Once again, as I sip on a delicious, warm cup of coffee, I have found myself shaking my head. This time, the disappointment was at the hands of Pepsico (PEP). Their recent 3% dividend increase left a lot to be desired. It is significantly lower than last year and their 5-year average dividend growth rate. But Pepsi wasn’t the only company that has made me feel this way in 2019. We’re noticing a frustrating trend in 2019….slowing dividend growth.
Well, 2019 is off to quite the start isn’t it? The market madness that ended the year continued into the beginning of 2019. Looks like we should expect a fun 2019 after all! For the last time this year, it is time to review my previous month’s dividend income and assess my performance. This one was exciting and I had a hunch that a record was looming. The results were tallied and my thoughts were confirmed. Time to dive into my December dividend income summary!
Since I am have free trades for a few more months, I was able to make a series of small purchases over the last several weeks. With Mr. Market being moody, there were plenty of positions that I wanted to add to or begin establishing. There is one new name on this list and I was able to add this company three times during this time frame! With the market sliding, I turned my attention to Dividend Aristocrats. In times like these, I like to try to add to those companies that have demonstrated their ability to pay their dividend through many economic cycles. Especially when the Aristocrats are trading at a discount. 
This year, we launched our financial education series. The purpose was to educate investors on various aspects of dividend investing or just investing in general. Some articles have been as fundamental as “What is a Dividend?” while some articles took a deeper dive into a topic, such as “What is a REIT and How Are Dividends From a REIT Taxed?” Today’s article will take a step out of the dividend specific topic and explain the differences between mutual funds and ETFs. Both types of investments are important diversification options and are similar (but with some key differences). And of course, as you would expect, there will be a dividend twist at some point in this article! Let’s start peeling back the layers!
Man oh man has the fourth quarter started off with a bang! Mr. Market has been pretty volatile and the interest rate environment continues to rise. Plenty of bloggers took advantage of the recent swings and added nice chunks of change to their forward dividend income totals. We definitely did. But before we look too far ahead in the future, it is time for one of our favorite monthly articles to compile. Why? Because our inspiration to hustle, grind, and keep pushing towards financial freedom stems from all of you in the blogging community. That’s what makes this community so special. For those of you that are not familiar, each month, each month, we gather as many dividend income summaries from the community to share the results with all of you. Here is the September installment of our dividend income from YOU the bloggers series!
At the end of my September dividend income summary article, I mentioned that I was extremely motivated and excited to purchase some stocks in October. Shortly after, I put together a watch list identifying four dividend stocks that were on my radar. It did not take long for me to put some capital to work with some of the stocks on this watch list. When a stock price falls after you add it to your watch list, how could you say no? These purchases were small and frequent due to our free trade credits from Ally Investing, so there will be a few different stocks in this article. Here are the stocks I have been purchasing over the last couple of weeks!
Shortly after I purchased shares of KHC last week, I decided to jump back into the action. Mr. Market presented two opportunities for investments that were on my watch list. So I couldn’t resist the opportunity to add some nice dividend income, right? Here is why I purchased additional shares of Kraft (again) and initiated a new position in National Grid (NGG)!
