Mortgage Balance (UPDATE) - Dec 2015

If you have viewed our family's Net Worth Page, you probably already know that it does not include the equity in our home.  Although, we do realize that it is technically part of our overall net worth, we decided that since our home equity is not an asset that we can count on for income (unless we sell and buy something cheaper) we would exclude it from our net worth calculation.

For the purpose of this blog, we are more interested in documenting our loan balance rather than our home equity.  With that said, we will use the current Zillow value as our estimated home value and use it to figure out the percentage we owe on our home. For those interested, we will include the amount of our home equity, but know that we are less concerned with the equity since we have no plans to cash out or otherwise sell our home. Our main goal is to pay off our home on or before my retirement date. 

HOME VALUE:

According to Zillow, our home is currently worth: $765,030 (up $796 in the last 30-days). If you follow us, the reality is that whether our home prices rise or fall, it really doesn't mean much to our family as we have no intentions to sell or otherwise move.  We are very lucky to be able to say that we love were we are and couldn't see ourselves living and/or raising our family any other place. :)

Mortgage Balance (Dec.28):
$313,623 (down $1,844 from our last post)

Percentage Owed:
40.9 41.2 (down from 41.2% from our last post)

Home Equity:
$451,407 (up $2,911 from $448,496 on our last post)

At this point, I'm not too sure what to make of the housing market and the direction is it headed.  With the recent rate hike by the Feds this past month, future mortgage rates will surely be impacted.  With that said, I am certainly glad we have a fixed rate mortgage.  I can sleep much easier at night knowing that regardless of what the Feds do, whether they decide to keep it the same or continue raising rates, my mortgage payment will not be affected.    

Mortgage Background:
For those that have not read the Preface on our home equity, we currently hold a 15-year fixed rate mortgage at the incredibly low rate of 2.875%.  My goal is to retire within 11 years and 9 months so we are setting out to pay off our mortgage on or before my retirement date. Right now we are a few months behind the target retirement date. Currently, we have approximately 12  years  - 6 months (152 months) left on our mortgage.  Nevertheless, I would like to have it paid off in another 10 years (or less). If we accomplish that, I plan to use the last few years to aggressively build our passive income to help supplement our retirement and defer tapping into the 457K as long as we can so it can continue to grow. 

Right now we are not putting any extra money towards the principal given our low 2.875% interest rate. We feel that we could make our money grow faster by investing it and while keeping the money more liquid. At a certain point, maybe in 8-10 years, we may consider using money from our investment accounts to wipe out the remaining mortgage balance.  Until then, we will continue to grow that money outside, rather than have it locked into our home.

  

Click on the link below to view our mortgage balance history:

Mortgage Balance History

Stocks Added to Collection of Stock Analyses - December 2015 (Week 4)

For those who are not yet familiar with my extensive collection of individual dividend stocks. The collection is currently comprised of 997 stock analyses (and still growing) with links to various stock analyses that I found throughout the dividend blog community since 2013. For 2015, so far there are a total of 445 stock analyses!   

The collection was created in a Google Docs Spreadsheet so that I may continue to maintain and update the list periodically. My plan is to provide bi-monthly updates (one at mid month and another and the end of the month) to inform everyone of new stock analysis I have recently added to my collection.

Recent Changes Made!!

I recently made a few tweaks to the Collection.  For starters, the Collection of Stock Analyses will now be grouped by Calendar Year (ex. 2013, 2014, 2015). The current year will be immediately visible to readers with in-page links provided for stock analyses from past years collections.   

The Collection still highlights the various stock analyses created during the last 2 months. Such recent analyses are provided in bold as well as have NEW!! immediately following their link.

Lastly, to ensure readers become aware of the newly added stock analyses more frequently, we are now planning to provide weekly updates. Currently, we are providing updates just once a month. We are hoping that this strategy not only provides more value to our readers but also helps ensure that we continue to keep our collection up to date.     

December 2015 - Week 4:

Below is a list of newly added stocks analyses for the 4th week of December.  

1. Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM)
• by Pollies Dividend
2. Bank of America (BAC)
• by The Conservative Income Investor
3. Cintas Corp (CTAS)
• by Sure Dividend
4. Colgate Palmolive Co (CL)
• by Dividend Growth Stocks
5. Disney Company (DIS)
• by The Conservative Income Investor
6. Flower Foods (FLO)
• by The Broke Dividend Investor 
7. Gilead Sciences (GILD)
• by The Conservative Income Investor
8. HCP, Inc (HCP)
• by Dividend Growth Stocks
9. Illinois Tool Works, Inc (ITW)
• by Sure Dividend
10. Owens & Minor, Inc (OMI)
• by Harvesting Dividends 
11. Procter & Gamble Co (PG)
• by Stable Dividend Portfolio
12. SCANA Corp (SCG)
• by Roadmap 2 Retire
13. Target Corp (TGT)
• by Dividends Diplomats
14. Verizon Corp (VZ)
• by Dividend Value Builder
15. V.F. Corp (VFC)
• by Passive Income Pursuit 

Links provided directly in this post!

Please feel free to leave me a message if you prepared a stock analysis that I did not include in my post.  I would be more than happy to add your stock analysis to both this post and our collection of stock analyses.  Please make sure to confirm that it is a dividend paying stock and that it is a individual stock analysis.

  

My goal is to make this collection become the centralized source where one begins their research on a particular dividend stock company or at the very least, a source to confirm if a company stock is worth buying. Whether your a beginner or a veteran, I want this list to become an invaluable reference tool for you all. Best part, unlike other subscription based sites, I plan to keep this completely free for everyone to enjoy and benefit from.

Feel free to share with all of your friends and family! 

Click on Link Below

2015 - Collection of Stock Analyses

(Archived 2014, 2013)

Also don't forget to check out our:

NEW!! Collection of Recent Buys

Wishing Everyone a Happy Holidays!

As we get ready for the holiday festivities, we would like to take a moment on this Christmas Eve day to thank all of our readers and friends in the DGI community! Thank you all for your love and support throughout this past year. Thank you in advance for your continued support and friendship in the coming year! 

2015 was another memorable year for our family. Looking forward to generating new and more unforgettable memories in the coming year!!

From our family to yours...hope you and your family have a wonder holidays and a healthy and prosperous new year with even more "DIVIDENDS" than you received this year! Now let the feasting begin!! :)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

A Frugal Family's Journey

Stocks Added to Collection of Stock Analyses - December 2015 (Week 3)

For those who are not yet familiar with my extensive collection of individual dividend stocks. The collection is currently comprised of 982 stock analyses (and still growing) with links to various stock analyses that I found throughout the dividend blog community since 2013. For 2015, so far there are a total of 430 stock analyses!   

The collection was created in a Google Docs Spreadsheet so that I may continue to maintain and update the list periodically. My plan is to provide bi-monthly updates (one at mid month and another and the end of the month) to inform everyone of new stock analysis I have recently added to my collection.

Recent Changes Made!!

I recently made a few tweaks to the Collection.  For starters, the Collection of Stock Analyses will now be grouped by Calendar Year (ex. 2013, 2014, 2015). The current year will be immediately visible to readers with in-page links provided for stock analyses from past years collections.   

The Collection still highlights the various stock analyses created during the last 2 months. Such recent analyses are provided in bold as well as have NEW!! immediately following their link.

Lastly, to ensure readers become aware of the newly added stock analyses more frequently, we are now planning to provide weekly updates. Currently, we are providing updates just once a month. We are hoping that this strategy not only provides more value to our readers but also helps ensure that we continue to keep our collection up to date.     

December 2015 - Week 3:

Below is a list of newly added stocks analyses for the 3rd week of December.  

1. Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM)
• by DivHut
2. Chevron Corp (CVX)
• by Sure Dividend
3. C.H. Robinson Worldwide (CHRW)
• by Harvesting Dividends
4. Cincinnati Financial (CINC)
• by Dividend Growth Stocks
5. Consolidated Edison (ED)
• by Sure Dividend
6. HCP, Inc (HCP)
• by Sure Dividend 
7. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)
• by Dividend Growth Stocks
8. Lowes Companies, Inc (LOW)
• by Sure Dividend
9. Medtronic, Inc (MDT)
• by Simply Safe Dividends 
10. Praxair, inc (PX)
• by Simply Safe Dividends 
11. Stryker Corporation (SYK)
• by Passive Income Pursuit
12. United Technologies Corp (UTX)
• by Simply Safe Dividends 

Links provided directly in this post!

Please feel free to leave me a message if you prepared a stock analysis that I did not include in my post.  I would be more than happy to add your stock analysis to both this post and our collection of stock analyses.  Please make sure to confirm that it is a dividend paying stock and that it is a individual stock analysis.

  

My goal is to make this collection become the centralized source where one begins their research on a particular dividend stock company or at the very least, a source to confirm if a company stock is worth buying. Whether your a beginner or a veteran, I want this list to become an invaluable reference tool for you all. Best part, unlike other subscription based sites, I plan to keep this completely free for everyone to enjoy and benefit from.

Feel free to share with all of your friends and family! 

Click on Link Below

2015 - Collection of Stock Analyses

(Archived 2014, 2013)

Also don't forget to check out our:

NEW!! Collection of Recent Buys

RECENT BUY (NYSE: WMT)

WE RECENTLY PURCHASED THE FOLLOWING

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc (WMT)

Purchased 6 shares of WMT on 12/18/2015 at $59.00
Total Spent: $354.00

Today, with the market's afternoon decline, decided to pick up a few shares of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc (WMT) which was last month's ASK THE READERS pick.

