My profile picture is an actual picture of me and 3 of my siblings from 1967. I am the boy on the left, and it still bothers me that the photographer had my younger brother be the one standing. I have been a software engineer developing applications in various fields for over 30 years. I began investing in mutual funds for my 401(k) back in 1988.I started investing outside of my retirement account a little over 17 years ago. I used to follow a value oriented strategy, but after I saw how that worked less well than I liked during the financial crisis, I began to switch over to a more income based approach. I had always thought that dividends were important but didn't have a systematic way to evaluate stocks that paid them until I found SA and DGI. Starting around 2010, I have switched my portfolio to a DGI strategy. One of my most profitable picks turned out to be Freddie Mac, which I originally chose because I liked the dividend and because I once worked there. When it first ran into problems I increased my holdings because it still looked like a good value to me. I eventually managed to buy several thousand shares at a cost of $0.50 (I knew that was a good value) and eventually exited the stock at a price that was $5 a share above my average share cost. My biggest miss was when I sold out my 100 shares of Apple shortly after Steve Jobs returned but before he had done much to improve the companies outlook. My holdings include : CCP CMI DLR EMR LTC F GIS  JNJ KMI KO KHZ MCD MO MSFT O OHI PG T VGR WEC XOM