It’s getting harder and harder to get by
We have not been doing well with our budget. Inflation has hit us hard of late, and we are really going to need to cut back on things. Everything has gone up. Insurance is one of the biggest, and so is food and gas. We are trying to find ways to cut them back. I think I’m going to look for a new insurance company. It just seems like it snuck up on me. I don’t know, but I am going to make some changes in my investment strategy.
For some time now, I have been concentrating a lot on dividend stocks. Any changes that I have made, has been with a view to the dividend. Not the amount though, but just that it’s there. In other words, if I was going to add to a position, I only added to those that had a dividend. It didn’t matter how much. I also had all of the dividends being reinvested in the same position. I have changed that now so that most of my dividend stocks pay into the cash reserves.
It’s time for me to let the money that I have invested start paying me. Not that I’m going to sell out on all my non dividend stocks. At least, not yet. But I think I will sell some of the ones that have not been doing badly and maybe one or two that skyrocketed over the last month or so. Some of them, I am emotionally tied to and have a really hard time selling. Like Intel. I really like that company, and it’s done well recently. But I have a few that I didn’t really invest much in (like a hundred dollars or so) and they are now at a value of 75 so I’m not losing much but it just doesn’t seem like they have a big path to growing.
But any investment that I will be making from now on will have to have a dividend rate of 3.5% or more. I can do about that well with just leaving it in the money market that it sits in while I wait to make moves. I am planning on putting some money into municipal funds and maybe some US Treasuries. I have to learn more about them. But the Treasuries are running around 4% with the added bonus that there are not Federal Taxes on Treasury income. Municipals are even better since there is not State or Federal Taxes if I buy into my state.
Since I am retired and don’t have an income, I can’t put anything into other tax advantaged plans like IRAs or Roth IRAs so while I have some currently doing their thing, I can’t make any real additions into them. Social Security and Annuity payments are not considered Earned Income. I think I earned them, but that’s not the view of the taxman!
So, I am going to be making some changes, I just don’t know where yet. It’s not like I have a huge amount in the stock market. Even so, I want to start getting something tangible out of it instead of just watching prices go up and down. It’s simple. I need the money!
I am considering putting some money into my mortgage payment and try to get that eliminated this year. That was a fiasco, and it is a sizable portion of my monthly income. It has a pretty high interest rate and if I can put an end to that, it’s almost like found money. It will cost me up front, but I think it will be worth it in the long run. Not that I have a big “long run” in front of me. I’m 70 so how much more can I run? I also pay for life insurance to cover it in case something happens to me. But that has been going up year after year, and is costing me a small fortune.
I think making some of those changes will help out the most. Then my monthly income will be at a range where I can get by without going into debt.
I did add a new position the other day. I bought General Mills and I am hoping to do well with it. I am still looking at PSE&G, McCormick, and Colgate Palmolive. But for now, I am really going slow. I need to clean out some of the stocks and make watching over the positions a little easier. I’m holding onto AMD, Amazon, and Intel. Even though they don’t pay dividends. I still think Nvidia has room to grow, though it will be slow. But SMCI is just worrying me. It just doesn’t seem to be able to hang on. They make a great box for AI and I think they will go up if they just get their act together. But they have really been a pain in my side.
Yes, it is time for some restructuring and then watch all the ones I sell soar to new heights! Story of my life.
The Oil in the Strait
The Strait is supposedly flowing at almost prewar levels according to people who say they know. I hope that means that some prices will be coming down soon, but I am not hopeful yet. There was a march in Iran yesterday, for the burial of the supreme leader, and there were a lot of anti-Trump banners and an interview with someone from the IRGC (the Iran military) that said they don’t think the war is over. That’s bad.
Russia is still pounding Ukraine and it’s getting harder for them to defend. They need more defensive weapons, and I don’t know if our president will be willing to help. He is in Turkey now meeting with NATO and hopefully something good will come from that. He has not been nice to anyone over there, especially the Prime Minister of Italy, and I don’t think any of them trust him.
Well, we will have to see how things work out, I guess.