We placed an limit order to buy 6 shares of WMT at $59.00 and it was almost immediately executed during the afternoon session.  In case you missed the November Ask The Readers post, we had asked our readers to pick a stock between Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), HCP, Inc (HCP), Kinder Morgan Inc (KMI), and  and International Business Machine (IBM).  Wal-Mart logged the most votes with 6 total, with HCP coming in second at 4.  KMI was the least favorite stock with one vote.  We all know what has happened to KMI since the November post.  Thank you readers for steering us clear of KMI! :)

Company Description

From Google Finance:

“Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is engaged in the operation of retail, wholesale and other units in various formats around the world. The Company offers an assortment of merchandise and services at everyday low prices (EDLP). The Company's operations are conducted in three segments: Walmart U.S., Walmart International and Sam's Club. The Walmart U.S. segment operates retail stores in all 50 states in the United States, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, with three primary store formats, as well as digital retail. The Walmart International segment consists of operations in 26 countries outside of the United States and includes numerous formats divided into three main categories: retail, wholesale and other. The Sam's Club consists of membership-only warehouse clubs and operates in 48 states in the United States and in Puerto Rico, as well as digital retail.”

With today's purchase of WMT (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc), the estimated forward dividends for our family's dividend stocks portfolio grew another $11.76, putting our yearly dividends at approximately $3,534/year (excluding our Edwards Jones account) and $3,892/year (including our Edward Jones account).  This is actually down from the last recent buy post with the decrease to our KMI holdings.  

Since we already owned WMT, our family's dividend stocks portfolios (WF and EJ Accounts) remains the same with a total of 48 different dividend paying stocks/ETFs and also 4 companies that either don't pay a dividend our has currently suspended their dividends.

Our family's dividend stocks portfolio may be found

by clicking on the link below:

DIVIDEND STOCKS PORTFOLIO

We also maintain an extensive list of stock analysis

that can be access through the link below:

COLLECTION OF STOCK ANALYSES

We also just started a list of Recent Buys by other bloggers

that can be access through the link below:

COLLECTION OF RECENT BUYS

HERE IS A QUICK FACT SHEET FOR THE STOCK I JUST PURCHASED:

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc (WMT)

P/E: 12.60
Payout Ratio: 41.8%
Dividend Yield: 3.3%
40 years of dividend growth
Last Ex-dividend date: 12/2/2015

Next Ex-dividend date: approx. - 3/2/2016
Have paid a dividend since: 1973 (42 years)
Pays a dividend 4 times a year.
Market Cap: 188.8 Billion
52-week high: $90.97
52-week low: $56.30
Purchased Price: $59.00

What are your thoughts on of recent purchase?

What are you buying?

Stocks Added to Collection of Stock Analyses - December 2015 (Week 2)

For those who are not yet familiar with my extensive collection of individual dividend stocks. The collection is currently comprised of 971 stock analyses (and still growing) with links to various stock analyses that I found throughout the dividend blog community since 2013. For 2015, so far there are a total of 419 stock analyses!   

The collection was created in a Google Docs Spreadsheet so that I may continue to maintain and update the list periodically. My plan is to provide bi-monthly updates (one at mid month and another and the end of the month) to inform everyone of new stock analysis I have recently added to my collection.

Recent Changes Made!!

I recently made a few tweaks to the Collection.  For starters, the Collection of Stock Analyses will now be grouped by Calendar Year (ex. 2013, 2014, 2015). The current year will be immediately visible to readers with in-page links provided for stock analyses from past years collections.   

The Collection still highlights the various stock analyses created during the last 2 months. Such recent analyses are provided in bold as well as have NEW!! immediately following their link.

Lastly, to ensure readers become aware of the newly added stock analyses more frequently, we are now planning to provide weekly updates. Currently, we are providing updates just once a month. We are hoping that this strategy not only provides more value to our readers but also helps ensure that we continue to keep our collection up to date.     

December 2015 - Week 2:

Below is a list of newly added stocks analyses for the 2nd week of December.  

1. Abbott Laboratories (ABT)
• by Simply Safe Dividends
2. Church & Dwight Co Inc (CHD)
• by Passive Income Pursuit
3. Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO)
• by Dividend Value Builder
4. Colgate Palmolive Co (CL)
• by Simply Safe Dividends
5. Illinois Tool Works (ITW)
• by Simply Safe Dividends
6. Kellogg Company (K)
• by Dividend Growth Stocks
7. Leggett & Platt (LEG)
• by Sure Dividend
8. Microsoft Corp (MSFT)
• by Dividend Growth Stocks
9. Murphy Oil Corp (MUR)
• by Harvesting Dividends 
10. Target Corp (TGT)
• by Simply Safe Dividends 

Links provided directly in this post!

