[00:00:06] Viktoriia Miracle: Hello. Hello and welcome back to happy time happy money podcast and today we have Eric Almonte. Eric, back to our podcasts because I really loved our first episode and I decided to invite him again. So he comes from New York and coaches college and high school sports upon finishing school. He decided to take courses and learn all about personal finances, realizing how important it was and believing that everyone showed now there's things handmade, two courses and a page to share what he has learned with his following, growing in a short couple of months, he's been able to help people learn it. Even the basic of personal. Like budgeting mindset and planning.

[00:00:59] And I know that Eric Cole himself on dividend investor today we're going to talk more about dividends. Hi, Eric, and welcome back.

[00:01:07] Eric Almonte: Yeah. How are you? So good to see people, you know, that we know already. It's so awesome. Let's start at well, I know you shared your story and if you would love to come back to Eric episode, that's where we can learn the full story of Eric and he's amazing, budgeting tips and but for now, I would love for you to share your story still, but just like in a, in a shorter way.

[00:01:34] So, um, basically since we last spoke and everything, I've been continuing doing the same things, you know, like, reaching out to as many people. People reaching out to me with a bunch of questions from like beginner advanced and things like that.

[00:01:48] And, you know, a work's been starting again. So it's, you know, I've been a little hectic, but, you know, It's just, it keeps like, it keeps me going, you know, when like, people do have that feeling of, you know, we should've learned this in school or like, you know, why don't I know this and wow, this can like help because reality is, we can't really do much without personal finance, right?

[00:02:11] Like people can tell you as much as they want that money doesn't matter. You know, w it runs everything we do, right. We gotta pay rent, we gotta eat, we gotta do this and that and also pretty much it.

[00:02:24] Viktoriia Miracle: Yeah. Awesome. I know, you know, if you don't know Eric, you can go to episode link and find that his Instagram, he has this awesome graphics and explains in like simple way and visual way.

[00:02:36] And I know lots of people like me are visuals. And if you want to learn and more like a playful, well, totally go for it to his Instagram. So tell us more about what does a dividend investors means. And like for someone let's say to somebody that starts to invest, like what advice you will give to them?

[00:02:56] Eric Almonte: All right. So, first off, you know, we'll talk about what a dividend is. All right. So the dividend is basically, you own a piece of a company, right? Whether it's a stock bond, you know, mutual fund index fund. You could even think of it as like, you know, real estate, when you get, rental income from owning the spot and you put it out to rent and then people pay you money.

[00:03:18] So when you own a piece of a company, not every single company, but most do they give you or the shareholders back a little bit of money. It's not much, but like they give you money for owning with them. So that kind of like, you know, sensitizes people to invest more or like to go with that company, but it also helps the company grow.

[00:03:40] Right. they can also reinvest that back into growing the company because as you know, some people, you know, might not know. The reason for a stock, right? Is if a company wants to go public right, to expand and grow, all they do is go public, right? And then you can, you can, invest in them. And that helps them, you know, make more warehouses, hire workers, manufacturing.

[00:04:04] That's that's what investing is. It's not just like you go onto an exchange or brokerage doesn't then like, you know, you, you buy a company, you know, or buy a piece of a company as. So, but dividend investing, you can use it in many ways, right? So a lot of people they'll like reinvest their dividends back once they get it, which we'll talk about more in a few, but, that's pretty much, you know, a dividend investing is if you can get a little more extensive into it, but that's just a simple, you know, quick version of like what a dividend investor.

[00:04:36] Viktoriia Miracle: So, what is there basically, like, what is the normal normal rate in America or in other countries, if you are familiar with them, with the dividend investors like how much what's the percentage you can get from the dividends from the company?

[00:04:51] Eric Almonte: That's a, that's a good question. So, I would say, a I wouldn't think that there's like a specific average, but like comp like a index and mutual funds, which are a portfolios of companies and, you know, ETFs, which are called exchange traded funds that follow indexes, like the S and P 500, which is just a portfolio of 500 companies they have around a, like 1% or so, which isn't much for some people.

[00:05:20] But when you get to some individual ones, I would say to be in a safer route, yeah, like a 2%, 2.3 around there, but there are companies that pay you 3%, 4%, even up to like 7%. But the thing that, that happens when they pay that high of a dividend, it's hard to sustain it because remember they have to pay that back to the shareholders.

[00:05:46] At the companies in debt or they're paying more than they're making, right. They can't sustain it for that much longer. That's why, like some companies can't increase their dividends and I'm going to talk to you about two lists of companies that are like our killer when it comes to dividend investing.

[00:06:05] So to answer, to answer that, I think that, if you find companies like, you know, a Procter Gamble, Caterpillar, which is a construction company, Microsoft, a little lower, but Pfizer, you know, there's almost any company that like you use on a daily or you walk out and like, you see a lot of those have dividends and like they'll pay like a fair rate.

