Sunday, February 5, 2023

Why Wait For a Pay Raise? Build Your Own Pay Raise Machine.

 

 So your boss has you working all hours.  He complains about your attitude,  he won't give you a pay raise to save you from inflation?

Piles of dollar bills

 

Why are you bothering to wait for a pay raise?


You have the power right now to change your future where yo control the pay raise,  you make all of the decisions,  it's cheap, it will take you just five minutes to read about your very own "Pay Raise Machine"


The knowledge is out there, you just need to find it.


I did over ten years ago and here is where you can find your "Pay Raise Machine"  construction plan.


Don't Wait For a Pay Raise:  Build a Pay Raise Machine:  Article on 'Medium'

Friday, May 13, 2022

Will Amazon recover from it's recent Fall in the Market

 

bull on wall street, i am bullish for amazon
I should say that I am a long time holder of Amazon stock and I like the look of it for the long term, but there always has to be a but,

Amazon is a good company, I hold it because I believe in the Amazon brand and the Amazon Web Services part of the company. Amazon also now owns much of its own distribution and real estate, less of interest to me, but valuable.

Paying a thousand dollars or more was just too high a price, at it’s high price of over $3,000 if I added it to my Roth IRA, it took almost all of my annual allowance of $7,000 to buy two shares of stock. That is a lot of cash in a stock that could fall and rise by hundreds of dollars per day.

 

Continue reading here:https://vvxddgnxgemqdexe.quora.com/Will-Amazon-bounce-back-from-the-set-back-in-the-stock-market

 

 

 

Please support this blog by taking a look at our Amazon Store.

 

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

What Crypto Currencies Pay Dividends?

 Generally crypto currencies do not pay dividends.


But that being said it is possible to earn interest from owning crypto currencies.

What crypto currencies pay dividends? Bit coin symbol


I know of two companies which pay you interest on your crypto coins.  Coinbase and Block Fi.


I have accounts with both of these companies and have earned regular interest from both.


My account with Coinbase pays me interest at differing rates and times depending upon the coin and tokens which I hold.  For instance I can earn up to 5% on my Cosmos investment this pays me interest at about weekly intervals. But I can earn around 2.75% on Algorand coin but that is paid daily.


Coinbase also allows you to buy smaller amounts of crypto, but does charge a $0.99 fee for all of their transactions.  So if fees are something that you wish to avoid, or you want to invest in small sums, Coinbase could be a little expensive.


One little thing that can earn you extra is the feature "Earn as you Learn" offered by coinbase. Here you can read a training article or watch a video and then answer very simple questions about what you just saw. I have earned about $40 in free crypto just from this feature alone.


You can also earn crypto here by sharing your link with friends.  Sharing your link can earn you $10 in free bitcoin if your link is used to open a new account. You actually both earn $10 in free Bitcoin.  To open an account with Coinbase click here.

 


I also have an account with Block Fi.


Block Fi is the least expensive in terms of fees but you do have to make a minimum deposit, here it is a $20 minimum bank transfer  but there is no up front fee, I think they are also taking some extra cash in their spread as the Bitcoin here is a fraction higher than on Coinbase, but not excessively so.


Block Fi is also more generous on their interest payments.  You can earn up to 9% at the moment on some Dollar based crypto and Bitcoin and Etherioum carry interest rates around 4%.


You can see  your estimated interest earning build each day, but these are only estimates, real interest is added on the last day of the calendar month.  That then compunds your investment for the next month.


Trading currencies within the platform is easy, so you can buy in a dollar based crypto like GUSD earn 9% on your deposit and then use the GUSD to buy Bitcoin or Etherioum if you see the price is attractive. That is my strategy on this platform.


Block Fi also pays you in Bitcoin if you introduce a friend to the site.  You can earn Several levels of payment depending on how much the friend opens their account with.  To open an account with Block Fi go here.


If you have found this post interesting please consider supporting the blog by visiting my Amazon Store.




Wednesday, January 5, 2022

What Would You Do With $1,000?

