BennyEast.Com/Blog The official blog of Kenny West

100 Shares

So... Today was a good day.  I successfully pulled off my first swing trade with 100 shares bought, and then later sold... for a small profit.

This was outside of my normal dividend income that I'm setting up.

Basically, it was two mouse clicks... The price of the stock dropped... I clicked buy.  The price of the stock went up... I clicked sold.

My actual buy date was last week, today was the sell date.

I made a small profit.

Basically, what I'm setting up is a system outside of my work paycheck that can cover all my costs related to life.  That way... I don't have to worry about relying on my work paycheck.  The problem with relying on a work paycheck is... It's stressful.  What if I suddenly find myself out of a job and that income dries up?

If you're living to that income from your job... That can be scary!

But if you have investment income coming in that can cover all your expenses in life?  Ahhhhh... Stress free.

But what about the work income?  Then why not just quit your job and go sit on a beach?

Yeah yeah yeah... Eventually... Probably some day.  But my thing is... If I can get my investments to cover all my necessities of life?  I can use my paycheck from work as spending cash.  I can travel.  I can buy random stuff.  I can basically use it to go to fun things!  Singles cruise?  Don't mind if I do.

Trip down under?

Sounds like a fantastic time!

Donate money to good causes?

Let's not get too carried away.  I mean, maybe a small amount.  But... Come on... I'm single and in my 30s!  That's for later on in life when I'm old and pruney and want to get invited to gala events and dress up and feel important.  I mean, yes, maybe I'll donate a little here and there... But, seriously, that's for when I'm in an old age and know I don't have much time left on this planet.  That's when you start donating money to things.

So, that's my plan right now.  Continue to build up my investments so that they cover my monthly living expenses... And then my entire work paycheck can be entirely... Fun money.

I know, right?

So anyways, the trade I made today just got reinvested.  Any capital gains trades I make... Buy low, sell high, just go back into my investments that generate steady dividend and interest income.  Those are the investments I really want.  The ones where I don't have to buy or sell, I just hold it... and keep holding... and keep holding... And every month, or every quarter... I get a deposit in the account.  I could not even log into my account for months and still keep getting income.  Then I set my bills all on auto pay.  And basically my shares in the water company that I own, pay me a dividend that goes to pay the water bill.

And I don't even have to think about it.

My dividend from Target goes to pay for the stuff I buy at Target on my cash back credit card..

My shares in the electric company I own, and natural gas distributor go to pay for my energy use.

My shares in whatever company, pay me a dividend that lets me pay for the stuff I buy from that company.

And then should I feel like actually actively trading, I make some capital gains and that is used to increase my dividend investment base.

My shares in Intuit pay for my Turbotax subscription to help with taxes.

My shares in whatever company help pay for my whatever bill I have.

And then my paycheck from work?  Icing on the cake.

And should something happen where I suddenly find myself without a job, or who knows, even unable to work... My investment income keeps coming in.  And I don't have to worry up at night how I'm going to afford to pay for... Inset bill here.

Because my Aetna shares dividend help pay for my health insurance.

Life is uncertain.  But one of the biggest mistakes we make is looking at our paycheck and saying to ourselves... Sweeeeeet.  Time to cash this bad boy and go spend some money!

To me?  I'd rather know that as I age... More and more things will be paid for, using passive income.  Because who knows where I'll be at in my 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s... and beyond.

If I know that my investment income will pay for my car repair and maintenance... My home repair and maintenance...

My groceries.

I can sleep a heck of a lot better at night.

SO for now... I want to use my dividends to cover all my basic necessities of just living and breathing and walking around...

And then my work paycheck can be entirely for fun!

Obviously I'm not there yet.  But that's my goal one day.

Anyways so today I sold my 100 share "test" trade.  I'm happy with the trade.  It wasn't perfect.  But it's just one small step in continuing to build up my investments.

The stocks I mentioned above I don't actually own most of them.  I have jumped in and out of them at various points.

Anyways, I'm happy with my latest trade.  I'm going to take a break for a little bit, but I'll try another trade perhaps in a couple weeks or so.  For now I'm just going to hold what I have and collect interest and income off those investments.  Some of them I've had for close to a decade... So, I do have some very long term investments that I just simply hold.  The one I sold today that I bought last week was kind of an experiment of sorts... Or a test as I've said.  It did seem to work the way I'd planned.  So, who knows... I might do more of those short term swing trades.

It's crazy because the amount of money I made for the all of 5 minutes of time I put into the trade... It's kind of astounding.  I mean, it was MAYBE 5 minutes of time to make the actual trades.  And I made a pretty decent chunk of change from it, for 5 minutes of work.  So, yeah.