After a record-breaking December dividend income report that provided just shy of $4,000 in dividend income and nearly $14,000 of income when including capital gains distributions, I knew that January was going to be a drastic change.
However, while the January total is nowhere near what December provided, it is all part of the process of planting seeds that grow into a solid dividend portfolio.
On the bright side, January is also my lowest paying month of the entire year and therefore I know that every month moving forward will provide higher dividends.
Let’s get on to the good stuff!
January 2019 Dividend Income Summary
With the start of a new calendar year, the stock market appeared to forget about the terrible slide that we had in December and recovered quite well.
That recovery brought fewer buying opportunities for the companies that I was watching, or at least opportunities to add shares at a significant discount. But as we all know and love, none of that slowed down the dividends from rolling in!
The month of January brought in a respectable $350.67 in dividend income that was broken down as follows:
- Brokerage: $197.07
- IRA: $153.60
- Retirement: $0.00
As I mentioned, these numbers are a far cry from what I earned in December but that is to be expected as the quarter opening month is my quietest month of the entire year.
Let’s look at all of the individual dividends received:
Ticker | January 2019 | January 2018 |
---|---|---|
BEN | 26.23 | 0.00 |
DIS | 17.73 | 0.00 |
GPC | 15.24 | 0.00 |
KMB | 18.33 | 0.00 |
MO | 80.22 | 0.00 |
OGE | 20.46 | 0.00 |
PEP | 18.86 | 0.00 |
Total | 197.07 | 0.00 |
YoY Growth | Amazing =) |
There will only be a few more months where I don’t have the ability to truly calculate a YoY growth. The bulk of my portfolio was not established until May of last year, so I am looking forward to having some real data to show growth.
Here are the numbers from the holdings in my Rollover IRA:
Ticker | January 2019 | January 2019 |
---|---|---|
EPR | 16.37 | 0.00 |
IRM | 50.10 | 0.00 |
MAIN | 9.93 | 0.00 |
O | 15.88 | 0.00 |
STAG | 5.97 | 0.00 |
STOR | 9.90 | 0.00 |
UNIT | 30.00 | 0.00 |
WPC | 15.45 | 0.00 |
Total | 153.60 | 0.00 |
YoY Growth | Superb =) |
All of these dividends were reinvested and have added an additional $19.88 in projected annual dividend income!
That surpasses December as my 2nd largest month in terms of PADI generated solely by reinvested dividends, and is the third consecutive double-digit increase. This missed becoming the highest month by less than a dollar.
January 2019 Purchases
As the stocks that I was watching in January did not present many buying opportunities, things were a bit quiet in terms of the number of transactions. However, I was still able to deploy a healthy amount of capital with purchases totaling $3,339.25 of new capital.
As a quick recap of the January purchases:
The purchases break down as follows, including the amount of additional PADI generated:
- MMM :: 10 shares @ $183.95/share that added $54.40 in PADI
- MO :: 35 shares @ $42.85/share that added $112.00 in PADI
Overall, these purchases raised my projected annual dividend income by a healthy $166.40.
January 2019 Dividend Raises
There is no better way to start the year than with a few dividend raises, and January checked in with a whopping eight dividend raises.
Unfortunately there was only one double-digit raise, which was AbbVie with their solid 11.46% increase. The remainder of the raises were mostly in the 3-4% range, with CMS Energy being the 2nd highest at 6.99%.
Here you can see the impact of these raises:
These eight raises combined resulted in an increase of $73.21 in projected annual dividend income.
This is a new record in terms of overall PADI increase as a result of dividend raises, with $15.33 of this being in my brokerage account.
The month of February is only two business days old and I’ve already received raises from Simon Property Group and Meredith Corporation (which I had expected to be the last week of January but they pushed into February). There should be raises from Genuine Parts Company, Home Depot, The Coca-Cola Company, NextEra Energy, and Prudential Financial as well.
I am also expecting a raise from 3M, as they are another company that usually announces their raise either the last week of January or early February. There was no raise in January, so hoping that they come through now.
If all of these pan out, that would result in nine raises in February!
Summary
While January is a quiet month, I am encouraged by the chart below that shows the overall January total has exceeded the total from 8 out of 12 months in 2018.
