Every year, a trip to the Doctor’s to receive a physical is done, fortunately besides doing a number of tests, the results have been a good checkup. The things that were done right whether by accident or design, the Doctor encourages me to keep doing them.That is helpful advise because it means with a few adjustments here and there, the likelihood of doing them in the future is very high. Unlike my dentist who wishes flossing would be done more. Somehow that is just not in my daily routine, even though steps have been made to make it easier.

Similar to a physical checkup, it is a good time with year end and the beginning to file taxes to do a financial check up. If you have debt – pay it down till you are either comfortable with it or the debt is paid off. Think of the debt similar to investing, what is the rate of return? for example some credit cards carry an interest rate of 19% so your return is – 19% if you make payments. If your investments make greater than 19%, then it is offset. If the debt is not offset, either the investments have to be raised or debts has to be lowered and in 99.9% of cases, the lowering of debt is the easiest method.

Linking to dividend paying stocks – it is good time to look at your investments. You picked them for a reason, at the time the reason was good. Similar to months of the year, the reasons change. There are good dividend paying companies which are relatively consistent in their returns year over year. Those types of investments would be the ones to gravitate towards. Being positive on a year to year basis increases your total return and that is a good thing.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions