20K YouTube Subscriber Giveaway!

It’s really hard for me to believe that in about a year and nine months creating content chronicling my investing journey here on YouTube that 20,000+ actual people have chosen to follow me and subscribe. I have built a portfolio that started (around Feb. 2019) with around $7,000 worth of 3M stock (shares I bought on a an employee share purchase program at a discount) from my 5 years working at 3M and around $4,000 in cash for a total value of $11,000. That portfolio as it stands today is worth $150,852.17 (11/21/2020), now I consistently contribute to the portfolio so that is not obviously all from gains (around $42k or 38.5% is capital gains). At any rate it has been a lot of fun, I have met so many other investors and content creators, and really am enjoying the process and progress made through the channel and the portfolio. So I decided to do a giveaway, rules to enter are as follows:

To enter the giveaway you must “Subscribe” to my newsletter by clicking “Subscribe Now” here on the right side of the website.

Also drop a comment here on this blog post, saying your preference, whether it is a t-shirt or a mask and keychain (these will come together). There are 2 XL t-shirts, 2 XXL t-shirts, and 2 Mask/Keychain combos, so there will be 6 winners.

Your comment should simply say either “t-shirt XL”, “t-shirt XXL”, or “mask\keychain”, I will do a follow up drawing on these categories on Tuesday evening 11/24 at 8PM EDT so 5PM EDT on Tuesday evening 11/24 is the cutoff so I can add them all into a spreadsheet to get ready for the lives stream to announce the winners. Thanks again for the support and best of luck on winning!

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May 2020 Dividend Update!

In May the stock market saw a tremendous bounce back and rally, one seemingly for the ages. Many who decided to stay on the sidelines and not invest when the markets were down 30 plus percent are probably kicking themselves. I am certainly not saying that we can’t have another 30 percent correction in the coming months, I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t begin buying on any 30 percent correction. So if we have another correction, it will simply be another opportunity to stack shares at great prices. That being said let’s take a look at the dividends I was paid in the month of May 2020!

In May I was paid $129.33 in my 3 accounts combined. The breakdown is below:

1. M1 Finance Main Account: $107.61
2. M1 Finance Roth IRA: $9.34
3. Fidelity Traditional IRA: $12.28

Here is all of the payouts over the course of May by each holding:

Ticker	Amount Paid	M1 Main Acct	M1 Roth IRA	Fidelity IRA
MAIN	$6.88/$3.20/$3.08	☑	☑	☑
O	$4.09/$1.86	☑		☑
ABBV	$13.35/$7.86	☑		☑
SBUX	$5.85	☑
FAST	$7.03	☑
EPD	$26.47	☑
VZ	$15.90	☑
STAG	$3.64	☑
LOW	$3.81	☑
CVS	$4.30	☑
EV	$4.26	☑
INVH	$1.97		☑
AAPL	$0.67		☑
EPR	$12.03/$3.50	☑	☑
Total:	$129.33

April 2020 Dividend Update

April was a wild ride as the markets came storming back following unprecedented stimulus into the markets and the economy by both the Federal Reserve and the Federal Government. I saw a bit of a decline in dividends paid from the past couple of months, but still earned triple digits dividends which is fabulous. I also opened a new Roth IRA for my wife as I have already essentially maxed my Roth IRA out for the 2020 calendar year.

In April I was paid $106.53 in my 3 accounts combined. The breakdown is below:

1. M1 Finance Main Account: $85.37
2. M1 Finance Roth IRA: $17.25
3. Fidelity Traditional IRA: $3.91

Here is all of the payouts over the course of April by each holding:

Ticker		Amount Paid	M1 Main Acct	M1 Roth IRA	Fidelity IRA
CSCO		$8.18	☑
WPC		$9.55/$4.33	☑	☑
MO		$26.41/6.77	☑	☑
IRM		$6.95	☑
COLD		$3.81	☑
O		$2.76/$1.86	☑		☑
MAIN		$5.11/$2.27/$2.05	☑	☑	☑
STAG		$2.77	☑
EPR		$10.96/$3.19	☑	☑
MPW		$5.57	☑
JPM		$3.30	☑
INTU		$0.69		☑
Total:		$106.53

March 2020 Dividends Paid Update

March was the beginning of shelter in place and shutdowns in large swaths of the global economy. In the sea of uncertainty the dividends kept rolling on in. I did have one holding suspend dividends which was Cracker Barrel (CBRL) otherwise the show goes on.

