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Re: How to Deal With Unpredictable Income

Dividend Growth Investor — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:35:02 -0000

I think that a good way to start diverisfying your income streams is to focus on investments as well ( which I think Flexo has done).
First, if your monthly expenses are $1000 ( nice round number) and you know that your online ventures can generate $500, you can generate $500/month with interest, dividends, rental real estate.
A popular method for short term budgeting is using CD ladders. If buy a $10,000 one year CD yielding 5% every month for one year you will have achieved the extra 500 in monthly income..

When I look at investment income versus work income I see how much money I need to save and invest before I could live off my investments..

Re: Telemarketers Can’t Talk to the Dead

Dividend Growth Investor — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:53:25 -0000

This is a fun idea. But what happens if the information is passed on to your credit card company or affects your credit report somehow . Can this result in you being reported as "dead" everywhere to the extend where you can't buy a car, can't open a checking account, and can't even get a passport so you might not even be legally able to work in US?

Re: Advice From Bill Miller: Increase Your Money Without Working

Dividend Growth Investor — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 18:11:38 -0000

If you buy and hold stock index etf's/mutual funds over long periods of time, you will be able to generate truly passive income.. My research shows that one dollar invested in S&P 500 will take 35 years to generate one dollars in dividends for you on average. So keep saving and investing for dividends ( and reinvest the dividneds)

Re: Passive Income: Real Estate? Blogging? I Don’t Think So

Dividend Growth Investor — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:25:39 -0000

I think that blogging is a nice way to create an alternative income stream. You could write an article which takes you an hour for example. But once it is published you can earn income on this article forever. Of course in order to blog successfully, the minimum is that you post at least 3-4 times a week. And your posts add something valuable to your readers' lives.

As far as truly passive income, I would say that dividends from stocks and interest from bonds/cd's are the closest to passive income. Sure, it might take you a while to research and find that nice dividend stock, but if you set up a portfolio of 50+ stocks ( or just buy several etfs) you are as close to passive income as possible.
As for interest, you simply buy a CD, a nd then jsut collect the interest. Who cares about inflation anyways :-)

Re: April 28, 2008 Edition of the Festival of Stocks

Dividend Growth Investor — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:51:39 -0000

...[Investing Adventures hosted the April 28, 2008 Edition of the Festival of Stocks and included GWW Dividend Analysis in it.]...

Dividend Growth InvestorCarnivals, Festivals and Blogs - April 29, 2008s last blog post..Dividend Achievers Watchlist

Re: into the wild…without spending a lot of money

Dividend Growth Investor — Mon, 26 May 2008 11:30:27 -0000

I have camped exactly once in my life.. It rained profusely and then some little bugs started crawling inside my tent :-( Not romantic at all..

It didn't cost nothing.. I paid over $100 for the tent, gas, $12 for the campsite. But I wish I had read your article several months ago..

Re: invest in what you know

Dividend Growth Investor — Thu, 29 May 2008 09:36:43 -0000

Well, it all depends on the personality of the person you are speaking with. On one hand the leverage factor can produce extraordinary returns on invested capital provided that the house appreciates in value. On the other hand however, if you wanted to retire, you'd need extra money simply to pay off that monthly mortgage bill.
I think that you are ahead of 90% of the rest of the people because you realize your shortcomings and act accordingly. You don't stock up on real estate by overleveraging yourself for the big killing..
If you want to invest in real estate without thinking constantly about the leverage factor, let others do that for you. Buy a Real Estate Investment Trust or an ETF that covers one.

Re: Multumesc May!

Dividend Growth Investor — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:20:38 -0000

Brip Blap,

I am glad that I was the biggest talker on the block. Isn't MultiMesc in Russian?

Re: alas, problogger, we hardly knew ye

Dividend Growth Investor — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:44:31 -0000

As far as being a pro-blogger with small kids, I think that what you experienced over the past couple of weeks is something similar to people who have their own business at home. Basically, in order to be productive, you should have a designated office room in your house, where you shouldn't be disturbed during your normal "work" hours- let's say 9 - 5. Even though you are working on your own pro-blogging business, you should still treat it seriously as if it were your job. Otherwise, you won;'t succeed problogging. Just ask many of the stay at home day-traders why they failed. This is one of the reasons why, not the market timing issues.

