 How Minimalism Has Affected My Life
I was thinking about how blessed my life has been since I met Joshua Becker. If you are not familiar with Joshua Becker, he devotes his life to pushing more and more people to follow minimalism. He writes a super article every week on his blog and sends out an email each Saturday listing some of the other articles written by others that are excellent on minimalist topics. He features a lot of guest articles on his blog also. Check it out below: Becoming Minimalist – Joshua Becker After I met Joshua Becker 11 years ago, I set out to try and pare down my possessions. I have tried several things he has suggested, and I am very happy with the results. One of the ideas he had was to limit your possessions to 100 items. That sounds like a lot, but make a list and see how hard that truly is to do. I have an XLS sheet that I update on an ongoing list of my 100 possessions. Things that seemed so important to me 11 years ago mean little to me today. I still need my clothes, laptop, my printer, and desk. But many of the items I needed back then are no longer useful to me. It seems each three years of our life our desires and needs change. At my advanced age, I probably could pare down to 50 or 60 items and be very content. When I was 20, I probably would have wanted 500. Things mean so little to you as you progress in life. My desires now trend toward living right and having great fellowship with God, doing things with my family, and keeping healthy. Possessions mean very little to me today. One of the things I love about minimalism is that when applied to possessions, it does not take you long to realize that having a lot of things brings a very short span of happiness. After that, you have to deal with all the ‘STUFF’. It first means having to have room to store it all. Some things require ongoing costs to maintain, insure, and just take up your time dealing with them. The more you have, the less freedom you have. Think about that. The more you have, the less freedom you have. When I began my journey into minimalism 11 years ago, I began cutting out the clutter in my office and all around our house. I read last week that everything you have laying around affects your ability to be effective in your daily job. Having extra items on your desk means your brain has to stop and process all those items. Put 20 extra folders and items on your desk and half of your time is focused on clutter as you glance from item to item. When it comes to your home, does it not make you happy when you go to your closet and it is organized and it is not jam packed with junk hanging over the top of your closet? Having just a few sets of clothes works great. Mixing a few neutral colors with basic Wrangler jeans works great for me. I recently added a black set of jeans and they work great for getting ‘slightly’ dressed up. I used to have like 80 items in my closet. Today I try to keep it under 30 including both long and short sleeve shirts. I used to dress up in suits on Sundays and gave that up 2 years ago. So I no longer need 3 sets of fancy suits and matching pants and shirts with 30 ties. I have not gotten rid of them yet, but I probably will pare it down to like 10 items max on dress up clothing. Look at your kitchen counter. Is it clean and uncluttered like that picture in the top of this article? Mine is not, but boy I want it to be. Why have junk piled up everywhere? Find a place to store items, and keep them off the counter tops if possible. Many people are fearful of having visitors due to the clutter in their living rooms. A few pieces of basic furniture are all that is needed. We have a few pictures of family members scattered around our walls and we love it. Nothing is more important in life than having a close relationship with Jesus Christ and your family. Also as you pare down, you now can find things. Each thing should have a home and when you finish using it, you should replace it where it belongs. When we get our garage built into our new bedroom next year, I intend to have all my tools in another room and have full knowledge of where everything is especially my power tools. All of these steps help you live with less stress and allows you to be very organized. In the past, I sometimes had 3 of one tool, and could not find one due to laying things down and not putting them up. So with my 11 years on a minimalism journey, I can say hands down that I don’t intend to stop becoming ‘more minimalist.’ I want to encourage you to give it a try. Stuff can overwhelm you. Most people never get organized because it is too much work. I got started by doing ONE DRAWER. Not a full room, just one drawer. Get in a habit of doing one or two drawers each week. That is not but about an hour of time. Then make a new habit of getting rid of 2 things for each new thing you bring into the house. This is not as hard as you think. It also helps by making you think ahead of time about what 2 items am I replacing? A missionary who came to my church told me that he has to move frequently, so he moves anything that is in his garage to a storage unit once per year. Then things he has not used in 3 months go to the garage in organized/labeled boxes. If the upcoming year, he uses any of those items, he brings them back into the house. After a year, if nothing was used from the storage unit, that stuff is given away or discarded and he starts over. While I have not adopted his plan, it sure sounds good to me. We must make an effort to eliminate clutter. When we do it will allow us to be happier and more organized. Ready to make a change in your life? Clean out that one drawer THIS WEEK. After one drawer, you will see the difference and your minimalism journey is underway. In the weekly emails I receive from Joshua Becker, I found a reference to the next article. Check out 7 ways to try out minimalism living. https://www.becomingminimalist.com/minimalist-living/ List of All Investment Articles https://lifecanbesimple.net/investments.html List of all Minimalism Articles https://lifecanbesimple.net/minimalism.html FaceBook Internet Direct Store www.InternetDirect.us Internet Direct Laptops
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 DISCLAIMER - I am not a Financial Advisor and do not work for any Brokerage Firm. The opinions given are my own and are not to be used as professional advice. These are my findings and can hopefully help you to make informed decisions on investing. Consult a Broker or Lawyer before making any investment.
