Invest

Admittedly, I have been away from my blog for some personal reasons but all is good now. So I can get back to things I enjoy, like dedicating time to Shake the Money Tree. Completing the July 2021 blog financials, I realized that even though I haven’t been posting, the passive income streams are starting … Read more

As I am checking my email this morning and going through my daily routine, I was alerted that my AMC shares were assigned due to an option exercise. This was a nice surprise since I was expecting it to be closed upon option expiration which was June 18th, 2021. So with a week early, the … Read more

Shake the Money Tree portfolio continues to expand and enters into an AMC Covered Call strategy that is expected to yield 24%. With the recent AMC volatility, this was a great time to earn a potential double digit return. Trade Details On Friday May 28th, I was able to execute an AMC June 18, 2021 … Read more

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Money makes money. And the money that makes, makes money” really refers to compound interest and it being referred to as the 8th Wonder of the World. Helping Johnny Appleseed There is always an opportunity to grow your money tree or improve your financial situation. A close friend of mine, let’s … Read more

“An education pays the best interest” as the saying goes…It has been two months since I deployed my Double Dividend strategy. It is the right amount of time to look at the results and take away any insights from this investment strategy. Summary of investment decisions Here are the details of the last two months … Read more

With a few extra dollars in the Money Tree blog account, a recent covered call strategy earns 14% in a quick 9 days. I decided to put the extra ~$400 sitting in the Ally savings account to work in another way, this time through a covered call, here are the details… Covered Call Details Looking to take … Read more

As you may recall, one of my current blog goals is to build a monthly dividend ladder. This goal is another step towards creating additional passive income streams for my Money Tree. In addition to already owning 100 shares of SPHD, I wanted to step into some specific equity names with the progression of STMT … Read more

Who doesn’t want to earn double dividends on their stock portfolio? I started to deploy a covered call strategy to maximize earnings potential on my assets and earn “double dividends”. This strategy will be deployed against my 100 shares of Invesco S&P 500 High Dividend Low Volatility ETF (SPHD) that currently sit in the Money … Read more

The monthly dividend ladder is starting to take shape for the money tree. Working on completing the current goal, the hardest part is to decide which high quality dividend paying stocks I would like to include on the ladder.  Goal As you may recall in my last post, my recent goal is set on building a … Read more

Completing my most recent blog goal, I need to start on my next blog goal creating a monthly dividend ladder to increase my passive income stream. What is a Dividend? Per Investopedia, a dividend is the distribution of some of the company’s profits and earnings to a class of its shareholders, as determined by the … Read more

It’s all about the dividends when it comes to top ideas for passive income. Here at Shake the Money Tree, it is no different…I am looking to grow a sizable dividend portfolio that provides a nice stream of passive income. What is a Dividend? A dividend is the distribution of some of a company’s earnings … Read more

Now that the Money Tree is starting to grow and take shape, I am moving onto my next goal which is to get to 100 shares of SPHD. I have been slowly building the dividend portfolio and have been dollar cost averaging along the way. List of Goals for the Money Tree Since the start … Read more

I decided to invest some of the blog cash into more SPHD continuing to dollar cost average my price per share lower. I was evaluating some other opportunities but given that I am not complete with my due diligence on those other opportunities, I wanted to put my cash to work. June is shaping up … Read more

It has been almost 18 months since I started Shake the Money Tree and I have made almost $3,000 in revenue. From the onset of this blog, my main goal was to test many of the various ways of making money, mainly through online and passive income approaches. It is working and I am even … Read more

Sitting here and looking ahead at the next couple of months, I have an opportunity to start growing into the investment pyramid. In my planning, I am looking at these set of facts: #1. My CD Ladder will be complete in less than two short months #2. I will have at least $500 in the … Read more

This month marks the point of halfway up my CD Ladder, showing how to build an effective CD Ladder. It is the 6th month of a 12 month plan. The first rung of this CD ladder was in July, summarized in this post: Investing in a CD Ladder. Since that 1st month CD ladder with … Read more

As a continuation from my last post, I was exploring what the next appropriate step in the Shake the Money Tree investment pyramid. Exploring a few different options and also posted something on Facebook, I decided to take the next step with a Dividend ETF. I decided to buy ETF shares, Invesco S&P500 High Dividend … Read more

With the consistent monthly income being generated from the site, I feel confident enough to take the next step up in the Investment Pyramid. Going up the investment pyramid helps me put my excessive cash balance to work in a more effective way. If you haven’t seen this investment pyramid (see below), it is just … Read more

Building up my cash balance in the Shake the Money Tree account, I have been exploring ideas on where to put that money to work in a more effective way. And reflecting back on one of my very first posts around the benefits of building a CD ladder, this is where I decided to take … Read more

So if you have read many of the personal finance books or blogs out there, there are a few common elements to personal finance health. One of those is this notion of having a 6-month emergency fund in savings as a safety net. While I can’t disagree with this foundational advice, I would propose that … Read more

So now that I am starting to get this blog setup with a few posts behind me and a design that I can live with, I am moving on to how to support this hobby of mine. I have read many posts out there that state you should try and setup your blog early on … Read more