Summer is here! And so is another month’s dividend payouts! Yaaaay! 2015 is half over and I’ve already met and exceeded my goal of a projected monthly average of $600 per month. For dividend investing, steady consistent growth is the key to progress, and I’ve been making solid progress the past couple years. With each new monthly stock buy, my income rises just a little bit more.
Let’s do the numbers and see how June’s payouts went:
BGY $ 49.00*
CFP $ 71.45*
CIK $ 22.00*
DHY $ 42.00
DMF $ 10.50
DSM $ 22.83
EXG $121.95
HHY $ 37.50
HQL $ 54.00
HTR $ 38.00
??? $ 0.93**
NCV $ 63.00
OIA $ 4.10
PFN $ 36.00
VFL $ 19.50
TOTAL $592.76
* Includes Return of Capital.
** My employer’s stock, which shall remain anonymous.
June didn’t break $600 like May did, but it came tantalizingly close, with dividend payouts totaling $592.76. Breaking $600 will become more frequent and I expect it to become routine if all goes well, such as not having any dividend cuts in the near future.
The end of June also brings the end of the second quarter, Q2. So how was the second quarter? Pretty good. Q2’s total dividend income was $1827.42, which is 6.56% more than Q1’s $1714.88. Versus last year, quarterly growth looks even more impressive, with Q2 2015 being 31.3% more than Q2 2014’s $1391.65. Nice!
I talk a lot about my *projected* average monthly dividend income, but what has been my *actual* average for 2015 so far? Well, my grand total of dividend income for January through June is $3542.3, so my average monthly dividend income has been $590.38. That’s pretty darn good, and is a 22.9% increase over last year’s monthly average of $480.07. This money snowball is really growing!
The winds of change are blowing hard on one position in my portfolio. Cornerstone is changing CFP (Cornerstone Progressive Return Fund) shareholders over to CLM (Cornerstone Strategic Value Fund). This means fewer shares (but the total value of the positions will be unchanged as of 6/30/15) and a slightly diminished dividend yield. Hopefully, things will be essentially the same from here on out.
My savings recently took a hit (vacations can be expensive!), so I’ve had to dial down my dividend matching program to better rebuild my savings. Dropping my matching money to 50 cents per dollar of dividend income will still help grow my available capital for dividend stock buys, but just not as quickly as before.
I’m still concerned about the “correction” the market may make in the near future and what effect the Fed’s interest rate hike will have. But for now, my dividend income investing project is coming along nicely. While I’m a long ways from financial independence, my steadily growing dividend income does provide me ever greater financial flexibility and therefore more options in life. And having more options is what this game is all about.
Image Credit: jarmoluk (pixabay.com)