 One thousand dollars can seem to be a lot of money, when you have no money.


I am in the happy position where I can lay my hands on a thousand dollars, just at the click of a mouse button.


I am not talking in terms of credit cards nor am I talking of home equity lines of credit.  I have several tens of thousands invested.  This has come to me over the past fifteen years, but I have invested since the late 1970's.  To read how I built an investment stream that pays me daily you can read "Creating a Dividend Ladder""

 

Benjamin Franklin image from a $100 bill

One thousand Dollars is just ten Benjamin's 


That will not buy you much on it's own. I am talking for myself here, $1,000 can pay your rent, in part, for a month, buy you a month worth of food, pay off part of a loan. But for me, I would look to invest it.

So what would I invest it in?


I would look to my M1 Finance account. There I could invest it in a multitude of companies.


I have a portfolio of 100 company stocks and Exchange traded funds.


You can see my portfolio as it stands today at My Dividend Portfolio. If you use this link to open an account, you will receive a bonus of around $30 sometimes up to $50. I will also receive a commission for introducing you , this is at no cost to you.


I could also buy about two Vanguard S&P 500 Exchange Traded Fund shares ( VOO ). This holds all of the top 500 companies in the U.S. stock market in a very low cost Exchange Traded Fund. It therefore guarantees at least near market returns, plus some quarterly returns in the form of dividends.


So for me investment is where I put all of my income. Then I use the proceeds of the investments to pay for day to day expenses.


Some of the spare change, if I have any, would go to possibly investing in either California Municipal Bonds, these are reasonable payers of regular monthly dividends, but have the bonus of being free of income tax since I live in California.


I might also put some in to Crypto currencies like Bit coin or Etherium, I have an account at Block Fi where I stake some of these coins to receive a monthly interest payment.  You can receive $10 in free Bitcoin when you open a Block Fi account using my link here. Get $10 of Bitcoin when you open a Block Fi account here.


Please support my Blog by taking a look at My Amazon Store, if you make any purchase I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Sunday, January 2, 2022

January 2, 2022: I beat the DJIA and NASDAQ in 2021!


 So 2021 is now history and we can look back at what worked last year and plan for the new year in the markets.

graph showing my main portfolio against the DJIA, NASDAQ and S&P

Last year was a relatively good year. My main portfolio rose just over 22% from the beginning of January until the end of December.  It beat both the Dow Jones Industrial index and the NASDAQ index. It lagged the S&P 500 by a few percentage points but two out of three isn't that bad.


My M1 account has now topped $5,000 and is cash flowing just over $28 per quarter.  The cash snowball is building fast on that front with just over $120 earned in almost two years.


You can see my M1 portfolio here.  If you use this link and fund a new account with just $100  both you and I will receive a $30 bonus, so you begin your account with a 30% profit before your fist trade is made.



On the crypto front, I have two accounts.  One with Block Fi where I have staked my crypto funds. There is a good return coming in there, in just six weeks I have earned over $1 on just over one hundred dollars of stked crypto.  Items like Bitcoin, Cosmos and Etherium.


Staking is easy just create an account and place your crypto currency in the  pool then in a few hours you will see your account receive interest on your money. At the end of the month the income is then added to your account so the funds compound quickly.  To open a Block Fi account go here If you open an account with this link both of us will receive a bonus payment of bitcoin.


My other crypto account is with Coinbase. This account has some ability to stake your crypto currency but also lets you earn new crypto by taking simple tests.  I have earned about $36 in coins just taking a simple quiz which comes up on the site about every ten days. A dollar here and there helps boost those staked earnings.


To open a Coinbase account go to here.  We will also both earn a bonus amount of approximately $10 in Bitcoin when you fund your new account.


Going back to my stock portfolio. This being a new year I took the opportunity to take a look at my dividend yield for the next year.  This being the yield on cost I took the estimated dividend for the next year and then divided this by the total cost of my portfolios. The actual price that I have paid, not the value of the stock at todays market price.