Dividend Growth Investing with ETFs There are so many ways to invest our money today. Some are very lucrative and promise great returns. However, with great rewards, many times these come with much danger. Double-digit returns can also mean double-digit losses. On the opposite side of the coin, you can invest in Treasury Bonds or Certificates of Deposits and return a safe 4 to 6% a year. These safe investments should be a part of our total portfolio. But a well-diversified portfolio, if properly managed, can return better returns in years with reasonable market returns. I believe that one of the best investments we can make today is in the Dividend Growth Investment category. These are companies that pay dividends and also have upward growth potential in stock price. There are dozens of companies that meet those qualifications. Some are in the Dividend Aristocrats Dividend Aristocrats And Dividend Kings The Dividend Aristocrats and Dividend Kings are lists of stocks that may or may not be ideal DGI investing instruments. A Dividend growth stock will not only provide you with dividends, but the company will continue to grow and the stock will appreciate. So if a stock pays a 6% dividend and in a year grows 8%, you received a 14% growth in that one year. (Added value of your investment plus the dividend paid.) I code all my Stock Schwab Slices where I purchase most of my DGI stocks to automatically reinvest the dividends by purchasing more stock of the company. So you are looking for high-quality companies with the ability to continue to grow. With this and the compounding of interest and growth price (appreciation), this can turn into a fine return. In 2023, I have been putting over ½ of my investment money set aside for ETFs and Stocks into DGI investments. Finding companies that have good dividend returns and excellent growth potential are sometimes difficult. Many websites offer not only last year's growth rate, but the EPS percentages for next year and sometimes for the next 5 years. EPS stands for earnings per share. If a company has a projected EPS of 3% or more, that is probably a worthy candidate. Also, remember to look at the P/E ratio (Price to earnings ratio.) As I have mentioned in earlier articles, an ideal P/E is 8 or less. Many today are well over 20, so don’t let this deter you if other reasons are compelling to include the company. After the recent loss of over 1500 points on the NYSE, some stocks are trading near their 52-week low range. This is probably a good time to consider investing in DGI stocks. A few of my DGI favorite investments are O - Realty Income (Reit), CVX – Chevron, WMT – Walmart, ABBV – ABBVIE(an Abbott labs spin-off), PEP – Pepsi, VNO – Vornado Reality (Reit), DVN – Devon Energy, PRU- Prudential insurance, and KO – Coca Cola. These all appear to have good growth potential and are paying dividends of 3% or more. Perhaps the easiest method to invest in Dividend Growth Stocks is to buy ETFs that pick out a wide range of stocks paying dividends with upside potential. I have put together a list of all the ETFs that I have invested in. I was surprised by how many there are, and almost everyone has performed well this past year. These are not listed in any specific order. I just wrote down the ticker code and the name of the funds. Some of them I have owned for years, but most were purchased in the past 12 months. LVHD – Leg Mason ETF Investment SDY – SPDR S&P Dividend ETF DHS – Wisdom Tree US High Dividend FVD – First Trust Value Dividend SPHD – Invesco Exchange Traded S&P Dividends REGL – ProShares S&P Midcap High Dividends DGRO – Ishares Trust Dividend Growth JEPQ – JP Morgan Exchange Traded Fund QYLD – Global Nasdaq Dividend PFF – I-shares Preferred Shares Income NOBL – Proshares S&P Dividend SPFF – Global Super Income ETF SPYD – SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 Hi Dividend FDVV – Fidelity High Dividend ETF SCHD – Schwab US Dividends Equity ETF While discussing income, I want to mention 3 Closed-End Funds that are all trading at the lower end of their trading range in the last 52 weeks. PDI – Pimco Dynamic Income Fund PDO – Pimco Dynamic Income Opportunity CEF PTY – Pimco Corporate Income These 3 are all paying over 10% in dividends and pay monthly dividends, not just quarterly. Be sure to research each investment on your own and prove the returns and current condition of the company. There are many ways to invest, but many wind up with negative returns. The more you study and diversify, the better your overall return. Never stop reading or studying investments. Zig Ziglar said that 58% of college graduates never read another serious book after graduation. Those that read 25 books per year have acquired as much as another full 4 year degree each five years. No diploma, but you still have gained the knowledge. List of All Investment Articles https://lifecanbesimple.net/investments.html List of All Minimalism Articles https://lifecanbesimple.net/minimalism.html Facebook Internet Direct Store LifeCanBeSimple.net InternetDirect.us Internet Direct Laptops  DISCLAIMER - I am not a Financial Advisor and do not work for any Brokerage Firm. The opinions given are of my own and are not to be used as professional advice. These are my findings and can hopefully help you to make informed decisions on investing. Consult a Broker or Lawyer before making any investment..
