Meager Income

Pay Off Debt, Retire Comfortably on Meager Income, Win the Lottery, Not Necessarily in that Order

Is now a good time to invest in Energy?

Posted on | December 20, 2014 | No Comments

This holiday season, I am most grateful for the early Christmas gift we received from Energy companies in the form of cheaper fuel.

The price of a barrel of oil had been range bound between $90 and $130 since April 2011. In June of this year, the price got as high as $115 a barrel of oil before it dropped to $60 a barrel earlier this month—a level not seen since 2009. One might ask why it was so high to begin with? I don’t know the correct answer other than that is the price people are willing to pay.

2014DropInOilPrices

Cheaper gasoline could entice the middle class to spend more this holiday season. I’m just happy to be saving money at the pump.

I started looking at companies that were impacted by the drop in oil and decided to try Read more

September 2014 Spending

Posted on | September 15, 2014 | No Comments

I wanted to get my spending back on track this month. Unfortunately, I had some maintenance and repair work that needed to be taken care of on my car. My car is getting older but it is completely paid off already. I plan to drive it for several more years while enjoying not having a monthly car payment. However, if it starts to become a maintenance issue, I may have to consider buying a new car and getting rid of this one. Below are my expenses for the month: Read more

Costco Coupons Valid From 8/7/14 – 8/31/14

Posted on | August 27, 2014 | No Comments

Attention Costco Members: You have one more week to take advantage of the coupons below. I see a few things that I’ll be buying. I’ll update the post with pricing information for future comparison. The coupons are displayed below.

 

Warehouse Coupon Offers  Valid 8/7/14 – 8/31/14
Simply show the Costco app on your smartphone to cashier. No scanning required.
To redeem offers you must present the paper coupon
or show the Costco app on your smartphone to the cashier.

Offers differ in Puerto Rico and Costco Business Centers. See your local Puerto Rico Costco or Costco Business Center for details.

View Full Terms and Conditions

Read more

Altria (MO) Raises Their Quarterly Dividend by 8.3%

Posted on | August 21, 2014 | No Comments

Altria Group, Inc., ticker symbol MO, through its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells cigarettes, smokeless tobacco products and wine both domestically and internationally. MO is probably best known for their Marlboro, Copenhagen, Skoal and Chateau Ste. Michelle brands.

Altria has a very long history of steadily increasing their dividend. They aim to distribute 80 percent of their adjusted earnings per share back to its shareholders. Accordingly, the Board of Directors has just approved another quarterly dividend increase. They are increasing their dividend from $0.48 to $0.52 for each common share. The Ex-Dividend Date is scheduled Read more

Review of nocs NS500

Posted on | August 12, 2014 | No Comments

While looking for a new pair of in-ear headphones I came across the Swedish company NOCS (http://www.nocs.se).  I was not familiar with them but I was drawn to their philosophy of incorporating a simple design with high quality products and superior sound.  As I investigated further, I saw that they were phasing out their NS400 line and replacing it with a new edition they were calling the NS500, so I decided I could wait a few months. I submitted a pre-order request and waited. After multiple delays, I finally received my new headphones. I’m very glad I waited because they were worth the wait.  I was able to pre-order them for $87.94 including Shipping but now the price has gone up $10.00 to $89.95.

As soon as I put the headphones on and I began listening to music on my iPad with them, Read more

A Look Back at My Spending in 2013

Posted on | August 11, 2014 | No Comments

I decided to analyze my spending from 2013. I sorted all of last year’s transactions by merchant and exported it to excel. The reason behind this is that I wanted to see which publicly traded companies provided a service or manufactured a product that I used in 2013. If I like the product or service a company provides I should consider investing in their stocks, especially if they provide a dividend. In fact, if it is a recurring expense, maybe I should invest enough money such that the dividend I receive covers the cost of the product or service. Here is the list: Read more

Capital Plan approved, Bank of America Raises Dividend

Posted on | August 6, 2014 | No Comments

Bank of America shareholders received excellent news this morning: Bank of America’s revised capital plan that was submitted to the US Federal Reserve has been approved. Accordingly, Bank of America will raise the quarterly dividend to 5 cents a share. This is the first dividend increase in the last 7 years. Bank of America has been working on resolving lawsuits spurred by their purchase of Countrywide at the height of the financial crisis. As they continue to resolve the legacy issues I hope they’ll continue to raise their dividend. I’m excited for the additional meager income I’ll be receiving from my investment in BAC.

July 2014 Spending

Posted on | August 3, 2014 | No Comments

I wanted to get my spending back on track this month. Unfortunately, I had some maintenance and repair work that needed to be taken care of on my car. My car is getting older but it is completely paid off already. I plan to drive it for several more years while enjoying not having a monthly car payment. However, if it starts to become a maintenance issue, I may have to consider buying a new car and getting rid of this one. Below are my expenses for the month: Read more

Apple Announces That They Will Raise Their Quarterly Dividend, Again!

Posted on | July 22, 2014 | No Comments

Apple announced earnings this afternoon. I’ll leave it to the “experts” to argue whether or not it was a great quarter. The bottom line is that Apple made a ton of money again this quarter! Their revenue this quarter was $37.4 billion and they reported a profit of $7.7 billion or $1.28 per diluted share.

Subsequently, Apple’s board of directors declared a cash dividend of $.47 per share of the Company’s common stock. The quarterly dividend was increased from $.4357 per share. At the close today, before the announcement, AAPL stock was priced at $94.72. With the dividend increase it now has a dividend yield of just below 2%. The dividend is payable on August 14, 2014, Read more

Bank of America Requests to Increase Their Dividend, Again!

Posted on | July 15, 2014 | No Comments

I’ve been a client of Bank of America for over 15 years. I’ve been fairly pleased with their services and they’ve done a great job of integrating their many acquisitions under the leadership of Kenneth Lewis. I purchased the stock at the wrong time at around 2007. I believe the yield at the time that I purchased the additional shares was about 5%. Unfortunately, the yield didn’t last very long. Not too long after my purchase, the stock price cratered along with the dividend and their went my investment.

In March of 2009, I started to buy back in. The stock seemed very cheap at the time and the Bank of America board promoted Brian Moynihan to CEO. My only regret is that I didn’t buy more shares at what turned out to be an amazing bargain. Read more

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