Looking solely at my brokerage account, being just shy of $200.00 means that I still have quite a ways to go if I want to reach the type of numbers that I mentioned in my fun with charts post the other day.
However, seeing the dividend tripod at work is a beautiful thing:
The three legs of the dividend tripod added a robust $259.49 in total PADI.
For my brokerage account, that has now pushed me over the $4,000 PADI milestone and has me chipping away at my goal of reaching $6,500 before the end of the year.
With a goal of reaching $4,500 in received dividends from my brokerage account, one might look at the total from this month and think there is no way possible to reach that goal. However, with consistent capital investments, reinvested dividends, and what I hope will be a steady stream of dividend raises, I am still confident I can reach my goal.
Not only that, but a slow start only lights my fire even more to bust my tail to keep feeding the dividend machine.
How was your month of January?
Was it quiet month for you as well, or are you setting new records?
wow nice dd. That is a huge month all across the board man!
Great work. I thought the abbvie raise was like december though..
Either way killing it man.
Did you redo your theme? site looks great.
keep it up
cheers
Thanks PCI, not too shabby for a guy that is a decent follow. 😉
Abbott raised in December, AbbVie was in January–and both of them were solid double-digit raises!
I haven’t updated the theme, other than keeping it current with released updates.
Solid month DivvyDad! Thanks for the detailed report.
Btw. I received $2.72 more than you =)
But this is mainly due to the big one time special dividend ($122.40) from Biliton (BBL). Otherwise you’re far ahead. Keep up your great work!
Cheers
-DivRider
Thanks Rider, and congrats on your solid month as well!
Sounds like we will be neck and neck on growing that payout. You’ve got to love those special dividends, as they can really pay off handsomely! It is nice when they pay those with some regularity too.
Amazing month DivvyDad, especially for January which is a slow month for most of dividend investors. For me it was quite good (in my standards) and marked the first time when I received more than $10 in the first month of the quarter 😀
That tripod looks solid. Adding $260 to forward dividend income in a single month is huge! I was hoping I would be able to reinvest my dividends as well but it turns out that at my broker only whole shares may be purchased and the same commissions apply ($7) 🙁
And thanks for highlighting the dividend raise from BlackRock. It turns out I missed the news about this one 🙂
Keep it up!
BI
Thanks BI, considering it is my slowest month of the year I cannot complain. I’m hoping to devote some time tonight to catching up on everyone’s updates, so I look forward to seeing the details of your monthly report.
Happy to hear I could help share the raise from BlackRock!
Nice work Divvy Dad! I see that you are getting some nice raises for being a stakeholder – gotta love dividend investing! I don’t track my dividend income by month, but rather just one overall number. I’m currently at $3,513/yr. in annual dividend income. Gunning for the $6k mark by the end of the year 🙂 -Ramey
Thanks Ramey, and appreciate you stopping by the site!
It sounds like we are pretty close to one another re: the overall number. At the end of last year I had a forward income of $3,884 in my brokerage account and have set a goal to reach $6,500 by the end of this year. Let’s get after it!
Solid start to 2019 no matter how you look at it. I know it might be a little downer after your Dec. high but it’s looking good to me. A lot of solid well know dividend payers sending you cash and I like your January pick ups. MO has been on my mind for a few months and it was my only buy in Jan. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Keith, all things considered I am quite happy with the results this month. It is my quietest month of the year and when I look at where I was last year, I definitely cannot complain.
I was thrilled to add both MO and MMM at those levels; we have a similar sentiment on MO and you were able to make a nice addition too.
You did not have dividend last Jan and last April. This year you received $370 in Jan. If you do not buy additional shares, you will receive $700 more than last year. This means that you will receive at least $3515 (at least 700/2815 = 24.9% YoY increase).
Congratulations.
I am in the phase of your 2017. I receive dividend only in Feb, May, Aug, and Nov. Your experience motivates me.
Thanks DSFI and I am happy to hear that this is providing an extra source of motivation for you. Other than a few holdings that I had purchased well before I ever considered dividend investing, I started this portfolio in May of last year.
