(11-21-2013, 07:32 PM)Kerim Wrote: Buy great companies that have a solid history of paying and increasing dividends at good prices. Then sit back and let them improve your life.

(11-21-2013, 07:32 PM)Kerim Wrote: My dividend growth portfolio turned 5 years old last week! I happened to notice that I bought my very first shares in an individual company on November 13, 2008, just over 5 years ago. Where does the time go?

My very first buy ever was 200 shares of MO at a price of $16.84 per share. The annualized dividend at the time was $1.28, giving those shares an initial yield of 7.60 percent. The markets were in turmoil then, but that huge yield gave me confidence to move – and I knew people weren’t going to stop smoking. Those 200 shares are now worth more than twice as much, and with an annualized dividend of $1.92 currently, they have a yield on cost of 11.4 percent.

I bought more in the next couple of weeks as the price fell even further, eventually accumulating 500 shares at an average price of $16.09. The initial yield on the last 100 shares I bought (at $14.65 per share) was 8.74 percent.

Those 500 shares cost me $8043, with commissions. With reinvesting, I now own 570 shares, worth $21,175 at today’s price. Better yet, that $8043 bought me an income stream that is now up to almost $1100 annually.

None of my other buys even comes close to that success, but they do follow in those footsteps nonetheless. Buy great companies that have a solid history of paying and increasing dividends at good prices. Then sit back and let them improve your life.