December is done, and with it 2016. Here in the Pacific Northwest, our “White Christmas” arrived early, as a cold front and snow storm came through here in the middle of the month and several days later there was barely any trace of snow in the city.

While the weather can be rather unpredictable, dividend payouts arrive right on schedule which is one of the best features of dividend income. Was Santa good to me in December? Let’s do the numbers and find out…

AWP $ 41.00
BGY $ 38.00*
CHW $ 21.00*
CIK $ 22.00*
CLM $ 54.19*
DHY $ 40.25
DMF $ 12.30
DSM $ 22.83
EAD $ 10.88
EDF $ 38.70*
EHI $ 32.00
EXG $121.95*
FGB $105.00
HQL $ 40.00
** $ 1.20
NCV $ 45.50
OIA $ 4.30
PFN $ 36.00
RA $ 69.85
VFL $ 16.50
TOTAL $773.45

* Includes Return of Capital
** My employer’s stock, which shall remain anonymous.

December’s dividend income ended well with a total of $773.45. That’s not an all time high for me, but it is my 4th best month ever. Not bad, not bad at all.

First, the bad news for December. A couple stocks suffered dividend cuts. EHI’s dividend was cut from 9.63 cents to 8 cents per share, which is a 16.9% or $6.52 drop. But that dividend cut feels like a slight nick compared to RSO’s dividend cut, going from 42 cents to 5 cents per share, an 88.1% or quarterly $55.50 drop (!!!). Yeah, these cuts are going to hurt a bit, taking $25.00 off my projected monthly dividend payouts. I estimate it will take 4-5 weeks to recover from this damage. Ugh!

Given the extreme dividend cuts by DHT (who recently slashed its dividend to 2 cents per share) and RSO, I think its time to consider selling these two positions off, even at a loss. With their wretched yields of 1-2%, I can invest the cash into better yielding stocks, which will help mitigate some of the damage from the dividend cuts mentioned above.

December does have some good news. HTR and HHY merged to become Brookfield Real Assets Income (RA). My 200 shares of HTR and 500 shares of HHY became 351 shares of RA with a monthly dividend of 19.9 cents per share. The monthly dividend payouts from HTR and HHY were $38.00 and $30.00 respectively, for a combined $68.00 per month. The monthly dividend payout from RA is $69.85, which is a nice little $1.85 increase over HTR and HHY’s $68.00. A $1.85 increase isn’t exactly big bucks, but any dividend increase is always welcome.

Also in December I made 5 stock buys (PNNT, PNNT, CODI, AWP, EDF) that added $43.10 to my projected monthly average dividend income. Nice!

After all the new stock buys and dividend cuts, my projected monthly dividend income is now $767.57. Certainly an improvement, but not as much as I had hoped given the recent batch of stock buys. But this does mark an important milestone, as as my projected monthly dividend income now meets (and *barely* exceeds) my minimum monthly mortgage payment of $767.43. At last my largest regular monthly expense, housing, is now covered (excluding property taxes) by dividend income. This is a goal I’ve dreamed of reaching for a long time, and it’s a great way to end the year on a high note.

Happy New Year! And may 2017 be kind to your investing quest for greater passive income.

Image Credit: jarmoluk (pixabay.com)