Welcome to Young Dividend!
Hobbies: Cooking and food, listening to music, gardening, photography, reading financial data, researching companies, readings books on investing, playing the piano
Occupation: Full time working professional in a publicly traded technology corporation
When did I start investing: 19
Age: Early 30s
Short Term Goal: $1,000,000 [USD] in assets by age 30 [reached 8/27/2020]
Long Term Goal: Decamillionaire [USD] by middle age. Centimillionaire [USD] by old age
Favorite pet? Golden retriever
I am an American, normal not very wealthy upbringing in a normal family with no inheritance or nice trust fund. I went to university which I had to pay out of my pocket, and graduated, and went to work afterwards. This is my pursuit of the so-called "American dream", I have to start from ground zero without outside assistance. This blog is my journey to create and amass a sizable non-trivial amount of money. I would consider making, building, maintaining, and amassing fortunes as one of my hobbies. I research investments everyday, it is like a form of my entertainment.
My investing activity began all the way back in 2009 when I was in university studying as an engineer and working at a part time job. I attended the most reasonably priced university I could that offered the best program that I could afford. I worked part-time while in public university, and with some scholarships, I was able to graduate with no university debt. I refuse to borrow money if possible. While in university, I put what I could in index funds initially, a low cost S&P500 index. The savings from part timing and the investments from those savings when I started this activity at age 19 were enough to pay off my tuition and fund my relocation. I got my first professional job at the end of 2013. I have been blogging my investment progress and my stock decisions ever since.
I wanted to increase my sources of income. Independence and freedom are important for me. I want to be self sufficient so that I have control of my future. My investing philosophy is focused on accumulating dividends. To me the dividend income and the protection and safety and self growth of that income is everything, price accumulation is secondary. After the purchase of an asset, the price of the asset from day to day is not as important to me as the income it produces. Dividends and income will also help me ignore price fluctuations and focus more on what's most important, the safety of that income. This will allow me to have the confidence and justification to hold onto my income generating assets when others are dumping them during a recession. This income can be reinvested to buy even more assets that generate even more income, and the positive feedback continues and compounds.
My goal is to build an income producing snowball. In the beginning the income is small compared to vocational income. But over the decades, the passive income starts to accumulate shares at a more rapid pace. And each of these shares will be able to increase their income individually every year. This double compounding effect is what I am leveraging to propel my income to levels that an ordinary job cannot.
After I have reached financial independence and have a few million dollars in assets, my plan in the future is to open up investing partnerships and become a money manager. I would like to use my investing strategy that I developed over the years as a service to help others with less investing knowledge.
I have received no inheritance or financial handouts. I have to start out life from ground zero and grow my way up. I save a very large percentage of my take home income to invest, my operating expenses are very light. The journey will be done solo through money earned from my vocation, investing decisions, and financial research. The portfolio's only contribution source is money of my own. My goal is to hit $1,000,000 by the time I am 30. By middle to late age, I would like to have at least $10,000,000. By old age I want to break $100,000,000. This may seem like a stretch right now, but my best asset right now is not money but my youth. Time is still on my side. Compounding over many decades while being incredibly patient and persistent, I believe, will produce significant returns.
For me, money is not the end goal. Besides paying for basic necessities which I think will be quickly met on my long multi decade journey, I do not have material desires to buy nice cars or large houses. To me, there is only so many jeans and gadgets and hamburgers and foreign vacations I can buy and consume before it becomes meaningless. After my basic necessities are met, each additional dollar spent has less effect on increasing my life's enjoyment, and as a result I would rather invest it than consume it. A lot of the things I enjoy in life are free or do not cost a lot of money. My end goal here is to study and create a system or machine that accumulates capital. As an engineer I like to build things, and this blog will show my very long multi decade long project of building a capital machine. The successful construction and the successful end result of creating this machine is the end goal. If this machine is built well, then the reward will be there in the form of capital. Money is simply the reward if I do my job well, a scorecard. Hence my end goal is to learn and perfect how to fish well, not to eat the fish.
