February 2017 - Investment No 16

I am in the next quarter and so decide I can add another £1,000 to my SelfTrade dealing account to purchase more shares.

Since my last purchase the following dividends were received:

HSBC Holdings Plc £14.87
BP Plc £17.36
Royal Dutch Shell 'B'   £15.97
GlaxoSmithKline  £13.68

My last purchase of BT shares are down about 15% so I decided to top up and buy another 339 shares in BT.  This will bring my holding up to 618 shares.

It is difficult sometime to purchase more shares in a company has dropped since purchasing them. My portfolio consists of FTSE100 shares, all currently paying dividends.  I do have one other share in the portfolio also down about 15%, Centrica.  This was my September 2015 - Investment No 7 purchase. However I hold shares also in SSE which is in the same sector so did not want to increase my holding. BT is in a different sector to my other shares, so this is why I decided on this company over Centrica.

       http://www.btplc.com/

 

https://www.centrica.com/

The ideal garden furniture for the UK weather.

I am always surprised by the number of people who tell me that they purchased garden furniture last summer, but during the middle of winter feel they have to dispose of it because it cannot be used again.

I can only think this is because they have not been aware that it does not take much to look after it, or perhaps the furniture they purchase was of poor quality.

The best quality garden furniture for the UK should be constructed with a Poly Rattan Weave, and a Steel Alloy framework, with luxury heavy weight cushions. The weather in the UK tends to be "damp" which poly rattan is able to cope without any real issues.  Steel-alloy frames should be powder-coated for weather proof durability so can be kept out side all year round and not rust. Rust is a reaction with metal and moisture which over time causes it to corrode.

The cushions however, cannot generally tolerate the UK wet weather, and will need to be brought inside during heavy rain and the winter to ensure the material stays in a good condition.

The Whitewash Large Corner Right Set 

Of course the best way of looking after both is to ensure that you allow your furniture to always dry naturally. Do not use a pressure washer or bleaching agents as both may damage or lead to discolouration of the rattan or cushions.  A mild detergent in cool water will help keep both clean. With the rattan just fill a bowl with warm soapy water and wash the surface with a soft cloth.  A vacuum cleaner brush attachment will remove any dirt or dust from the rattan, and a old toothbrush is ideal to remove debris from any harder to reach place.

November 2016 - Investment No 15

The Antofagasta shares I purchased in July as Investment No 12, are showing a 35% increase in value.  When shares are sold they are done on a last in, first out basis.  This means that for Capital Gains tax purposes the most recent shares are always treated as sold before any shares purchase previously.  The dividend income the shares were producing was only 1%, so I decided to sell 145 shares in Antofagasta plc, which would reduce my holding to 184 shares.  The reason for this numbers was it realised £1,000.00 which I could invest into another companies shares. I may have already made a purchase this month, but cashing in for a profit can sometimes be a good idea.

Since my last investment Centrica plc paid a dividend of £13.68.

I was looking for a share which paid a dividend in either February or August each year.  I found BT plc.  They paid dividends in September and February, and were due to go ex-dividend immediately after Christmas.  So I purchased 279 shares.

In the UK, BT serves over 20 million business and residential customers, as well as providing network services to other operators.  Its principal activities include networked IT services, local, national and international telecommunications services, and higher-value broadband and internet products and services. 

http://www.btplc.com/

November 2016 - Investment No 14

Another month has passed since my last investment and so I decided to put another £1,000 into my SelfTrade dealing account. The portfolio is looking better, and I am looking forward to seing the year end results. Before I get ahead of myself,  I have only received 1 dividend, £13.68 from GlaxoSmithKline, but I am not complaining.  I am now receiving a least 1 dividend a month. The months I do not are currently February and August.  But I will have to do something about that eventually.

Playing safe, I decide to invest in a company I already hold, Scottish and Southern, also known as SSE. This share was producing dividend income of 5.7% on my original investment, but I was still making a small loss as the share price was about 10% under the price from 2014.  I am not going to repeat myself about this company, so you can read about it on the September 2014 - Investment No 3 post.
 

http://sse.com

October 2016 - Investment No 13

If you have been reading these posts from the first one, you will know originally my plan was to add £1,000 each quarter from my own sources, to invest into shares to provide long term dividend income.  By now I should have added £11,000, but I have only managed to add £8,000.00.  In an attempt to catch up, I decided to make sure I add the full £1,000 I should have been doing and added this amount to my account with SelfTrade.

Since the last investment I also received the following dividends:

GlaxoSmithKline £13.68
Royal Dutch Shell 'B' £15.16
SSE Plc £40.62
HSBC Holdings Plc £14.17
Antofagasta £7.72

Looking again for another share that was paying quarterly dividends, I decided on BP plc.   BP was a Intergrated Oil company and a leader in automotive and specialist lubricants, know in 15 countries worldwide.  2014 and 2015 had been really bad years, as they really !!***!!,  having a "near death" experience with the Gulf of Mexico.  I hoped I was not going to regret buying some shares in this company, but I did need to spread my risk a bit, so I hoped that this would be a good risk.

I purchased 219 shares in BP plc.

 https://www.bp.com/

July 2016 - Investment No 12

The London stock market was starting to settle down, and recover.  Things were better financially for me, so I decided to add £775 .00 to my share account with Selftrade, so I could make another investment.  

Since my last investment last month, I had received the following dividends:

Royal Dutch Shell 'B'  £14.18
HSBC Holdings Plc £13.95

The dividends together with the new money and the money I held back from last month meant I had £1,100 to invest.   My Antofagasta holding was performing badly. It has improved slightly over the previous  This was a very large mining company so long term should perform better. My attitude was, it had not recovered yet, so should be a good buy. I had received a dividend of 7% in 2014-15, but this had been reduced to 1% in 2015-16. For this reason I purchased another 213 shares bringing the number of shares now held in this company to 329.


The chart below is the FTSE daily charge over the previous 6 weeks.  The 2 dips are before and after the referendum. 

When is it not a New Years Resolution?

I don't do New Years Resolutions anymore. At least I have not for the last 20 odd years.  Why? Simply because within a short period of writing my list, in no more than a few days I have forgotten them and not looked at the list again. 

If I can explain about this post.  Yesterday, when I returned home from walking my dogs, a new neighbour asked if she could take a look around my house. I live in a house where from the outside it looks very similar to the other houses nearby, but inside, no two houses are the same.  Having already looked inside their home on a previous occasion, I felt it would be rude to say no, so I said of course as I came in.  As I walked them through each room, all I could see was "clutter".  I work long hours and often "shoved" stuff into boxes, into bags, into cupboards, much of it was neatly tucked away, but there was so much "stuff", I thought to myself " it's getting worse", I have got to do something about it, and I can not leave it any longer.

So I decided every day I have to throw something away. Even if it's a single item, it will mean that this time next year I will have 365 fewer items "cluttering" my home.

To start with, to make it easy, the item will be something I have either not worn or used for at least 2 years. As I looked around, I realised it was a lot of things.  I used to keep clothing as years later, this would return into fashion, but I am no longer the same size, so even if it did come back into fashion, I would not wear it again.

I had a lot of things I thought I would sell on eBay, but I stopped selling on eBay some time ago because it had become difficult to send the item in the post or courier and I often found the costs came to more than the amount I received after PayPal and eBay had all taken their fees too.  So why should I continue to keep these things?

The items I starting with would not be good for recycling either, as that would give me another excuse to delay its disposal.

I went to my wardrobe and took out a shirt that I know I have not worn in the last 2 years and put it in the bin. The first step, of 365.