Quick question for you guys with a couple of years of salary under your belt. What do you do with your excess salary and bonus. I'm looking for ideas as to where to put my money for longer term income generation, getting 2% in a current account just doesn't do it for me. Looking for something closer to 5% PA. I would expect to keep ~6 months living expenses in savings for emergencies.
Thoughts, ideas and experience welcome!
Balanced portfolio, a Mreit or AMreit (high yield), bank trust preferred, healthcare yielder, energy yielder, telecom
REIT: NLY (best of breed in my opinion, 14%ish)
TRUP: MER-f (Merrill trust preferred, 7.3% yield) TRUP: C-W (citi, in case BofA spooks you, slightly lower yield)
energy: KMP, or something to that effect
these are just a few suggestions. I have a similar portfolio.
It seems like it wouldn't take much for NLY to blow up. How do you really know exactly what their assets are? They might be highly illiquid if another credit crunch occurs. The yield looks very appealing, however, and I'm genuinely interested in what your investment rationale on this one is.
By the way, I have other investments... But this is a nice substitute to a savings account with
Big fan of NLY. What a well managed fund.
1.) Pay off all student debt at greater than 10% interest and build up 2 months of emergency savings 2.) Get 401k match. 3.) Pay down all other debt/ build up eight months emergency savings. 4.) Max out IRA, max out 401k contribution. 5.) Dividend stocks and ETFs. Look at MLPs, international dividends, telecom, and utes. 6.) Be careful about fixed income in a rising rate environment.
I have no real debt to pay and we don't have 401ks in the UK. Student loans are effectively 0% interest and are automatically taken out of our earnings at a rate of around 6-9%. In total I'm paying around 50-55% tax. We have SIPPs which are self invested pension plans and you get income tax relief on those so I would make maximum contributions into that. I was also looking at things like high dividend ETFs as currently I only have detailed knowledge of around 10-15 stocks, none of which are great for dividends.
Can you elaborate on this point?
Without putting words in his mouth, I imagine that if you lock into a fixed interest rate investment (that doesn't index with interest rates) a spike in interest rates, which is a likely occurrence at the moment could see you effectively losing money. ie. 3% ROI in a 5%inflation market devaluing your investment.
I think...
it means don't pour money into fixed income securities when interest rates are expected to rise in the near future leaving the value of your current investments less
These are GREAT pieces of advice. It seems you have your house in order OP, but these are words to live by.
NLY is wonderfully managed. They have scaled back leverage significantly, and are in a position to react quickly to changes in the prevailing interest rate environment.
6-12 months cash is a great moat to build.
Lucky you. The UK is ripe with dividend opportunities in stable industries like utilities, telecom, and oil. The problem is that for us Americans is that to get these 4-7% yields, we have to put up with a lot more negative skew from the GBP than a domestic investor would have to.
Major UK and American grid operator= 6% dividend.
Major UK and American oil company= 4.5% dividends, trading at 6x earnings.
Major UK telephone company with a stake in a MAJOR US wireless brand= 7% dividends.
Cheap, cheap, cheap.
Does the UK offer preferential tax treatment on dividends?
Great reply, thanks. Dividends here come under capital gains tax (28%) but there is a threshold of around £11k ($17k) before you pay any capital gains at all. My favours opportunities for dividends are in telecoms, utils and real estate. Frankly I think a low leverage REIT operating in London yielding around 5% is a sound investment.
buy physical gold
wine, alpaca farm
My goal is to have cash savings equal to half my annual salary before going really heavily into investing. Just makes sense to me to have that for a rainy day.
I'm just saving....and researching for opportunities...Real estate is what i've been looking at
Great thread...how many months of living expenses do you other monkeys keep in an emergency fund?
Enough to last you until you find a new job if you get laid off :P Im opting for 6 months because I also like to treat myself occasionally to a new iPad or other such toy.
Immediately liquid? If you're just starting off, I'd say 3 months expenses. Once you've been working for a while, push it up to half a year+.
Agree with IP's advice, but you can also be more aggressive. Dividend stocks are for people in their 50s and 60s.
Asperiores quia quaerat quod ex. Laboriosam vel et delectus vel voluptate reiciendis aliquid. Tempore voluptatem ut soluta facere est libero consequatur dignissimos. Recusandae suscipit soluta quas aperiam aperiam incidunt.
In aut sit aspernatur dolorem et possimus nemo. Quis rerum earum natus et ducimus. Animi esse quas velit ut minima. Est natus sunt eius provident nam maxime eum omnis.
Dolores eligendi quia temporibus magni. Quidem illo deleniti error rerum. Distinctio amet rerum velit accusamus sunt. Voluptatem voluptate est reiciendis. Rem molestiae aut quos doloremque dolores eligendi sint neque.
Eius quis magni facere temporibus consequuntur in. Libero numquam reiciendis facere autem soluta molestiae et. Eligendi quo enim laudantium id vitae ab magni.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Necessitatibus suscipit earum quidem eum quo tempora. Non et laboriosam nesciunt mollitia et. Quia enim nam libero ut.
Suscipit quo occaecati sint unde hic hic officia. Repellendus veniam dolorem voluptatem vel. Non maiores dolorum quaerat atque et et.