Dividend Update - October 2019

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.

My FI Portfolio, taxable account, produced $383.96 in dividends for the month while my Folio First portfolio chipped in another $8.76.  My Roth IRA added another $48.66 while my Rollover IRA contributed $38.57.  That puts my taxable account dividends at $392.72, soooo close to $400.  Across all accounts October's total came to $479.95

Making Money While I Sleep

The power of joining the ownership class is that those companies can work much harder for you than you can.  Think about it.  By myself I have to devote my own time to my regular job in order to make money.  However by buying a stake in a high quality business I now get to leverage my own time that I exchanged for money into companies that are working around the clock to make products or provide services for their customers.  Those companies are working 24/7/365 which means that I make money even when I sleep.

During October the companies I own paid me $15.48 per day or $0.65 per hour assuming 8 hour work days.  For the year those numbers are $25.57 per day and $3.20 per hour.




FI Portfolio

As I mentioned above my FI Portfolio produced $383.96 in dividends for October.  It's inching up closer to $400 which I'm looking forward to.  October showed a huge 17.4% increase compared to July primarily due to some additional purchases.

The year over year comparison gives a better idea of the growth with less possibility for fluctuations due to odd payout schedules.  Compared to October 2018 the increase came in at 31.8%!  That's what I'm talking about!  Once again purchases accounted for much of the increase although reinvestment and of course dividend increases certainly helped.  The YTD total through the end of October showed a 12.4% rise compared to the same period in 2018.

Roth IRA

My Roth IRA generated $48.66 in dividends for October.  That's a solid 7.3% increase from July solely from dividend growth and reinvestment alone.

The year over year comparison isn't quite as impressive at just 4.8%.  The smaller increase year over year was due to trimming one position back, which in hindsight I shouldn't have done.  The YTD total through October of each year is showing a solid 35.9% increase.

Rollover IRA

In March I mentioned how I will start reporting on my Rollover IRA.  The bulk of those funds are invested in dividend growth companies, although there's a few that aren't, so to give the cleanest picture I will show just the dividend growth investments during my monthly reports.  That being said I'm not too worried about any particular month/quarter of dividends since my current plan is to be a bit more active with these funds than I would in my taxable accounts.  

Companies fall in and out of favor with market participants throughout the year and I want to attempt to capture some of that change in emotion.  If I feel a company is undervalued I'll purchase shares and won't sell until the story changes or the market price hits what I feel is at least 1.3x "fair value".  This is just a little experiment that I wanted to try and if I feel it's too much hassle or that I'm constantly taking 2 steps forward and 1 step back then I'll revert back to my bread and butter buy and hold strategy.

As such the time period comparisons are less important for this account since I want to take a more active approach.  

My Rollover IRA produced $38.57 in dividends during October which was a 11.2% decrease from July.  The decrease was due to the both Nike and Disney paying dividends in July, but not in October.

Dividend Raises During the Month

October was a solid month for dividend raises with 4 of my FI Portfolio holdings announcing increases.  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 the 4 companies in my FI Portfolio boosted my forward 12-month dividends by $24.24.  Thus far in 2019 I've received 44 increases from 39 of 55 of the companies within my FI Portfolio combining to increase my forward 12-month dividends by $312.47.

Looking Forward

My forward 12-month dividends for my FI Portfolio ended October at $7,678.52 while my FolioFirst forward dividends are at $101.18.  That pushes the total taxable account forward 12-month dividends up to $7,779.70.  My Roth IRA's forward-12 month dividends increased to $619.71.  My Rollover IRA's forward 12-month dividends are at $2,305.61.  Across all 4 accounts, assuming no dividend cuts or position size changes, I can expect to receive at least $10,705.02 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 $576.33 per month which is $51.38 or 9.8% above 2018's monthly average of $524.95.

Dividends Received Breakdown

I've updated my Dividend Income page to reflect October's changes.

Did October get 4Q started off strong?  How were your dividends for the month?

Let me know in the comments below!