As we plan out how to invest our money to get our maximum returns, we need to make use of a special group of stocks making up the REITs category. If you do not have some money invested in Real Estate, this is a very effective method to make money. We did an article explaining REITS a while back. Read about Reits here. Today we are going to talk briefly about Business Development Companies. Many of these are tied to Reits, but they also provide capital for other business uses besides Real Estate. What Is a Business Development Company (BDC)? A business development company (BDC) is an organization that invests in small and medium-sized companies as well as distressed companies. A BDC helps these firms grow in the initial stages of their development. With distressed businesses, the BDC helps the companies regain sound financial footing. Similar to closed-end investment funds, many BDCs are public companies whose shares trade on major stock exchanges, such as the American Stock Exchange (AMEX), Nasdaq, and others. As investments, they are high-risk but offer higher rewards. I try to find solid companies that provide financing that is being sold at a discount and also show dividends of 8% or more. BDCs are much like private equity funds for small businesses. While private equity funds tend to be restricted to high-net-worth and institutional investors, Block Development Companies are publicly traded on the stock market and available to anyone with a brokerage account. What is even greater, is they are transparent and easy to research. Like all stocks, these may or may not go up in price. However BDCs do normally pay dividends, and those are the ones I try to buy. Business Development Companies make debt and equity investments primarily to small or mid-size companies. They are very much like REITs in how they perform. BDCs were created by congress to encourage investing in the real economy. They benefit from having preferential tax treatment as they pay no income tax as long as they pay out at least 90% of their net income to investors. BDCs and Reits are two of the best dividend stocks regarding yields. By not having to pay income tax, they can pass on higher returns to the shareholders. I encourage you to read more about Business Development Companies and consider purchasing some of them to round out your complete portfolio. I read a good article this past week recommending what they considered 5 of the best BDCs. All were good, and I purchased 4 of the 5. (All are doing well by the way.) You might look at these. Be aware here in March we are having a roller coaster ride on the stock market, so buy on down days if you decide to buy. Every dollar you buy at a discount is more money that should return to you as the stock comes back to the normal range. I try to never buy when a stock is near its 52-week high. Business Development Companies to consider. MAIN – Main Street Capital. It pays a monthly dividend and is considered the blue-chip BDC. They provide financing to middle-market companies, typically with $10 million to $150 million in yearly revenue. ARCC – Ares Capital. They are the world's largest BDC with over $10 billion of capitalization. ARCC is well diversified with money in Software, Healthcare, and various Professional services with no more than 7% in any one sector. ORCC – Owl Rock Capital - A newcomer in DBC stocks which just started trading in 2019. They have paid a steady stream of income dividends with current rate above 9%. They are well diversified in thier portfolio with mainly software, insurance, and food and beverage companies. HTGC – Hercules Capital. Hercules acts more like a venture capital company. HTGC is the largest BDC focused on venture capital financing. Currently showing a 9.7% rate of return. TPVG – Triple-Point Venture Growth BDC Corp. They are the smallest of the BDCs mentioned here today. They have a market cap of $441 million and are a bit more speculative than the others mentioned. Triple Point’s portfolio is mainly invested in debt instruments, mainly floating-rate instruments. All of these are just examples of Business Development Companies. Don’t buy them based on reading about them here, but study and be sure they make good sense for your investment portfolio. I think everyone can gain by having a fully diversified portfolio, and that means a combination of Full Market Stock Indexes, Bonds, CDs, Dividend Growth Stocks, Preferred Stocks, Reits, and Business Development Companies. We have articles on all of these in the link below on Investment Articles. Have a great day! List of All Investment Articles https://lifecanbesimple.net/investments.html List of All Minimalism Articles https://lifecanbesimple.net/minimalism.html FaceBook Internet Direct Store www.lifecanbesimple.net www.InternetDirect.us Internet Direct Laptops  There are a lot of ideas about what minimalism can do for us. When you cut out the excess “stuff” you have more free time. You have less to keep up with, and your expenses are lowered. Today I want to discuss a word that all of us should really learn and strive to make part of our day-to-day mindset.
