I haven’t posted in a long time. I’ve been busy with other projects. But, I’m back! And I’m letting you know that I completed a minor reallocation of my holdings. So check out the portfolio pages for the updates.

All three portfolios got updated. I have pared back some holdings and added one new one. In all, I went from 113 different holdings to only 97. I’d like to stick to having no more than 100 different stocks in my portfolio. Over 100 things start to get a little unwieldy and hard to manage.

I wanted to improve diversification, and I sort of accomplished that. I ended up actually increasing my percentage in the financial sector of the market, which I really wanted to reduce. Things just didn’t work out that way. The rest of the portfolio is now better balanced with a decrease in the energy sector and increases in utilities and real estate.

Maybe on my next go-round, I’ll try to improve my sector reallocation. My main push was to reduce some of the riskiness and increase the income, which I did. Before the reallocation, 2% of my portfolio was at a pretty severe risk of a dividend cut. I eliminated that threat (I hope). Now the full portfolio is about 50% borderline safe and 50% likely safe. When I say safe, it only means safe from a dividend reduction or elimination. There are no guarantees, and the price of these stocks, as always, will fluctuate up and down. I increased the projected income by 4.8% over the entire portfolio. That will make a huge difference when I turn 59.5 and can finally tap into the dividends from my IRA.

Social Security is just around the corner for my wife as she will turn 62 in February 2026. I have a lot to consider with regard to whether or not she starts taking her payout then. I’m currently running spreadsheets to see how long it would take her to break even if she delays taking her SS payments until she turns 65, 67, and 70. I’ll give an update on that as I get closer.

Until then, keep your head down and yields up!