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30 days everyone. It has been a long 30 days since I have purchased a stock. An investment. A bridge stone to financial freedom and it feels… well, there really isn’t one word for it. It is weird, fast and unusual, to say the least. As I sit and see the calendar continue to gain momentum towards, now, the end of March, I sit back and think, whoa, it’s been over 4 weeks since an investment move has been made. Why? Here is what I was able to come up with. 30 Days and No Purchase Why have I gone an alarmingly high 30 days with no stock purchase? It feels like 10 years ago and just yesterday at the same time that I made a wallop of an investment into T. Rowe Price (NASDAQ: TROW ) on the 24th of February. What’s interesting is the price point was at $66.45 and is now at $72.15 as of 3/24 close before the Easter weekend. That’s a $5.70 increase since the purchase date or a crazy 8.577% increase! What the heck is going on here? Hence, another reason why I haven’t really made a purchase. However, as I go down the winding path of a never ending banter, let’s list out some reasons. 1.) Appreciation/Crooked Graph of the Market – The market is showing “weird” signs of appreciation. With T. Rowe price above appreciating almost 9%, the market is acting quite goofy lately. Even ADM has increased over 10% since my last purchase. A reason why I haven’t purchased then, in the last 30 days, has been the market itself has made it “not easy” to make individual purchases. Actually, I just looked at the S&P over the last 30 days and the top 500 is up 5.5%: Click to enlarge 2.) Given that stocks are back on the rise – couldn’t have come at a better time for me. I have quite a bit of Federal & Local taxes to pay – love Uncle Sam, and this time – we are talking well, well over the 4 digit mark. Additionally, you combine that with two bachelor parties, two weekends and a big vacation trip planned coming up – the cash that I’ve been able to “save” at this time being will likely be used – all for great things, but nonetheless, takes “away” from the investing pot, hands down. Who knows – Bert’s been talking a big game of potentially selling his FirstEnergy (NYSE: FE ) stock – maybe I could do the same and have capital to use for a dividend foundation stock ? Eh? 3.) However – I am conservative in nature and I know I have budged quite high for these expenses listed above in #2. With that, I think I’ll have cash suddenly and my plan is to have it ready for my new found 2016 goal . That goal would be to staying committed on making larger investments into the stock market of $3,000+ each time, thus reducing trading costs and heavily increasing my dividend income and Dividend Reinvestment each time that newly acquired/added position pays out. What’s interesting – I could always download and use Robinhood and have absolute no trading costs, hmm… thoughts? 4.) My watch list isn’t so “watch” anymore. As you recall – back in the early days of March I had a what was called a February stock watch list blog post . What was on there? The likes of – Pfizer (NYSE: PFE ), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ ) and Aflac (NYSE: AFL ). These were stocks I owned already, however, the prices at the time of the article were – $29.70, $106.38 and $60.97, a more compelling case. They all 3 are now trading, in order, $30.08 (Up 1.28%), $108.31 (Up 1.81%) and $62.70 (Up 2.83%). A.k.a. – they have all increased since then – not by too, too much, but all up nonetheless. If PFE dips back below $30 – my eyes are locked in there. But another reason – the stocks that I want, are more expensive and well, damn – no one wants that. 5.) Two words – Busy Season. Nuff Said. Overall Purchase-less Conclusion Here I am. Sitting on cash. Cash that I really can’t use due to those expenses above. However, the market has increased quite a bit that it has allured me away from being active into the market, but also busy season, has taken a toll on the free time of analyzing and staying in tune on the almost minute basis that I was on. Therefore, the combination of life events, tax consequences an appreciating market – has pushed me away from being active over the last 30 days. Can this be the first time that I don’t go out and buy an individual stock purchase in the month? I say individual stock purchase, as through work I still have 5% of my pay going to the Roth 401(k) option, so an investment still does occur, just isn’t an active investment purchase. What do you guys think? Have you guys slowed down at all and/or feel the same way? Would kill to hear your thoughts and what you are seeing. Any big bargains that have been in/out lately? Thanks again everyone, Happy Easter weekend, God bless and looking forward to talking with everyone. Talk soon!