Dividend Update - December 2018

dividend growth investing | financial independence | freedom | dividends
Dividend Update - December 2018
It's the end of one month and the beginning of another so it's time for my favorite update: my dividend update.  These dividend updates reflect all dividends that I receive through my investing pursuits. I hope they can help inspire you to take control of your own finances and invest to build a passive income stream. What you use that stream for is up to you, whether it's to fund early retirement, just provide some FI/FU money, or even to provide for an annual vacation; the key is that it can provide options and open up all sorts of possibilities. You can check my dividend income or progress pages to see what dedication to an investment plan can give you.

I honestly don't know where the time went.  It seems like just a few weeks ago we were turning the calendar to 2018 and now it's already 2019.  I guess that's the biggest reason that many of us have for pursuing financial independence: to reclaim our time.

In December I set a personal best for dividends received and broke through the $1,000 mark for the 2nd time every.  My FI Portfolio produced $1,035.80 in dividends for December while my Folio First portfolio chipped in another $8.60.  My Roth IRA got back on track with $52.48 of dividends received.  Across all 3 accounts I received a grand total of $1,096.88 in December.  Nearly $1,100 just for owning excellent companies!

FI Portfolio

As I mentioned above my FI Portfolio produced $1,035.80 in dividends last month.  Compared to September that's a modest 0.26% increase.  The year over year increase looks much better at 14.2%.

What I'm most excited about is that without adding fresh capital to the portfolio my 2018 total dividends came in at $6,299.35.  That's a 10.9% increase from 2017's total of $5,680.38 or $618.97 higher!  Considering that was primarily done with dividend growth and reinvestment as well as investing some of the cash dividends that had built up I'm pretty happy with those results.

Roth IRA Portfolio

My Roth IRA got back on track after its mid quarter month hiatus and produced $52.48 in dividends.  Compared to September 2018 that's a small 0.50% increase.  However, the year over year increase is really strong at 26.1%.

What I think is really impressive is that that growth is purely organic dividend growth plus dividend reinvestment.  The 2018 total worked out to $359.72 which is a huge 24.6% increase from 2017's total.  

Dividend Raises During the Month

The pay raises just keep on coming.  December saw another 4 dividends being raised up among my FI Portfolio positions.  You mean a company I own a piece of, albeit tiny, wants to pay out more of their profits to me just because I own part of the company?  Sign me up!  

Combined those 4 companies boosted my forward 12-month dividends by $7.96.  In 2018 I received 59 increases from 50 of the companies within my FI Portfolio combining to increase my forward 12-month dividends by $476.59.

Looking Forward

My forward 12-month dividends for my FI Portfolio ended November at $6,426.03 while my FolioFirst forward dividends are at $92.16.  That brings the total taxable account forward 12-month dividends to $6,518.19  My Roth IRA's forward-12 month dividends increased to $402.79 due to dividend reinvestment.  Across all 3 accounts, assuming no dividend cuts or position size changes, I can expect to receive at least $6,920.98 in dividends over the next year.

Monthly Average

Below is the chart showing the monthly dividend totals for each year that I've been investing as well as the monthly average.  It's not always an increase as some companies have weird payout schedules, as we saw above, and eventually some positions will get dropped, but the long-term trend is what matters.  

The rolling 12-month monthly average for my FI Portfolio is at $524.95 per month which is a solid $52 above 2017's monthly average of $473.37.  
dividend growth investing | dividends | financial independence | freedom
Monthly Comparison of Dividends Received From FI Portfolio
Dividends Received Breakdown
Dividends | Financial Independence | Dividend Growth Investing
Dividends Received Breakdown December 2018
I've updated my Dividend Income page to reflect December's changes.

How did you do on your dividend goals for 2018?  

Let me know in the comments below!

Comments

  1. Nice work PIP, keep up the good work!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A Dividend Dream,

      I'm pretty stoked to see another $1k+ month and can't wait to see how 2019 plays out. I'm hoping that we'll finally get back to regular investing, even if it's just a little bit each month and start building the portfolio and dividends up once more.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  2. Very nice work and great dividend income for Dec and the entire year. We had a record setting month in Dec and ended up with over $18k for 2018. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tawcan,

      I can't complain with how 2018 went considering that we added no new capital once again. Overall I"m pretty happy to see that we crossed the $6k mark for the year and crossed $1k in 2 months, September and December. There's still a long way to go but the direction is trending higher so I'm pretty excited to see what 2019 will bring.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  3. The beauty of dividend investing... little or no fresh capital added and your year over year totals still rise. As usual, I see a nice laundry list of solid dividend payers send cash your way. Keep building that average monthly income into 2019.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Keith,

      Yeah the dividend growth and some reinvestment really fueled the increase for 2018. I'm sitting on a decent amount of cash now that I'm ready to put to work should the markets go hay wire again.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  4. Congrats JC. Thats a nice way to wrap up the year.

    cheers
    R2R

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. R2R,

      Yeah no complaints by me about a $1k+ month to end the year.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  5. Hi PIP,

    Do you have DRIP enabled an all your holdings? I currently do, but am thinking about turning it off so I can pick and choose when and where to reinvest. The only thing that stinks is then I would have to pay a trade fee to the brokerage company while currently with DRIP that is not the case. I'm not necessarily sure if it's worth it. What are your thoughts?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. TekWerks,

      I have DRIP enabled for some of my positions and other I take in cash. That decision really comes down to a few things.
      (1) if you think the valuation is good/adequate then DRIP on is good
      (2) if you want to build the position organically then DRIP on is good
      (3) if you don't have much savings each month to invest then DRIP on is probably good so you can build the positions/dividends up
      (4) if you have plenty of savings to invest each month the it's probably better to take the dividends in cash and just pool it with your investment capital each month

      Currently our investment capital each month is little to none so I turned the DRIP back on for holdings that I think are at good enough valuations and that I want to keep building up.

      That's my $0.02 on cash vs DRIP.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  6. JC - I don't really know what more I can say, other than great end to the year. I've loved reading each monthly dividend income summary, purchase, and dividend increase and seeing your dividend portfolio grow over the years. Let's see how great 2019 is for all of us and lets keep getting closer and closer to FI/RE

    Bert

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bert,

      December was definitely a great end to the year with over $1k in dividends. No complaints from me about that one. I ran some projections and it looks like 2019 should have 3 months over $1k which is crazy to think about.

      I've already made one purchase with some of my capital raised from my December sales and hope to get some of it put back to work. If only the markets can get crazy again.

      Best of luck in 2019 and looking forward to seeing how the year plays out for you!

      Delete

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