[00:06:29] Viktoriia Miracle: Do you mean Pfizer, as in the vaccine Pfizer?

[00:06:33] Eric Almonte: Yeah.

[00:06:33] Viktoriia Miracle: Medicine, medicine company.

[00:06:37] Eric Almonte: Yeah. It's a pharmaceutical company.

[00:06:39] Viktoriia Miracle: I know in Russia, they called Moderna and the company just like exploded throughout the last, last year. It's like crazy. They're also, I think give dividends well.

[00:06:49] Eric Almonte: Yeah. Yeah. They, they, they both do Pfizer and, and Moderna, and I'm like, so example of like when a company's paying a high dividend and they can't sustain it, it was just happened was AT&T.

[00:07:01] So a lot of people we're investing in AT&T because of their dividend, they were paying a 7% dividend. But also remember that the dividend, you, this related to the share price. So like, if the company goes up, the dividend yield can go down a little bit, but if the company goes down, the dividend yield can go up, meaning a percentage, but the amount they pay doesn't change.

[00:07:23] It's just because it's math. So the share price multiplied or divided by the amount of dividend they pay. So if a company went down and you look at it like, oh, it has an 11% you, but you not knowing that it's because they're that or because they went down, you can get stuck with it. So AT&T they tried a couple of things that didn't work out and they had to cut and pause almost like their dividends.

[00:07:50] And now they're probably going to be at like a two, three, 4% yield. A lot of people might leave them, you know, because they are in debt they're going to be going over new ownership. So that's why I say like, don't chase a high yield, you know, things like that. So, yeah. I think, a good, uh, good safe bet for, for people that are just starting out, instead of trying to find like an individual, dividend stock might be looking at like dividend ETF, right or index funds. And I'll explain what, what those are. So like I mentioned briefly, a index one and a exchange traded fund ETF are just following companies, right? Like a portfolio, like a basket instead of like just one at a time. So instead of like having the hassle of trying to find the perfect ones or like picking a couple, it does it for you, right?

[00:08:42] Like some there's managers, there's ones that are, managed a bit more aggressively or pat or ones that are a little more passively, which you pay less fees on things like that. So it's important to know those things because you can't just have a whole investing career of you not even picking stocks, you could just pick a portfolio of them, you know, and those pay dividends as well.

[00:09:05] So there's dividend ETFs too. So you can you can find ones that own some of the companies that we just mentioned and, you know, a hundred more or 500 total, or even a thousand and just feel a little safer that you know, it'll, it'll be sustainable because one big thing that people think when they're investing or whatever, is that, what if the market crashes or what if it goes to zero, but like they really think of it.

[00:09:30] Some of the companies we just mentioned, or even other ones, the chances of them going to like actual zero is it means that like we're all done for, right. Like if every company went bankrupt in the world, What can we do? You know, but, but yeah, I would say like for someone starting off before picking individual ones, definitely look into index funds, ETF's, and you could even, you could even Google them.

[00:09:53] Viktoriia Miracle: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I assume if you give us some resources, that will be amazing and I'll include them in the show notes. And the last question that I have for everyone on this podcast is if answer and fill in the blank for me. Fill in the blank and it sounds like this, if you really knew me, you will know that I am.

[00:10:15] Eric Almonte: Um,

[00:10:21] I would stay determined and a teacher.

[00:10:26] Viktoriia Miracle: Okay, cool. I know this question hits always like for the first time it hits hard. Every time I get answer myself in my mind, it's like always like, oh my God. It's like you asked me for the first time. Well, thank you so much for coming. And I will link all the show notes, all the links and all the social media and the show notes.

[00:10:46] So you can just scroll down. Yeah, and an episode that page where you will find everything, just click the link, even though you're watching or listening to this episode. And thank you so much for coming, Eric.

[00:11:00] Eric Almonte: Thank you. Oh, wait. Before we go a promise, I promise you something the dividend. So these are, these are two lists, right?

[00:11:09] They're called dividends, dividend Kings, and like, you know, a queen and king and a dividend aristocrat. So you can Google these, they update them every year. These are lists of companies that have been paying dividends. The dividend aristocrats been paying for 25 plus years and increasing, like, it's a part of it.

[00:11:29] You have to increase your dividend and the dividend Kings 50 plus years. So if you look at those, right, you'll have like share companies that like, they just keep growing every single year and same thing with the ETF. They haven't them in there as well.

[00:11:44] Viktoriia Miracle: Well, who listened to the end of this podcast? We'll hear that trick.

[00:11:49] I love it. Thank you so much. You're so generous. Thank you. Thank you for watching or listening to this episode and I'll see you in the next one and next week. Bye. Bye.

[00:12:01] Eric Almonte: Bye.