I was reading the dividend guy blog and he had a post about an article on CNN Money titled 25 Rules to Grow Rich By.

Rules #7 is:
“To figure out what percentage of your money should be in stocks, subtract your age from 120.”

Nice, I should invest 101% of my money in stocks!

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Washington Mutual has always been a bank I liked and I’m finally deciding it’s time to get in. Here’s my biggest reasons throwing some money into Washington Mutual next week:

They pay a nice fat dividend. With the drop in price, the yield increases and Washington Mutual looks even more attractive. At $42.11 the yield on their dividend of $2.11 is 4.94%. This is basically close to what I currently get at Emigrant Direct (5.05%). Add in that they’ve been steadily increasing dividends. If the fed decides to drop interest rates even further this looks even MORE attractive as rates at Emigrant and other high yield banks will probably drop. Is this dividend sustainable? Yes. Currently the dividend cover is about 57% of earnings. I think the P/E ratio is less relevant because of the dividend payout. The dividend and its yield is what ultimately props up the price. You aren’t always necessarily buying for future earnings, but for the yield.

Sustainable dividend + Possible future dividend increase = winner in my book.

Every dividend increase will increase the yield, which will definitely go alongside with an increase in price to correspond with that yield.

Possibility of capital + dividend gains? I already set the buy order for next week on Tuesday for my sharebuilder account.

Washington Mutual is a rapidly expanding bank. The problem I do see is that they are too focused on the consumer and earnings quality is low, as compared to my other investment in Bank of America.

My strategy right now is to build a portfolio of steady dividend paying companies that will most likely increase their dividend over the years. The yield will steadily increase over time and hopefully I’ll have a small sizable income stream in 15 years. Dividends are re-invested automatically also.

Note: As with any investment, please do your own research before investing your own money. This is simply a quick look on why I find WaMu attractive right now.

Here’s the basics: FabJob.com has a dream jobs book that should help you identify your dream career. The book contains a series of quizes, exercises and advice on finding your dream career. Specific strategies are also discussed on how to get into your dream career too.

So is this a recommended read? Well, the e-book is free, but you need to use a credit card to process the application anyway. My credit card didn’t work because their processing center is in Canada (international use). The print book is $7.95 + $5 shipping so $12.95 shipped. IMO, save the money. Unless you REALLY need to know how to become a pop star or olympic athlete, then by all means grab the book. A lot of the careers discussed aren’t realistic for everyone, they really are DREAM careers. I’ll keep my head on the ground and search for a career which I’ll enjoy (finance related), but I’ll leave pursuing the dream career to someone else.

Hey, I’m hosting the Carnival of Investing #45 (www.carnivalofinvesting.net) on October 23rd, 2006. Submit your posts here!

I’m selling various items on eBay to raise a little bit of cash.

Carleton Sheet’s No Down Payment Real Estate System (new)
Video Professor: Learn Microsoft Excel (new)
Video Professor: Learn Photoshop CS (new)
nVidia GeForce2 GTS Pro 32MB (new) – I have 12 of these things and this is a dutch auction with each going for $0.99 cents.

My portfolio has grown from 3 stocks (MRH, BAC, AFR) to 15 stocks including my retirement account (roth ira), my short term holdings portfolio and long term holdings portfolio.

It’s getting harder and harder to manage, I’m wondering what tools people out there use. I’m thinking about just using a simple Excel spreadsheet.

I’m about 4 days late on this because I only check this stock once a week. I expect to hold this one for the long run so there’s no point in checking it daily. HRP declared a regular quarterly dividend of 21 cents per common share. The dividend is payable on or about Nov. 22 to shareholders of record at Oct. 23. Coincidently, today’s price of $11.93 is exactly what I purchased it for on 9/29/06.

As always, my dividends are reinvested so at today’s price I would get about 1.7% more shares.

Normally I don’t apply for this program but the customer service representative offered a $40 rebate certificate. I just have to mail in original reciepts for purchases made within the last 90 days totaling $40 or more to recieve a check in 8-10 weeks. The credit protector program is free for 30 days… after which I’m free to cancel. Which I definitely will…

Edit: I found the link to the offer here for those interested.

Here’s how the story goes: Matthew Shinnick was trying to sell a pair of mountain bikes on Craigslist. He found a buyer and they agreed on a price of $600. The buyer mailed him a check for $2,000. Instead of depositing the check at his bank, he went to a Bank of America branch, where he was not a customer. He asked the teller to check if the account had sufficient funds to cover the check, the account did, but the check was phony. The teller let the branch manager handle the situation, and he called the police and reported suspicious activity. The police came and arrested Shinnick and he spent around 12 hours in jail. (Full Story)

Okay, when I first heard about the whole thing, I just said, oh great, another fool and his money are parted. What’s different about it this time? I found out Clark Howard from The Clark Howard Show is “taking on Bank of America” in asking them to close accounts or withdraw money. How idiotic is this?

One, we can safely assume Clark Howard doesn’t give a damn about Matthew Shinnick, this is just great publicity for him.

Two, Matthew Shinnick is an idiot. I can’t see how people can have sympathy for him. Scammers prey on weak minded people like Shinnick who can’t smell a simple scam. Never try to cash checks you think might be phony. Never accept checks for online sales at Craiglists, eBay, etc. etc. Especially checks that are more than 2 times what you originally agreed upon. Also a check from a buyer that lives in another country.

Three, Bank of America shouldn’t reimburse Shinnick for his troubles, they were not at fault, all they did was report suspicious activity to law enforcement. It is up to the SFPD to use discretion in handling of the matter. The reasoning is to try go after Bank of America because they have deep pockets, as compared to the SFPD.