What will you find within these pages? Intentional living. Deliberate choices infused with purpose for a better outcome. It’s not complex, but sometimes the execution of the details can be testing. That could include what you eat, how you manage your finances, or the people you choose (or don’t choose) to have in your life. Many of our topics in this issue require the practice of intentional living. Our Cover story tackles transitioning from a work identity to a retirement identity. First, and possibly the hardest, is accepting that change so you can lead a purpose-driven retirement. This feature article sheds light and humor on how to do just that.

If you were to weave a thread through the Fall issue, you’d discover the smaller unseen contributions that support the more significant deeds that stand out in the open. Their connections lead to a greater good. The Cover article focuses on assistive technology that’s letting older adults reclaim their independence. Education plays a significant role in driving such advancements, and Family shows how a 529 plan can secure your family’s educational needs for generations to come.

Rob Legenhausen is an Orlando, Florida-based financial advisor. With over 20 years of experience in the financial industry, Rob has built a reputation as a knowledgeable and trusted advisor to his clients. In this blog post, we will explore Rob's credentials, abilities, and how he may assist you in achieving your financial objectives.

There are many investments you can use to drive the Dividend Lifestyle. Dividend Lifestyle equals Freedom, pure and simple.  Freedom from the trap of trading time for money because you have enough smart investments which produce enough passive income to sustain your lifestyle. 

Happy New Year! 2023 still feels weird to say, like the Jetsons or something, but we’re here now like it or not so let’s approach the new year with a mindset of health, happiness, grace, and make it your best year ever! Fun fact-Did you know the old cartoon series “The Jetsons" predicted autonomous vehicles, FaceTime, and Zoom? Pretty cool, huh? I hear "The Simpson's" also made some eerily correct predictions about the future that came to fruition.

My Grandpa was not a wealthy man, in fact he was a blue collar maintenance  man working in an oil factory where crude was refined into gasoline.  He was just a hard honest worker and a good saver.  My Dad was the same.  Me, I grew up middle class, and did not know at the time that we did not have many of the luxuries that my son today thinks is normal.

My hope for you, the reader, is that you now feel like an insider in the industry of investments, Wall Street, and retirement. I want you to feel empowered that you now understand how it works. You understand what is available to you, and with the right guidance of a professional advisor and Fiduciary who has experience with the Dividend Lifestyle, you can have access to these investment strategies.

The biggest thing we provide to our clients and their families is confidence and clarity. I’m extraordinarily honest and transparent when speaking with clients or potential clients about the investment business. Being brutally honest seems to resonate with people in a world of bait-and-switch marketing. 

I have a lot of folks who approach me and ask what the process is and how it works. They may be interested in reducing their investment expenses, pursuing stronger risk-adjusted returns, or reducing tax drag. Maybe they saw me speaking live at an event, saw a video on YouTube that I produced, or were referred by an existing “evangelical” client (I love those).

Mutual funds can be a good way to save for retirement. Mutual funds are good to start with if you don’t have a lot of money, or maybe you’re a young person saving in a 401(k) plan at work. Yes, mutual funds are fine in those cases, especially in a 401(k) or IRA, because those are tax-deferred vehicles. You’re not going to get whacked with all the distribution of capital gains, taxes, etc.

The biggest mistakes include losing sight of the long-term plan and getting distracted by things you might read or the content you consume. In our ever-expanding mobile world, the videos that pop up on your favorite social media sites are distracting to your long-term investment goals. My wife Jenn enjoys TikTok very much. I can’t get into it, but I digress.

I hear some retirees who say, “I’m saving everything for my kids and grandkids; I want to leave everything to my heirs, so they never have to worry about money the way I did growing up,” Then we have some retirees who say, “Heck no, I made it, I’m going to spend it. I want to enjoy myself to the max, and my goal is to die as I spend my last dollar!” Frankly, there is no right or wrong answer. Personally, I do believe in the idea of making the next generation work hard and not feel entitled.

When you live the Dividend Lifestyle in retirement, you enjoy a predictable income stream that keeps up with and often beats inflation. Home Depot stock is a great example. Home Depot stock has increased its dividend by 10% per year on average for the past decade. If their dividend was 40 cents 10 years ago, they bumped it to 44, then 49, then 55 and so on. It results in a 10% a year increase in dividends, which means a 10% increase in income every year for the retiree.

