Mulzar.com

My dividends are coming

 End of march and beginning of april is going to be fun. My dividends are coming! Pepsi’s dividend date is 31st march, $0.45 per share. Coca cola’s dividend is $0.44 per share and they are handing it out 1st April.  Note that dividend investing isn’t the ideal strategy to get rich. I have a stable DRIP portfolio because I like having a growing income. My drip portfolio isn’t my main plan to achieve my million dollar goal though.

 Current DRIP portfolio:

Berkshire Hathaway Inc B             1.11327
Coca Cola                                  16.23005
Kraft Foods Inc                             26.70562
McDonalds                                   12.24261
Nestle N                                      4.27856
PepsiCo                                        14.78645
Procter&Gamble                            3.35264
Lloyds Bank                                  1 098.12333
Tesco                                            81.00704

 I’m mostly interested in coca cola right now. I’m waiting for it to go down a few dollars so I can add more shares. I will start buying more shares below $50 a share.

Have a nice dividend.

Hello everyone!

2010 won’t be a disappointing year for income investors. Atleast not for me.

Here is my current dividend portfolio:

Berkshire Hathaway Inc B             0.77309
Coca Cola                                    16.23005
Kraft Foods Inc                             26.70562
McDonalds                                   12.24261
Nestle N                                        2.89255
PepsiCo                                        14.78645
Procter&Gamble                            2.26402
Lloyds Bank                                  1 034.84909

Coca Cola raised its dividend 7.3% to 44 cents per share. So I will receive 0.44*16.23005 = $7.141222 from coca cola. Nestle raised its dividend 14.30% to $1.477 ( with the current USD/CHF exchange rate ) per share. I am surprised by the big raise in dividend from Nestle. I didn’t think it would be above 10% in dividend increase. My stake in nestle is ridiculously small so I am not so excited by the dividend raise.

This was a nice beginning on my income investing strategy, hopefully coca cola & nestle willl continue raising their dividends for years to come.

I’ve been thinking about adding Tesco to my DRIP portfolio. It’s nice to hear that Buffett has a stake in Tesco, it makes my choice easier.  This is my DRIP portfolio at the moment:

Berkshire Hathaway Inc B              0.4225
Coca Cola                                     14.30654
Kraft Foods Inc                             23.16033
McDonalds                                    10.63966
Nestle N                                        2.89255
PepsiCo                                        13.17289
Procter&Gamble                        2.25718
Lloyds Bank                                  964.57166

Current Portfolio value: $4012

My DRIP portfolio as you can notice is a mixture of income stocks and risk. Lloyds bank is a risky move and the other stocks except Berkshire are income stocks. It feels nice having a income portfolio with growth. Going to sleep is alot easier, believe me!

I know that my DRIP portfolio is ridiculously small, I’m waiting for better opportunities to buy more shares. I’m looking intensely at the share prices of Coca Cola and Pepsico. Coca cola and pepsico are obvious choices for the income investor. I think the majority of dividend investors have pepsico and coca cola in their drip portfolio. But it’s important to get them at fair prices.

I’m looking to buy more shares at:

KO < $50

PEP < $55

Good luck fellow dividend investors! 

I am happy with how things have went so far. Sure, I could have alot more money by now but that’s life. I’ve been reviewing my strategy for accumulating wealth. If I am ever going to achieve $1 million dollar in net worth, I have to dedicate more of my time. My strategy has so far been investing in stocks, funds and real estate and saving money regularly. The reason why I choose stocks and real estate is because they have been proven to be the best wealth builders over the long term. I still haven’t DRIP invested. I have plans on opening a DRIP with Pepsi or Coca Cola or maybe both. The reason why DRIP look tempting to me is because I like the idea of passive income with growth. Dividend reinvesting is a low stress approach to the stock market and that makes it even more appealing.

Should I also consider my website’s value when I am calculating my net worth? Maybe I should, considering that I calculate all things of value when I announce my net worth. Real estate, precious metals, stocks, savings etc. I never thought that this website would be worth anything because blogging was more like a hobby and I didn’t intend to make money on my blog. But as time went ad money started to come in. 

