My Weekly Worthies: On Here, Over There (and Over To You)--4 July 2015

It is that time again. Another week, another round-up of weekly worthies. This time, I have given it a bit of a facelift after suggestions from readers (thanks!).

Time to settle down with a nice well-brewed drink (tea, coffee, beer...whatever your fancy) and maybe a biscuit, cake or two and catch up with what has been published during the week related to financial independence, early retirement, frugality and personal finance more generally (with a little of other bits and pieces thrown in).

As usual, last week's post pulled in a mighty amount of interest from you all. Hopefully there is plenty in here to catch your interest again.

As always, this is going to include your favourite articles "On Here" (that is on The Dividend Drive) and my favourite articles "Over There" (that is, on other personal finance sites I read).

And "Over To You"? Well that is an invite for you to highlight any articles you came across that you found interesting and not included in the list below.

Anyway, here goes my list for 4 July. Enjoy!

PS: If you want to look at the archive of previous weekly round-up articles then head over to my Every(ish) Posts page. Here you will find all the articles (except portfolio purchase-related ones) published on the Dividend Drive as well as every weekly round-up to date. Take a look.

"On Here"

NOTE: The "On Here" list is purely quantitative. It is the posts with the most unique reads that week (not including other weekly round-up lists). Here's a little legend for you to explain the symbols: ★ = newly published; ▲ = moved-up list since last week; ▼ = moved down list since last week; ▬ = same place as last week.


As per usual, the new article this week tops the list. However, after this, the biggest winner is related to my Legal & General purchase in May which has leapt into the Top 5. It is little surprise, with the recent price drops it is looking extremely attractive. Indeed, I almost topped-up my holding myself earlier this month.

The other articles "in the green" was my review of Neil Woodford's portfolio movements in May. This has been extremely popular since I published it earlier this month.

Also, my "Investing by Divesting" article has just hung into the Top 10 again. It has always been popular since I published it in November. However, since my more recent Triple 60 Challenge article came out late last month--which emerged from the earlier article--it has found itself even more popular.

Anyway, without any further ado, here is my breakdown for the week beginning 27 June 2015:

1. ★ June 2015: Dividend Income, Trading Activity and Portfolio Snapshot
2. ▲ The Maestro's Movers: Neil Woodford's Big Buys and Sells in May 2015
3. ▼ The Triple 60 Challenge: Designing a Simple Daily Decluttering Regime to Minimalist Nirvana
4. ▬ Shifting My Portfolio into "Retirement Gear": Primitive Proposed Plan and Timescales
5. ▲ BUY: Legal & General--Growth and Income Going for a Song?
6. ▼ BUY: WPP--Doubling Up on a Global Media Giant
7. ▼ 5 Cheap US Stock Brokers who accept UK-resident Account Holders
8. ▼ A Minor Miner Addition: South32 Joins My Portfolio After BHP Billiton Demerger
9. ▼ May 2015: Dividend Income, Trading Activity and Portfolio Snapshot
10. ▲ Investing by Divesting: Switching Clutter Capital for Investing Capital (UPDATED)

"Over There"

NOTE: The "Over There" is nothing like the "On Here" list. It is qualitative through and through and is simply chosen by me from what I read (and mostly commented on) during the week. It is not really a ranking but a motley bag of (excellent) items.

So what about articles published elsewhere? Here is a little list of what caught my eye.

This again is a wonderful mix of fascinating and high-quality articles. Indeed, this week was a particularly epic one. Indeed, I struggled to keep up to date with the tidal wave of material being published. I am sure I missed some really very good stuff, so do remember to include any ones that caught your interest in the comment section below and I will add them.

Anyway, hopefully you enjoy reading these as much as I did.

FIRE (Financial Independence/Retiring Early) Planning and Strategy

• Bond to Equity Allocation Percentages (Retirement Investing Today)--What equity to bond allocation do you have and why? RIT gives a little review of the rules of thumb out there and asks your thoughts.
• Do ETFs Behave Differently? (Portfolio Buy) (DIY Income Investor)--DIY offers some insights into the experience of moving from a high-yielder to an ETF portfolio.
• Building A Financial Safety Net: My Real World Experience (DivHut)--How best to build a safety net? DivHut explains.
• UK Housing market valuation and forecast – June 2015 (part 2) (UK Value Investor)--John provides the second instalment to his housing valuation analysis. A link to the first part was posted in last week's round-up.
• Keeping Up with the Joneses (Finance Zombie)--Do you find yourself keeping up with the FI Joneses? Mr Z provides a thought-provoking post on it.
• Early mortgage pay off vs extra investment strategies (FIREstarter)--Fascinating and thought provoking post with plenty to think about even if you don't have a mortgage.