The ‘ah-ha’ moment is tough to have in dividend investing because it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s such a long, drawn-out process. It doesn’t get exciting until you’ve been doing it for so long that you’re no longer excitable in some cases! The Chinese are known to be very strategic in their thinking. Economically, militarily, and politically, they are patient, and they always play the long game waiting things out until the time is right. I’m not suggesting you buy Alibaba stock, but as dividend investors, we could benefit from their temperament and long-term way of thinking.

A Dividend Aristocrat is a company that has not only paid but increased their dividend every year consecutively for a minimum of 25 years. That means that if they paid a dividend 30 years ago and that dividend was one penny, and then the next year it was two pennies, then today it’s 30 cents per share, that would be an example of a Dividend Aristocrat. This is the sign of an extremely healthy company and one of the things we look for when building a portfolio for the Dividend Lifestyle.

Buy, hold, and reinvest: It’s ridiculously simple, not easy, but simple. Frankly, if you just buy and hold the biggest and best “franchise” names, the bluest of the blue chips if you will, and you never mess with them, it’s hard to screw up. You get in trouble when you start trading. Nervous energy is a great destroyer of wealth, said legendary investor Fayez “The Sphinx” Sarofim, a big buy and hold blue chip guy. I’m a firm believer in keeping things simple, and over the years, I’ve come to understand that true genius lies in simplicity.

I have shared with you how the Dividend Lifestyle has impacted my family in a positive way, but let’s examine what unfortunately happens to many “investors” today who are not practicing these techniques. Suppose a person is buying and selling stuff based on the headlines, or they have an active advisor who is getting in and out constantly chasing the latest greatest opportunity they saw on a CNBC commercial. In that case, you’re really missing the boat when it comes to the compound interest effect. You aren’t getting the stock splits as my Dad enjoyed. You aren’t getting the tax and cost advantages either. 

My Dad owned Home Depot stock in the nineties and did very well with the investment. My Dad’s name is Bob, and I owe much of my success today to him and my Mom, Anne. Big Bob is not a super affluent guy or anything, but he’s a good man, has the right temperament, and most of all, he understood dividend-paying stocks learning lessons by watching Grandpa Fred.

Everyone wants magic to happen with their money! Albert Einstein called compound interest the eighth wonder of the world. It’s essentially interest that’s producing interest, and dividend-paying stocks are almost a perfect example of this. If you own 100 shares of Exxon stock, and Exxon stock is currently yielding you roughly a 6% dividend, that means if you never put another penny into Exxon stock, if you sit there and do nothing, this time next year, you won’t own 100 shares. You’ll have 106 shares. Do that the next year, and now you’re getting 6% on 106, so now you’re going to have 112.5.

Ever heard the term “immigrant advantage?” A lot of my favorite influencers talk about this, including Gary V, Wes Watson, and many others. When you come from nothing, you have nothing to do but fight, scrap, and compete, which oftentimes leads to massive success. But the danger comes when the second and third generations are handed the wealth, the financial assets we discussed, with out the work ethic, grit, and experiences that it took to create the wealth in the first place. The first generation came here with nothing.

From an expense standpoint, owning a basket of individual dividend payers and holding them for the long run, is about as cost-effective as you can get. As stated, the cost of ownership is super low because it doesn’t cost you anything to own a share of stock. There’s no internal expense like with a mutual fund or other packaged product because there’s no middle man. It’s just you. If you work with an advisor, the only expense you would have is the advisory fee.

The Dividend Lifestyle is all about long-term, smart investments in well-capitalized U.S. businesses with a track record of distributing profits to shareholders in the form of dividends. 

You can’t call a mutual fund manager and say, “Hey, Jim, can you look at maybe selling Uber because it’s down this year, and I could really use help with my taxes?” It doesn’t work that way. With dividend-paying stock portfolios, where you have total control of what you own, you and your advisors can buy and sell when you want. You dictate your taxation.

One of the advantages of the Dividend Lifestyle is that, unlike mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, or annuities, where you don’t have control over the stocks inside that packaged product, with a dividend strategy, you and your advisor have 100% choice and control over the companies you are invested in.