My Weekly Stock List (8/24)

I spent my last week in Samara, Russia. You can see Volga river on my picture. This is an old Russian town. It was my first time there and it was an interesting experience. But I am so glad to be back home! Everything feels perfect when I am at home! 


While I was in Russia, there was 9 hours difference, so the stock market was open by the time I was back to my hotel room. 

This week I sold one of my non dividend stocks - BJRI. I bought more shares of MCD and GSK and also added EC to my portfolio. 

Here is my list for upcoming week. It did not change much since last week.

Stock	Name, description	price as 8/23	Dividend Yield
GSK	GlaxoSmithCline	$47.68	4.70%
MAT	Mattel (toys - barbie, fisher price, baby gear, etc)	$34.99	4.30%
MCD	McDonalds	$94.45	3.40%
ESV	Ensco	$50.01	5.90%
EC	Ecopetrol SA	$33.13	6.80%

* If I move stock to this list, it means there was a price drop or current price is somewhere in the middle.

I do not buy stocks at their highest prices. I might miss some good stocks but I prefer to sit and wait.

If I have a stock on my list, it means I like something about this stock. If I buy one of these stocks, it does not mean I plan to keep them forever. I might sell them if their price would go up a lot and I feel it's time to sell.

I love Sales on my regular shopping sprays and I use this strategy for my stock shopping... :)

Check A Frugal Family Journey Collection of Stock Analysis h ere. 

My complete Watch List of Dividends Stocks here. I update this watch list at least once a month.

My stock picking strategy here. 

Please share your thoughts and watch lists.

Thanks for stopping by!

My First Stock Purchase

After I read an interesting back to 1989 story of DivHut  about his first stock purchase I looked back and thought about my first stock purchase.

I think I bought my first stock in 2003.  I did not know much about investing and did not have a trading account.

First of all I had to write a report for one of my University classes about one stock. So I had to pick the stock.

At this moment I was married and we were trying to pay all debts my ex husband accumulated before he had met me. So after reading a bunch of books on how to eliminate debts and reviewing our expenses, I noticed that every morning my ex husband would go to Starbucks and buy a latte and banana bread. I asked him to stop. I even made him banana bread at home. He took my banana bread but said he couldn't live without his cup of Starbucks. I was mad. This is how I made my choice of stock for my school project. I thought there should be not just one person being addicted to this coffee.

It turned out I was right and after my research paper I liked the stock but I did not buy it yet.

Later same year my ex husband got obsessed with the idea of moving to a bigger house. He said it was the one and only opportunity and perfect timing. So at the end we actually built a bigger house. One night while we were at the party and my ex was bragging about our new house to his boss I said, "yeah but it is lots of cleaning". My ex's boss told my ex to get a cleaning lady for me. He even gave me a phone of his cleaning lady.

I called and asked cleaning lady for her fee. Back then it was something around $80-$100 per cleaning. Then I don't know how but I got this idea in my head that instead of inviting and paying cleaning lady every time I clean the house I would put money into investment account and invest in stocks.

This is how I got my first share of Starbucks. It turned out to be a good investment. I actually sold my shares last year but I might buy it again one day.