Summer is here BABY! Memorial weekend just came to a close and man, the sun is shining fricken bright! Cavs are in the finals and road-tripping is real. On top of that – the Cleveland Indians are starting to roll wins and Encarnacion is using his bat finally! Enough of sports and summer weather – dividends have fully come in for May, so let’s check out the dividend income summary!
Dividend Income
A fairly decent month of May, another “off-month” but came in with a total of $363.22. A nice boost from last year’s May and had some solid dividend payer’s here. This was probably the most expected and consistent month for me; nothing unusual happened and there’s one addition from my CVS purchase back a few months ago. See below:
When looking at the list above, I am optimistic about Kinder Morgan (KMI), surprisingly, in that a small increase could happen in 2018. Additionally, my healthcare REITs within my retirement account were in full-force and Sabra (SBRA) also increased their dividend this month by 2.39%, even after an announced merger/purchase of another entity, love, love that.
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 solid total of $181.94 (up from $107.81 last year due to DRIP, more Citizens & Northern (CZNC) & Growth!) or 50% of my income from retirement accounts and the other 50% 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
2016: 
2017: 
Here we go now! This represents, I believe to HCP’s dividend being received this month, as opposed to their traditional schedule. Obviously, the best pieces here show that each company has had a higher dividend that paid in May of 2016 to May of 2017. Love Realty Income (O) sporting an over 10% year over year increase with just DRIP and dividend growth alone. Overall, the increase here is a WHOPPER 36.5% growth rate. Loving this and very lucky!
Usually I have a segment on dividend increases, and honestly, this was a sad month that I thought John Deere (DE) would have done it or Tupperware (TUP), but both have declared to maintain their dividend. C’mon! Therefore, I won’t do a separate section since it was just Sabra (SBRA) and the impact wasn’t significant. Maybe that’s because I don’t own many of the companies Bert had talked about in his May dividend increase announcement article? Hmm… I should work on changing that.
dividend income conclusion & Summary
As I discussed with my updated – normal monthly expenditures at the moment, this $363.22 would cover ~37% of my average $984 monthly expense for my house, including utilities; which this is awesome and is more than 1/3 of my monthly expenses. Also – looking forward to getting rid of my auto loan payment, unlocking a new cash flow source, so the dividend income this month and going forward will taste that much better. 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!!!!
I dig the increase this month, but know that I’ll have to put more boots to pavement to keep the momentum up. Luckily, the consistency with stock purchases has been there, and I just need to keep the opportunities on the radar, no doubt. Quite a few stocks on my mind, but for some reason – would love a 5% correction, who wouldn’t? Haha. Did everyone have an excellent month of May as well? Did you tear the cover off the ball or end up getting the portfolio sun burnt? Thank you again everyone, please share your thoughts, feedback, guidance and notes below! Talk soon and happy investing!
-Lanny