6-Month Check-Up

Wow! It already more than half way through the 2017 year. Things have been going great. I started my new official job a little over one year ago. It is going great! I also met a great girl in the cities. Life is going well but is going by so fast.

Let’s see how 2017 has gone so far!

2017 Goals:

1) Retirement Accounts.
One of my annual goals is to max out my IRA each year. I was able to do that early in January 2017 so this goal is easily accomplished. I am also now eligible for my company’s 401(k). I will have to set that up and start contributing the maximum. While I dislike losing control over that money (it will be invested in Vanguard funds), the tax benefits will be nice. Also, once I am a partner, I will have access to the profit sharing features of the 401(k) as well. I will have access to that in about a year.

2) Receive $7000 a year in dividends.
So far through the end of July I have received $3677.14. Looking at my Dividend Payout calculator (DivPayoutCalc sheet on my Portfolio), I should have $3737.59 paid in August through December. You add those up and I will receive around $7414.73. Wow! I was actually concerned that I may have made this goal too much of a stretch, especially since I was planning on increasing options trades and allocating some capital to invest in higher growth non-dividend paying companies. Details on those goals are below.

3) Get $3000 this year in options income.
This will be very tough to meet. I’m currently at $651.88 through the end of August. I have about another $128 in puts set to expire in September. I would have liked to make more through options this year, but I didn’t feel that the premiums were right for me. I’ve instead focused on dividend and growth stocks. Though, I have opened a new account with tastyworks and will be performing more options trades there in the coming months.

4) Improve Two Investing layout and content.
I’ve partially met this goal. I’ve updated the site’s title and logo and gotten an updated gravatar icon. I’m also writing more but still not as regularly as I like. Work and life has kept me busy!

5) Invest at least $10,000 in smaller cap growth companies.
Done and done. $25,140 invested in non-dividend paying companies, the majority of which are small or micro cap, although roughly $3,500 was also invested in a non-dividend paying large cap, Berkshire-Hathaway. I’m up a ton in the majority of these companies. I’ll write in more detail about these purchases in the end-of-the-year recap. I am giving up about $754 in forward dividends had this amount been invested at a 3% yield. Trust me, I’m way ahead at the moment. While I love the dividends, it really comes down to total return at this point in my life.

4 Responses

  1. Amber tree says:

    That is a report… Good on mist goals.

    I ma curious to hear your tastyworks experience. As a Belgian, it sounds too difficult to get access.

  2. FerdiS says:

    Sounds like things are going quite well, Scott — really good to see you’re doing well with your 2017 goals. I also dipped into non-dividend paying stocks a little, but not small caps like you. I went FANG. Not even 5% of my portfolio, but I’m happy to hold these for the long-term.

    • scott says:

      Thanks! Yep, a few of the goals (namely the dividend income), I thought were such a stretch that I wasn’t going to make them! Good to see you investing in some non-dividend paying stocks too. The FANG stocks have done especially well over the last year. Nicely done!

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