My original yield on cost four years ago was around 2.1%  that was about the same as the S&P yield.


My yield on cost on January 1, 2022, was 4.17%.


This growth has come from my long holding time, some stocks have been there since 2006. Plus last year saw lots of my companies increasing their dividends.


A thing to remeber is when you buy a stock and it pays a dividend you receive that percentage yield on the stock for as long as the stocks pays a dividend or the stock increases its dividend, when such an increase occurs your price paid remains the same, but your yield on cost increases dramatically.  


My Apple stock, AAPL pays only about 0.4% buying at todays prices of around $170.  I have owned AAPL since 2006 so my cost per share is less than $50 the yield of AAPL for me is 1..76% and will grow as AAPL grows its dividend.


Well that's all for now.  Thanks for reading and please consider opening accounts at M1, Block Fi or Coinbase, their bonus payments are genuine, and once opened you too can share links which will earn you some side income if you share a link.


Also thank you for supporting me with purchases from my Amazon Store. Take a look at the latest offers here.







Friday, November 19, 2021

What’s the best way to start saving money and make my bank account grow?

 Once you know that you want to save your money.  Just how do you go about saving?

coins in a glass savings jar


First you will need to know what you spend all of your money on.


Do you spend it on living expenses? Rent? Food? Transport to and from work? Credit Card payments? Student loans?


This may sound tedious and non too glamorous, it is. It is a necessary part of gaining control of your money. You need to know exactly where your money goes when you are not looking after it.


Start on your pay day.  Make a note on everything that you spend money on for the whole of the next pay cycle, from payday to payday. Big or small make a note of what you spend money on and where you spend your money.


Once you begin to gather all of your data, you will start to find your patterns of spending.  You do not need to cut out any spending at the gathering data stage. You just need to know your cash spending habits right now.


After the first pay cycle is done, you will have a lot of information about how you spend your money.


Look in detail at what you spend your money on. Do you even remember the purchases? It can be surprising how much money we spend without even noticing. A dollar here or dollar there, we tell ourselves that it doesn't matter, but it does it is a loss of your time and cash. You spent your time to earn those dollars, now they are gone, forever.


Look for items in your spending log that are wants and not needs. You need shelter, you need some food, so rent or mortgage are things that you have to pay for. Do you buy a sandwich at the store everyday, then this is a want, try to make several sandwiches per month at home or cut back on your food spending if you throw lots of your food out during the month. Making your food at home is generally less expensive and healthier than food bought in a store or restaurant.


When you go out, do you buy a $20 cocktail to drink? Then choose a less expensive drink.  It'll probably be less loaded with gimmicks and sweet sugary syrups which may taste good but they make you crave even more sweet drinks later in the night.


As you begin to cut back on all of the wants in your life, you'll see you have money left in  your bank account at the end of the month.  You might be tempted to spend it on a one time splurge if you leave it in your main bank account. So, open a high interest savings account with an online bank.  Transfer some of your left over cash at the end of the month to this account.


The high interest savings account will take all of the money that you have to spare and lock it away. You can only take money from these accounts six times per month, and having the money away from your main bank account will mean that you are making extra steps to access your money. As a human you will generally want to do the easiest thing, that is in this account, leave the money alone, it's hard to access.  


Soon, within a month or two, you'll see the savings start to build. As you save, you'll find it gets easier and easier to save.


Saving becomes a habit.


Soon you'll begin to set goals for yourself. "I'll save X dollars by my birthday." 


As your savings build, you can spend some of the money on planned purchases.  But it's also fun to look at things when you have a cash balance and say, "I could buy that. If I wanted too. But I don't need to buy it today."


One of the major killers of savings is credit card debt. So pay off all of your credit cards as soon as you can. Once paid off, try to never carry a balance on your card. Pay it off as quickly as you can. Credit cards can be useful for their insurance value, when you make a purchase, if there is a problem and the seller won't help, report the seller to the credit card company.  Their intervention on your behalf can move even the most reluctant seller to action.  Other than that settle your bill in full every month if you can. Never make just minimum payments unless you are working on paying off several credit cards using the debt snowball method. i.e. paying a lot off one bill while making minimum payments on the other cards, as you pay off one card, move the high payment over until that card is paid off, until all cards are paid in full.


