The end of July means that two-thirds of the summer is already gone. Other than having our roof replaced and minor car problem, July was a fairly unremarkable month. July was certainly quite kind to the stock market, with the Dow rising approximately 2.5%. My total worth of my dividend investing portfolio did well in July.

How was my dividend income for July? Well, let’s add up the numbers and see…

AWP $ 3.50
BGY $ 38.00*
CHW $ 21.00*
CIK $ 22.00*
CLM $ 54.19*
CODI $ 93.60
DHY $ 40.25
DMF $ 12.30
DSM $ 22.83
EAD $ 10.88
EDF $ 27.00*
EHI $ 38.50
EXG $121.95*
HHY $ 30.00
HTR $ 38.00
NCV $ 45.50
OIA $ 4.10
PFN $ 36.00
PNNT $ 42.00
RSO $ 63.00
VFL $ 18.00
TOTAL $782.60

The good news: The quarterly payouts of PNNT, CODI, and RSO really gave July’s dividend income a nice boost, pushing it to a record high of $782.60. If not for the recent dividend cuts, I would have broken $800 for the first time, achieving a milestone worth celebrating.

The bad news: And the cuts just keep coming. BGY slashed its monthly dividend by 22.4% from 4.9 cents per share to 3.8 cents <sigh>. This will cost me another month, but I should still be able to reach my projected monthly average dividend income goal for 2016 of $750.00.

To make up for this hit, I am considering selling off my lowest yielding stocks to have the needed capital for more higher yielding stocks. When a taxable ETF stock’s dividend yield declines to less than 5%, it’s time to seriously think about why one should continue to maintain a position in that stock.

As I have said before, my dividend quest has been a six steps forward, two steps back experience and this summer has certainly proven just how true that is.

Image Credit: jarmoluk (pixabay.com)