Richardson Electronics: Dividend Paying Net-Net

Richardson Electronics trades for less than its conservatively calculated liquidation value. Richardson Electronics is cash flow positive for the trailing 12 months. Catalysts include: A microwave deal with the Chinese government potentially worth $100 million in sales (FY 14 sales were 138 million) over four years. Management's interests are aligned as they have a substantial equity position in the company, they have shown this by opportunistically repurchasing shares. Investors are paid to wait as the company pays a reasonable dividend. [More on seeking alpha...]

Safeway and the Consequences of Large Share Repurchases

Below is an article I wrote at the beginning of 2013.  Safeway is being merged with Albertson's.  Under the terms of the agreement Safeway shareholder's will get $32.50 per share in cash. They will additionally get an additional pro-rata distribution of the net proceeds for the sale of some of the company's assets. These were valued at roughly $3.65 back in April.  This represents a premium of 136% since I recommended the stock.

Safeway (NYSE:SWY) has bought back a massive amount of its own stock over the past couple years. Repurchases since the end of 2010 have totaled 134 million shares (currently there are 239.6 million shares outstanding) at an average price of $21.13. Most of the repurchasing activity was concentrated in late 2011 and early 2012.[More...]

LookSmart, Not so smart?

Usually when a small cash-box gets a tender offer you'd expect it to be pretty safe. After all, the net-cash protects your downside and the tender offer gives you a well defined catalyst. In the case of LookSmart (LOOK) you'd probably be better off with an outright short position. [More...]

Starve the Beast 2013

I've worked out my taxes for this year and it works out to be about ~$2,300 on about $30,000 of income.  That money compounded at 10% for 15 years roughly triples.  Lets assume for the sake of assuming that I actually can compound that money at 10%.  (No one believes this but me.)  Over the course of the next 15 years that savings will amount to 73,000 dollars.  This is 7% of the money I need to accumulate by 40.  This isn't the total million but it is a significant fraction.

Intel

I wish I didn't have to do this but surely someone who reads this and decides that what I say makes sense will invest money, lose it all, and claim that I am somehow responsible.  I'm not, be an adult, take responsibility for your own decisions.  Taking investment advice from a 24 year old is idiotic, especially if you put more money into the idea than the 24 year old did. (I really don't have all that much).  In fact, none of this is advice, I'm just talking about what I'm doing in my diary.  The fact that I let you read it doesn't mean that you should do anything I say, or anything you think I said.  I'm long Intel and I could be very wrong.

Budget Update as of October

We should take a look at a more recently updated budget.  Since our most recent budget we've cut our cable.  We no longer get cable TV instead opting for Netflix.  We have our most recent spending/budget:

Year 24 update

Hi all,

Apparently there exist people who have actually looked at this blog.  Now I of course feel terribly terribly guilty about not posting more.  (Could it be that in fact I am the least interesting man in the world, as it is in fact true that I used to be able to speak German.  Does that make me more or less interesting than Monroe's fellow?)  Anyway we passed over my Birthday recently.  I'm now 24, that means I've only got 16 years left to make it to a million dollars.  Fortunately the problem is also significantly easier than I originally surmised.  Oh man are you guys about to have your minds blown.  I have 3 websites that you need to run off and read the entirety of.  These basically set the framework.  They are:

JoshuaKennon.com
EarlyRetirementExtreme.com
MrMoneyMustache.com

While they have somewhat divergent results with Kennon becoming rich, Jacob of ere becoming independent, and Mr. Money Mustache becoming upper-middle class retired.  The common thread is that they all basically agree on how to get started. That is ultra-frugality.  Turns out Richest Man in Babylon had it right the whole time.  Without making a dime more I could apparently retire in 5 years (though I should mention I got a raise), if I could cut expenses down so that I was only spending 20% of my income.  (Important note: I so far have not done this). So this is our starting point.  From here on I'm going to assume familiarity with the above.