The following is a guest post from Matt Becker, founder of Mom and Dad Money. Matt is a proud father and husband, and his site is dedicated to helping new parents build financial security for their family. Although Matt and I have somewhat different personal opinions in regards to dividend strategies, I thought it might be fun to invite him to take the stage and share his perspective on why he thinks Total Return Investing would be better. I've always maintained the message on My Money Design that there is more than one way to reach financial freedom. If you can keep an open mind and not reject something just because it is different than what you use, then maybe you might just learn something. Go ahead Matt .... If you have … [Read more...] about Why Total Return Investing Is Better Than a Dividend Strategy
Stocks & Investing
My Broker Lets Me DRIP Stocks – Why That’s Great
Time and time again on this blog we’ve proven that we sometimes don’t know we can do something until we ask for it. That was exactly the case this week when I learned that I can DRIP stocks with my broker. Until now I didn’t think that my account had this feature, but I was glad to find out that it does and I will certainly be putting it to use. For those of you who don’t know, DRIP stands for dividend reinvestment plan (or program). It is also sometimes abbreviated DRP. When people say you DRIP stocks, they are usually referring to some system you enroll in where instead of receiving your dividend payments by check or cash each quarter you instead automatically buy more shares of that same dividend paying stock. There are a lot of … [Read more...] about My Broker Lets Me DRIP Stocks – Why That’s Great
Using the Dividend Yield Formula to Evaluate a Stock Prospect
As part of my love affair over the last year with investing in dividends, I’m going to continue to introduce posts that focus on one particular aspect of evaluating a particular stock prospect. So this week, we’ll be looking specifically at the dividend yield formula and what it can tell us about the stock or company. … [Read more...] about Using the Dividend Yield Formula to Evaluate a Stock Prospect
My Dividend Stock Portfolio Update – May 2013
What a wild ride the last 4 months have been! It’s been a while since I’ve done a dividend stock portfolio update, and I thought this would be a great time to report (i.e. celebrate) my earnings. … [Read more...] about My Dividend Stock Portfolio Update – May 2013
One Man’s Success With Borrowing Against 401k Funds for a Comeback
The following is a guest post by fellow personal finance blogger William Cowie from the site Bite the Bullet Investing. In the post Reader Debate – Would You Borrow Money to Invest in Stocks?, William commented with a great story about his experiences with borrowing against 401k funds to purchase stocks at what he believed was a critical opportunity. He has graciously volunteered to expand upon that story in this post. If you are interested in being a guest contributor for My Money Design, please feel free to contact me. Do you hate debt? I do, quite passionately. Few things suck the joy out of life more successfully than debt. I didn't always feel this way. Business schools do a great job extolling the virtues of using Other … [Read more...] about One Man’s Success With Borrowing Against 401k Funds for a Comeback
Can the Dividend Payout Ratio Help You Pick a Good Stock?
In this month’s issue of Money Magazine, I came across an article entitled “When the Wilder Ride is Worth It”. The article was addressing how sometimes a company’s stock and dividend payment can be a better prospect for stable income than its bond. To make this comparison, they looked at the return of the bond against the dividend appeal (which was largely based on it's payout ratio) and any inherit stock risk based on the company itself. Whenever I find an article like this about semi-guaranteed income, I tend to pay extra special attention to it - and with good reason. Strategies such as taking advantage of dividend payouts will be important to my financial situation because it will be one of the key elements that helps me to … [Read more...] about Can the Dividend Payout Ratio Help You Pick a Good Stock?
Reader Debate – Would You Borrow Money to Invest in Stocks?
I wanted to try something different on My Money Design and throw a question out to my readers to debate. I’m very interested to see what the outcome will be. The inspiration for this topic comes from a stellar comment that was left on my “How Much Money Would I Make If I Rented Out A House?” post. The commenter, Richard, laid out some great plans for how he was going to build his wealth empire. Essentially, he was going to borrow money to put together a real estate portfolio. This is the classic old mantra of using “other people’s money” to get rich, and it is certainly a path where a lot of people seem to have found great success. Unfortunately I’m far too much of a weenie to invest in real estate (… yet). I prefer to invest … [Read more...] about Reader Debate – Would You Borrow Money to Invest in Stocks?
Types of Investment Funds – Open-End and Closed-End Funds
The following post is a contribution from Gary, a personal finance blogger who focuses on investing, saving, real estate, credit and debt, career and education advice, budgeting, and insurance at Gajizmo.com. Gary has worked at an internet company on their M&A team, as well as two private equity firms, and has a Real Estate Broker’s License. Investment funds allow small and large investors to pool capital together and enjoy higher investment returns with lower risks than private brokerage accounts. Mutual funds offer many benefits, such as easy diversification of securities, professional management, lower trading fees and costs, and increased liquidity. However, investing in these funds requires research. The type of fund an investor … [Read more...] about Types of Investment Funds – Open-End and Closed-End Funds