For now I won’t take my website’s value into consideration because the money I make isn’t worth mentioning so the value of http://mulzar.com is probably not worth calculating YET!

So to sum things up: I have been saving money on regular basis and investing it in stocks and funds. I used to amortize my mortgage loan but I stopped doing that as I mentioned earlier since saving money in the stock market will probably make me more money than amortizing. I have future plans on opening a DRIP account at Pepsi or Coca Cola. Or some other good DRIP stocks. I have few stocks on my mind that would be suitable for DRIP.

Status:

Net Worth: $32400

Holdings,

Stocks/Funds:

$4200 in emerging markets funds. I will give details about which funds/countries  next update!

Real estate:

One apartment, market price = $100800

Loans:

$71583 real estate loan.

$900 cash loan.

 I’ve achieved $32400 in net worth so far, not so bad. I started my million dollar  about 1.5 year ago with $14000. It might seem like I have done some good value investments but the fact is most of the rise in my net worth have been through saving not the rise of my stock holdings or real estate. I would have been a good amount richer if I didn’t sell my RBY shares, but hey what can you do…. “if” changes alot when you trade stocks. It’s easy to be smart in hindsight.

The biggest gain in net worth since my last million dollar goal update was from the weakened dollar. With the current dollar/sek exchange rate I have amortized $812 of my mortgage and about $100 from my cash loan. While I’m at the amortize subject I want to quickly note why I amortize. A few of my readers has critized me for amortizing. I could easily beat the 4.32% interest I have on my fixed loan by investing in the stock market. Yes I know that I probably would on average gain 7-10% in the stock market over a long period and have 3-6% higher return than amortizing BUT I like safety and I’m old fashioned ( even though I’m young ). I don’t like the new credit era where everyone has 80-90% loan, if my apartment would drop in price over the course of 2-5 years I still wouldn’t be worried because I’ve amortized a bit of the loan by then, as of right now 71% of my apartment is loaned. Besides amortizing is a safe bet to build wealth slowly. But I’m willing to admit that investing is a smarter choice than amortizing.

Anyway back to the currency talk: My loan is at $71583 now. I know what you’re thinking, I amortized and still my loan got bigger?!

Well the answer is simple, I bought the real estate in swedish crowns and the dollar has gotten weaker since then. But that’s a good thing. I am closer to my million dollar goal because of that.  My rise in net worth has gone from $23800 to approximately $29000, the loan gives me leverage that’s why the rise is quite big.

Besides the gain in real estate I have made I’ve saved some money and invested it in emerging markets funds. I managed to save and invest $1200 and it has grown to $1300, so far so good

Status:

Net Worth: $29300

Holdings,

Stocks/Funds:

$1300 in emerging markets funds. I will give details about which funds/countries  next update!

Real estate:

One apartment, market price = $100800 // My readers might get really surprised by the strong rise in real estate price but you have to remember that the price is actually the same as when I bought it. The only reason why it has gone “up” $10800 in 3 months is because the dollar has fallen a bit against the swedish crown. It’s only a “currency gain”.

Loans:

$71583 real estate loan.

$1100 cash loan.

Exactly one month has gone since I last updated my million dollar status. Well here’s the deal, alot has happened. I sold of my shares to use the cash as a down payment on a apartment I bought. So congratulations to me! I’ve bought myself an own apartment even though I’m so young. So how did I do it? Well it’s quite easy when your parents help you. Here are the numbers for the loan and real estate:

Apartment size = 25 square meters. ( Yes, it’s a student apartment )

I used $25100 as downpayment to buy it.

The rest,  $65000 was borrowed from the bank.  FIXED LOAN 4,32 % INTEREST FIVE YEAR FIXED.

The apartment was bought for approximately $25100 + $65000 = $90000. 

