Updates

The second buildout buy is done. 11,250 shares of NCYF at 52.5p, taking the pile from 11,800 to 23,050. The goal was 25,000 - a nice round number chosen because at the regular 1p quarterly payment, 25k shares means £250 a quarter, matching RECI's £250.50 and levelling the pair up properly. So yes, I fell a little short. The goblin brain noticed.

But here's why I'm not being hard on myself about it. This upcoming payment isn't the regular 1p - it's the boosted 1.5p of the cycle, and every one of those 23,050 shares is in before the July 30 ex-div. That's £345.75 landing in August, knocking on the door of £350 from a position that paid me £33 three months ago. And by the time the regular quarters come back around, the position will be sitting comfortably above the 25k level anyway. The target gets hit - just one payment later than the plan said.

This is the thing about targets that took me a while to learn. Setting one isn't really about hitting it to the decimal - it's about the pull. A target gets you 80 or 90% of the way there almost automatically, and 92% of a goal reached is infinitely better than the 0% of no goal at all. I'd rather set the number, fall slightly short, and be holding 23,050 income-producing shares than never draw the line in the first place.

Meanwhile the machine keeps humming - the SMIF payout of £500 lands later this week, the first full £500 month on the completed 100k hoard. That money will have a job to do soon enough.

As for what's next, the likely path is boosting the RECI numbers again, since that's the next dividend in the rotation come October. But there's genuinely no urgency for once. September is the LGEN and SMIF payout month - no NCYF, no RECI - so I've got the whole of August and September to properly decide the strategy. A rare luxury: time to think, funded by income that arrives whether I'm thinking or not.

And honestly? This is the part I dreamed about. I'm at the point now where substantial payouts are arriving on a schedule, and it's a lot of money doing exactly what it was told to do. The wealth goblin feels lucky - extremely so - and I'm excited to keep ploughing ahead. Feed the pile. Buy back time.

The buildout push is officially underway. Today I bought 8,500 shares of NCYF at 52.4p, taking the pile from 3,300 to 11,800. The timing was the whole point - the ex-div for the 1.5p August payment is July 30, so every one of those shares qualifies for the big payment of the cycle. That's £177 heading my way in August instead of the £49.50 it would have been. The goblin brain is very satisfied with that trade.

NCYF is officially on the board. The fourth and final pillar of the dividend machine is live. Bought 3,300 shares at 50.1p per share - it's a smaller buy than I'd have liked, but consistency matters more than size. The Iran situation has knocked my earnings a bit, and I had family visiting which meant spending money on actually enjoying life. What's the point of building all this if you never live? I make no excuses for the smaller buy. About £1,025 of new money went in this month.