Investment Ideas from My Fridge

Did you know that your fridge can hold the key to a well funded portfolio? I personally make money from my refrigerator every day. Every time I grab that Diet CokeI am contributing to the success of Coca-Cola and helping to ensure that my dividend payments continue to increase every year. Ok, so maybe I am stretching things a bit here, but I receive at least one email a day asking for investment ideas and wanted to present a ‘cool’ way to generate dividend investment ideas. Let’s take a look in my fridge to see how it works – click the image to get an idea of some of the things in my fridge.

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What potential investment opportunities are hiding in there – I will go through some of them:

Coca-Cola (KO) – The maker of many a beverage item, including things like soft drinks and bottled water. My Diet Coke habit helped support many a stock holder.

Tropicana – Owned by a direct competitor to Coca-Cola. Tropicana is owned by PepsiCo (PEP) and a staple every morning for my son’s breakfast. He is totally addicted to the stuff.

Oceanspray – It appears you can’t buy this stock because they are not a public company. Perhaps Coke or Pepsi should buy them?

Beatrice Milk – Beatrice is owned by Parmalat, a huge Italian food group active in milk & dairy products and fruit-based beverages. They had some trouble with governance issues a while ago and the stock is really down. I did not know Beatrice was owned by them and would never have look into them had their milk not been in my fridge.

Heinz – I will not allow any other brand of Ketchup in my fridge. It just is not the same. This stock has been a dog for awhile and a few years ago they cut their dividend and they now sport a 3.5% dividend. I am going to have a look at them during on of my weekly stock analysis posts in the future.

Campbell’s – Everyone knows Campbell’s soup. I don’t think I have ever walked into a pantry and not seen at least one can of Campbell’s soup in there. They do not pay a dividend.

Kraft – This just happens to be the jam and the Miracle Whip, but Kraft has a product in 99% of US households according to their factsheet. The stock was just spun off from Altria and they sport a 3.6% dividend. I have been meaning to look at them for awhile now.

Danone – Danone is a French company with actually quite a few brands. They make good yoghurt and even I enjoy it from time to time. Do you know Evian bottled water – that is a Danone product as well.

Just so you know, we also have lots of fruits and vegetables in the fridge – it is not all in a jar or plastic container. This was a real interesting exercise to go through and is just one example of how you can find investment ideas just by looking around. Now go check out your own fridge, or as a next step that pantry you have off the kitchen. Lots of good stuff in there for investing ideas.