Disclaimer: This site and the site owner will not be held liable for any financial damages that may occur to the reader. All readers should exercise due diligence before purchasing equities. Information and opinions posted on this site are of my own and it is up to the reader to guarantee the accuracy of all claims. I am not paid or sponsored by any organization to post material on this website. I am not a financial advisor. I am merely an engineer who publishes what he is doing with his personal finances.
Glad to see another young person starting their journey. With a $0 net worth you've got a lot of work ahead to reach $1M by 35 but I'm fairly confident that you will. Having $0 on the liabilities side makes that $0 net worth a lot easier to get moving toward your goal. Looking forward to following along.
ReplyDeleteYG,
ReplyDeleteI wish I had started at your age, especially since your FI dates are around the corner for me. You have a pretty nice portfolio and are heading in the right direction, keep up the good work.
Also funny so many of us are in the engineering and science fields. Clearly we find common ground in that compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world.
- Gremlin
Now into 2016 and you seem to be well on your way to that $1million! Keep up the great work Young Dividends. Congrats for finding this lifestyle so early in life. My wife and I have been on this road for about 3 years and you are already at the same level we are. Pretty remarkable stuff. We are now in our late 20's and I kick myself every day for not starting sooner.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the great work!
ADD
Wow keep up the great work and I truly believe that you will reach 1 million before the age of 32! I started investing in dividends in October 2015 and today I'm 33 years old. I wished that I knew about dividend investing in my mid 20's as well and I admire you for starting early. Keep up the great work!
ReplyDelete$1mil by 32 is incredible! I don't think I'll reach that much but you've got a great jump on getting there! Looking forward to following your journey!
ReplyDeleteVery cool YD.
ReplyDeleteI like that you are doing this with no hand-outs.
1 million by 32-35 is very possible with focus and a positive outlook.
Cheers
Great scheme and stocks. I am 67 and have been dividend investing since 1985 (well before the internet). We now live off my dividend stream, and other income streams. My one piece of advice: stick to your plan through the highs and lows. Your plan will carry you into the future.
ReplyDeleteHi Locutus D'Borg my name in Antonio and i live in italy(rome); i have a question for you: at now how much is your monthly amount of net dividend flow? many thanks at all!!!
DeleteI can totally relate to your story YD. Similar to you, I was lucky enough to realise the power of compounding at the early age of 23. I have been stuffing money into my portfolio for close to 2 years now and can see the dividends starting to roll in.
ReplyDeleteJust curious. When you started out investing in stocks, how many stocks did you actually start out with? I'm struggling to figure out what's a "good" number of stocks to have in my portfolio. I go back and forth, I need less or I need more. In your opinion, is there a "magic" number of dividend stocks to own to be successful?
ReplyDeleteThanks again
Shane
Very interesting and inspiring goals.
ReplyDeleteKeep on the good work and investments !
This is an impressive site. It sets a great example for fellow investors, although few will be able to accumulate at this rate. It's quite amazing you are still in your 20s. Few young people have such a mature outlook on money handling.
ReplyDeleteThe portfolio page is really terrific looking. Can you tell me what programs are used to create those images?
Thanks, and continued good luck
Hey man! Congrats! I've been reading a lot of text on dividend investing and follow a few blogs of dividend investors. I have 60K in my 401k sitting on the sidelines as of 2 weeks ago when I pulled out of these "expensive" funds my 401k plan was auto investing in. How would you spread out 60K in today's market? Looking for a starting point but it seems like everything is expensive.
ReplyDeleteHey YD,
ReplyDeleteJust discovering your site now. Looking forward to tracking your journey to seven figures over the coming years. Stay consistent, reinvest what you get, and you'll do well.
Take care,
Ryan
I would like to publish your interview, let me know how to reach you out.
ReplyDeleteWow! You started so young with 19 years old. You have a portfolio of 1M before your 30, technically you got FIRE, or do you prefer to work for few years more?
ReplyDeleteRegards from Spain
I'm going to keep continuing, will publish my new goals for the next decade soon. I am not ready to just kick the bucket, yet. Will continue working and investing as the side plan, but cut back some of the high level of investing from my take home income as I did in my 20s. Eventually It think my investments income will dwarf my vocation, when it does I think it really makes sense to move onto something else.
DeleteWow. I love that mindset you have and all the accomplishments you have made at a young age.
ReplyDelete