I hope next year will be even more prosperous for all of us

I wish you all the very best.

Total dividends for the year

Although I already knew two months ago that we would do better than the year before, knowing exactly how much better is satisfactory. We increased our dividend by 16% against our forecast. Next year's forecast, which will be adjusted during the year, will be more in balance, I hope.

The increase between 2017 and 2018 is due to the fact that we had the opportunity to pay dividends from our private companies that we invested in the stock market instead. On top of that we also increased our risk-taking, a lot.

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Snapshot of our total holding per 12.31.2019

Due to many investors securing profits before the New Year's end, the value of our portfolios dropped significantly during the latter half of December. Currently, we have a deficit in the portfolio value that is saved by our dividends.

The goal is that the red pie slice should preferably be erased by the green pie slice. I also have a yellow pie slice which refers to value increase, but since we have a value reduction it is not visible now.

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Happy New Year

The last dividends of the year has entered my account and my final dividends were significantly higher than the forecast indicated. The spreadsheet has been corrected and adjusted during the year, especially in recent weeks, so the coming years' forecast and actual outcome should be more accurate.

I have two personal characteristics that counteract each other, perfection aka exact numbers against hidden assets. Unfortunately, I can't exactly predict the upcoming exchange rates, tax deductions miscellaneous bank costs and dividends that only come into force in the period later. Therefore, I choose to have some hidden assets that I omit in the forecast.

The best thing for me is to have the margins in my favor and accept that the figures for next year's forecast are lower than they really should be.

New Year's Eve

Another year has come to an end. The older you get the faster the time goes. A year ago we were in Bangkok celebrating New Year. This year we went to Copenhagen. It is colder, cloudier, windier but significantly closer and hardly any time difference.

Below is the chart of the family's joint portfolio.

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Last trade day of the year

The reason why I did not make any acquisitions on the last trade day of the year, despite falling both dollar and share prices, is due to the lack of liquid funds.

Hopefully I will be able to trade on next year's first trading day. It all depends on the dollar and share price and whether future dividends have been paid according to announcements.

My crystal ball

After doing a preliminary reconciliation of the month's remaining dividends, it seems that I only have ARR and OCCI left. They will give me just under $300.

The positive is that my spreadsheet appears to be correct now. All forecasts seem to be correct. Rarely have I longed for something that I long for next year's first payout.

Greetings

I apologize for poor posting. I am afraid it will not improve until the beginning of January. We have taken time off from work during the days between Christmas and New Year. The very few dividends we are waiting for during the last working day of the year are very limited. They are not enough for any new acquisitions this year, unfortunately.

It is nice to end the year in peace and quiet before the new year begins.

I never give up

It took both time and energy but I won over Rubric's cube. It feels so good for the moment since none of my family members believed in me.

It's always a competition!

5 days and counting

The closer I get to the year end, the more I test run my spreadsheet. Today I found what I hope is the absolute last fault. All tests afterwards have been correct.

I was completely euphoric and wanted both husband and son to watch as I ran the last test. Their fascination for the world's most perfect spreadsheet barely reached 3 on a scale of 100. They are on my naughty list until next Christmas.

I put down my foot... and gave in

According to the world's most perfect child, ALL other children have a weekly allowance. Although we want him to have a good financial mind, we also want him to be a child for as long as possible.

He has been forced to save money for a long time but being responsible for his own pleasures such as sweets, snacks, cinema visits etc. is something I want to spare him from for a while. We have now compromised, he will receive $5 a week into his endowment insurance which he himself must place and follow up.

He is a winner again.

Christmas Day

When I was in 6th grade, I was a master of Rubric's cube. A lot of other kids at school came to me during the breaks and asked me to solve their cubes. The offspring has shown interest in the cube for a long time so we gave him one for Christmas.

I told him in a not so humble way that if he can't solve the cube himself I can do it for him. I have been sitting with the cube for several hours now and am no closer to the solution than I was last night.

Merry Christmas

Waking up on Christmas Eve morning to the sound of dividends is a wonderful start to a perfect day. The payout that awoke me this morning was REML. I hope the world's most perfect child will be as happy for his Christmas presents as we were for our dividends.

Change is coming

I think that in the future you will mention your operating system instead of the car brand when talking about your car. Instead of driving a Porsche, BMW, Audi or similar, you have a Google, Amazon or similar operating system. My dream car is a Bentley, however my son might dream of a specific operating system instead.

Exciting times await.

