Dividend Growth Investing at Work - Raising Rents and Dividends


Something I love about dividend growth investing is that each month I get to hear about companies I own deciding to pay me more money in dividends.  Just for owning a small portion of said companies.  Not going and doing R&D for new products or technology.  Not selling any products.  Not managing any employees or inventory.  Not making sales calls.  All I had to do was have the foresight to invest some of my savings in excellent companies.  That's dividend growth investing at work!  I mean who doesn't like getting a raise for doing nothing?

December has been a quiet month for dividend increases among the holdings in my FI Portfolio.  Although just over halfway through the month I've received 2 small increases from 2 of the REITs that I own.

First up was W.P. Carey (WPC) which announced a raise on December 10th.  The new quarterly payout will be $0.9646 compared to the previous payout of $0.955.  That's just a 1.01% increase, but a raise is a raise.  Since I own 20.314 shares of WPC the raise increased my forward 12-month dividends by a measly $0.78.  While this increase was quite small and unimpressive, WPC typically gives owners multiple smaller increases throughout the year.  This provides a steady increase in cash flow rather than larger but one time increases each year.  Year over year the dividend has increased from $0.95 to $0.9646 or 1.54%.  It's still not impressive an given the slow down in dividend growth W.P. Carey is on my list for further examination.

On Wednesday of this week the Board of Directors at Realty Income (O) announced yet another increase in their monthly payout.  The dividend only increased from $0.1905 to $0.1910 or 0.26%.  Since I own 91.685 shares of Realty Income my forward 12-month dividends increased by a total of $0.55.  Like W.P. Carey, Realty Income typically announces multiple smaller increases throughout the year.  Year over year the dividend has increased from $0.1834167 to $0.191 which is a much more palatable 4.13% increase.

My forward dividends increased by $1.33 with me doing nothing.  That's right, absolutely nothing to contribute to their operations.  It's nothing to brag about but it's much better than the alternative like Kinder Morgan announced this month with a 75% dividend cut.  Based on my portfolio's current yield of 3.20% this raise is like I invested an extra $41.56 in capital.  Except that I didn't!  Two of the companies I own just decided to send more of the profits my way.  That's how you can eventually reach the crossover point where your dividends received exceed your expenses.  That's DIVIDEND GROWTH INVESTING AT WORK!  That's the beauty of the dividend growth investing strategy because you build up your dividends by fresh capital investment as well dividend increases from the companies you own.

December is quite slow and there's only one more expected increase among my holdings.  The next and last company expected to announce an increase is AT&T (T) which could announce today or early next week based on the history of their announcements.  I expect the Board of Directors to give more than the token $0.01 raise that has been the norm for the last couple years although it'll likely only be a $0.02 raise.  Time will tell!

My FI Portfolio's forward-12 month dividends are up to $5,645.34 and including my Loyal3 portfolio's forward dividends of $61.00 brings my total taxable account forward dividends to $5,706.34.

Do you own any of the companies mentioned?  Have you been receiving raises from any of your other holdings this month?

Image courtesy of digitalart on FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Comments

  1. Looking great, JC! On average, your perpetual earnings is about $475 per month! Keep up the good work!

    Take care!
    FerdiS, DivGro

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ferdi,

      Yeah $475 per month is nice, although it was up to $500+ before the KMI cut. That one hurt a bit.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete

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