Dividend Update - October 2023 #Dividend

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.

A bit later in the month than I'd like to be getting out my dividend update, but at least it's here!  We're still adjusting to having the 4th kiddo and October also brought about a lot of changes with me and my wife returning to work.  So we're still not prioritizing investments but that's just fine by me because the rest of my investments are doing the heavy lifting.  However, we still crossed a milestone during October which I'm very excited about!

October was a solid month of dividends across my various portfolios.  My FI Portfolio produced $776.03 for the month with my Loyal3 FolioFirst Interactive Brokers portfolio chipping in another $39.50.  My Roth IRA added $109.38 and my Rollover IRA generated $199.17.  For the month I received $815.53 across my taxable accounts and $1,124.08 across all accounts.  

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 a 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 $36.26 per day or $6.35 per hour assuming 8 hour work days 5 days a week.  YTD that's $47.34 per day and $8.28 per hour.  

FI Portfolio

As I mentioned above my FI Portfolio produced $776.03 in dividends during October.  October's results were a pretty solid 5.0% increase compared to October 2022.  The YTD results compared to 2022 have 2023 coming in 15.2% higher through October.

Roth IRA

My Roth IRA had a good month during October producing $109.38 in dividends.  Compared to October 2022 that's a strong 15.1% increase due in large part to additional investments.  The YTD results have 2023 18.3% ahead of 2022 through October.   

Rollover IRA

In March of 2019 I mentioned that I would 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.  

My Rollover IRA produced a total of $199.17 in dividends during October which is an acceptable 6.9% October 2022.  The YTD results through October have 2023 just 1.4% ahead compared to the same period in 2022 due to some partial sales and dividend cuts. 

Dividend Raises During the Month

October continued saw a bit of a slowdown in the number of raises; however, 3 companies in our FI Portfolio boosted their payments higher. Combined those 3 companies increased our forward 12-month dividends by $69.11.  So far in 2023 I've received 53 total increases which have raised our forward 12-month dividends by $625.43.

Dividend Increase Source

I've started breaking down the monthly dividend increase into its components: purchases, re-investment and dividend raises.  This lets me see what is the bigger contributor each month in my pursuit of financial independence.  I'm only tracking this for my main FI Portfolio since that is the portfolio that I want to ultimately provide the bulk of our income.

As I mentioned earlier we're still prioritizing cash over investments as we adjust to the new baby, a 3rd kid in day care, and mull over other potential opportunities.  As such purchases have been lagging well behind where we'd like them to be at; however, the results for 2023 have still been pretty solid all things considered.

That being said I'm still quite happy to see that we're averaging a $74.91 per month increase through October despite very little capital being added to the portfolio.  Even more so considering we've suffered through two significant dividend cuts that further weighed down the results to the tune of a $18.23 per month drag. 

Purchases have been a non-factor in 2023 adding only $127.07 total to our forward dividends and that's primarily been from cash dividends being used to purchase other holdings.

Luckily dividend growth investing isn't built to rely solely on one source of dividend growth.  When one is lacking you can still rely on the other two to help you out.  

Dividend increases have carried the weight thus far in 2023 with a $62.54 per month average.     

That's what's really cool about finally hitting some scale with your investments and dividends.  Dividend reinvestment and organic dividend growth can do the heavy lifting for you and eventually will far surpass what you can do with savings alone.

During October our forward 12-month dividends rose by $131.10 and YTD they've increased by $782.80.

Additionally the really big news is that as of the end of October we've now surpassed $12,000 in forward 12-month dividends for our FI Portfolio.  Getting the $1,000 per month mark is huge and very exciting as the dividend snowball seems to really be gaining momentum.

Looking Forward

My forward 12-month dividends for my FI Portfolio ended October at $12,009.98 while my Loyal 3 FolioFirst Interactive Brokers forward dividends are at $247.42.  That pushes the total taxable account forward 12-month dividends up to $12,257.40.  My Roth IRA's forward-12 month dividends are at $1,265.12.  My Rollover IRA's forward 12-month dividends are at $4,430.70.  

Across all 4 accounts, assuming no dividend cuts or position size changes, I can expect to receive at least $17,953.22 in dividends over the next year.

Monthly Average

The following chart shows 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 ended October at $961.88 per month which is $105.86 higher or a 12.4% increase compared to 2022's monthly average of $856.02.

Dividends Received Breakdown

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

Only 2 months left in 2023, are you ready to finish the year strong or do you need to push forward to hit your goals?

Let me know in the comments below!