Wow. February was a blur for so many different reasons. With a blink of an eye, we find ourselves entering the third month of the year. While personally, things many have been fuzzy, our dividend income continues to roll in, along with the dividend increases. I swear, there was a new dividend increase announced every day in February! Lanny has kicked off our blog’s dividend income summaries and it will be tough to follow his $628 act. But I’ll give it a shot. Here is my February dividend income summary!
Bert’s February Dividend Income Summary
This month, I received $460.38 in dividend income, a 76.64% increase compared to last year! Once again, I fell short of Lanny; but I am pretty darn excited with the results! Below is a table the providing each dividend received:
Here are some quick thoughts and analysis:
- No, I didn’t purchase more shares of CZNC, one of our favorite community bank stocks owned. Rather, the company announced a special dividend in January that was paid in February. Of course I would prefer a larger dividend increase than a one-time special dividend. But I’ll never complain about receiving a special dividend!
- Compared to last year, WRK and ABBV were new dividends received. I started purchasing WRK in Q3/Q4 2018 and Q4 2018/Q1 2019 for ABBV. In fact, ABBV was my last stock purchase and this purchase was made after the ex-dividend date. The dividend in the table about does not even represent my full position in the healthcare company.
- HCP’s large increase was due to a timing difference. In 2018, the company paid their dividend in March. This is a timing difference and I received the benefit this month. In March, it will negatively impact my year-over-year dividend growth rate.
- The additional purchases of PG, T, SBUX, and O made throughout 2018 really bolstered the dividend income totals compared to last year.
- What’s incredible is that this chart shows the strong dividend growth rate in 2018. Look at the increases from KMI, CAT, and NWFL. Those dividend increases were solely due to dividend increases announced by the companies in 2018. Of course, I wrote about how dividend growth is slowing and we may not see this bump at the same time next year. In 2018 though, it added quite the punch!
Bert’s February Portfolio News and purchases
In this section, I’ll review two different ways that my forward dividend income increased during the month: dividend increases and investment activity. In the first table I will review dividend increases.
Told you there were a lot of dividend increases this month. All of these were discussed in my monthly Expected Dividend Income Article except for the Canadian Imperial. Why did they have to announce after the article was released?! The dividend increases were nice. None blew my socks off and I didn’t have the surprise 32% dividend increase (like Home Depot shareholders would have). What’s really frustrating is the Kraft dividend cut. It is the sole reason I am showing a net decrease in dividend income for the period. It sucks! Owning over 60 shares of the consumer giant, that dividend cut hurt. It is in the past now, and there is nothing we can do besides learn from it and apply that lesson to future stock purchases.
This chart shows the increases due to purchases, 401k, and HSA contributions. I mentioned this was a frustrating month and my only purchases this month were made in retirement accounts. Still, we were fortunate enough to add $75 in dividend income this way. There has been one purchase so far in March, so I snapped this my individual stock purchase dry spell. I’m looking to get things rolling again in March and the rest of 2019.
summary
The shortest month of the year is done….good riddance. New and exciting things are on the horizon. Spring training has started, the weather is kind of getting warm, and my wife and I are having a blast setting things up for the spring. I’m ready to roll and am entering March with a completely different mindset. 10 more months to go this year, let’s make EVERY DOLLAR COUNT and take care of business the rest of the year. Each month, each purchase, each dollar saved, gets us THAT much closer to financial freedom.
How were your months? What was your percent dividend increase? What dividend increases did you receive this month? Were you impacted by the Kraft dividend cut? Did Kraft’s dividend cuts outweigh your dividend increases?
Bert