with a lot of tangible or financial assets on the books I have started comparing the P/B to the industry average.

Fourth Stock Screen: Yield

While I am not ‘chasing yields’ I am attempting to create a dividend portfolio, so the next elimination step was to remove any stocks with a dividend yield of less than 2.5%. This is a moving target depending on how many stocks I have left to choose from. Sometimes I go for 2% sometimes 4%.

Remaining Dividend Aristocrats that I hope are near their 52 week low

For the next month I will be looking at the following stocks hoping some come near their 52 week low:

Altria Group Inc.	MO
Black Hills Corp.	BKH
Chevron Corp.	CVX
Coca-Cola Company	KO
Community Trust Banc.	CTBI
Consolidated Edison	ED
Eagle Financial Services	EFSI
Genuine Parts Co.	GPC
HCP Inc.	HCP
Leggett & Platt Inc.	LEG
McDonald’s Corp.	MCD
MGE Energy Inc.	MGEE
Northwest Natural Gas	NWN
Sonoco Products Co.	SON
Target Corp.	TGT
Tompkins Financial Corp.	TMP
Meredith Corp.	MDP
PSB Holdings Inc.	PSBQ

Have any history with these companies? Anything you’d like to share?

December 16, 2013 2 comments

Random

Reviewing how Kiplinger’s Stock Picks for 2013 Performed

by Evan December 13, 2013

I always hated those articles that take a moment in time and provide the reader with the “best” stocks using just a paragraph of justification. They don’t seem to make any sense to me, but I am sure they sell magazines. Every year or so I take a look at the list and actually call out the authors since no one else seems to care about actual performance.

In the past I took look at Fortune’s Picks for 2011 4 months into that year and how Fortune’s 2007 and Money Magazine’s 2008 Lists were doing in 2012. Today’s it Kiplinger’s turn.

Taking a look at Kiplinger’s Stock Picks for 2013 at the end of 2013

Kiplinger’s James K. Glassman & Andrew Fienberg came up with 23 stocks to watch in 2013. The Year to date information was provided by google finance and was done half done on the night of 12/12/13 and morning of 12/13/13:

COH – YTD up .02%
COV – YTD up 13.79%
JBSS – YTD up 33.39%
QCOM – YTD up 17.57%
TRW – YTD up 37.47%
TOL – YTD up .96%
VMW – YTD down 8.37%
WFC – YTD up 27.27%
CVO – YTD up 17.78%
CMCSA – YTD up 30.27%
SYK – YTD up 31.05%
EDU – YTD up 50.28%
KMB – YTD up 22.98%
USB – YTD up 22.97%
DELL – YTD up 36.96% (went private)
TNGO – YTD up 29.06%
RUK – YTD up 33.82%
F – YTD up 29.31%
OCN – YTD up 20.87%
FIG – YTD up 97.49%
BRP – YTD up 18.9%
JOY – Down 40.06%
AIG – YTD up 40.25%

Much better than year’s past! I am not sure what benchmarks to compare the stocks to since some are small cap some are large, some are on S&P others are not. Although an average return of 25.25% is pretty good!

December 13, 2013 4 comments