Re: job jumper tip #2: be a discriminating networker

Dividend Growth Investor — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:45:29 -0000

Brip Blap,

I do know that networking is a powerful tool for landing a job. Unfortunately though, I am pretty bad at networking.
I have been able to help "friends" in finding a job, but after a while, when I really needed help in myself getting a job these same friends would not scratch my back. What should I do :-)

Re: associating with the ‘appear-to-be-rich’ folks

Dividend Growth Investor — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:37:17 -0000

I have never heard about this movie. I searched for it on IMDB, yet I received multiple results. My guess is that it probably is on pay per view so I mightrecord it then..

Re: death by a thousand cuts

Dividend Growth Investor — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:02:22 -0000

I love Donny's show. I don't really have too much time to watch it however..

Re: death by a thousand cuts

Dividend Growth Investor — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 15:21:47 -0000

Curmudgeon,

Sometimes it is tough to be bold and leave when there are not too many choices in front of you. If that guy has to pay a mortgage and college tuition for 1-2 kids, I bet he'd do anything just to keep working some job and make some decent salary. Otherwise he might not have a lot of options..

Re: how America grew rich, fat and unhappy

Dividend Growth Investor — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:53:44 -0000

I have been both poor and rich. I prefer to be rich, because happyness is something that is eternal in every one of us. If you are a happy person, you'll be one no matter what. If you are an unhappy one, then even if you have 100 billion dollars, you wouldn't be happy. But not having to worry too much aout money, will definitely be good..

Re: how America grew rich, fat and unhappy

Dividend Growth Investor — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:36:48 -0000

Actually USA is indeed the largest debtor in the world. But the standard of living has indeed risen very much over the past 100 years. Even poor people today in the US drive cars with A/C, could live at least 70+ years and could afford to eat well. 100 years ago rich people did have cars, but no A/C. They did have medical help, but a virus could have spread and killed them just as easily as the next guy on the street..
And as for happyness, how can you really measure it?

Re: how to be a location independent family, part 1

Dividend Growth Investor — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:29:57 -0000

Brip Blap,

I never though about traveling the way you described it. I would love it if you could post more thought provoking articles like that in the future.
I myself this that I want to be location independent. I think that the whole idea of passive/alternative income really meshes up perfectly with the idea of location independency. For example, you could travel accross the globe and still be able to write articles for your blog while earning money from your advertisers.
Fascinating!

Re: how to be a location independent family, part 2

Dividend Growth Investor — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:43:44 -0000

I have always thought that the main reason why kids go to kindergarten/school is for them to gain some "people" skills. Math, science and all the other stuff kids are taught could be learned anywhere; but teamwork has to be experienced.

Re: updating my financial goals, July 2008

Dividend Growth Investor — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:28:32 -0000

Steve, I wasn't sure if that was true when you first wrote your goals, or whether this is really your daily income from blogging:

"Actionable - I’m already started on this goal - this blog is earning nearly $0.03 per day, "

Re: 4 quick steps to building wealth

Dividend Growth Investor — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:18:20 -0000

Wow Steve, for a moment after reading the four steps and looking at the picture below I thought that I was done reading this post, thinking what a simple yet brilliant post.
But then it got even better. As long as people fail to understand that making more money and not spending all of their incomes is important in their wealth building, they won't accumulate a lot of assets in their lifetime..

Re: learn to think bigger

Dividend Growth Investor — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:17:34 -0000

Brip Blap,

A 10 year period is "noise" in my opinion. Actually being more passive when it comes to investing can actually increase your results, because you get better tax treatment, you spend less on commisiions and trading software. Last but not least, you get more free time. Over the 10 years that I have been investing i have seen a lot of people who think that they could actively trade the market and outperform it by picking the "next microsoft". They seldom do well.

I think that index funds are perfect for 95% of the people out there. If you have more than 500K, and you are willing to manage your money and you are able to return at least 10%/year every year,then by all means go for it. But unless you can prove that you can do this consistently then I would stick to index funds.

When I was an active trader I was able to beat the index almost every year for several years.. But since I had a smaller amount to start with my time in actively managing my money was not paid well. At the end of the day I was doing only a little bit better than an index fund. But I paid much higher expenses than an index fund..

Re: more or less a one year anniversary

Dividend Growth Investor — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:57:27 -0000

Happy Birthday! :-)

Re: less than three weeks to live

Dividend Growth Investor — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:57:19 -0000

This is definitely a tough one. One wouldn't really know unless (god forbid) they were actually told so..
The thing is that with so many people in US in debt now maxed out on their credit cards, they have already lived life to the fullest..
And then what happens if the doctor was wrong and you live on for 70 more years?
I read a biography of the first Rockeffeller, the founder of Standard Oil. When he was in his 20's, a doctor told him that he won't live very long.
At the time of his death close to the age of 100, he actually outlived his 38th doctor ...

Re: night guy and morning guy

Dividend Growth Investor — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:30:19 -0000

geez now that you put it this way..I try to be a morning guy.. But its a never ending ying and yang battle :-)

Re: finish each day and be done with it

Dividend Growth Investor — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:06:13 -0000

Well congrats on simplifying your life Steve. Even though I propagade dividend growth investing to masses, I do agree that index funds work for most investors who don't want to get involved in stock picking and selection and I respect that.

By the way I listened to you on the radio. http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/...

Congrats on being a celebrity! :-)

Re: Marketplace radio appearance

Dividend Growth Investor — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:12:47 -0000

Four Pillars,

Brip Blap has a thick russian accent with his "R"s :-) kiddin

It's pretty cool that the ideas of personal finance form the little guy for the little guy are gaining popularity.. Hopefully people will learn and not make a lot of PF mistakes..

Re: corporatism

Dividend Growth Investor — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:18:01 -0000

Great point Jim. The CNN article headline is written in a way to attract readers. I am always amazed that newspapers and media consider US people stupid.
When you read the whole article you'll see that they use revenues and net income interchangeably which is not correct.
If I made $100 from work I have an income of $100; however if I bought bicycles and I bought a bike for $200 and sold it for $100 I did have revenues but also a huge loss. I don't think I should be paying taxes on it,should i?
In addition to that corporations are taxed twice- at the corporate level as well as at the ownership level. Whenever shareholders get dividends, they give a certain percentage bvack to Uncle Sam in the form of taxes.
Corporations pay so much in taxes at the end of the day, that sometimes I wonder if its better to work than form a corporation.
Another popular news story that makes me angry is whenever XOM earns 11-12 billion per quarter. Everyone claims that XOM is a greedy corporation. The truth is that in 2007 XOM paid 30 billion in income taxes and had a profit of 40 billion.

Re: the truth about passive income

Dividend Growth Investor — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:53:43 -0000

Nicely put Brip Blap!
I agree with Bubelah that Rental properties could be a passive income if you buy a REIT or hire a property manager to do the work.

Re: when does intellectual curiousity stop?

Dividend Growth Investor — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:50:02 -0000

A mind is a terrible thing to waste..

Re: Motley Fool Launches A Mutual Fund, Forgets Being Hypocritical / Manipulative Aren’t Selling Points

Dividend Growth Investor — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 09:37:05 -0000

The only mutual fund one should ever buy is S&P 500 index funds. Anything else makes $$ for the mutual fund management companies.

Re: Imagine the Unimaginable

Dividend Growth Investor — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:26:39 -0000

Of course if you added re-invested dividends you'd find that stock market investing was pretty profitable over that 70 year period you are talking about. Most investors focus solely on capital gains and seem to forget that dividends are the soundest fundamental indicator of a business' ability to generate cash flow..

Re: Mid-Week NewsFlashr Editor’s Picks

Dividend Growth Investor — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:33:41 -0000

Thanks a lot for the link!

Dividend Growth Investor

Re: A Fool’s Predictions

Dividend Growth Investor — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:54:44 -0000

Now that sounds like the perfect get rich quick scheme there. The main problem of course is finding 640,000 subscribers..

Re: Wednesday links: the next bubble Abnormal Returns

Dividend Growth Investor — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:37:48 -0000

Tadas,

I always enjoy reading your link reviews. In fact, its one of the first things I do when I log onto the internet. Keep up the good work!

Best Regards,

Dividend Growth Investor

Re: 4 Stocks to Buy in 2009 Q1 Results

Dividend Growth Investor — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 08:17:11 -0000

WildInvestor,

I just updated my 1Q results ina blog spot. Good luck in the second quarter as well.

Dividend Growth Investor

Re: BankRate Acquires Bankaholic For Up To $15 Million

Dividend Growth Investor — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:43:17 -0000

Scott,

He will be paid $2.5 million when he works for his blog for some time. This goes to show you that the american dream could be achieved on the internet.

I wonder how long has this guy been blogging for..