Dividend Update - March 2024 #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.

March was an excellent month for dividends as the last month of each quarter is typically my largest payout month.  My FI Portfolio produced $1,523.45 for the month with my Loyal3 FolioFirst Interactive Brokers portfolio chipping in another $11.49.  My Roth IRA added $137.64 and my Rollover IRA generated $538.01.  For the month I received $1,534.94 across my taxable accounts and $2,210.59 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 March the companies I own paid me $71.31 per day or $12.48 per hour assuming 8 hour work days 5 days a week.  YTD that's $52.26 per day and $9.14 per hour.  

FI Portfolio

As I mentioned above my FI Portfolio produced $1,523.45 in dividends during March.  Unfortunately this was a 1.0% decrease year over year due to some payment timing shifts from Pepsico (PEP) and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM).  However, the YTD results through March has 2024 still ahead by 5.4%.

Roth IRA

My Roth IRA continued its strong start to 2024 as well even if it's not that big in comparison.  During March it produced $137.64 in dividends.  Compared to March 2023 that's an excellent 8.8% increase.  The full year results have 2024 18.1% ahead of 2023 through March. 

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 $538.01 in dividends during March which is a disappointing 16.5% decrease compared to March 2023.  The full year results have 2024 just 3.4% ahead compared to 2023. 

Dividend Raises During the Month

After a flurry of raises in February, March saw a noticeable decrease to the raises.  Only 2 of my FI Portfolio holdings raising their dividends.  Combined those 2 companies increased our forward 12-month dividends by $21.99.  In total I've received 22 raises through March with our forward 12-month dividends increasing by $207.39. 

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.

March was by far the slowest month in 2024; however, we still aren't prioritizing investments in our taxable accounts at this time.  Three kids in day care eats up a lot of cash flow each month, but at least that will be over by the end of May.    

In total there was just a $24.53 increase to our forward 12-month dividends without adding any capital to the portfolio.

Purchases continued to lag behind as they did in 2023.  For the most part purchases have only been coming from re-investing cash dividend payments into other holdings and even that has slowed down this year as we build up cash.

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 weren't special, but they did add $8.63 to our forward 12-month dividends during March.

Reinvestments led the way at a $15.90 increase to our forward 12-month dividends.

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 March our forward 12-month dividends rose by $24.53 and for the year they've risen $239.45.  We're currently tracking at a $79.82 average monthly increase, although I know that will be heading lower as the year rolls on.

Looking Forward

My forward 12-month dividends for my FI Portfolio ended March at $12,357.56 while my Loyal 3 FolioFirst Interactive Brokers forward dividends are at $247.26.  That pushes the total taxable account forward 12-month dividends up to $12,604.82.  My Roth IRA's forward-12 month dividends are at $1,325.29.  My Rollover IRA's forward 12-month dividends are at $4,908.17.  

Across all 4 accounts, assuming no dividend cuts or position size changes, I can expect to receive at least $18,838.28 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 March at $992.06 per month which is $13.46 higher or a 1.4% increase compared to 2023's monthly average of $978.60.

Dividends Received Breakdown

I've updated my Dividend Income page to reflect March's results.

With the first quarter of 2024 in the books how are you doing on your dividends this year?

Let me know in the comments below!