Andy Hough

My Stock Portfolio

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photo credit: kevinzhengli

Some of you have expressed interest in what stocks I own. I’ve been reluctant to share this since I’m not a stock expert and I don’t want my portfolio to be seen as advice on what you should buy.

I currently have twelve stocks in my portfolio. It would be better to have more but this is what I can afford at the moment. These are the current holdings in my stock portfolio: Bemis (BMS), British Petroleum (BP),Consolidated Edison (ED), Great Southern Bank (GSBC),Johnson and Johnson (JNJ),Coca-Cola (KO),McDonald’s (MCD),Realty Income (O),Pitney Bowes (PBI),Power Shares International Dividend Achievers (PID),Ship Finance (SFL),Universal Health Realty Income Trust (UHT).

Most of these stocks were chosen because they had a consistent history of raising dividends or had a nice dividend yield. Ideally they would be like O and have both. An 8.4% yield and a consistent history of increasing their dividend since their listing on the NYSE in 1984. I don’t particularly like investing in funds but I have PID since I am under diversified and need more international exposure.

My return on investment since I started investing last October is 4.9% or 7.2% annualized. The actual ROI is higher than that since I didn’t invest all my money at once, I’ve been slowly adding to my portfolio since then. I just calculated this figure for this post and initially thought this wasn’t a very good performance. Considering the S&P 500 index lost 22.56% the last quarter of 2008 and is down 2.67% this year my performance looks pretty good.

This performance would be a lot better if I would have been quicker to unload GE. On the other other hand if I hadn’t bough GSBC, which more than doubled, my performance would be a lot worse. That is how diversification works. If one stock sucks, there should be some others that pick up the slack.

My initial plan for this portfolio was to eventually have enough dividend income to cover my monthly expenses. I’m no longer sure if I’m going to pursue that plan since I’m looking at having a wider variety of investments. I’ll still have stocks they will just be a smaller percentage of my investments overall.

One Month Appalachian Trail Hike Plan

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Here is the latest plan for my one month hike on the Appalachian Trail. I’ll start by flying out of Kansas City to Philadelphia on Tuesday the 14th. From there I’ll take the bus to Delaware Water Gap, PA to get on the A.T. This town is on the PA/NJ border so when I head south from there I will be hiking through all of PA. It will be about 7pm when I arrive in DWG so I’ll probably just stay at the hostel for the night and begin my actual hike the next morning.

My plan is to hike to somewhere around US 50 in Virginia, possibly all the way to Waynesboro, VA if I end up hiking really fast. I haven’t decided how I’m getting back home yet but I’ll figure that out as I’m hiking. I like to keep my options open and not plan ahead too much.

I will have a guidebook with me and I’ll stay in a town about once a week or so to shower and resupply. When I hike I make sure I have enough food to get to the next resupply and that is about the extent of my hiking.

I’m going to try to hike for the whole month on a budget of $200. That will break down to roughly $100 for food and $100 for everything else such as hostels, showers, laundry,replacement gear, etc. I won’t be including the cost of getting to the trail or getting back home. If this budget proves to be unrealistic I will adjust it rather than make myself miserable trying to stick to the budget. Based on my previous hiking though I believe this budget is at least reasonably close what I will spend.

I should be able to get on the internet about once a week to update the blog and moderate comments and such. I will also have daily tweets about my hike as long as I have cell coverage. If that interests you be sure to follow me on Twitter. I hope you all will stick around while I’m hiking.

Book Review and Giveaway: 10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget

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The writers at Wisebread have come out with a book titled 10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget. As you might guess from the title this book is chock full of useful tips on getting more for your dollar. These ideas will help you have a nice lifestyle while being frugal. Frugality is about making smarter choices with your money not sacrifice.

The book reads like a series of blog posts. Which isn’t too surprising since the tips are mainly from posts at Wisebread. If you like reading blogs posts – and since you’re here reading a blog, you probably do – you should enjoy reading this book. The tips have been organized into several categories such as travel, food, health and beauty, etc. to help you find tips.

With over 10,000 tips the book doesn’t go into much detail on any of them. Most of the ideas are pretty simple though and don’t require a lot of explanation in order for you to be able to utilize the ideas. This book would be an excellent resource for anyone who is just getting started with being frugal. Even if you have been frugal for a long time such as I have you will likely find a few helpful tips in this book.

I’m giving away a copy of this book. To enter simply leave a comment on this post. Only one entry per person. The book will be shipped via media mail so the winner must have a U.S. address. The contest will close on Friday and the winner of the random drawing will be announced at that time.

June Investment Income – $76.49

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My investment income for June was basically unchanged from the month before. It went from $76.53 in May to $76.49 this month. Apparently my stock portfolio must have gone down a small amount. I might add a little to my stocks this month. If not then my investment income will only go up if my stocks go up.

Disclaimer: This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement savings, emergency fund, and any other money I consider permanent savings. What the total of my savings would earn at 6% interest for a month is my monthly investment income.

June Income – $3221.68

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Here is a breakdown of my income for June.

Online Income

$232.83

Interest

$82.63

Survey/Bonuses

 $103.00

Stock Dividends

$62.32

Ebay/Craigslist

$65.77

Medical Study

$2425

Cash Back

$250.13

Total

$3221.68

This was a great month for income. Since I’ve started tracking my income this is the first time I’ve made over $3000 in a month. The bulk of that was the $2425 from the medical study but I also made a solid $796.68 from other sources. My online income was a measly $232.83. This might seem ok but I’m on pace to make less online this year than last. The main cause for that is a severe decline in credit card affiliate income this year. Combined with dropping adsense on this site I have a lot of income I need to replace. I am looking at different ways of making extra online income. My experiment for last month didn’t work but I’ll keep trying different things.

I received a $250 check from my credit card company for accumulated rewards. That was nice but since they changed the reward program it doesn’t look like I’ll be receiving a check that big again. It was also a good month for dividends due to how the quarterly payment schedule fell. This month’s income will likely be down since the medical study is ending and I need to pay some taxes out of this month’s check.