My Financial Independence Journey » Archive
Weekend Link Love: Happy Easter edition
This weekend link love is brought to you by Easter, where candy that I should not be eating abounds. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Link Love
6 Ways to Understanding the True Costs of Your Stuff
Saving money is critical to achieving financial independence. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not particularly fond of extreme frugality. I’ve also mentioned that I prefer to make thoughtful decisions about everything that I’m going to purchase. One of the factors that goes into that decision is how much I feel that a given purchase will improve my life. The other factor is how much it costs. Have you ever wondered how much something costs? Probably … Read entire article »
Filed under: Reflections
Recent Transactions – Lots of Stuff
As part of my commitment to keep my readers up to date on my portfolio, I write up short posts describing my transactions. My portfolio is undergoing a bit of a makeover at present, and I think it’s best to walk everyone through the changes from start to finish. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Investment portfolio
Savings Rate is the Key to Achieving Financial Independence
Achieving financial independence requires only two things, a high savings rate and a descent rate of return. But what constitutes a high savings rate? What if you just want the lowest possible savings rate that will still get you to a comfortable retirement? Can you really expect to achieve financial freedom faster if you load up on high yield stocks? Answers to all of these questions are revealed as we explore the magical worlds of … Read entire article »
Filed under: Investing, Reflections, Retirement
ConocoPhillips (COP) Dividend Stock Analysis
ConocoPhillips (COP) is an oil company with a worldwide presence. COP’s major activities focus on the upstream components of oil and gas production – namely exploration and production. To be a bit more specific, COP explores for, produces, transports, and markets, crude oil, bitumen (a highly viscous or semi solid form of petroleum) and natural gas. COP is a global company with 45% if its oil production coming from the US, 20% from Europe, 15% … Read entire article »
Filed under: Stock Analysis
Weekend Link Love: “The Blogging” Edition
This weekend link love is brought to you by my favorite grammatically horrid line from the many spam comments that I get: “The blogging is spreading its wings quickly.” For some reason that makes me chuckle every time I think about it. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Link Love
Insourcing vs Outsourcing
Outsourcing has been practiced by corporations for years. Outsourcing is also practiced by regular people when they pay others to do things for them. Best selling author and shyster (*) Tim Ferriss advocated pushing personal outsourcing to the extreme in the 4-Hour Workweek, the idea being that the less grunt work you did, the more time you could spend building a business.(**) On the flip side, much of the FIRE (financial independence/early retirement) community advocates … Read entire article »
Filed under: Reflections
A Brief Primer on Dividend Growth Stocks Part 2: Basic stock screening
I thought it would be a good idea to follow up part one of my primer on dividend growth stocks with second part, that is all about some of the basic criteria that can be used to evaluate a dividend growth stock that you’re interested in. If you are going to evaluate whether to buy an individual stock or not, you need to have some kind of objective criteria established. If the stock meets your … Read entire article »
Filed under: Investing
Microsoft (MSFT) Dividend Stock Analysis
Microsoft (MSFT) is the world’s largest software maker. As you’re probably painfully aware, the company holds a virtual monopoly on desktop operating systems and office suites. Microsoft is divided into five business units: 1) Windows and Windows Live which is responsible for the Windows operating system, which over 90% of all PCs use. 2) Server and Tools is responsible for producing various sever related products and providing support for them through Microsoft Consulting Services. 3) … Read entire article »
Filed under: Stock Analysis
Weekend Link Love: Epic Business Travel Edition
It’s been a long two weeks since we had a link roundup here at MFIJ. Apologies for that, but I’ve been traveling like mad for my job. I take a break and the blogosphere drops crazy amounts of good posts. Just my luck that a wave of great writing would hit when I’m least able to absorb it. Below, you can find links to some of the awesome articles that graced my presence over the last few weeks. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Link Love
