Investing 102

[toy71camaro]

Lots of great discussion in here from the past couple days (just caught back up).

Like the discussion on checking returns and what not.


Since I'm a geek, and like to look at numbers, I actually setup a Google Docs Excel sheet. I put it my initial purchase of my stocks, and then continue to update each time i get a dividend (with how much the dividend bought, the current stock price, and the total div amount). It then tracks everything else for me...

• Current price
• The current dividend based off todays price
• My Dividend on Cost
• My current total return based on the current price
• I have it also simulate my 401k returns (since their buried in a fund, all i get is the NAV price, and my total investment amount). So i have it auto-calculate my values based on current NAV, then every few weeks i go and update my total investment amount so its closer to the actual mark (i cant see if/when they pay out anything).

It's quite nice to just open it, let it "load" up all the current values and i can easily see that my Total Return on Altria is 50.8% and its making me a 6.5% dividend on my cost with a current dividend of 5.3%, its up $0.20 today, and it makes up 2.2% of my entire portfolio and is currently worth $X amount.

[GregWeld]

Nicely done Albert!!



I keep most of my stuff on "Numbers" - which is a real simple version of Excel spreadsheet. It's just basic but I'm not all that interested in figuring out my exact percentage of growth and ROI --- what I use it for is to track my dividend income per quarter - and the apartments etc that I own (that's a check every 6 months) and then to break that down so I can see what I earn on a monthly basis. I use Schwab for the majority of my stock activity - and I can go into each account so quickly - and then look at "unrealized/gain - loss" tab and see generally how I'm doing.

I understand fully - that you guys are having fun -- and frankly that you NEED to see your progress and I'm glad to see you all taking an interest. Funny how we want to discuss our last horsepower figure --- but people don't take much interest in what it takes to BUY that horsepower -- which is your money and how it's doing! My feeling has always been that if you have the horsepower in your money column -- then horsepower in your car is the easy part. LOL


Here's another thing I do during "dead periods" -- like this week - when frankly - there's not much going on. It's like the lull before the storm... I sit back and take stock of my overall financial health. The biggest sickness that most of us catch is the SPENDING FLU.... and I'm every bit as guilty of that as the rest of you are. While there maybe a difference in zeros - it's still exactly the same! I have managed to spend a fortune this year - some self inflicted - and some is just "life". It's the "life" part that seems to throw the wrench in your "budgets". I didn't budget for a $20,000 repair on the Lotus - I didn't really budget for the 3 different "breakages" on the Mustang - I really never thought about the monthly tabs coming from building the new house here in Sun Valley - and they are quite large actually! Surprisingly so - since we haven't even stuck a shovel in the ground yet. So where does this come from? CAPITAL. Now - I have ample capital - so it affects me absolutely zero from a living standpoint -- but what I'm using as an example here - is what we really don't want to see... and that is an ON GOING DRAIN on capital. Capital is the hardest part to attain. We need the capital to make us money going forward! If you spend 10K - then that's money that won't be making me money going forward and it's money that's losing the compounding affect. That compounding affect cuts two ways! Less free cash flow is less I have to spend - which means that more comes from capital if I need it -- and then that's a toilet bowl you don't want to be in.

Now for me - I control my spending - in the sense that almost 90% of my income is "FREE" - free in that my bills are basically nothing - so most all my income is just there to piss away. So if I'm "spending too much" - I can just cut back. Next year I won't be building a Brizio car... and next year I hope to sell my Bellevue house and pocket that money (which will just go out the door for the SV house build) and so on. We'll be done with the architects monthly bills - but then again - we'll start with far higher bills being paid to the contractor... I've planned all that part out.

I guess what I'm making a long winded post about --- is that in order to make your money really work for you --- you've got to keep that spending habit in check. Just because you had a good year this year - doesn't mean that's going to go on forever and ever. What happens is that you'll have a "life" expense creep in there -- and that will also be the year that the market sucks... and if you're forced to take out of the market -- then you loose that compounding you were well on your way to grinding out. DON'T YOU DO IT!! Don't you succumb to seeing that savings as an easy way to fix the TEMPORARY issue. The "I'll put it back as soon as I can" doesn't happen! STAY THE COURSE... keep that compounding and those dividends working for you - so later you don't have to work!

RANT OVER --- LOL

[GregWeld]

Well if you can suffer thru that last post --- then we can get on to the fun stuff... which is why I came into the thread in the first place!


Altria (MO) goes "EX" today.... and you'll see that nice .48 a share dividend in your January "stocking".