General Mills, Inc. (GIS), B&G Foods, Inc. (BGS), ConAgra Foods, Inc. (CAG): These Stocks Belong in Your Shopping Cart

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One particularly wise piece of investing advice is to buy what you know. In other words, investors who don’t have either the time or the patience to devote hours and hours of their valuable time to portfolio management, can do themselves a huge favor by focusing on stocks they already know a lot about.

General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS)To that end, it’s extremely likely that you’ve come across these companies and their brands many times. The products these companies offer can be found in virtually every grocery store across America, and you don’t need to be a financial whiz to understand their businesses.

Keep it simple

You can take steps to ensure your financial future by owning stocks that pay dividends every quarter like clockwork and raise their dividends every year, allowing their shareholders to build wealth over time due to the magic of compound interest.

General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) offers a diversified portfolio of food products, including Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Wheaties, not to mention a stable of other food items. The company grew astoundingly from very humble beginnings: its first product was Gold Medal flour, introduced all the way back in 1880.

General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) is the gold standard for dividend payers. In early March, General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) raised its dividend 15% to its current level of $1.52 per share annualized. The company has paid uninterrupted dividends for an astounding 114 years in a row, and provides new investors with a solid 3% yield at recent prices.

B&G Foods, Inc. (NYSE:BGS) manufactures and distributes shelf-stable foods and household products, and has a stable of brands including Ortega, Cream of Wheat, and Mrs. Dash. B&G Foods, Inc. (NYSE:BGS) has only been public since 2004, but has paid its investors a dividend every quarter since then.

B&G Foods, Inc. (NYSE:BGS) last raised its dividend in late 2012, providing investors with a 7.4% dividend increase to its current level of $1.16 annualized. At recent prices, the company’s payout amounts to a nearly 4% yield, which looks especially attractive considering the yield on the broader market, as measured by the S&P 500 Index, stands at only 2%.

ConAgra Foods, Inc. (NYSE:CAG) has a market value of $14 billion and creates many household brands, including Healthy Choice, Hebrew National, and Del Monte. ConAgra Foods, Inc. (NYSE:CAG)’s consumer brands can be found in 97% of America’s households, and 28 of them are ranked first or second in their category.

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