It’s only right so say — WE ARE HALF WAY THROUGH THE YEAR!!! On top of that – my Cavs won the NBA Finals and our first championship in 52+ years AND the Tribe are CURRENTLY on a 14 game win streak. Cleveland could not be on any more fire than they are right now. What about my portfolio? Can it keep up with the heat that Cleveland as it’s aura? Did my Dividend Portfolio spit out the best income it’s ever had? Well, let’s find this out and see if I hit some big targets!
Dividend income
This month, I received a total of $1,100.00, WHOA! HERE WE GO!! This is even better than my best month that was received in December 2015! Cannot believe this, wow, wow, wow. The dividend mantra was definitely with me this past month. As you can see, my retirement accounts definitely provide a big jolt to the income mark, as well as some nice steady high profile aristocrats in my taxable account. Now… let’s analyze:
What’s awesome here is you can see the impact of the big ADM purchase back in January and the February swoop in of T. Rowe Price (TROW) have started pouring in some dividends for this portfolio, at $42.34 and $25.57, respectively.
Similarly, I have split out between the individual stock amounts and the retirement accounts, as the ” – R” indicates a Roth IRA dividend (or the furthest column to the right, I must have left the “R”‘s off this month). 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 total of $496.63 or 45.1% of my income from retirement accounts (down from 51% last year, which is a positive) and the other 54.9% was from my individual taxable account portfolio. We all know my set it and forget it mentality to keep that retirement income going, but also pumped to see that I had 10 companies pay me in my taxable individual account. To see my portfolio – one can go to our portfolio summary page.
Comparison
Something that I like to do now is attach in prior year’s dividend income, which the image is copied in below, with 2015 first and 2016 to follow.
2015: 
2016: 
Similarly as stated above – T. Rowe Price (TROW) and Archer Daniels (ADM) were the bigger/new entities in my portfolio, as well as Norfolk Southern (NSC), when compoaring to my portfolio and what was received last year. Further – my dividend from the VGK ETF was up about $24 and VINIX 401(k) mutual fund was also up around $35, year over year. I love this. This growth is phenomenal, at 30.31% – I WOULD LOVE to keep doing this! Think I can crush over $1,400 next year? Well, I hope that the fact that I recently CRUSHED over $7,000 in projected dividend income helps get me there, that’s for sure! So lucky here.
Dividend increases
So last month I added over $17 in dividend income from dividend increases. This month, we managed to add half at $8.51 from Target (TGT) and Realty Income (O) – both amazing dividend payers, that’s for sure, as shareholders I think it’s easy to say – WE LOVE YOU!! Also – I scooped up another 30 shares earlier and then Bert came in to rocket a monster purchase into them as well. I love that I’ve had consistent months of new income from dividend increases, so thank you companies for doing this!
Conclusion & Summary
As I discussed with my NEW updated – normal monthly expenditures at the moment, this $1,100 would cover 117% of my average $984 monthly expense for my house, including utilities; this is also up from 90% last year, so we are going in the right direction. 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 2016 year. What do you guys think of my month of June? Were you able to take advantage of the “BREXIT” and buy on a few of those steep dips before the market rebounded? Did you yourself set a new dividend record? Excited for what’s to come the 2nd half of the year, as I have some monster articles, strategies and new directions to share with everyone. VERY Excited, Scared, and Anxious. Time, is all I have to say. Happy 4th everyone and enjoy the time with friends & family!
-Lanny