Lanny’s February Dividend Income Summary

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Second month down and another month of dividends in.  I don’t know about you, but the dividend increases keep coming in hot, right off of the Tax Cuts, Jobs Act!  It’s been a very exciting time to keep in touch with the stocks you own, as you never know when the next company will be announcing a dividend increase.

dividend income

I received a total of $387.52 in dividend income in February.  This is a solid increase from last year, which I will talk about in the next section.  There were really no surprises, no movements of dividend expected payments as it relates to timing and everything went smooth.  The 401(k), Health Savings Account (HSA) and all dividends are automatically invested/reinvested and helps take the emotion out of timing & making a decision.  Also, to find out why I max out my 401(k) and HSA – please refer to the 3rd part of my tax series, as that describes the magnitude of benefits to increase the amount you can invest due to reduction in taxes.

Here we have a solid 14 different entities sending checks to me this month (Up from 12 last year)!  Wow.  I receive a triple digit dividend payment from AT&T (T).  So crazy to say that up there on the board.  That reinvested into almost 3 shares as well, producing even more in forward dividend income.  Only one purchase was made this month, I hopped back on the Realty Income (O) wagon, and picked up shares when they spiked down into the $48’s.  I will start benefiting from this starting with March’s dividend payment.

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 $171.67 (up from $151.07 last year) or 44.3% of my income from retirement accounts and the other 55.7% 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: 

2018: 

So what are the differences here?  My purchases last year in Hormel (HRL) and CVS (CVS) have begun paying dividends on a quarterly basis.  Further, I had purchase in AT&T (T) towards the end of last year, so the results are easily seen above.  Year over year, the dividend income increase was 20.13%.  I believe May’s dividend will show even better results, due to the reinvestment and dividend increases.  I am very happy with a 20% dividend increase, however!

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.

We all know by now, the power of the dividend growth rate is real!  Let’s just say tax reform has continued to be nice, as it relates to dividend increases.  January brought $82.88 in additional, forward income from dividend increases, but I wonder if February can stack up?  Similar to January, I had so many surprising dividend increases.  Cisco (CSCO), came out and had a solid 14% dividend increase.  T. Rowe (TROW) swung heavy with a whopping 23% increase and BHP Billiton (BBL) also had a very strong increase, as their dividend has come roaring back.  Double digit dividend growth rates is gladly accepted by me, as that’s one of the best reasons to be a dividend income investor!  In order to achieve this much forward income, one would have to invest $3,164 at 3.50%!  The last two months combined has added $193.62.  Thank you companies for the dividend increases!

dividend income conclusion & Summary

The name of the game is to learn and act in the right manner to what you have learned.  The plan is to maximize every dollar for investment opportunities and live a balanced life.  My hope is that my month of dividend income above shows the community that one can use dividend income as a revenue engine to take back control of your life.  Dividend investing, once you learn the right way, becomes easier to do and starts to make quite a bit of sense : )

As I discussed with my updated – normal monthly expenditures at the moment, this dividend income would cover over 39% of my average $984 monthly expense for my house, including utilities.  Almost covering half of the amount, I will get there soon.  In addition, my auto loan is finally gone and I am able to deploy the additional capital for all of 2018 into new investments that are opportunistic.  In similar fashion –  all of the investing from last year and moves this year, shows that my aim to save 60% of my income, and making every dollar count, has allowed promising results already this year.

How crazy are these dividend increases?  Are you able to keep up with all of the announcements?  I know I barely can.  Definitely leave your comments, thoughts and other investment items below!  Excited to read the comments and thank you, the community, for stopping by; as you are helping me on my journey to financial freedom!

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46 thoughts on “Lanny’s February Dividend Income Summary”

    • Tom –

      I still love HRL. The only question I have is what can they do to sustain their dividend growth rate? This year, my expectations are lower than last year’s dividend growth rate. Thoughts?

