June Dividend Income

July is here and that means more sun, less rain, and a vacation to the family cabin is on the horizon. It also apparently means that our patio has become a nest for black widow spiders. Just the other day I was tending to the banana peppers that I planted seeds for and as I was transplanting the saplings over to larger pots I noticed a big blob of white that appeared to be mold attached to the outside of one of them. Thinking that I had over watered the plants, I grabbed at the blob to remove it from the side of the pot. As soon as I grabbed it, a large black widow popped out and attempted to attack me.

May Dividend Income

I won’t pull any punches. May has not been a great month for dividend income. It is the first time since I’ve started down this road of dividend investment that I’ve made less than the previous year’s results. While this may on the surface sound like a pretty big deal, I want to instead approach it as an opportunity to face my portfolio’s time of adversity. Instead of sitting here and talking about what went wrong, I instead want to talk about what went right and what will be going right with these results having come to fruition. Let’s start with what I was paid for the month of May.

Wealth: April Dividend Income

Hello everyone and thank you for stopping by for my monthly dividend income report. The dividend reaper was very successful this month. Multiple companies made payments and the dividend scythe swung hard to collect all that could be taken. This left my family with $45.51 in total dividends received by the scythe this month. This is slightly lower than the expected average payment per month but that is to be expected given that it's a monthly average and not a guaranteed monthly breakdown.

The key is to simply stay on track. Each month, as long as the received are larger than the previous years (given little/no surprises), that month should be seen as a success. That being said, this month has been a huge success. The scythe shows a 230% increase YOY for this month's dividend income. One can't complain when leaps forward are at that big of an increase.

Wealth: March Dividend Income

March 2017 Dividend Income

GME - $30.40

ARII - $6.80

QCOM - $15.37

STAG - $1.75

TGT - $9.00

EMR - $7.68

LB - $4.80

WFC - $8.36

Total March 2017 Dividend Income: $84.16

Total March 2016 Dividend Income: $20.40

Percent Increase: 312% increase

Now that March has come and gone, it's evident that the Dividend Scythe has been hard at work. If we're only looking at the change from the previous year to the current year, the percent increase has been phenomenal! It's enough for me to even wish for a positive increase year over year but an over 300% increase from last year is exactly what I want to see and more! Moving forward, I'm sure that I probably won't see these high percentages as it will be harder to see huge jumps as the portfolio grows but it's incredibly pleasing on the eyes as I get to look at it now. 

Wealth: Stock Purchase

March comes in like a lion and what a month it has been. While I haven't had a chance to do much of any writing at all for the blog, I've still been moving forward with the dividend scythe mission. For this month's purchase, I decided that instead of moving outwards with new acquisitions, I'd rather add more into an existing position while the pot was cold. 

After a quick look through the portfolio for deals to see what was down and priced to buy, I found that Target (TGT) was in the best position to grow outwards. That being said, I added a few more shares to try to buffer the loss of GNC's dividend cut while I wait for what I expect to be a rebound. And even though from what I read, there may never be a rebound for GNC, I believe that it is positioned to do so and I'm willing to bet what I have left in the company to ride it out.

And really, that's what it's all about when it comes to investing. With any company, there comes risk of failure of that company. Every time we bet on a winner, that bet could also be a big loser. You can't win if you never play the game. Only time will tell whether I'm right with GNC. I just hope it's sooner rather than later so that I can sell higher than I bought in and reinvest the earnings into a better dividend paying company.

Purchase Summary

BUY: 25 TGT @ 53.36/share

Total Purchase: $1,341.07

Additional Annual Dividends: $60

Wealth: February Dividend Income

Moving forward from February to March, life marches on and so do the dividends! This was a very good month for me - in health, in stocks, and in life. That is no lie.

February was most prominently a great month for my health. I've taken major steps forward with the weight that I've been able to lift in the gym. I've moved from doing three sets of ten on moderately decent weights to lifting four sets of fifteen on high weights and the results are really showing. Where it might just be through my clothing, I know that it is a positive sign for the future if I continue on the path that I am going.

As for stocks, February was also a great month. I feel like I grabbed one of the best companies that I could with the acquisition of QCOM. It's a great company with a strong moat, a long history of dividend payments, and a strong brand name. It's also a name that I am very familiar with since I grew up in San Diego where the company calls home. There were also other potentials that were fairly priced but only QCOM grabbed the monthly funds.

Wealth: January Dividend Income

Part of investing in dividend growth stocks is trusting in the process. There are going to be some good months and there are going to be some bad months. The trick is to try to align for dividend payments to be about equal every month. This is a trick that I have not yet mastered. As one can see from last years dividend payments, I might be a little off as far as consistency goes.

I can't give up though. The dividend snowball is a slow moving process at the start as you try to build up a good enough roll to get it moving. While months like this January may have felt small in comparison to some other months or small in comparison to where I thought it might be by now, it is still an amount of money that I wouldn't otherwise have.

It's good to keep this lesson at the forefront of my mind as I don't want to start straying from this path. If I think too much about other "get rich quick" schemes, I may find myself potentially falling for them and that just simply will not do! It simply will not do at all - not one bit! One has to remember the other types of dividends that have been given through the month.