Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?
I’m often caught up in thoughts of the past. Past decisions I regret and those path not taken. I had opportunities for spectacular success and great wealth, had I made a different choice.
In particular, I was an early adopter of Bitcoin (BTC) and mined it with my computers GPU and later using an ASIC device.
Many around me in those early days advised to simply buy and hold BTC, but instead I used my BTC to purchase more mining equipment and pay for services. In the end, as BTC rose in value, I had less and less in hand.
Looking at my wallet logs, I had transacted hundreds of bitcoin and thousands of Litecoin over the years, since 2013.
If I had listened to those folks who advised me to HODL, I would have become a millionaire once BTC hit $10k, and much more these days.
I just wanted to give an update on my current portfolios and generally where I am with my varied investments. Gains and Losses and how I am planning on investing in this new year of the black tiger.
First, though, I should offer some background information for context. I am currently living essentially rent-free in a family home owned by a relative.
I try to live simply and keep my expenses low. I resigned from my retail job of 11+ years in 2020 and have been unemployed since.
I decided to go back to college last year and am currently enrolled full-time at a local community college.
The FAFSA, plus other financial aid, more than covered my tuition needs and left me with a sizeable chunk of change left over.
I know it has been some time since I last posted anything about #investing, but I had some good news today, so I will get right into it.
Webull
I use five different brokerage apps to manage my portfolios.
On Webull, I have all of my speculative stocks, including picks from Green Energy, Hotels, Space, IPOs, Electric Cars, and DOGE/SHIB.
This account started out with around $3,000 back in 2019, and currently, it sits at a value of $1,884.
It was mostly downhill until COVID-19 hit, and then I started to crawl my way back up.
Still, though I am looking at everything I hold being RED.
On Sofi, I have two dividend-paying stocks: Credit Suisse Silver (SLVO) and Orchid Island (ORC).
The rest of the portfolio includes SPACs that I thought had potential and a few Meme stocks, including Genius Brands International (GNUS) and Ocean Power Technologies (OPTT).
I’ve had the account since July 2019 and am down 42% unfortunately. Last year, I liquidated my HSA account from work and tossed the lot into Sofi, which put me at around $25k account value.
That number has dropped, and I now sit around $15k, which has been somewhat painful. I have earned around $1,990 in dividends, though.
My Charles Schwab brokerage includes funding from a home business mining the cryptocurrency Litecoin (LTC).
Sadly, I had to stop mining in 2020 and eventually shut down in 2021. I have an SBA loan from disaster relief financing that I am currently paying off using the dividends from Schwab. (Schwab won’t let you take screenshots as a security precaution.)
I have an account with Firstrade, which holds all of my OTC market stock.
I have small investments in ClickStream (CLIS), Farmmi (FAMI), Hyper Solar (HYSR), Envirotech Vehicles (EVTV), and Unrivaled Brands (UNRV).
These are all long-term plays, and I don’t check in on them all that often.
I had some Green Energy stocks and Cannabis stuff in here for a long time, and they really didn’t fare well.
I also did crypto for a bit and failed. It is very RED in this portfolio. I think back in November 2021, I heard about Renaissance Technologies and the dividend stocks that were included in their portfolio.
That got me inspired, and I made a Watchlist on Webull that included all of those stocks.
I have started closing my GREEN positions at Robinhood and moving the funds into the Renaissance Dividend list.
Robinhood started with $1,935 in 2017 and is currently UP 3.32%, but used to be much higher.
For my future plans around investing, I recently threw the bulk of my Schwab cash into Retail Value (RVI), which is paying out a special dividend tomorrow of $3.27 per share.
I was able to buy 780 shares and am expecting a return of $2,550.50 from that, which should be enough to clear the SBA loan in full.
I will continue to chase dividends with the Schwab account. I have also been playing around with new YouTube and Instagram accounts to explore other topics I am interested in.
The Game Girls Gallery is one of the more popular pages that gets a lot of traffic, and so I made YouTube/Instagram pages for it.
If you are not already a member of Swagbucks, MyPoints, or InboxDollars, I strongly suggest you sign up. These sites are a great source of extra income for spontaneous purchases.
Fat Wallet Refugee 