Who else is ready for the final push of the year on the dividend stock investing front? Even though time is going by fast, we still need to take time and analyze how performance has been on the dividend income front. Without analyzing the pure numbers, how can one improve? The leaves are falling fast, weather is dropping, the heat is on in the house and my dividend stock portfolio is warming up right along with it. If only I can be financial independent with my dividend income right about now, would be icing on the cake. Let’s check out my October 2017 dividend income total!
Dividend Income
I received a total of $422.03 in dividend income this October. Time, yet again, for the best OCTOBER month ever recorded, crossing $400 for the first time ever in this month. 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. One new investment into Cisco (CSCO) has started to bear fruit in the portfolio. Outside of that receipt, the remaining growth is through dividend increases and reinvestment!
As stated, I bought Cisco (CSCO) not once, but two times this year, once in June and once in August. That investment is churning dividends my way baby! $23.03 almost picked up a whole share, which is awesome and shows the promise the dividends engine will have for me in the future. DowDuPont (DWDP) is a “different” ticker here, as this was a recently formed entity post the merger between the two entities of Dow Chemical and DuPont. My Dow dividend last year was $30.29 and this year is $30.99. This wasn’t a large increase, but that’s due to the large dividend received once the merger closed. A year does a lot for dividend investors and I can’t wait to talk about the comparison from current to prior year.
Similarly, I have split out the taxable and the retirement accounts, as the ” – R” indicates a retirement account dividend (or the furthest column to the right). I separated these two, as I like to know what portion of my dividend income is coming from 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 $36.59 (up from $33.01 last year primarily due to dividend reinvestment & dividend increases) or 8.7% of my income from retirement accounts and the other 91.3% 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: 
Year over year, my portfolio’s dividend income was 13.9% higher in 2017 vs 2016 for October. You’ll notice Kraft-Heinz (KHC) was received this month last year, but not this year – primarily due to their change of payment month now being on a quarter-end. Therefore, even with Cisco added in, this was semi-offset by Kraft being removed. Another piece of information that you can observe analytically is the growth each company had. Each stock that paid last October and this October grew, hands down. Philip Morris (PM) dividend was over 7% higher, which makes a large impact due to size. The largest percentage change was Canadian Imperial (CM), which was 16.5% higher this year versus last year, primarily due to consistent increases and positive exchange rate translation! At this rate, I should be able to earn over $470 next year, but the goal would be to leap that, with my eyes set on over $500!
dividend increases
We all know by now, the power of the dividend growth rate is real! Though not a continuous churn as we’ve seen in prior months, I experienced two very solid dividend increases in October. Additionally, Bert talked about these dividend increases in his Expected November 2017 Increase article, where he debriefed what occurred in October. I know you may be slightly jealous on Visa (V) Bert, at least you received AEP’s increase and I didn’t, even trade? Visa’s (V) increase of over 18% was slightly higher than expectation, as I had mine set lower due to recent trends seen in the dividend growth rate column. Aflac (AFL) was truly business as usual, again, this year. I wish for once they would surprise us with a dividend over 6%! In order to achieve this much forward income, one would have to invest $329 at 3.50%! Thank you very much (companies) for the dividend increases this month!
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 43% of my average $984 monthly expense for my house, including utilities. In addition, my auto loan is finally gone and I am able to deploy the additional capital 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 me to achieve lofty goals that I set in place for my 2017 year. LET’S GO!!!!
Does anyone have any questions on what I’m looking at? What my favorite dividend stock metric is? What my stock screener tools I use when making a purchase? Also, what companies have you enjoyed receiving dividends from? Dividend income can be a very addictive area to build in your life, and I always feel like once I start, it’s hard to stop. Also, please leave any other questions, comments and feedback below! I am looking forward to reading and responding to them and truly appreciate everyone for stopping by! As always, best of luck and happy investing everyone.
-Lanny