I cannot believe that we have another month in the book! Where the heck is time going? Baseball season is coming and life is flying fast at me. All great stuff though. This month’s article even features a new image! Finally, I decided to do away with the old “Dividend Income” image and get creative. Lanny updated his last year, so it was time for me to as well. My wife and I were playing Scrabble and then I had this idea for the article. But back to business, I’m starting to ramble. At the beginning of the month, we each post our dividend income summaries to track and monitor our progress. Lanny recently released his March dividend income summary and produced absolutely insane numbers. I’ll let you see them for yourself. But all I have to say is DAMN LANNY! It is my turn now. Here is my March dividend income summary!
Bert’s March Dividend Income Summary
In March, I received $1,742.40 in dividend income, a 95% year over year increase. Holy smokes. I couldn’t believe the final tally when it came in. That was much higher than anticipated. Here is a detailed breakdown and detailed summary of the individual stocks and mutual funds that paid me a dividend this month:
Here are some quick comments:
- As you can see, the mutual fund distributions were out of control this March compared to the previous month. This was caused by two factors. First, last year was the first year my wife and I maximized our 401(k) contributions for the year. After 12+ months of doing it, the results really started to show. We have well over $25k more funds invested in these funds compared to the same period last year. So naturally, the dividend is going to increase accordingly. The second factor magnified this though. A few of my funds paid a large capital gains distribution compared to the previous year. So not only was the dividend larger, but there was another HUGE payout that wasn’t made at this time last year. This was the driving catalyst of my large year-over-year increase compared to last year.
- I received dividends from 8 additional positions in 2019 that were not in my portfolio at this time in 2018. Some of those names, Pepsi, Dominion, Exxon, UPS, etc., provided HUGE dividends compared to last year.
- The HCP decrease this month was the other side of the timing difference I mentioned last month. HCP paid in February in 2019 compared to March in 2018.
- It is hard to tell and there are too many individual ones to list out here. But there were a lot of nice increases from companies that paid dividends in both years for me due to large dividend increases in 2018. I mentioned how strong growth was last year in an article I wrote in 2019, and this monthly summary is further evidence of that trend.
March Portfolio News and Updates
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.
Well, after a lot of dividend increases in January and February, this was a pretty light month. Our favorite monthly dividend paying company, Realty Income, provided a slight increase in their dividend. Do I wish the increases resulted in more dividend income…ABSOLUTELY. Am I going to complain about it….HECK NO. I’ll never complain about a dividend increase, especially after the Kraft-Heinz dividend cut. Although, I do find it funny that my income would have increased more this month by finding three stray carts in an Aldi parking lot and returning them than by dividend increases.
This next table summarizes the additional dividend income received from stock purchases and 401k contributions.
From these two sources, I was able to add $126.54 in dividend income! I recently discussed my purchases of WRK and CVS in an article, so I won’t elaborate more on the topic. And the remaining difference is related to 401(k) contributions. In total, from dividend increases and stock purchases, my dividend income increased $127.10! Not a bad day at the figurative office, eh?
Summary
Well, I am pretty freaking excited about the results! How could I not be? I know that I won’t be able to sustain a 95% annual dividend increase. So I am going to enjoy this one. It is funny, recently, some days have been good for me and some days have been bad. But when I see results like these, it reminds me of why I am on this journey to financial independence. I have a lot of hard work ahead of me. That’s for sure. But I’m ready to continue fighting and clawing my way towards financial independence. We will all get there, I promise. So let’s hit the ground running and make it freaking happen. LET’S GO!
How were your months of March? Did you set a record? What new companies paid you a dividend compared to last year? What dividend increases did you receive during the month?
Bert