Well, Lanny started our dividend income summary party off with quite a bang. Almost $5,500 Lanny! U n b e l i e v a b l e. That is how you motivate me and the rest of this awesome dividend investing community. Like Lanny, I am happy to say that my wife and I posted a personal record in December and I’m excited to share the results!
Dividend Investing is amazing for so many reasons. As we continue to build a growing, passive income stream by investing in undervalued dividend growth stocks identified by our dividend stock screener, it is always important to track your progress and make sure you are achieving your goals. Seeing the progress makes the income feel real. And eventually, one day, it will help you reach the highly coveted financial freedom.
See – The Dividend Stock Screener that helps us identify undervalued dividend growth stocks
See – Our Dividend Income Summaries each month since 2014
For the last five years, we have logged out dividend income results. The totals are summarized on our dividend income page. You can see first hand the results that each dividend stock purchase, dividend increases, and each reinvested dividend has had. We continue to fuel the FI/RE one purchase, one increase, and one DRIP at a time. So that is why I am always so excited to type up my monthly dividend income summary. To review the results and hold myself accountable. With that in mind, here is my October dividend income summary.
See – The Individual Holdings in Our Dividend Stock Portfolios
Bert’s December Dividend Income Summary
In December, my wife and I received $3,809.07 in dividend income. That’s a 51.1% increase compared to the $2,520.29 total last year. As I mentioned earlier, this was a PERSONAL RECORD for us and we look forward to working to beat this mark once again in 2020! Here is a detailed listing of the individual holdings that paid us dividends during the month:
Here are some highlights and notes about the month:
- Obviously, the impact of mutual funds was real this month. I don’t know about you, but I received some INSANE capital gains distributions from our fund family holdings. This isn’t too surprising given the strong market; however, I am still shocked by just how much income that produced for me in 2019. Hopefully the market continues to rise and this trend continues next year.
- For the record, displaying mutual incomes was not the easiest this year. Our retirement accounts changed mutual funds at various points in 2019. Further, we moved HSA’s several times. First, after leaving an employer, I switched my HSA account to Lively, a free online HSA account that allows you to invest your funds freely using a TD Ameritrade brokerage. I loved Lively; however, I transitioned all of my accounts to Fidelity during the summer to consolidate accounts into one brokerage. So I transfered my HSA once again from Lively to Fidelity. I’ll tell you what. Having all investment accounts under one roof has been AMAZING. The SPYD/SPTM dividend in the chart comes into play. Second, rather than display each individual mutual fund and try to compare, I just consolidate my mutual fund payouts and my wifes into one line item.
- This year, we took advantage of a dip in 3M’s stock price and built up our positions. You can see the new dividend received and it was nice to get that big check from one of my “Always Buy” companies.
- Like 3M, we also have built up our positions in Exxon Mobil over the last 12 months. The oil market continues to be volatile and quite frankly, interesting to follow. I think I am done adding for now; however, if their price were to fall into the mid-$60s, I would have to buy. Maybe I’ll shift gears and add to Royal Dutch Shell, one of the companies on Lanny’s January watch list instead. I received a dividend from them this month and it was one of my first dividend stocks purchased. But that dividend could always be larger, right??
- Other than that, you can see the impact of stock purchases and dividend increases. I didn’t want to highlight each one; however, it continues to amaze me the impact time has on your dividend stock portfolio.
Bert’s December Dividend Stock Portfolio Update
After announcing that our portfolio crossed a major investing milestone lin November, I am trying to continue pushing forward in my quest towards financial freedom. In this section of the article, I discuss stock purchases and dividend increases received. Both of which help point the dividend arrow higher, and higher.
Read: Milestone Achieved – Crossing $10,000 in Projected Dividend Income
First, let’s look at the impact from stock purchases and 401(k) contributions. I’ll keep this section rather brief since I wrote about my November and December stock purchases. After the article was published, I simply added 5 more shares to Canadian Imperial. Since I covered the stocks in detail, and my only addition was to a company that I discussed, I won’t elaborate further in this article. If you want more information, my last purchase article summarizes each stock purchase made in November and December. In total, purchases and 401(k) contributions added $103.51 to my forward dividend income. Not too bad, not too bad
Now, on to dividend increases. Dividend increases are the name of our game and will help fuel the growth of our dividend income stream without lifting a finger. Lanny and I are ALWAYS watching dividend increases and share each one with each other. Quite frankly, it is a blast tracking them.
This month was a pretty solid month of dividend increases, per the table above. While none of the dividend increases were large individually, in aggregate, the impact was strong. AT&T provided us with their standard $.01 per share increase in their quarterly dividend and PFE followed suit with their recent $.02 per share increase. I’ll never complain about the size of an increase, especially when they add $27.36 to my forward dividend income.
Read: Expected Dividend Increases in January 2020
Summary
This was a very exciting way to close out 2019. A new personal record is always great. But what excites me is that I was able to continue to add dividend income via purchases and increases. My goal for 2020 is to continue building on this momentum, continue pushing harder, and continue increasing my forward dividend income. Watching Lanny’s growth over the year and his recent insane totals is all the motivation I need to see that investing consistently and frugal living works. It is simple and that’s why I’m going to work harder to make EVERY DOLLAR COUNT in 2020.
How did you perform in December? Did you set any new records? Did you have strong mutual fund capital gains distributions as well? How many new companies paid you a dividend?
Bert