If we can get this attribute into our daily action steps, believe me, it will allow us to have a more consistent life. I want to talk about the word: Resilience. The dictionary defines Resilience as: 1. the power or ability of a material to return to its original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity. 2. the ability of a person to adjust to or recover readily from illness, adversity, major life changes, etc.; buoyancy. 3. the ability of a system or organization to respond to or recover readily from a crisis or disruptive process. As a Christian, almost daily you will be stretched to your limit and face adversity. Can you quickly recover from hard times? We can when we have faith in God. When we ask God for faith, he has promised to give us our desires. Who in the bible was the ultimate example of resilience besides our Savior Jesus Christ? I think after Christ, the first person that comes to my mind is the apostle Paul. 2Co 6:4 But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, 2Co 6:5 In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; 2Co 6:6 By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, 2Co 6:7 By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, Paul was a man who never gave up, no matter the circumstances. He knew that God was the one who helped and guided him every day of his life. Through Christ, Paul could do all things. Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. We are commanded in Romans to not be conformed to this world, but have a mindset geared towards doing the perfect will of God in our lives. Rom 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Rom 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. To have resilience, you will certainly need to have a lot of determination. All of these things work hand in hand to make you a person who is very productive in your life. By being determined, you keep on when others quit. When you have determination, little setbacks are just those. Failure is never failure until you quit getting back up and fighting another round. Paul told the church at Phillipi that he had no confidence in his flesh, but he looked to God with faith to help him have the resilience to keep on keeping on. Php 3:1 Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe. Php 3:2 Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. Php 3:3 For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Php 3:4 Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: Php 3:5 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; Php 3:6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. Php 3:7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Php 3:8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, Php 3:9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: Php 3:10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; And what goes with determination? Absolutely it is persistence. Day after day you fight again and again. Failures come and failures go, but you don’t give up. Having mule-like determination will allow you to overcome almost any resistance you come up against. Thomas Edison tried over 14,000 tests in trying to create the light bulb. When his assistant said after a few months, let’s give this up. It can’t be done. Edison was reported to have said, “No. We just now know over 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Robert Cavett, a great motivater, once said: “You don’t drown by falling into water, you only drown if you stay there. It’s all right to get down, but don’t get down on yourself.” All of us stumble, but resilience and determination make us keep on going when it is not going our way. In sales, I have heard most salesmen give up after being told “no” 3 times. But successful salesmen know that the ‘no’ is not personal, and you just have to keep on trying. One of the greatest salesmen I ever met told me that he has found that it takes 30 attempts to sell, so he keeps up a record of all the ‘nos’. When he gets to 25, he knows a ‘yes’ is coming. You build greater determination which makes you even more resilient. While we are not selling our faith to the lost, we are presenting the Lord in sharing the gospel and we need to know that we may have to witness a number of times before we make headway. If the roles were reversed, would you want that other person to give up on you if you said no a few times? Determination will help you to develop the resilience you need to be consistent and successful in your life. It all begins at the start of each day. We must let God through the Holy Spirit guide us, and that begins by reading our bible and being in tune with God’s leadership. List of All Investment Articles https://lifecanbesimple.net/investments.html List of All Minimalism Articles https://lifecanbesimple.net/minimalism.html www.lifecanbesimple.net www.InternetDirect.us Internet Direct Laptops  DISCLAIMER - I am not a Financial Advisor and do not work for any Brokerage Firm. The opinions given are of my own and are not to be used as professional advice. These are my findings and can hopefully help you to make informed decisions on investing. Consult a Broker or Lawyer before making any investment.