      -Lanny

      Reply

      • Lanny, I’m gonna do a dividend deep dive before I invest and follow it up with a blog post I think. I recently completed and will post a sector review on big food in the next few days. HRL stuck out to me as the best of the herd (the herd being…KHC, GIS, CPB, K, SJM) given HRL’s combination of yield and dividend growth. Agree, that their recent dividend growth may not be sustainable. I’m in no rush, just checking your pulse. Tom

        Reply

      • Awesome total for the month and amazing to see some pretty crazy dividend increases. Just one of the many perks of being a dividend growth investor. Keep up the good work as usual. My two cents… I am liking HRL too at this point. In fact, it’s one of my March potential picks though I’m still liking the severely beaten REITs too. Great job for Feb!!! On to the next month!

        Reply

    • Lou –

      I own NGG, price hasn’t moved much over the years, yield is strong and they are a HUGE player. Obviously – international with semi-annual dividend payments, how do you feel about that?

      -Lanny

      Reply

  3. Hi Lanny,
    Great month and it definitely is an example of how we should play the game! It works out really well in your case.
    I shared the dividend increase form CSCO this month and was hyped when I heard the news!
    Keep it up!
    -BI

    Reply

    • BrokeI –

      Thanks for coming by. How nice was Cisco? I almost fell out of bed when I read that the next day. I also LOVED T. Rowe’s… just amazing. We both need to stay on the path, LETS GO!

      -Lanny

      Reply

  4. Awesome stuff Lanny. I have to say the pace and size of the dividend increases has been fantastic. Through the end of February I’ve had 15 raises increasing my forward dividends by about $138 compared to 2017’s 10 and $61 I’m pretty excited. And congrats on nearing the $400 mark. I’m sure by May you’ll cross over that milestone.

    Reply

    • Duke –

      Thank you for the motivation. Just pumped it is still going in the “right” direction and 20% growth for me is very pleasing! I need to make that a baseline or give it an extra espresso jolt in there.

      -Lanny

      Reply

  7. Good job Lanny! That is some great yoy growth. Those increases are really starting to help your portfolio. I’m glad to hear that you got your auto loan paid off. I look forward to seeing your portfolio growth in the future. Thanks for sharing.

    Reply

    • MD –

      Thank you for stopping by and checking out the posting. The growth rate I am pleased with. Now… if only I can get these off months to the $750-$1K per month, that would be great : ) In time…

      -Lanny

      Reply

  8. Awesome work, 20% vs last year is great growth. How do you normally keep up with the announcements? I do it a bit lazily, either I see it show up in a forum or I notice that the payout was higher than the last, but I don’t actively seek out the announcements.

    Reply

    • MrSLM –

      Honestly – other blogs that post about them and I am a stickler/anal about going on investor news pages every few days of 10 or so companies I own, just to see what’s going on. For the consistent dividend payers that increase it the same day of the same month – those are easy to tell.

      -Lanny

      Reply

  9. Great work over there Lanny! Across my portfolio I’m seeing increases of 10.49% 2018 announced versus 10.95% total 2017. Not to quibble but can you really attribute BBL’s and SOUHY’s increases on the Tax Cuts, Jobs Act?

    Reply

    • Charlie –

      Thank you sir! And wow, double digit growth is looking solid as heck. I don’t attribute BBL’s/SOUHY’s – you are right. They’re just back baby! What do you think?

      -Lanny

      Reply

  10. That’s some outstanding YoY dividend growth, Lanny. Nice job. $100 from T alone is sweet. Also love that you received over $100 in forward dividend income thanks to some nice raises. I was able to share in the TROW and PEP raises. Also, CVS and HRL were stocks I added last year as well. All in all, an excellent February report. Take care.

    Reply

    • Eng Div –

      Thanks for coming by. How fun is this? Those dividend increases? The triple digit dividend income payer? Gosh, so lucky and it’s been a fun time to be a dividend investor so far, hope this continues for all of us!

      -Lanny

      Reply

  17. Amazing results and those dividend increases are just crazy. So far 6 for me this year including the likes of CSCO and HRL. Allthough my amounts are a lot smaller ofcourse 🙂

    Reply

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