In my opinion it was a great deal, it’s in the capital, Stockholm and prices in that particular part of the city has fallen more than enough. It was selling for $115000-$125000 one year ago. You have to keep in mind that this is in the capital, so the prices can’t fall so much more. Everyone in the country wants to live here

Remember that I live in Sweden and the currency used was swedish crowns. SEK is currently at 8.37 = 1 US dollar. So in swedish crowns it was something like 750000 sek. So how much is the monthly charge:

$131 monthly FEE for the apartment. I don’t what it’s called in the States but we have another owning-system here.

$240 interest payment to bank. After tax deduction = $168.

I also amortize my loan ( it wasn’t necessary though ). Amortization = $177.

$131 + $168 + $177 = $476 monthly cost.  Actually it is $299 because when I amortize I’m really just giving the money to myself.

Remember that the numbers can change fast since all of it was done in another currency. It wouldn’t surprise me if the market price went up to $120000 in dollar terms, because the dollar is very strong right now versus the swedish crown.

Status:

Net Worth: $23800 ( your parents can be real helpful sometimes ;) )

Holdings,

Stocks:

None, nothing, zero, zippo!

Real estate:

One apartment, market price = $90000

Loans:

$65000 real estate loan.

$1200 cash loan.

Sorry, for the slow updates. So many things are going on in my life so I haven’t had the time to update my status. I have done some interesting things since last time. I dumped my RBY and UXG shares for a profit actually, which is a very good accomplishment considering dow jones has dropped like a rock the past time. I haven’t calculated by how much I’ve beated index but probably with a good margin. I’ve invested half my capital in “swedish” stocks and the other half in emerging market funds.

Other than that studies are going great but no lucking finding a part time job =/, on the other hand this blog is starting to get attention from advertisers. But then again I live in Sweden, I have to register a company to sell ad space, and corporation taxes in Sweden are insanely high, so I’ve been turned off from the idea of profiting on my blog.

Status:

Net Worth: $15000 ( pumped extra cash in to my account )

Holdings:

123 shares of Concordia Maritime B

254 shares of East Capital Explorer

132 shares of Fenix Outdoor

112 shares of Industrivärden C

30 shares of Investor A

36 shares of JM

42 shares of Kinnevik B

20 shares of Ratos B

60 shares of SJR in Scandinavia B

3049 shares of West Siberian Resources SDB

And about $4000 in funds, $2000 cash, and lastly I have a $1200 loan left.

It feels like forever since I wrote about my personal wealth and goals. Well, here’s the thing I’ve barely achieved anything since I made the promise to achive $1 million dollar in net worth. My net worth is something around $14000 currently, only $986000 left! You can see why I’m not so eager to update my wealth status, even though it has increased sligthly since last time. Another punch on my self esteem has been dealt, still no luck finding a part time job. It’s worth mentioning that I increased my position in Russia / Turkey during december/January.

Status:

Net Worth: $14000

Holdings:

703 shares of RBY

1094 shares of UXG

App. $11000 in funds. $3500 cash, $1800 loan.

I would like to start by saying still no luck finding a part time job. I recently applied for a customer service job in a bank, wish me luck! If I don’t get it, it may be for the better so I can concentrate on my studies( I will say anything to cheer myself up ). I have to say statistics ended up being alot more funnier than I thought it would be. I don’t know why it gets no attention.

The financial crisis has hurt my portfolio badly but I’m still somewhere around $13000 in net worth. You might ask, only down from $16000 to $13000 in all this turbulence the past months? Not really. I lost a bit more but because I’ve saved cash and transferred it to my stock account, the fall doesn’t feel that bad, to be honest I have a good feeling about this market crash. I’ve taken some really cheap long term positions. I don’t mean individual stocks though( well I have some cash left there ), I’ve put almost all my money on emerging markets ETFs.

Status:

Net Worth: $13000

Holdings:

703 shares of RBY

1094 shares of UXG

App. $10000 in funds. I have about $4000 cash and $2000 loan. The loan is a very “good” one, it happens to be subsidized and below 3% interest!

No answer from work yet. I’m a bit nervous, I really want this job. It’s so boring during the weekends when I’m not in the universty studying. I should probably go there more often just to kill time and increase the probability of getting a higher grade ( hehe, probability theory is shaping the way I write! ).