FIRE (Financial Independence/Retiring Early) Progress

• Income & Expenses - April 2015 and May 2015 (Financially Free by Forty)--Huw has been quiet of late. Here he catches up with the backlog of expenses and income updates and gives us a taste of everything he had been up to. A busy man!
• Portfolio update – June 2015 (Dutch Dividend)--An incredible year-on-year growth from a remarkable array of high-quality companies.
• Long Time No See – Trading Update (There's Value)--After a long absence, the much missed TV has returned to our screens. Take a look at what M has bought into.
• June 2015 Update (Keeper of the Cauldron)--Cerridwen provides a short but pretty momentous update on the goings on over at the KotC camp.
• Bert’s June Dividend Income Summary (Dividend Diplomats)--A nice year on year increase from Bert's portfolio in June.
• Letter to my Readers – 2015: Half-Year Review (Pollies Dividend)--An excellent first-half of the year for PD. Looks like most goals are set to be achieved!
• Portfolio Update: June 2015 (My Dividend Growth)--Ryan gives us a quick update on the hefty growth of his portfolio over June. Very impressive.
• Dividend Income - June 2015 (Financially Free by Forty)--Huw provides an update on his excellent dividend and kindle income as well as pretty seismic changes in his working life. All very exciting!
• Half Year Portfolio Review (DIY Investor (UK)--John provides his 6-monthly review with an interesting comparison between his individual and collective investment performance.

General Investing

• My Greece Strategy (Dividend Diplomats)--What US companies to invest in with the Greek uncertainty as a backdrop? Bert takes a little look.
• What drives future investment returns? (Dividend Growth Investor)--DGI gives us a quick overview of some of the critical elements in ensuring your total return is as large as you hope.
• A long hot summer, perhaps a Grexit – and hopefully a rescue mission (Simple Living in Suffolk)--What is going to happen in Greece and what could be the best way to handle it? SLiS offers some thoughts.
• July 2015 Stock Considerations (DivHut)--DH provides us with a nice breakdown of what companies are looking attractive as the next purchase. Insurers, Canadian banks and Health REITs all feature. An interesting list!
• 4 Things You Must Know About Buying Stocks Now (Sure Dividend)--Really nice breakdown of four critical things to think about when looking at buying stocks at present. Definitely have a look.

Specific Investing Analysis/Purchases

• Five Attractively Valued Stocks I Want to Own (My Dividend Growth)--Ryan provides a nice run-down of some good value companies in the US across an impressive array of sectors. Some certainly look very attractive.
• Recent Buy: Union Pacific Corp (Dividend Mantra)--Jason adds yet another purchase in June. this time it is the railroad operator.
• Recent Healthcare stock purchase [National Healthcare] (Dividend Life)--A new purchase in the healthcare sector for DL. But why did he choose NHC over Pfizer or J&J? Read why here.
• African Gold! (Portfolio Buy) (DIY Income Investor)--Pan African Resources joins the portfolio. An interesting company I have not encountered before.

Budgeting and Frugality

• Tapping the Emergency Fund AAA Story (Redeemed Finance)--RF has to dip into his emergency fund. Have you ever had to?
• Phew, What a Scorcher! Introducing the £90 Swimming Pool (The Escape Artist)--Want a swimming pool? Of course you do in the weather. Don't remortgage your house for it. TEA has an excellent--and economical--case study for you.  
• If You Wouldn’t Buy it, You Should Probably Sell it (Mr Money Mustache)--Great bit of advice for anything in your life really. It underpins part of my Triple 60 Challenge.

Misc

• Special Report: The war on big food (Fortune: Beth Kowitt)--This could just have easily been in the investing sections. A great article on how big food businesses are having to rapidly adapt to our changing habits. Thanks to Dividend Mantra for highlighting this one.
• Taming the Shit Cannon: Reflections from a New Father (Under the Money Tree)--New father, new perspective. UTMT gives a nice little run-down on the rapidly changing landscape in the UTMT household (and psyche!).
• Be wary when dealing with 0% feedback buyers on eBay (Money Bulldog: Adam Buller)--Ever had an eBay buyer with 0% feedback? I haven't yet, but this gives you a few words of caution.
• The policy mix (Investors Chronicle: Chris Dillow)--Should George Osborne be looking to keep interest rates low for longer? An interesting article giving a fairly thorough but cogent run down of some of the risks of doing so. Thanks to Cerridwen from Keeper of the Cauldron for this link.

"Over to You"

Anyway, that is it for this week. And here, as promised an age ago (or rather a few lines above), the "Over to You" bit.

What did you read this week that you found really interesting related to investing, personal finance or financial independence?

Make a comment below and include a link. Then we can all take a look!

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Creative Commons image reproduced from Flickr user Ruz