More money to come

Although there are only 3 working days left this year, we are still waiting for a number of dividends, CEFL, DVHL, FDUS, HCAP, MORL, OCCI, OFS and REML to be exact. Hopefully the dividends will come into the account this year, although I think that some dividend will be spilled over to 2020.

No matter what, I look forward to January next year which will be our largest single dividend month to date. From next year, we will halve our savings and pay off our mortgages instead with the other halve.

On the right side

So far, all is well, neither Avanza nor Nordea have made any corrections that affect our balance. However, mr Dewlar has found a new security, CGBD.

After all the links between the different sheets in the document, it is important to stay on course and not fade away when I add securities. When I added CGBD to the document, I found a link I had missed. Once again, I am now convinced that my Google Sheet is perfect. It is now only 10 days before the project is launched. Young master Dewlar longs for Santa Claus, I long for the first transaction of 2020.

Christmas is expensive enough without Nordnet helping

The last 2 days have been expensive, but not on Christmas presents, Christmas food and the like. Nordnet has made a huge number of corrections on previous dividends during the year. On every single account we had a large deficit when we logged in.

On days like these, I am a little extra grateful for the world's most perfect husband's self-preservation to have an extra buffer on our 4th bank. This morning we had to move a larger amount of money so now we have to save extra to restore the buffer. I can only hope that neither Avanza nor Nordea made the same mistake as Nordnet.

There are times when I even appreciate pension insurance.

Although I do not like pension insurance, there are situations where they are the best option. Our store manager is happy to spend his private money. To help him save a little for the future, we have opened a pension insurance for him.

In this way we make sure that he will have a larger amount of money saved when he retires. He does a lot for us so we want to give back.

Will be a good addition in 5 years

Today, the monthly premium on pension insurance had been received. I don't really like pension insurances, but we started these many years ago. Since FSK has ex-Div date tomorrow I bought them.

This means that I will soon receive new money and can continue my build of my money factory. On the same day that I turn 55, I am going to sell off the entire holding and place everything in my endowment insurance instead.

He has never shown interest in yogurt before

I haven't really understood the power of advertising until last weekend. The world's most perfect child is completely taken by an advert for yogurt. After watching the commercial for some time now he couldn't resist when he saw the product in the store.

According to the advertisement, the yogurt would be indescribably good. Whether it is the taste or the advertising, the offspring agreed with the creator. I'm going to make a commercial about the benefits of listening to your parents, especially your mom.

A company's and country's most important component is the customer

The difference between a company and a country is that the company must provide a product or service. A country must have tax paying citizens. The company's service/product is voluntary while the tax is mandatory.

One of the countries in Scandinavia, Sweden, has the highest income tax in the world. To top it all they also have a very high VAT and various excise taxes on alcohol, tobacco etc. All these taxes contribute to a hugely generous welfare system. Unfortunately, it has emerged that this system is being greatly abused.

The fact that the state has no control over the system causes many taxpaying citizens to leave the country. The state gets into difficulties when the taxpaying citizens wonder what they get for the money.

Banksy is Mr. Walker IRL

At breakfast this morning we talked about that they might have got Banksy on film in London. Junior did not know who Banksy is, so I told him that he or she is one of the greatest artists of our time. Although the identity is unknown.

The offspring couldn't quite grasp the double identities thing until I made the comparison with Mr Walker and the Phantom.

Sad but true

It's easy to forget the costs of trading when you get a lot of dividends. Unfortunately, investing money in public companies is not 100% free. Costs such as taxes, fees and inflation are easily forgotten. I might be a little exaggerated in these thoughts. After all, the net surplus is considerably higher.It costs money to make money!

I do not do mistakes

My husband happily informed me that I have made a mistake on the blog. When you look at your last 2 blog posts you have received the same amount of money, $136, for different dividends on different days. Impossible according to husband.

Since I still count all amounts manually, it would be entirely possible that I had made a mistake. After double checking the amounts, impossible was possible. Although the odds must be astronomically high, the total sum for the different days and payouts was exactly the same.

Be positive, be positive, be pos...

This November and the start of December goes down to history as one of the rainiest and darkest months ever. We didn't even reach half of the normal number of solar hours for November. Only clouds and rain all month. December has basically started as November ended.

A slither of light is to be woken up by the sound of dividends. No astronomical sums but still ready money, $136 to be precise. The companies that filled my account this morning were AGNC and PELT.

Better late than never

Late last night we received the dividends that was missing at Nordea. Unfortunately, the NYSE had closed when we discovered the payouts. GPMT, OCCI and STWD were acquired for this money.