In March I was paid $129.80 in my 3 accounts combined. The breakdown is below:

1. M1 Finance Main Account: $86.36
2. M1 Finance Roth IRA: $17.11
3. Fidelity Traditional IRA: $26.33

Here is all of the payouts over the course of March by each holding:

Ticker		Amount Paid	M1 Main Acct	M1 Roth IRA	Fidelity IRA
ABR		$15.62/$7.67	☑		☑
DLR		$4.52			☑
BPYU		$9.98/$3.57		☑	☑
DFS		$3.56			☑
V		$0.60			☑
IBM		$2.78	☑
ROST		$1.83	☑
BIP		$4.37	☑
BEP		$5.54	☑
LIN		$1.81	☑
SBSI		$2.19	☑
MAIN		$3.79/$0.95	☑	☑
EPR		$5.32/$1.54	☑	☑
MMM		$6.76	☑
NEE		$1.43	☑
STAG		$2.15	☑
O		$2.15	☑
UTX		$3.83	☑
WTRG		$1.55	☑
PEP		$2.05	☑
DUK		$3.78	☑
SO		$3.04	☑

Ticker	Amount Paid	M1 Main Acct	M1 Roth IRA	Fidelity IRA
AVGO	$11.78/$4.15	☑	☑
INTC	$2.02	☑
JNJ	$2.62	☑
MSFT	$0.22		☑
CVX	$1.93		☑
CDW	$0.65		☑
LYB	$3.58		☑
CSL	$0.52		☑
Total	$129.80

Dividends Paid in February 2020 – A New Record is Set!

February 2020 was a wild ride, with the huge correction at the end of the month, and it being a leap year, it was a really crazy month. That being said, I had an amazing month in terms of dividend income, a new record actually. Let’s break it down and see how it all shook out.

In February I was paid $151.86 in my 3 accounts combined. The breakdown is below:

1. M1 Finance Main Account: $92.50
2. M1 Finance Roth IRA: $4.80
3. Fidelity Traditional IRA: $54.56 (MSM $5 per share special dividend accounted for much of this)

Here is all of the payouts over the course of February by each holding:

Ticker	Amount Paid	M1 Main Acct	M1 Roth IRA	Fidelity IRA
ILPT	$2.13		☑
INVH	$0.62		☑
AAPL	$0.17		☑
MAIN	$3.79/$0.89	☑	☑
EPR	$4.98/$0.99	☑	☑
PAYX	$2.78	☑
CAT	$2.89	☑
LEVI	$2.81	☑
SBUX	$2.01	☑
FAST	$4.74	☑
MMP	$12.44	☑
EPD	$13.37	☑
VZ	$10.80	☑
T	$6.90	☑
O	$2.16	☑
STAG	$2.15	☑
LOW	$1.94	☑
CBRL	$5.46	☑
COST	$0.86/$1.31	☑	☑
EV	$2.27	☑
ABBV	$10.15/$7.25	☑		☑
MSM	$46.00			☑
TOTAL	$151.86

January 2020 Dividends Paid

In January I was paid $84.32 in my 3 accounts combined. The breakdown is below:

1. M1 Finance Main Account: $72.30
2. M1 Finance Roth IRA: $7.70
3. Fidelity Traditional IRA: $4.32

Here is all of the payouts over the course of January by each holding:

Ticker	Amount Paid	M1 Main Acct	M1 Roth IRA	Fidelity IRA
DLR	$4.32			☑
CSCO	$3.87	☑
NTR	$2.32	☑
IIPR	$11.39/$2.07	☑	☑
WPC	$7.12/$2.13	☑	☑
MO	$16.40	☑
IRM	$6.27	☑
COLD	$3.42	☑
O	$2.11	☑
MAIN	$3.79	☑
STAG	$2.14	☑
EPR	$4.18/$0.87	☑	☑
MPW	$5.37	☑
JPM	$1.60	☑
BNS	$2.32	☑
CMCSA	$0.63		☑
INTU	$0.27		☑
TRNO	$0.66		☑
QTS	$1.07		☑
Total:	$84.32

Making Money in the Stock Market in 2020

So far 2020, at first glance, looks like it might be a repeat of 2019 where the S&P 500 index was up almost 30%. In the first half of January the S&P 500 Index is already up over 2%. While a market like this makes it seem really easy to make money, I have a feeling there will be a dramatic drop at some point this year and I don’t really have any thing factual to back that up, more of a gut feeling. That being said take this opinion with a grain of salt, however this gut feeling has me investing a little different as well, which is what I want to share with you all today.

