Dom Loves Investing Interview

My good friend Dom is the first person in our interview series. He is knowledgeable and friendly, which is a excellent combo. He regularly interacts on X and if you need support or have a question he is always there to respond. Another thing I like about Dom is he is humble and always willing to learn. I hope you all enjoy the interview and it pushes you to invest in your future. Thanks for reading. If you haven’t already, give him a follow. Socials below!

Socials

X – Dom Loves Investing – @Dom_Investing

Tell me a little about yourself. Your age, hobbies, career, etc. Whatever you feel comfortable sharing.

Hi, my name is Dominik, or Dom if you like, I’m 35 years old and I live in Austria/Europe. I’m married and have two beautiful daughters (3 & 6). I work in law enforcement in Vienna, the capital of Austria.

In my spare time I spend time with the family, we like to travel a lot, go to the gym or meet friends. My biggest hobby of course is investing :P.

How long have you been investing? In addition, what does your portfolio currently look like?

I started during the crypto bull run in 2021. That went horribly wrong. My dividend portfolio, which I’m focusing on for now and also post about on X, went alive in November 2022. Basically, it’s now a little over a year old and I’m making good progress. (Almost at 10k and just had my best dividend month in January 24).

On the side I still hold a bit of crypto of course, I’m in P2P lending and emergency fund in HYSA.

What made you get into investing? Do you remember your first trade?

It was more of a “forced” coincidence, because my bank sent me a note, that they won’t support the savings account I had with them any longer.

As I was looking for alternatives, I read more and more about investing. That it can get more if I let it work for me. At some point I completely got sucked in. I ordered all the finance and investing books out there and watched YT videos on this topic all day.

My first trade was the cryptocurrency $CRO, I locked the coins in order to receive one of their metal VISA cards – which I still use to this day!

What kind of investments do you prefer? How do you feel about crypto?

I prefer investing in dividend stocks. For me it has several benefits.

• Most dividend companies are high quality companies with long track record
• Dividend increases without me doing anything
• I get paid no matter if the market is up or down
• For me it’s more motivating seeing regular dividends hit my account, keeps me going
• Most “passive” income you can get

About crypto, as mentioned before I started with crypto, but at the time it was a complete YOLO, FOMO into every scam project I could find.

From today’s standpoint, I believe in crypto in the long run, it won’t go away anymore. I still hold a few coins, waiting for them to go to the moon.

I also believe, that Bitcoin will be the digital gold.

Follow Up

You mentioned you live in Austria, are your investments mostly European companies or do you buy USA ones as well? And if you do both, which ones do you prefer?

Besides my only dividend ETF (iShares STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 UCITS ETF (DE)), which holds companies from around the world like Japan, Australia, GB and Germany, I only buy US stocks.

But I don’t see them as US companies, I view them as international companies based in the US. If you take Apple, Microsoft, Coca Cola, Mc Donald’s…..think about it, you can’t get more international. We have them all here in Europe as well. For tax reasons though, I’m considering buying more European stocks in the future, maybe even a little allocation in an Austria ETF 🙂

What are your goals for your portfolio?  Is it a never-ending process or do you have an end goal in mind?

Right now, my big goal is the first 100k invested, just in dividend stocks, without the other investments. I started my X account to document my journey there! The ultimate end goal would be of course, to replace my income with my income from investments.

Follow Up

With your big goal of 100k invested, what are you hoping to get a month? To give you an idea, I’m hoping for at least $2k-$3k a month in dividends by the time I retire.

With 100k invested I’m aiming for € 500,- a month. Considering that my other investments make me money as well, that’s a good milestone!
Ultimately I would need 3k a month to live a comfortable life, with my wife still working :D. To retire both of us, we would need a bit more, at least till our house is paid off.

If married, does your partner invest with you? Together or separate? (Ignore if not married)

My wife and I have monthly money meetings, where we track our spending and savings/investments. She is not really interested in investing, she prefers paying extra on our mortgage, gives her a better sleep at night.

So, my task is, to grow our money, hers is to shrink the dept (we just have a mortgage, no other depts).

The market has been on the upswing, is it still a good time to buy in your opinion or should people wait?

It is already proven, and common sense among investors, that DCA (dollar cost averaging) is the best method over a long period of time.

“Time in the market, not timing the market”. I’ll make my monthly contributions, no matter what the market does.

Other than that, if I have money left over, I mostly buy stocks that are in the red for me.

What are some characteristics you feel an investor should have if they are to succeed?

• Patience – wealth building takes time
• Knowledge – you should know where you’re putting your money
• Experience – making mistakes and learning from them
• Good risk-management – diversify, high risk- high reward, low risk- low reward
• Curios – never stop learning an be open for new possibilities

What advice would you give to a new investor right now? Is there a stock or stocks you would recommend for their first buy?

I think I’m not in the position to recommend specific investments, I’m not a financial advisor. But I would tell them to look into ETFs with low costs that track a broad market. Also, that they have to educate themselves enough, in the end it’s their money and their decision.

Lastly, what was your biggest mistake when it comes to investing?

Besides “I wish I started earlier” :P. Starting to invest without enough knowledge and just following hype and recommendations of people I don’t even know. By doing that I lost money and had a bad start that could have easily been avoided.

Disclaimer – As always, please seek financial advice from a financial advisor before any major decisions.