The purchases generate $136 in dividends per year. In order to monitor the development of shares that we are interested in, we intend to own a very small number of each share. Now there is only CHMI left to acquire before the list is complete.

You cannot live as if there is no tomorrow when you have children

At work we have a young woman who is not yet 25 years old. She has a 7-year-old son. Although her parental role has made her more mature than her peers, she sometimes lacks consistency thinking.

She had saved $1,000 in a savings account as a buffer for unexpected expenses. Instead of having this buffer as a security when her child needs new winter shoes in the middle of winter because he has grown out of the couple she bought at the beginning of the season, she spontaneously buys a snake. The entire buffer is gone.

On second thought

I have more questions than I had before I contacted Nordea (nordea is turning me into old bat) after evaluating what Nordea really said to me. The fact that they changed the refund terms without informing me in any way does not feel serious.

Paying back foreign withheld tax within 6-8 weeks was something that Nordea used extensively in their marketing to gain market shares. According to Nordea the reasons for the delayed repayments depends on late replies from their foreign partner and NYSE. I do not know who is the most credible, Nordea or NYSE?!

Same same but different

Yesterday I invested in my relationship with the world's most perfect child. I brought him and his two friends to a playground outside the city. A parent of one of the other children came along. As we sat at the grandstand and watched our children, we started talking about different investments.

He was born and raised in Asia, has had the whole world as his workplace in multinational giant companies compared to me living and working in the country I was born in and working at our family business. Despite these completely different life experiences, we have almost identical thoughts on how to invest and spend our money.

I'm a bad mom

No matter how much I want to buy shares instead of consuming, there are some purchases that I can't thumb on. While the world's most perfect husband bought MRCC, I had to buy skin care.

It was challenging to explain to the world's most perfect child why I had to buy some things so close to Christmas Eve while he had to wait for Santa Claus. I don't always practice what I preach ...

Nordea is turning me into an old bat

We discovered that there were some dividends and foreign withholding tax missing from certain holdings at the Nordea account. Upon contact with Nordea, we are informed that they have changed their approach. From paying foreign withholding tax almost immediately, they have changed their routines to pay out withholding tax when they have received it from their partners abroad.

As for the dividends that were missing, they had "just" discovered the errors and the payouts are on the way. Why can't things just work?!

On the waiting list or unemployed

The development of electric cars is very exciting. I fell in love with Cyber ​​Truck from Tesla. However, the sad thing is the wait. An electric car lacks many components compared to a car powered by fossil fuels. In addition to being the most obvious as an engine, there are many other parts that are not needed in an electric car. Exhaust pipe, hose clamps, drive shaft, air filter etcetera. The list can be made very long.

Even it is good for the climate I wonder from a socio-economic point of view how many people will lose their jobs because of the electric cars. If the traffic would decrease on our roads in the future, it is difficult to say that it would be because of people are queuing up to get their electric car or if they have become unemployed and cannot afford to drive a car anymore.

I am a coward

Born and raised in Scandinavia, I have a different view on loans. Due to my upbringing, it is okay to mortgage your home but nothing else.

I wish I dared to raise money on my holdings so I could make big acquisitions. Despite great risk-taking on the stock exchange, I draw my limit to borrow on the shares.

Persistence wins

Last night I bought a small number of NEWT. Unfortunately, NEWT's dividend months coincide with my best months. Best for me had been that the payment days were in February, May, August and November, my absolute weakest payment months. If my forecast is in line with reality, it won't be until February 2024 before my poorest dividend months turn into my weakest.

Time is running out

Fine tuning of my spreadsheet continues. I found an error in a stock's return calculation, to my disadvantage unfortunately. I feel very satisfied with all the calculations except the sheet that calculates my interest on interest.

There is a bug in that particular sheet and I haven't come up with a solution, yet. Since it is only 27 days left before the document is run in real time, I must resolve this soon. To give up is not option!

Money, money, money

A few days into December, which is a decent dividend month, I have already received 19 dividends distributed over 2 portfolios for a total of about $500. At the moment, the buying situation is favorable. A lower dollar price and falling stock prices contribute greatly to this. Right now, I have absolutely no idea which stock or shares I will acquire.

The experiment part X

My redistribution of my pension money has borne fruit.

In other circumstances, 27 shares can be considered a fairly modest sum, but for me in this savings form this acquisition is clearly approved.

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What a sight

Although I was at exactly the same level as last year's total dividend at the end of last month, it is always fun to see progress. Today is a good day!