Please feel free to leave me a message if you prepared a stock analysis that I did not include in my post.  I would be more than happy to add your stock analysis to both this post and our collection of stock analyses.  Please make sure to confirm that it is a dividend paying stock and that it is a individual stock analysis.

  

My goal is to make this collection become the centralized source where one begins their research on a particular dividend stock company or at the very least, a source to confirm if a company stock is worth buying. Whether your a beginner or a veteran, I want this list to become an invaluable reference tool for you all. Best part, unlike other subscription based sites, I plan to keep this completely free for everyone to enjoy and benefit from.

Feel free to share with all of your friends and family! 

Click on Link Below

2015 - Collection of Stock Analyses

(Archived 2014, 2013)

Also don't forget to check out our:

NEW!! Collection of Recent Buys

P2P Accounts (Update) - DEC 2015

On September 1st, our Lending Club account balance was at $7,558.75. We had $1950.21 in available cash and out outstanding principal stood at $5,608.54. 

As our followers may already know, it has been more and more difficult to find and buy notes that meet our criteria.  We don't have the time to search for notes each morning as we once had so we now rely on the automatic investing tool.  Unfortunately, we've just haven't had much success through automatic investing.  So in September, since we had way too much money sitting idle, we decided to open a new Loyal3 account. We will still keep our P2P accounts but plan to continue to move idle cash back to our bank account and invest the money into our new Loyal3 account. We obviously need to do a better to job moving this idle cash because our available cash is growing faster than we are investing money into our Loyal3 account.

From our outstanding notes, we did receive $43.86 in interest. But was also had $26.27 in charged off loans so we only saw a net gain $17.58 this past month.

With our Lending Club on auto-pilot using the automatic investing tool, unfortunately, we didn't manage to pick up any new notes this past month. In all, we now have a total of 387 outstanding notes (26 notes have settled since our September post).  On the bright side, although our outstanding notes are not growing well, we have now seen a total of 895 notes paid in full.     

As you can see our  387 active notes are part of a very conservative mix with 70% of the notes being A Rated, 27% are B Rated, and 1% are C Rated.  We do not own any notes with a rating less than C. I'm not too sure why it doesn't add up to 100% but I assume that these number have been rounded down as they were closer to the lower number. 

We are currently generating a Net Annualized Return of 5.35% (up .10% from September report) on our seasoned notes. 

_____________________________________________________________ 



On September 1st, our Prosper account balance was at $10,088.70 ($141.06 more than our September report). We had $1,645.28 in available cash and out outstanding principal stood at $8,443.42.

All in all, our Prosper account is certainly seeing better performance than our Lending Club account, however, the struggle to find additional notes and having too much idle cash also exists for our Prosper account. 

From our outstanding notes, we received $506.48 in payments from our active notes. From those payments, we received a total of $51.03 in interest and with no loans charged-off this past month. Surprisingly, we also managed to re-invest $650.00 into new notes this past month. For the first time in several months, we managed to invest more than the principal payments received for the month.

Similar to our Lending Club notes, the our Prosper notes are invested into a similar conservative mix. As you can from the pie chart above, majority of our notes are have an A or AA rating. Although we do have a few C rated notes, they make up a very small part of our investments.  Unfortunately, like our Lending Club account, we have way too much idle cash.  Hopefully, that continues to change as we slowly begin to withdraw the idle cash and invest into our new Loyal 3 account.  

We are currently generating an Annualized Return of 6.92% on our seasoned notes and 6.50% on all notes. 

 _______________________________________________________________

Below are the updated numbers that include both Lending Club and Prosper accounts: 

Total Value of Both P2P accounts: $17,647.45

Estimate Average Interest Earned: 6.14%

Click below to view our peer-to-peer lending accounts history

PEER-TO-PEER LENDING ACCOUNTS

________________________________________________________________  

NOTES CRITERIA:

Our family has been investing in peer-to-peer lending notes for approximately 3 years now. And because of past defaults, we have now refined our search criteria. As a result, we now take a slightly more conservative approach with the notes we invest in. Currently, we only invest in notes that fit the following initial criteria:

• Amount requested is under $6,000;
• Credit score of 700 or more; and
• Monthly payment will be less than $250.

From those we evaluate (Employment Status):

• The borrower's income (prefer > $50,000 but depends on amount requested);
• Length of employment (must be > 2 years); and
• Their occupation (certain occupations, known to be more secured, are more desirable).

We then look at (Ability To Pay):

• Their credit history;
• Revolving balance; and
• Debt to income level, etc.

We do not invest in any notes where borrow is currently delinquent, of if they have had  a public record within the last 12 months. We also do not invest in notes where the description provided is "Other." We feel that there is too much risk involve when the borrower is not willing to reveal why he/she needs the money.