A long, holiday weekend is upon us! Anyone out there have some cool Labor Day plans? I’m personally going to be helping my parents move some furniture around before commencing on some painting. Not real fun, but I’m happy to help out. They’re renovating their master bedroom. So it’s old furniture out, and new furniture, […]
Archives for August 2014
Think Like An Owner
I currently own 49 equity positions in high-quality businesses across multiple industries and geographies. These are little, tiny slivers of ownership in real businesses out there making real money by selling real products and/or services to people and/or other businesses. These aren’t just pieces of stock paper. Or, translated for modern times, digital stock tickers that […]
Resentment
There are many roadblocks on the path to financial independence. Some are real, some are imagined. Some are self-inflicted. And some are completely unexpected. I recently came upon one of these roadblocks, and I’ll tell you that it was definitely unexpected on my part. But should I have been so naive? My recent experience makes […]
Three Ideas For September
As I type this, the S&P 500 index is just a shade under 2,000 points. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is sitting over 17,000 points. These are near all-time highs. I’d have to be crazy to continue investing new capital here, right? Nope. It’s hard to maintain long-term perspective when we’re living in the […]
Destination: Ann Arbor
So I’ve been searching for the best possible location to finish my journey to financial independence up here in Michigan. My version of Nirvana in the form of a locale. Does it exist? No. There are always trade-offs. But I’m attempting to maximize the pros and minimize the cons by going through a series of posts […]
Income/Expenses For July 2014
I’ve been tracking my income and expenses online since I initiated this blog back in early 2011. I do this for a few reasons. First, I want to prove to the world that it’s possible to become financially independent at a relatively young age even if you don’t make a lot of money. I don’t […]
Weekend Reading – August 15, 2014
Life is just plain good. I feel like I’m overwhelmed with optimism lately, and it just kind of oozes out of every pore of my body. The sunshine has never been brighter or felt warmer on my skin, the sky never bluer, dreams never sweeter. And time has never been longer, as I recently wrote […]
How To Figure Out When You Can Quit
Special note from Dividend Mantra: Today, we have a guest post by Eli Inkrot. I don’t allow guest posts often, and this is the second in the last week. But Eli has a story that really resonates with me. He will probably be familiar for quite a few of you readers out there, as he […]
Recent Buy
I have to admit that I feel incredibly blessed right now. To be able to take a break from conventional work to focus on writing is such a gift, but to be able to continue my investment activities takes it to another level of gratitude. I’m not making nearly as much as I was when […]
Kinder Morgan Merging All Partnerships Into Single Company
Big news on the front! Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI), the general partner of the Kinder Morgan structure of master limited partnerships, is purchasing its underlying MLPs and entities: Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P. (KMP), Kinder Morgan Management, LLC (KMR), and El Paso Pipeline Partners, L.P. (EPB). KMI will acquire all of the outstanding equity securities […]