While I Was Out...!

Good afternoon investors and faithful readers, :)

This has been the longest drought in my writing since DividendPartisan was launched back in January 2011.  As a result, I feel I should first apologize for my extended absence in posts - my apologies. Secondly, I also thought it would be appropriate, however, for me to provide an explanation of what has been going on in my life - both personally and with investing (of course) - during my summer hiatus.  I hope you'll find it interesting and informative.

So, with that, here's what's been going on:

#1: Several Airborne and Military Operations

Since I last wrote you, I've exited the aircraft three times on various different missions; praying each time that my parachute would open.  If you've never done it before, it's quite a thrill, let me tell you.  I've also been out in the 'field' doing some lengthier military training exercises.  Nothing like no weekends off, living out in the woods, and only three showers in eleven days.  It's really not that bad though, so I can't complain too much.
     Military life has settled down a bit now though, and things should be back to normal, at least for the month of August.


#2: Investment Moves

Things have been relatively slow over the past few months as far as investing in my Dividend Income Portfolio; but with the recent MASSIVE drop in the stock market, I plan on investing like crazy over the next few days.  There are numerous buys!

As for June and July's activity, however, I decided to shift focus and max out my Roth IRA instead.  Now that 2011's contributions to my retirement account are complete, I can focus solely for the remainder of the year on my dividend income portfolio.  Later this week I will post updates for June and July for both dividends received as well as changes to my portfolio.  Finally, but no less important, over these last two months my wife and I continued to pay down on some of the debt that we have.  Eliminating that is a main priority of ours!

#3: Promotion and New Job

I also received a promotion at work and now hold the rank of Captain.  It came two months earlier than expected, but not because of any meritorious effort on my part - just a cool blessing, I guess.  From a financial perspective, I now make a little more each month. (But, my wife just transitioned out of her part-time job, so for the moment, any increase to our household monthly income is at somewhat of a wash).  Anyway, with the promotion I also am transitioning into a new job.


#4: Awesome Vacation to Mexico

My wife and I, and her two sisters and their husbands took a mini family reunion vacation to Mexico.  It was a blast.  We snorkeled a lot and swam with a bunch of sea turtles and other fish.  Great time with the family!




Well, those are the big events at least.  Hopefully the four reasons above provide some justification as to why I haven't written in the past two months.  :)  Life goes on outside DividendPartisan I guess!

In conclusion, it is still questionable as to whether or not I will now fall short of achieving $2k in dividend income from my Dividend Income Portfolio (the portfolio discussed on this site and found in the link above).  June and July's numbers weren't too impressive, and there are only a few options left for me to maximize these last five months of the year in hopes of racing towards my goal.   As I said above, I'll post June and July's numbers in the next few days.

Finally, I have been contemplating for some time now including the dividends received from my retirement account on this site as well.  Including these numbers would do several things: first, it would provide a more accurate 'total dividends received for the year'; Secondly, it would help satisfy my aspirations of achieving a goal that I set up for myself, :); and finally it would let you know that I haven't been slacking too too much when it comes to investing, but rather contributing funds elsewhere! What do you think?

Nonetheless, thanks for staying with me during this drought.  I'll do my best to publish new posts on a more regular basis from here on out.  Take care!

DivPartisan

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