If there is more volatility in the stock market this year, we may need to re-evaluate how and what we are investing in and that is certainly something I am doing. I recently made a video discussing a strategy that I am employing in my DGI (Dividend Growth Investing) portfolio, where I am evaluating and buying only the holdings that are nearing their ex-dividend dates and that are either on discount or are fairly valued. I still believe this is a great way to continue investing to accelerate the dividend compounding in my portfolio, and plan on continuing to do that in 2020. So check out that video if your interested in learning more about that, and that is a way I recommend you make money in the stock market this year. Another strategy I plan on employing is adding to my more defensive positions like United Technolgies (UTX), utility companies, and large cap blue chip DGI companies. The final strategy that is something that most good investors do on a regular basis is look for value opportunities in good companies that are going through some issues, but will eventually come out of and recover. Investing in this manner is certainly not flashy and won’t give you massive gains into your accounts, but I believe it will keep a good stream of dividend income and growth coming into the portfolio. With the combination of these methods, I believe no matter how 2020 turns out at year end I will have continued success investing and making money, and encourage you to consider doing the same (if it makes sense for your situation). Happy Investing everyone!

A Stock to Buy & Hold for the Next Decade (2020-2029)

So I am not really a prediction guy, and I really don’t like making bold statements about the future, however I thought it would be fun to put down a stock that I think will have e a tremendous future over the next 10 years. This led me to write this article, especially since I spend so much time researching companies and stock performance. There are some no-brainer companies that should be the pick like Amazon, Google, Facebook, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, and Apple, but whats the fun in picking one everyone else already knows all about. Also these behemoths will probably have tremendous decade long returns, they likely won’t get you 500% returns or more, like I am thinking about with my decade long pick.

Here’s some of the criteria I look for in a long term growth play:

• Small to Mid cap companies with room to grow long into the future
• Recession resilient products or services
• Market leader or ability to grow into becoming a market leader

Now that we have some context and criteria let’s get straight into it.

My Decade Stock Pick

My decade stock pick is Five Below (FIVE) which is a discount retailer that sells items that mostly all cost below $5 dollars, obviously, but have also recently introduced some items up to $10. The main reason I am so bullish on Five Below is that it has some incredible store expansion goals for the future, and are only around 1/3 of the way to their initial store count goal of 2,500 as shown in the graphic below:

So as you can see in the graphic Five Below has not really expanded yet to the North West part of the United States but has plans to. The store growth alone accounts for 23% compound annual growth rate, which gets me all kinds of excited. They have also strategically added or will be adding 3 new regional distribution centers (Mid-west, West-coast, & South-west) to handle the expansion and growth areas as shown below:

Five is led by a very experienced team including their CEO Joel Anderson who is a former Walmart executive, I also like that the chairman & co-founder (2002) is still on the leadership team and actively involved. Five Below is priced like a growth stock and has a high multiple P/E (price to earnings) but that is to be expected since they do not pay a dividend and are reinvesting everything back into company expansion. As of the time of writing FIVE is trading at a stock price of around $126 and a forward P/E of around 35. I do however believe that once expansion slows, they will switch over to becoming a dividend paying company (could be 8-10 years from now). How nice would that be to have racked up a bunch of their shares during this high growth period, and then after some years start getting paid dividends as well.

Five Below should continue to grow and be alright even during economic downturns since they provide quality products at a discount. Although the only risk I see is their target market is a younger demographic from tween to under 45 years old. That takes off a lot of that older money off the table from many in retirement age, but I would guess lots of grandparents still shop there or would take the grand-kids shopping there even though they are not the target audience.

I also did a little deeper dive into Five Below over on my YouTube channel as well, if you want to go check that out:

2020 Investing Goals

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I don’t make a lot of goals, not that I’m advocating not setting goals, but I do find it easy for me to set financial goals. One reason that may be the case is I can break out a calculator for financial planning. Also with financial planning, there really isn’t too much speculation involved once you have a budget in place. What would derail financial goals is if that budget changes, your salary gets cut or decreases, or some life event cuts into the budget. At any rate here’s to a prosperous 2020 to all of you and here are the investing goals I have created for 2020!

Main Portfolio:

• $35,000 by year’s end
• $123.33 monthly dividend average ($1,470 total dividends)

Roth IRA:

• $9,500 by year’s end
• $20.83 monthly dividend average ($250 total dividends)

Traditional IRA:

• $5,500 by year’s end
• $15.83 monthly dividend average ($190 total dividends)

Combined Portfolio:

• $50,000 by year’s end
• $160 monthly dividend average ($1,920 total dividends)

YouTube Channel Goals

• 4,000 Subscribers
• Build Emergency Fund With YouTube Income