Dividend Update - December 2018

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.  

Monthly Comparison of Dividends Received From FI Portfolio

Dividends Received Breakdown

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!