Few people realize the importance of Passive Income. In life, we must either work for a paycheck, or we can wisely invest and let those investments pay us. Last year I had virtually no substantial income from dividends. By purchasing a lot of Growth Dividend Stocks, CEFs (Closed-End Funds) at huge discounts to Net Asset Value, and some Preferred Stocks, we have now over $70 per month coming in. We are planning for over $100 per month in the next six months, with a goal to get above $500 within 2 years. We did an article on DGI Dividend Growth Stocks (Click here). This Article goes into CEF funds in detail. And this one explains Preferred Stocks. Passive income makes you money while you sleep. We were taught in school to work hard, to make good grades, go to college, and then get a good high-paying job. Put your money into the 401-K or IRA and then retire at 65 and be happy. How does working your life away for 45 to 60 years sound like a good plan? If we can leverage some passive income to our advantage in our 20’s and 30’s, there is no reason we should have to work most of our lives. If you are much older, it still works to your advantage, so keep on reading. You are never too old to develop passive income. Passive income is income that you don’t work for on a daily basis. It can come from dozens of sources. Some may have required earlier work, but it is mainly money today for efforts put in the past. Probably the most common passive income is interest from your savings account. Here is a short list of some Passive Income sources. Common Passive Income Streams
We did articles on Dividend Paying Stocks and how to pick some good ones. One was on the Dividend Aristocrats and the other was on the Dividend Kings. Check those out for good leads on stocks that will not only pay dividends but grow in value also. https://lifecanbesimple.net/blog/what-are-dividend-aristocrats https://lifecanbesimple.net/blog/what-are-dividend-kings Why Passive Income? - SIMPLE AND REQUIRING NO INVOLVEMENT You wake up and money flows into your bank accounts and all you do is watch it grow. My friend Joshua King started writing content at the age of 36 and now has over 140 kindle books bringing in a monthly income of over $650. With the compounding effect that this has, he will reach over $1,000 of book-producing revenue each month within five years. So being a writer can clearly be a method of obtaining passive income. Joshua King is the one who got me started on the quest for Passive Income. This next book link is one of the top 5 most important Investment Books I have ever read. Joshua wrote a 319-chapter book on just Passive Income named: The Biggest Book on Passive Income Ever. You can buy it at Amazon using this link: Biggest Book on Passive Income To be able to write on topics such as investing, we must study and read every day. There is no substitute for filling our minds with new information that is pertinent to business and investing today. Much bad information is there too, so learn whom you can listen to and whom you can not. Who should pursue Passive Income? I think we all should. Producing more income, allows us to give and help others in need. And having a steady source of income is very comforting in tough times. List of All Investment Articles https://lifecanbesimple.net/investments.html List of All Minimalism Articles https://lifecanbesimple.net/minimalism.html www.lifecanbesimple.net internetdirect.us/index.html Internet Direct Laptops |
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