#83 Starting to be a dividend investor

I have read and am a firm believer in global index funds and trackers. I invest £100 per month into this and will continue to do so.

I believe we can afford to invest £300 per month. I see the Global Fund as the bread and butter for my wealth accumulation, it's got a decent head start. I'll then try out using £100 per month to begin a dividend invested portfolio. I think partly because I find it interesting and have already learnt quite a lot just from reading and following blogs.

I will build up my cash reserves with the remaining £100+ and any extra I am able to scrounge together.

This isn't going to make a giant wealth building snowball any time soon but it's a sensible start on the journey and the figures can be altered and updated as and when in the future.

So, for my dividend investing journey, where do I go from here? Well here's my plan.

1. Stock screener. I want to have a series of attributes / data points for me to identify potential business. There's a lot of info out there, I favour something nice and simple like the Dividend Diplomats use over in the States. I see this as a starting point to identify potential businesses and likely as I learn this'll adapt and change over time.
2. Updating stock watch in Google Docs. I want to have an excel in Google Docs which populates all the fields I'm looking to screen stocks for. I've found that =GOOGLEFINANCE does a pretty good job of accounting for most fields. I'm then using Dividend Max for annual dividend info and a few other criteria.
3. Invest. I really want to learn on-the-job as it were so unlike the BTL approach I plan to get stuck in at the earliest opportunity - 02 March - and begin learning.

I'm pretty excited about this going forward and have largely got over the BTL disappointment for now -  I feel for me it was the right decision at the right time for the right reasons. 

Maybe I'm just excited as I like a spreadsheet though, who knows :)