My Weekly Worthies: On Here, Over There (and Over To You)--25 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 bumper 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 25 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.


An unusual one this week. First, the new posts published this week--predictably--tops the list. We also have a couple of joint places again this week.

An odd week again. Two spots were shared with the same number of reads: 5th and 10th.However, most striking is the number of articles which have had a second lease of life with regards readers. These include a couple at the tail end of the chart. Most notably the Interserve and "Work Freedom Day" article both of which were published in March and have not been on the weekly breakdown for some time.

Also, another big jumper into the "green" was May's breakdown of Neil Woodford's investment changes. This got a shot in the arm after I published June's breakdown of his trading activity which--naturally enough--linked back to May's as well!

Other than that, a lot jostled up a few spaces with both the AstraZeneca and Tax-related posts dropping sharply allowing the others to shunt up the table a little.

Anyway, without any further ado, here is my breakdown for the week beginning 18 July 2015:

1. ★ The Maestro's Movers: Neil Woodford's Big Buys and Sells in June 2015
2. ▬ June 2015 Goals Progress Report: First Half
3. ▲ The Maestro's Movers: Neil Woodford's Big Buys and Sells in May 2015
4. ▬ BUY: Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR)--Preparing to Power Future Earnings?
5. A joint fifth place this week:
1. ▲ A Minor Miner Addition: South32 Joins My Portfolio After BHP Billiton Demerger
2. ▲ June 2015: Dividend Income, Trading Activity and Portfolio Snapshot
6. ▲ BUY: Legal & General--Growth and Income Going for a Song?
7. ▼ Taxing Times: Dividend Tax Changes in the UK Government's June 2015 Budget
8. ▲ 5 Cheap US Stock Brokers who accept UK-resident Account Holders
9. ▬ BUY: Royal Dutch Shell "B" (RDSB)--Betting BiG on the BG Bid?
10. Another joint 10th place this week but with four on the same number of reads:
• ▲ BUY: Interserve (IRV)--Topping up on a Service Ace
• ▼ BUY: AstraZeneca (AZN)--Further into Pharma?
• ▲ "Work Freedom Day"--A New Way to Chase Your Financial Independence "Crossover Point"?
• ▲ The Triple 60 Challenge: Designing a Simple Daily Decluttering Regime to Minimalist Nirvana

"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.

This week was a challenging one for me both in my personal and professional life which meant that I was not able to keep up to date with the posts during the week and had to do it en masse at the end. What that did highlight was just how much is produced over the course of the week. Some really great stuff. Take your time to work through it. It is definitely worth it.

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

FIRE (Financial Independence/Retiring Early) Planning and Strategy

• Company Share Options, Save As You Earn (Finance Zombie)--Are Save as You Earn schemes worth signing up for? Mr Z takes a little look for you. Very interesting.
• Dividend Diplomats July Watch List (Dividend Diplomats)--Bert and Lanny suggest four companies that are on their watchlists (and already in their portfolios) for July. See what they are following.
• Do you hold Precious Metals? (Redeemed Finance)--Do you hold gold or silver? Rich takes a quick look at it from an investing perspective and gives his personal approach.
• My Investment Policy Statement, 5 of 5: Rebalancing and other considerations (Fire v London)--Another interesting post in this series giving a fuller examination of FvL's IPS. 
• New Flat Rate State Pension (DIY Investor (UK))--What is the state of your pension after the new changes? Here is a little explanation.

FIRE (Financial Independence/Retiring Early) Progress

• Dividend Growth Update – Second Quarter 2015 (Dividend Mantra)--Increases to dividends in the first half has added another $200 to Jason's annual income. Not bad at all. As he says, it would take $5,700 invested at 3.5% to match that through fresh capital!
• A Year with Woodford (Quietly Saving)--Weenie gives us a short review of her experience with Neil Woodford's fund after a year. I think a "great start" is the best way of describing it!
• 6 Month Goals Review - My Progress So Far! (Dividend Legion)--DL is making excellent progress with regards to investing goals and still with 6 months left to go of 2015! 
• Home is Where the Financial Heart Is (Under the Money Tree)--UTMT is at the stage of being effectively mortgage free and discusses different ways of keeping the housing cost down, getting to a similar stage and much more. Great post. See also below.
• Extreme downsizing your housing to turbo boost your early retirement (The FireStarter)--Another great post of possible housing downsizing to help give your finances a firm inspirational kicking. 

General Investing

• Shareholder power 'holding back economic growth' (BBC: Duncan Weldon)--Haldane is Chief Economist for the Bank of England and has something of interest to say about UK shareholder payouts and the effect on the UKs growth. Very interesting.
• UK Dividend Champions July 2015 Update (Dividend Life)--DL provides another update to the invaluable list. Not many changes this time around but a couple of notable ones. 

Specific Investing Analysis/Purchases

• Recent Buy - (NYSE : UNP) (A Frugal Family's Journey)--AFFJ picks up some shares in railroad operator Union Pacific Corp.
• Anglo American interim results review: dividend held, challenges remain (Firing Room)--Roland takes a closer look at the mining giants recent results. 
• Shares in Stagecoach Group PLC could be riskier than many investors believe (UK Value Investor)--John thoroughly reviews bus and train transport provider, Stagecoach. I think he is right. Fundamentally attractive, but with a few potentially ugly spots.
• Hormel: 49 Consecutive Years of Dividend Increases & Counting (Sure Dividend)--Ben reviews food producer Hormel. I must admit to having missed them before despite Stagg Chilli being one of my guilty "quick meal" pleasures!
• ACE Limited (ACE) Dividend Stock Analysis (Dividend Growth Investor)--DGI takes a look at insurance giant (and soon to be Chubb owner), ACE. Like many insurance firms, it still looks very attractive for the long-term.
• Recent Stock Purchase II [Toronto-Dominion Bank] – July 2015 (DivHut)--DivHut tops up his holding in the Canadian banking giant. 

Budgeting and Frugality

• The Exchange Rate Conundrum (Retirement Investing Today)--Planning to move abroad within the next 18 months, RIT tries to cushion against the threat of exchange rates for a GBP to Euro house purchase. An interesting plan.
• 10 Cheap Summer Activities (Frugal Cottage)--Plenty of great ideas to enjoy summer cheaply and memorably. Lovely list.
• Afford Anything You Want vs. Everything You Want (No More Waffles)--An excellent post on where and when you spend your money. Take a look.
• My Top 10 Things People Waste Money On (Early Retirement Guy)--Guy provides an excellent list of top wastes from storage of worthless items to bottled water. Well worth a read...you may have some yourself!

Misc

•  YORK - UK Gathering Summer 2015 (Financially Free by Forty)--Update on the UK personal finance/FIRE community meet-up in beautiful York. Go if you can!
• The City Workers Festival Guide: FAQS (The Escape Artist)--An amusing (and informative) festival 101. Well worth a read.

"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