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There is a long way to go

My amazing Google Sheets spreadsheet continues to grow and become exactly what I was hoping for. The only connection missing today is that Google Sheets itself logs into the bank and inserts the respective dividend in the correct cell. Even if the service was available, I would never give a 3-party access to my login information at the bank.

In the diagram below you can see how the dividends and value increase are starting to get a bigger piece of the cake, ie the value of my total holdings. The goal is still for the blue pie piece to become almost invisible.

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Better late than never

I apologize for the poor update. Sunday was the first advent here in Scandinavia. Advent is the four Sundays before Christmas Eve. According to traditions regarding Christmas, the house must be fully decorated for Christmas in addition to the Christmas tree.

Preparing the world's most perfect child for his big math test this week, decorating the apartment and my day job is prioritized before updating the blog. Below is the chart for our holdings at 11.30 in the family's joint portfolio.

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No amount is too small

Some of my lesser holdings paid out a smaller amount of money. For them, I bought another minor shares in NEWT. That acquisition generated a dividend increase of $20 a year. All contributions to my money factory are warmly welcomed.

Welcome REML

Today I received the last major payout of the month, the dividend from REML. For this money a number of NEWTs were acquired. Actually, I had thought about increasing the holding in WPG but since the current holding is completely in line with the plan, I abstained.

There are still some small dividends left this month before I can close the month. I really like to compile and compare forecast vs results.

How can you not love spreadsheets?

Since we have 3 different banks that we have holdings in, the follow-up becomes a bit tortuous. You have to compile all the information yourself. Our 3 banks have very different ways of reporting our holdings, dividends and deposits.

In my Google Sheets I can "cherry-pick" my features. In this way, the functions are completely adapted to our wishes. Unfortunately, I created a new document for each function. As a result, I had several documents. Today I have compiled all these documents into one instead. In addition, I have linked them so I just have to fill in the information in one place. The other sheets retrieve the information directly from the current cell.

From January 2020, every single cell will have up-to-date information.

On second thought

Actually, Swedbank is probably very well aware of what they are doing. Whatever their current chairman says, the profits are far too great to resist. Both for the bank officials who assist with the organization and execution of the money laundering as for the bank as a whole.

Why does Swedbank never learn?

In this small part of the world where Scandinavia is located, a financial bomb has burst. Again, Swedbank, Sweden's largest bank, finds itself in heavy weather.

Ten months ago, it was revealed that Swedbank has helped Russian oligarchs with money laundering. Now it turns out that Swedbank also helped one of its customers to break one of the US financial sanctions against Russia by transferring money from Russia to the US through various tax havens.

For all shareholders and customers in Swedbank, I hope the bank will address these problems this time.

Hello money

It will be a good start to next week. On Monday, the salary is paid out and on Tuesday comes the last big dividend of the month. Unfortunately, no new savings is going into our money factory this month either.

Hopefully, our regular savings which has been paused since the summer will be able to resume from December.

A perfect evening

The last few days we have received a lot of smaller payouts. Tonight we spent all the money. It became a smaller number of shares in both VET and WPG.

Acquiring shares is always satisfactory, regardless of size. This is a perfect way to end the week, sitting on the sofa with the world's most perfect husband and son acquiring shares. I can't imagine a more perfect way to end the week than to be with my husband and the offspring acquiring stocks.

Doing nothing can be hard work

Today, the auditors visit me to review my work. All accounting is stored in our warehouse a just outside the city. Although I have a very nice office space out there, there is no work I can do here.

All I can do is sit in my office room and wait for an auditor's assistant to ask me a question. The fact that I have a lot to do at my "real" workplace inside the city does not easy the burden.

To top it all, some young adults will ask exactly the same questions as their predecessors did last year.

I have to be more grateful

Few things can create frustration like when stock prices are going down and I have no cash. I admire those who take it coolly and have filled their barns.

My money barely makes it to the account before I reinvest it. I suspect this is the biggest difference between someone who invest in dividend shares versus growth shares. My problem is that I want everything!

Why don't you want to prepare your child?

I almost get a little pissed off at parents who haven't taught their children the slightest about finances. We have a newly hired in his twenties.

In the country I live in, 95% of all employees receive their salary on the 25th of each month. Today he came to me and sincerely asked if the salary really comes first on Monday. He thought that since the 25th of this month is on a Monday, the companies are "kind" and pays out the salary on the Friday before.

I thought I'd get a stroke.