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Car guards? No car guards here. In fact you don't even need to lock your car or even close the windows for that matter.

Well that settles it - smash a few car windows, grabs some goodies off the seats/out the cubbyhole and then - start a cottage industry of car guards

Well that settles it - smash a few car windows, grabs some goodies off the seats/out the cubbyhole and then - start a cottage industry of car guards

Creating cash flow and future dividends 

...all dividends are used to purchase shares and when I can afford it I put more funds into my trading account by juggling my current account, card accounts, and bond account.

Sorry for dragging up all old post... you mentioned having a bond account and it got me thinking about your investment strategy. 
I thought zero debt and then invest was the way to go.  Care to comment?

@gcr, Thanks for explaining (in detail)

@Orca

What did you have to do to let whatever company you have your share trading/investing account with know you are abroad and that they should cap your dividend withholding tax at 15%? I own some REITs and as I understand it, as I work and pay taxes abroad and not in SA, I have to pay DWT on the dividends I receive from said REITs. I called FNB twice to inform them that I live abroad and that they should deduct it from my dividends. Each time they said they will email me a form I need to complete but I never received the form. I think GMail thinks it's spam and just deletes it before it gets to me. So next month I will be going to SA for some unfortunate reasons and since I am not getting the forms I reckon I will just go to the bank and get it sorted there. My only concern is that once I get there they will maybe want more documents from SARS or something. I will only be in SA for a week so I am not gonna have a lot of time to do the runaround getting this sorted especially considering that my time there is meant to be spent with a sick family member.

Can you give me a heads up on anything I should work on preparing now before I go there? I just want to be done with this. I want to pay whatever taxes I have to and not a cent more. Nkandla is big enough.

While we are on the topic of taxes, can anyone recommend any good SA tax forums? After many months of of self-study I am finally starting to wrap my head around this investing thing but taxes are still all Greek to me (But then again it would seem taxes are Greek to the Greeks apparently so I am not feeling too bad about it). Either way I want to understand this. I am in no mood to have a run in with that rogue SARS squadron I have been reading about these last few months.

On a side not @Patrick

You made a good comparison of how one can actually make more money going for growth compared with dividends. But for someone like me I shudder to think that if I go for growth the will eventually come, like when I retire, when I am going to have to start selling those shares to support. What makes me shudder is the fact that I will have a finite amount of shares to sell without ever knowing when I will go through the pearly gates. So it will make me worry (it already does actually) about what if I end up selling everything up much too soon. That is why I like the dividend approach. Maybe it will work out a bit more expensive(ly?) but for me it's like the gift that keeps on giving without me having to chip away at my capital. I reckon if I spend the next 20 years doing as good a job of saving as I am now and investing those savings in solid companies with good dividends, and ALWAYS reinvesting those dividends, then by the time I retire I will be earning a nice tidy sum from those dividends. Couple that with a good pension and I think I will be OK. But at the end of the I guess what is the most important is doing whatever makes you sleep the best at night and the dividends approach makes me sleep better than the growth approach

Thanks. But yeah I checked those things. I don't mean GMail deleted per se. Meant more like Gmail just flagged it as definite spam and just flat out maybe blocked it from even reaching my spam folder. I don't know. Either way I didn't get it 

On a side not @Patrick

You made a good comparison of how one can actually make more money going for growth compared with dividends. But for someone like me I shudder to think that if I go for growth the will eventually come, like when I retire, when I am going to have to start selling those shares to support. What makes me shudder is the fact that I will have a finite amount of shares to sell without ever knowing when I will go through the pearly gates. So it will make me worry (it already does actually) about what if I end up selling everything up much too soon. That is why I like the dividend approach. Maybe it will work out a bit more expensive(ly?) but for me it's like the gift that keeps on giving without me having to chip away at my capital. I reckon if I spend the next 20 years doing as good a job of saving as I am now and investing those savings in solid companies with good dividends, and ALWAYS reinvesting those dividends, then by the time I retire I will be earning a nice tidy sum from those dividends. Couple that with a good pension and I think I will be OK. But at the end of the I guess what is the most important is doing whatever makes you sleep the best at night and the dividends approach makes me sleep better than the growth approach

At the end of the day it's total return that really matters. "If you're earning 10% over inflation, it doesn't matter if you get 2% from dividends, and 8% from growth, or 8% from dividends and 2% from growth. Well it could make a tax difference, but if you build that in then it's the same.

You can't really run out of shares if you withdraw less than the growth, even for an infinite amount of time, as each year you sell less shares for the same money. A quick excel sheet will show you that. Of course you could end up in a situation where you own Berkshire Hathaway which pays no dividends and is valued at $200 000, meaning you might have to sell the last one, but in reality most shares nowadays would split long before they got to that value. Even if that was the case, with unit trusts, and now with easy equities, you could actually sell a fraction of a single share.

Your assumption about being ok after spending 20 years saving as much as you do, with dividends re-invested, and a pension on top of that is wrong. You're not going to be ok, you're more likely going to be very wealthy! 

On a side note. Now that I've moved and will continue to move away from my stupid unit trust account into DIVTRX, I'll likely be earning enough in dividends not to need to sell any shares. I never planned it that way, but that's what happens when you stop giving 1.7% to the fund managers every year 

The debate as to whether you invest to achieve a dividend stream or invest to achieve capital appreciation will go on forever, because a number of factors are missing the major one being that we are not privy to the persons circumstances either financially or physical (health). There are always costs associated with purchases whether it be brokers fees or fees to purchase SATRIX and other types of instruments.
When the markets turns down you may well see your share prices reduce quite significantly, but by the same token if the share price does drop you may well find that the company passes its dividend distribution - the resources has experienced this many times in the past.
Also without knowing a persons circumstances it is impossible to advise or recommend what path that person should pursue - especially if the person is "on pension" I used to have SATRIXDIV in my portfolio and dumped them as they showed limited growth. When I sold out (May 2013) they were at R 2.05 and are now trading at R 2.09 and their dividend stream was not something to write home about - so its not an investment I would return to.
The individual who is trying to decide which path to walk has a difficult journey as forumites don't know access to your lifestyle and/or circumstances and thus can not provide any real proposals or options to be considered. Also of bigger concern is that people on this forum will provide their opinions based on their own circumstances and they will by nature be very different to other forum commentators. If I look at my own circumstances my comments are based on my experiences, decision making, and my particular financial disposition and that my investment strategy is for today or the next five years, but has a horison for 12 and more years hence
My personal recommendation to those who are undecided is seek out a highly qualified and pragmatic investment advisor who is not peddling a companies products (on which he/she gets commissions) and lay out your thinking and logics and then get the advisor to given his qualified views - he/she mapping out benefits of taking up different options to your views.
Just my opinions - do not act on them as cast in stone - we are all uniquely different as are our circumstances