My focus is on being consistent with my actions and I believe it will pay off with a nice return this year as I pass the full year mark in a few months and now have a nice chunk of dividends every month.
Keep up your hard work as well!
Solid month with the dividend tripod doing some serious work! Nice job on the purchases, especially MO. I purchased just a bit early and had a cost of $44.74 on my last MO purchase. Keep rolling that dividend snowball!
Thanks Kody, I think the price that you purchased at is still a very solid price. If I had not already had as large a position as I did, relative my portfolio of course, I would have been adding there too but I was a little greedy and opted to set a lower target. Fortunately they did dip down that low and triggered my buy.
Strong start to the new year, DivvyDad. Good to see all legs of the tripod we’re supporting you in January. That MO dividend climbed right to the top of your January dividend mountain.
Love your two purchases in January as it looked like they were well timed given today’s prices. It’s always great to pick up great stocks at value prices.
Nice job on almost $20 from reinvested dividends, too.
Thanks ED, I am really excited to see each leg of the tripod, or I know some call it the trifecta, starting to get bigger and bigger. I am looking forward to when I get to the point where you were and those raises / reinvested dividends are adding as much or more than invested capital.
That’s a great way to start the year. Not only did your portfolio produce a “respectable” amount of dividends, but you were able to make additional purchases, including 3M which I also own. I’m looking forward to that increase, and so we will see what happens. I look forward to following your progress in 2019.
Thanks DP, I appreciate the feedback. Did you see that 3M announced their raise yesterday? They delivered a 5.9% increase so that will boost up the forward dividend income a little bit!
Haha loved how you’ve described the growth rates as amazing and superb=) And they are!
As always I did enjoy reading your monthly summary.
In my case, I am also happy with my January result. It’s great to observe how things are improving!
Cheers
-Alex
Yeah, I’ve been running out of words to use for that YoY growth until I get to the point where I have real numbers to compare every month. Only a couple more to go until I reach that point.
I’ll be stopping by shortly to check out your progress as well!
DivvyD –
Amazing work and nice job on the recently MMM increase, too. Jealous of that KMB and DIS stock!!
-Lanny
Thanks Lanny! Funny you mention those two, as KMB and DIS have been on my radar to add more but they just haven’t quite reached my preferred price yet. Hoping I can add a few shares of each in the near future.
Most definitly there is a fall off in income from December to Janaury. I know some dividend investors try to equalize there income by month, but I have never used that as an investment criteria. Tom
Agreed, but all things considered I am still pleased with this month. I’m not too worried about the equality from month to month either–if it happens, great; but I am not going to go out of my way to buy stocks just because the month that they pay.
As I look to the future when I would like dividends to fund our living expenses, I anticipate that I will have multiple buckets that include a cash fund for the month to month and essentially will be funding a year of expenses in advance. Therefore the annual number is far more important to me than any given month.
Good job. Not every month can be like December’s lol. Still a nice haul. And those dividend raises you got wow. ABBV will really be nice this month. Keep it up.
Thanks Doug, and I am most definitely looking forward to that new ABBV dividend rolling in. Most of the raises so far this month have been in that 3-5% range as well, although PRU just came through with an 11.1% raise so that one will be pretty dang nice as well.
Its not easy coming off December highs, but you are definitely the man with the plan so no worries there. For some reason I totally missed the increase from Abbv and KMB and I own both! Abbv being of my largest positions so not only your report but also these raises brought a smile to my face 🙂
I’ve since learned that the ABBV raise was a mistake on my part. I normally watch SeekingAlpha for raise announcements, and they had posted a note in January but it was actually a repeat of the raise that had been announced previously.
So unfortunately the raises were not quite as good as I thought and noted above.
Very nicely done. Looking forward to seeing what February did for you. Cheers
Thanks, I’ve fallen way behind in my blog posting and reading of the community. Hoping to get my February results out early next week and start catching up on what everyone has been up to.
Solid month DivvyDad! We also bought a few shares of Altria (MO) this past month. Looking forward to seeing that new income stream in the coming months. 🙂
Best wishes and continued success on your journey DD.
AFFJ
Thanks AFFJ and I’ve definitely enjoyed the modest gains from where I purchased. All the best to you as well.