Once you have paid all credit card debt, and built some savings. You can think about investing, to increase your assets and income.To read about creating a Dividend Savings Ladder CLICK HERE.

 

You may support this blog by going to our Amazon Store.  Thank you.

 

 You can also read my regular contributions at "Stream of Income." A Quora free space about increasing your wealth.



 

Monday, November 15, 2021

How to Create a Dividend Income Ladder From Scratch.

 One of the commonest complaints I hear from people about dividend investing is "But I would only receive occasional income from dividends. What do I do between dividend payments to make money?"


Well of course, in the United States most dividends are paid quarterly. in other parts of the world you receive only semi-annual dividends every six months or so.

Dividend ladder, a ladder  on a plain white background, rising from bottom left to top right, wooden ladder image


One of the first investing tricks I learned back in the 1970's at the very beginning of my investing career was to create a dividend ladder.


With a dividend ladder you can create a sequence of dividend checks coming in, almost daily.   I personally receive on average more than seven dividend payments per day.


March, June, September and December still actually see me me receiving more dividends than any other months. But this is just a product of the way U.S. Corporations pay their dividends.  I still receive dividends most week days.


How I begin creating a Dividend Ladder:


First of all, the dividend ladder only works if you use dividend paying stocks and Interest paying Bond funds. You can include growth stocks if you wish, but they will not contribute to dividend income for some time, if ever.


I begin with a framework.  In the last few days of a month, many Mutual funds and ETF pay a dividend. While some companies, Coca Cola ( KO ), Aflac (AFL ) and Allstate Insurance (ALL ) like to pay on the first day of the month.  So one can mix in some monthly paying Mutual Funds and blue chip single company dividends here, choosing companies which pay on the first day of different months helps . So Allstate pays in June, Cocac cola pays in July, Verizon (VZ ) pays in August, then back to Allstate to repeat the cycle.


Week two of the month can be a little sparse, unless you have some Bond funds, Bond funds generally pay out around the seventh of the month.  


There is often a quiet period until about the fifteenth of the month when many monthly paying Real estate investment trusts (REITs ) pay out, One might also include Business development corporations here too BDC likn Main Street Capital ( MAIN ) pay out at this time.


The third week of the month or beginning of the last week sees the paying of dividends from many covered call investment companies.  They generally pay about one week adter the monthly options period closes, that is the third Friday of the month.


After one has created this frame of investments which will pay you a regular monthly income, one only needs to fill in the gaps with dividend paying stocks.


It is a simple method of generating almost daily income from periodic payments.


Build a Dividend Ladder with M1 Finance. Get a Bonus when you start investing.

 

 With M1 Finances automatic investment program you can set your investments and almost forget.  M1 Finance will reinvest the dividend income into your pre-selected stocks to automatically keep your portfolio balanced in the way you wish.


Your dividend ladder can grow and grow with little effort from you.


As your dividend ladder starts, you only see small increases in dividends at first.  But if you continue to add a little new money, your investment grows, increasing your dividends.  This effect is often call the "Dividend Snowball"  Before long your dividends can be in the tens of dollars per month.


For instance, I opened my account with M1 Finance on January 15, 2020.  I began with just $100, I added $10 per week. My first dividend came just three weeks after opening the account, I received 1 cent from the LQD Corporate bond fund. Afew days later other dividends began to come in.   Today in November 2021, I have earned over $102 in dividends. and my account has grown to over $4,600.  In the next year I expect to earn $12 per month, that is for doing nothing but, monitoring a portfolio occasionally and adding a dew dollars per week.


Amazing.  The power of investing in dividend paying stocks.


Thanks for reading.  I hope that you might try to create a dividend ladder from scratch.