Welcome to all the new members from S.A.

[fenders53]

Just wanted to let you know we are glad you are here.  I am really hoping a few of you find this place worthy of your presence.  DGI is not as exciting as what this market has been bringing the past few years so it's been a struggle to keep this place worth visiting often.  Some new on topic content is very much welcomed, but you will have to get used to this eclectic bunch.  When you only have a dozen members that post fairly regularly you get to know each other.  We pretty much know everyone's occupation, how many kids we do or don't have, approximate age and our retirement goals in some detail.  The "what did you buy today" thread is our general purpose thread.  We may sound like a bunch of day traders there but we all have DGI ports.  Some are exclusive to that strategy, and some of us trade or even try to make income with option strategies with a portion of our port.  Dividend talk is never out of place anywhere on this forum.  I'll warn you a lot of banter happens there too.  We know who can take a joke and none of it is intended to be mean spirited.  Join in if you like, or avoid it.  We often speak freely there because we don't want each other to lose money because they don't have all the facts.  We don't have the vast resources of SA but the place has a personal touch.            

Hope you'll say hello here and introduce yourself with a sentence or a paragraph.  Guess I should start.  I am a 34 yr military retiree.  I work part-time at Home Depot where I design custom doors and windows for a few more months until I fully retire.  I actually took about three years of full retirement a few years back.  Married with a 23yr old daughter.  I love to fly fish and enjoy old truck restoration.  I have a 1953 Ford F100 street rod and a 94 Mustang I drag race some.  I've always been a gearhead.  I love the pursuit of investing.  I'm no CPA but I spend a lot of time on conference calls and researching the sectors I enjoy most.   

Welcome!

[rnsmth]

My name is Ron Smith. I am 70 years old and have been retired for 8 years. My wife and I live in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, and have since January of 2014. She is 3 years young than I, so sometimes I refer to her as my child bride

I have been a a dividend growth investor since 2012. Our pensions and SS checks fully fund the household budget with am margin of safety. We reinvest our dividends from our low-mid 6 figure portfolios. Our portfolio income now equals Kathy's pensions, and we are working toward it equaling my SS payment, which I took at 62.

[Kerim]

Well said, Fenders!

It is a small and excellent community here, and I'm really excited to welcome so many new members. Something about the nature of DG investing attracts good people, so I have every confidence that our communities will fit nicely.

I'm Kerim, the person who started this site way back when. I’m 52, live in western Massachusetts and – as of about August 2021 – count myself among the “great resignation.” I’m not yet sure what the next chapter is for me, but for now I’m really enjoying lying fallow and convalescing after 20-plus years of far too stressful law practice.

I bought my first stock in November of 2008, so I have no idea if I am a good investor. But I loved the DG strategy as soon as I first started learning about it, and I couldn't believe there wasn't a forum dedicated to it specifically. So I started one. I’m far from the most prolific poster, and have been awol for stretches, but am very happy to have time to spend here again now that I’m “unemployed.”

With an influx of people, it is a good time to ask whether there are some improvements that could be made that would make the site better or more useful as we grow (and I have the time to do it!). Maybe when the dust settles a bit I’ll start a thread about it. In the meantime, please feel free to message me or raise it in the forums.

Welcome all!

[ken-do-nim]

I'm Ken, 48, living over in eastern Massachusetts between Providence and Boston.

My role on the forum is that of comic relief

My first portfolio out of college was liquidated to buy my first condo. My second portfolio was liquidated to fund my wife's schooling. My third portfolio was surrendered to my wife when we divorced. I started the fourth portfolio last year, and it was mainly leveraged growth in 2020. This is year #1 of DGI investing for me. It's been quite a ride so far!

Due to child support, my budget can't balance without either sending the dividends to checking or liquidating company stock. While I've mostly done the latter this year, my dividends will have reached the point by April of next year where they are largely sufficient to supplement my pay, along with the two "3 paycheck months" I have for being paid every other Friday.

While I have a portfolio yield that probably falls in line with most of the rest of you - 2.81% in the taxable account - I offset the leveraged ETFs with investments in high yielders like OXLC, HTGC, ARCC, CIM, HRZN, NREF and others. Many of these have actually grown quite nicely in 2021. My top DGI names are AVGO, STX, ORCL, & TGT.

My investing thesis is that the world is industrializing rapidly, and technology will spread further and further into our everyday lives (IOT, cloud), and that semiconductors are at the heart of it all, so my largest holding is SOXL.

[cemanuel]

Something about the nature of DG investing attracts good people, so I have every confidence that our communities will fit nicely.

There were a couple of exceptions on Ron's SA blog but most people were well-behaved. Just a couple of people who weren't and everyone who's shown up so far is great. We did used to have some off-topic discussions. I haven't visited the OT section yet.

And like every board SA had its lurkers. I'd encourage you, if coming here, to please make a brief introduction. Nobody will mind if you "go silent" from that point. But it's nice to know you're here.