Goals for 2016

I have set three main goals for my dividend growth investment portfolio:

First goal for 2016 is to at least invest $6,000 into my portfolio but will like to aim for $7,500 – $8,000. Pretty simple really, any funds I do not need for necessities and bills will be used towards my portfolio.

Second goal is to build my core portfolio on REIT companies who pay monthly dividends and/or have high dividend yield. I will do this for the first year of my portfolio growth and from there branch out to other sectors. The reason I plan on doing this is with monthly dividend payouts I can buy more stocks in my core REIT companies which in turn will increase my monthly dividend amount quicker. Great compounding in my mind!

My third goal which should really by my first goal is spend less each year from now on because the money I save can be used on my portfolio. The one thing that I spend too much money on is food. Sure we all need to eat but being a 33 year old single bachelor, I should not be spending $300 plus a month on food. My goal is to spend no more than $200 a month on food with my goal being closer to $150 as time goes on. This is a savings of $1200-$1800 a year. This leads me to my internet and mobile phone expense. Currently I have Verizon DSL which costs me $70.51 a month and in the process of switching to Comcast Xfinity Cable which will cost me around $49.95 plus taxes a month.

My Verizon service will not end until February 9th, (Update: As of 1/24/2016 I have canceled my Verizon service and now with Xfinity. Switching over sooner will save me a few dollars because of my last bill being prorated.)  so I will have 2 bills for February but starting March I will be saving $15 a month which comes to $180 a year. For my mobile phone I use Ting which even right now I have saved about $65 a month from when I first had a mobile phone with AT&T which was costing me around $100 a month for services I did not need or use. I plan on saving even more by utilizing free wifi around my city which I can log onto instead of using my Ting’s service and doing so I plan on saving around $10-$17 a month which means a savings between $120-$204 a year.

Thanks for reading and I will see you in retirement.

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Update

This is just a very short update and just wanting to tell everybody to keep an eye out on my blog progress because a lot will change in the coming days. I plan on writing at least one blog entry a week if not two depending on what is going on that week.

Thank you for reading and see you in retirement!

Introduction

I thought I would do a quick introduction to who I am and what my goals are for the short term and long. My name is Matthew Battle but most call me Matt. I would consider myself a competent person when it comes to stock trading as I have been dabbling in trading, on and off, since 2004. I have dabbled in equity trading, penny stock trading, options trading, and forex trading. I really haven’t had much “success” in trading other than penny stock which I turned $500 into about $10,000 in a few months betting on a startup company going big (I think it is defunct as of the summer of 2015).

Like most people I am looking to make money trading but like most people I do not want to lose my shirt doing so so I have looked around to see what would fit my budget, my time, and my risk and thus I have ended up with dividend growth investment. I plan on investing and growing this portfolio over the next 15-20 years putting into it as much as possibly can while still having enough to pay for my expenses and having a a small emergency fund.

I am mainly creating this site so that I can keep track of what I am doing but also be helpful to one or two people along the way.  Like many sites I plan on talking about my goals for short and long term, talk about changing my spending habits so that I can invest as much as possible each month ie living a “frugal” lifestyle, I will have links to my current portfolio and dividend profits, and other things I think will be useful to others.

Oh, here is a picture of my ugly mug that is a few years old: