Tag: stock market

January 2023 Financial Update

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The first month of the new year is already in the books! Hopefully the adage “as goes January, so goes the year” holds true after a nice start to 2023. Obviously there is a long way to go and many hurdles stand in the way of positive returns for the full year, but a good start is always welcome!

As we enter our fourth month in Mesa, AZ it is clear to us that we will never agree to this type of work-camping structure in the future. We covered the different types of work-camping structures, and our current agreement, in our November 2022 Financial Update blog if you would like to take a look back. We won’t rehash all of that here, but let’s just say that the longer we stay here the more obvious it becomes that it’s not worth what we get in return. And the rate increase that took place at the start of the new year is only making matters worse.

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December 2022 Financial Update

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Don’t know about you, but we are happy 2022 is over and done with! After working for a couple of months we were really looking forward to the holiday season and getting a visit from our son whom we haven’t seen since the summer. It all started out great with him arriving in town safe, and on schedule, for a week long stay. While he was here we enjoyed some time outdoors and just catching up on all that has happened since we last saw him. And we made sure to fill his tummy up with some homemade meals and his favorite delicious BBQ requests.

Then we got thrown for a loop when on Christmas day when Mrs. RVF woke up and was not feeling good. We did our best to enjoy the day, but fun came to an abrupt end when it was discovered we had contracted covid for the first time after dodging it altogether for the last three years. Thankfully our son was never infected and was able to get back home safe and sound. But we remained isolated for days and ended up missing a lot of our work schedule. This included the New Years eve party that was the one event we were really looking forward to working and being a part of! Instead we were locked down in our RV and in bed by 10pm as parties happened all around us. A fitting end to a rough year!

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2022 Dividend Portfolio Rundown

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It’s time to close the books on the economic disaster that was 2022 and we are going to start by closing out our dividend portfolio update for the year. This will also be the first time we incorporate some more historical data points in order to give more visual prospective to the growth of our portfolio and positions.

Since our last update just a few short weeks ago the markets have dropped, we sold our losing position in the soon to be taken private Weber (WEBR), we reinvested the proceeds elsewhere and then we contracted Covid-19 for the first time. The perfect end to the year that was 2022!

As we sit here, isolated from the world around us, we have time to reflect on what went wrong in 2022 and plan for a better 2023. At least until we start hacking uncontrollably, then it’s time to go back to bed and take a nap.

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Dividend Portfolio Update

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It’s been awhile since we last provided an update on our dividend portfolio. This wasn’t by design, but we really didn’t have much to report and our time has been occupied with our work-camping jobs and the never ending array of activities we have to prepare for.

Since our last update the markets have moved back up and now appear to be wavering ahead of the next federal reserve meeting which will bring yet another rate increase. Our portfolio has remained in relatively good shape, aside from the Weber (WEBR) debacle, and we continued to add shares to our existing positions as funds became available. And of course, we also reinvested all dividends received.

As for the Weber position, in our last update we discussed the options of either selling out of the position, since they no longer pay a dividend, or doubling down to get to 100 shares in order to sell covered call options and generate some income in leu of dividends. We decided to go the route of adding to our position and generate income, but soon after we wrote that blog the largest shareholder offered to purchase the rest of the company for a measly $6.25 per share. This put us in a bind as the shares were already trading over that price and our cost basis is also much higher than that. Not a great position to be in! As a result we did not make any purchases and our position remains the same as it has been. We would like to get to the 100 share mark, but we were obviously not buying above the bid price.

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November 2022 Financial Update

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It’s hard to believe that we are heading into the last month of the year! While this year has been a great one for traveling the same cannot be said when it comes to finances. Maybe things will start looking up in 2023, but there are still some dark clouds on the horizon despite the recent positive turnaround in the markets. We need to remain optimistic, but at the same time we also have to be realistic about what is yet to come which is likely further economic decay at the hands of an out of step federal reserve.

We are now one month into our new work-camping jobs and it’s going fairly well so far. Some parts of the job are much more labor intensive than we were led to believe during the interview process and it can get a little frustrating because it often seems like we are doing a lot of manual labor instead of working events. On the bright side, we have been able to get more hours than are needed to cover the cost of our site fees and utilities and little extra cash never hurts.

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Happy Thanksgiving!!

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As we approach 2 years on the road we are grateful that we are able to live our best life and share our adventures.

Thank you to our readers for your continued support and sticking with us! We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy spending time with your families!

Joe & Mrs. RVF

P.S. Happy 13th Birthday to our best friend and travel companion!

Murphy

October 2022 Financial Update

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Greetings from Arizona where we have settled amongst the snowbirds and will be riding out the fall and winter months in the warm desert sun.

In addition to being in a warm location we have started our largest work-camper assignment to date. We made a 5 month commitment at an extremely large RV/Mobile home resort. This is a 55+ resort and by the time December rolls around there will be approximately 3,000 people on site. Our job is in the entertainment / activities department and let me tell you this place has a lot going on and it gets very busy.

Our job involves everything from serving coffee and donuts to residents in the morning to setting up and decorating the entertainment halls for parties or headliner events. The calendar is jam packed every day of the week so we always have something going on. The best part is that we will typically only work 2 or 3 days a week and since we are considered residents we will get to enjoy all of the amenities and events too. And if we work ticketed events we get to enjoy the shows for free so we are hoping to get scheduled for some of the bands and headline events on the schedule.

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