June Review / July Preview, 2015 and Semi-Annual Review

Investor Gremlin here for this first ever post-30 review.  In a way June marks the sad passing of my 20s.  Indeed my foothold on my youth is gradually fading away, part of the reason it is more important than ever to push for financial independence. June itself has always been a good month to me.  A birthday accompanied by the rush of summer is usually cause for good times.  The years ahead will certainly be filled with hard work, grit, and other important milestones.  For the time being, my goal is to continue to push as hard as I can into FI.  It is not just a goal of mine, but more my means.  I don't want to be stuck in a job I feel iffy about the rest of my life.  This is about taking back my life, and I believe my 30s will be full of this drive.

June:

Last month I brought in a total of $67.80 in dividends ($50.71 taxable , $17.09 Roth).  This is a increase from last year ($56.71 total) by 10.82%.  These numbers are a good start, but I plan to do better every quarter from here on out.

In terms of dividend increases, I realized two this month; Johnson and Johnson (JNJ) and Unilever (UL).  It should be noted that a strong US dollar hurt my UL payout, despite UL's increase. Two new announcements for dividend increases were made; Realty Income (O) with its usual small increase and Target (TGT) increasing its payout by 7.7% / 4¢ per share quarterly!  That last one is great, better than expected! 

As with prior months I continued my Loyal3 march towards FI.  I added 1 share of Microsoft (MSFT) and 1 of Coke Cola (KO).  Those two positions should be brought up to a proverbial 'full' in terms of my Loyal3 goals by the end of August the latest.  In addition, I am currently in the process of making a large buy.  Literally it is happening today / tomorrow, so I will be putting up back to back posts, which never happens.

July:

Ahh the month of Julius Caesar and the Juli Famliy.  Queue the history lessons...

My only long term debt is my car, which shall continue.  I have already gotten ahead on my monthly payments, and I will continue pushing that direction.  Additionally, my wife got a dog, so there is that.  Also, I am taking an important test for work that should get me a professional certification, the kind with letters after my name.  If I successfully complete that, it could be a huge windfall - so I plan on putting a lot of time into this until my test date.

Next month should produce around $75 in dividends, which is a 9% year-over-year increase.  I expect to realize one raise next month from O.  I expect to pick up more shares of either KO, MSFT, K or VFC in my Loyal3 account - value dependent.






Semi-Annual Review:

This is my first ever account review.  I am planning to do this on a Semi-Annual Basis so I can measure myself over time.  For this I will be looking at my various accounts (Taxable Investment / Loyal3, Roth Investment, and 401K) in comprehensive fashion.

Overview:

At the end of last year I had a combined "retirement" total of $45,593.  Today that total sits at $51,527, an increase of 13%.  Those values include cash accumulating for future investments.  I am pleased at this progress and hope to continue to push the boundary over the course of this year.  Currently, the markets are down and I should be able to capitalize on that.  At the moment my forward-year project for dividends is around $850, which is something I really want to increase.

Taxable Investments / Loyal 3:

Six months ago my total combined between these two was $13,782.  At the moment it is $14,424, a 4.65% increase.  This tells me I need to continue to work hard to push up my account value and most importantly use this as a chance to increase my holdings by acquiring good companies at cheap valuations.  Loyal3 at the end of last year accounted for $5,435 (39.4%) of my taxable positions, today it is at $6,760 (46.9%).  I will continue to use this powerful fee-free tool to slowly build numerous positions until merging is desireable.

Roth Investments:

To be honest, this is the account I am most pleased with.  It has not suffered through my early aimless years of investing.  No this account is 110% dividend growth and it shows how much ass it kicks.  At the end of last year it was valued at $8,906, and today it is at $11,152 a 25% increase!  Yes part of this is due to Kraft's (KRFT) amazing news, but much of it is due to the relative safety of all my positions.  There is no Pengrowth Energy (PGH) in there.  Also worthy of note is my dividend growth here is out of control - last year I earned $281.74 here, this year I expect to make $366 - 30% more.  Between new investments and dividend increases this account has really nailed home for me the premise and promise associated with this kind of investing.

Hope everyone has a great July!
- Dividend Gremlin.
- Long all stock positions mentioned.