We’ve closed the chapter on yet another month of 2016. Time moves so fast…it is unreal. It seems like just yesterday I was typing up my July dividend income summary and feeling excited for what was in store for me in August (probably because we went on our honeymoon!). I received my last dividend of the month a few days ago, so it is finally time to once again share my results and track my progress as I race towards completing my 2016 goals. With that being said, here it is, my August Dividend Income Summary!
August Dividend income summary
In August, I received $172.36 in dividend income, an increase of 30.8% from my August 2015 total of $131.77. Interestingly, I did not receive any dividend income from any new companies. Rather, the catalyst for my dividend growth compared to last year was from opting to increase my stake in two bank stocks, Citizens and Northern in May and Norwood Financial in December, versus investing in a new company that pays a dividend in the second month. I’ve been debating a lot recently whether or not I want to continue to grow positions that I already own or if I want to continue initiating new positions. See such large increases in these two bank stocks is encouraging me to continue building on my current positions. I did that with Target a few weeks ago when I purchased 30 additional shares and I cannot wait until December rolls around so I can collect the first dividend check from my newly fortified position.
The two pullbacks in my dividend income compared to last August are old news at this point, so I won’t discuss it too much. We all remember the Kinder Morgan dividend slash, and that continues to negatively impact my dividend income summaries until 2017. The same goes for the decrease in OIEIX, one of the high fee dividend focused mutual funds that I sold at the beginning of the year because I was sick and tired of paying high fees on my mutual funds. Luckily, the increased investments in CZNC and NWFL well outpaced the decreases in dividend income from the KMI cut and the selling of OIEIX. Overall, I couldn’t be more excited about my August dividend income totals.
August Dividend Increases and stock purchases
Last month, I report that I didn’t receive any dividend increases. Well, I inadvertently omitted one dividend increase that was announced at the end of the month. Bank of America, my very first holding that was a gift from my Grandma when I was younger, increased their dividend 50% from $.05/share to $.075/share. The kicker…I only own 11 shares, so this increase barely increased my dividend income. But I will take any dividend increase I can. Outside of the BAC increase, Kraft-Heinz increased their dividend $.025/share to $.60/share from $.575/share.
In terms of purchases, I only made one and I referenced the Target purchase earlier in the article. Lanny also added to his stake in CZNC this month as well. Outside of those purchases and Lanny’s new massive 401k contributions resulting from his tax-adjustment strategy, we were relatively quiet in terms of purchases.
summary
I have to be very careful in how I choose my words here because I have gotten yelled at by some followers over the last few monhts (*cough* *cough* Divhut ) about the use of the word boring to describe my monthly dividend income in the off months. My month was not boring, it just did not have a lot of activity considering I did not receive income from any new companies in the month. But those are the best kind of months. Boring/lack of activity is what has helped me amass over $3,000 in forward dividend income and has helped catapult Lanny to over $7,000! Boring/lack of activity is what we strive for, because we look for companies that focus on slow and steady long term growth. We are designed for these kind of months. I couldn’t be happier with the 30% increase I realized compared to the same time last year and the foundation of my dividend house keeps getting strong and stronger. September is going to be an exciting month and I cannot wait to begin receiving income from all the companies in my portfolio that pay in the third month of the quarter.
How was your August dividend income? Did you set any new records? Did you receive any new income from companies that pay an August dividend? If you were me, would you focus on adding to current positions or would you continue to add new companies to your portfolio? How many individual stocks do you own?
Bert