Dividend Income: November

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. With the arrival of December comes the monthly honor and duty of counting up the dividends received over the past month and recapping the movement that got us here. That being said, overall, the month was a pretty decent month in relation to others. Here's a quick recap of our payers.

• AT&T - T - $14.88
• YUM Brands - YUM - $3.57
• Abbvie - ABBV - $5.70
• STAG Industrial - STAG - $1.74
• Total: $25.89
• Total Dividends for 2016: $269.08

I know it doesn't look like much in the grand scheme of the portfolio but it looks like a lot to me because it shows the building block style of investing. Only a year ago I was looking at less than $100 total dividends for the entire year (it was actually only barely over $50. That means that this year alone has already completely shattered last year's results. If I can continue that trend, the additional investment income that dividends provide start to become a snowball that rolls itself. 

With kids on the horizon, it's important for me and my wife to put away as much as possible right now so it's locked in during the months/years that it will be even harder to find the additional income to invest. Although we have yet to be successful in having kids, it's an almost certainty in the near future and I would be an idiot to not prepare ahead of time for that life adjustment. Anyway, that's all I've got for today. 

Dividend Income: May

Another month has come and gone and now it's time to collect the dividend payments that were made to my account in the month of May. All in all, it's been a great month for dividend income. My key player, AT&T (T) has made a payment and some of my other holdings have as well. I was also able to make a great collection of new buys that supplemented income in the future.

Unfortunately however, May did hold a sell off. It was only one but it's very unfortunately whenever even one needs to happen. As you all know, I like to hold my stocks as long as possible (forever if possible) but sometimes it's just not possible. The sell off was of course the sell off of Kohl's (KSS) as it had not even mildly performed as I would hope and there numbers were showing that it did not seem that would be changing any time soon.

This did come with the chance to buy new holdings. In the Month of May I was able to purchase three new holdings - RAI, LB, and GME. Granted, I never thought in a million years that I would be adding GME but it came at a time where I had been proven wrong. The company appears to be doing much better than my initial take on them and I have high hopes for them in the future. With all of this being said, let's compile the dividends for May and see how it all stacks up.

STAG: $1.74

ABBV: $5.70

YUM: $3.22

T: $14.88

Total for May 2016: $25.54

Total for 2016: $96.21

Unfortunately it just wasn't enough to break the $100 total for the year but it's still on track to do very well for the total of 2016. With a few big payments coming next month, there is almost no way that the portfolio won't break $100 for the year by the end of next month. Moving forward, I hope to continue making great stock choices, collecting dividends, and x'ing out any companies that decide that they know better what to do with their money than to pay dividends. 

Moving Forward - Seeking Alpha

Eventually we all reach a point where we have to continue growing outwards to go upward. That moment has happened for me. As of this week, I have started publishing articles for the blog exclusively through Seeking Alpha to expand my audience and gain further feedback on my thoughts. Their reader base is much greater than my own and this should help to breed new knowledge for myself and hopefully that should trickle down further into my readers.