Busy season is two months down and thank God it’s a short month, as these are the dog days of them all. However, what makes this month fun is that we close out a month of dividend income earlier and start to step into the iconic March dividend income. Cleveland has been a bit of a whirlwind as of late – it was 75 degrees and now it’s back into the 20’s. Talk about getting sick with the climate change! On a stock note – the market, this month, has been up almost 3% in the last 30 days, ending February 24th. This has definitely sidelined me from making dividend stock purchases, killing me! Let’s see what February has brought me in regards to dividend income.
Dividend income
Another record month for February, I received a total of $322.59. Very consistent names here, with a decent number of entities sending checks my way, see the table below.
Here we have a solid 12 different entities sending checks to me this month! Fairly evenly spread, outside of my big bad boy bank of Citizens & Northern (CZNC), which I recently made an additional purchase into this year. In total, they provided $75.81 for the month, which reinvested to essentially 3 shares, love dividend reinvesting at work! However, it’s been a slow purchase month of February for me, but Bert was able to take advantage of T. Rowe Price (TROW), by buying before their dividend increase announcement.
Similarly, I have split out between the individual stock amounts and the retirement accounts, as the ” – R” indicates a retirement account dividend (or the furthest column to the right). I separate these two, as I like to know what portion of my dividend income is coming from those retirement accounts that I cannot touch until 59.5 (barring any other usage rule I could use). Here, it shows that I received a small total of $151.07 (up from $119.44 last year or up a staggering 26.5%) or 46.8% of my income from retirement accounts and the other 53.2% was from my individual taxable account portfolio. Additionally, this shows from retirement accounts that I’m all ready for my set it and forget it mentality to keep that income going. To see my portfolio – one can go to our portfolio summary page.
Dividend income year over year comparison
2017: 
2016: 
Here we go now, back in business versus my small 1% growth YoY in January, as February shows a 17% growth from last year! Now that’s what I’m talking about, loving it. So what about the comparison? Where did stuff just pop? Well, you can see that this year I do have a whopper from CZNC, that’s a given. HCP – moved the dividend into the first few days of March, which offset the CZNC addition. Furthermore, Realty Income (O), continues to deliver solid gains all around, as the increase from this was 10.2%. Additionally, you ca see that Procter & Gamble (PG) dividend was higher due to my purchase back in January, which was done a day before their ex-dividend date, nice timed purchase. Items are trending in the right direction, as if HCP was included here, this would be an even better story. Looking forward to 2017, that’s for sure and one can see my goals for 2017 here.
dividend increases
A month wouldn’t be a month without high quality companies increasing their dividend! See the small chart below for the details on the dividend increases announced this month that are holdings in my portfolio.
So pumped! Loving this as well, ah… dividend increases truly came through in the clutch, that’s for sure. The surprising one from Pepsi (PEP) that came through in their release of earnings was always pleasant and the solid one from Archer Daniels (ADM), continues to stay consistent and critical. I do enjoy Canadian Imperial’s (CM) almost a quarterly basis increase (typically 3 out of 4 they increase), but the US to Canadian exchange rate has been the kicker! To add a forward $38.21 to my income, I would have had to invest at 3.50% $1,092! This is when it really starts to show, in regards to how critical dividend increases are. Pumped for March to see what shows for that month!
dividend income conclusion & Summary
Pretty solid overall and played out reasonably, as expected. However, similar to last month with Kraft (KHC) switching months, HCP switching months had a small impact. Overall, the growth and dividend increases has been very nice and I’m very fortunate to close out February on the note that I was able to. Very lucky.
As I discussed with my updated – normal monthly expenditures at the moment, this $322.59 would cover ~33% of my average $984 monthly expense for my house, including utilities; up from last year and can say it would fully cover most of my driving expense, seriously I need to be done with screaming about it haha. In similar fashion – all of the investing from last year and moves this year, show being frugal to save 60% of my income, that every dollar counts, has helped me in achieving lofty goals that I set in place for my 2017 year. LET’S GO!!!!
How did your first month turn out? More/better than expected? Learn anything new about what to do going forward? Stepping closer & closer to financial freedom? Would love to hear how it all went! Any other comments or suggestions would definitely be appreciated. Hope everyone had a nice month and are staying healthy during the spiraling climate changes, talk soon and happy investing!
-Lanny