The month of January 2018 is officially closed and in the books. Here in the Pacific Northwest, compared to January 2017, it has been a pretty mild winter so far. Unfortunately, our hot water heater decided to die and so I’m currently awaiting the delivery of the new one which should arrive next week. It’s amazing how one takes hot water for granted until it’s no longer so easily available.

Let’s do the numbers and see how well January went:

AWP $ 45.00
BGY $ 38.00*
CHW $ 21.00*
CIK $ 22.00*
CLM $ 47.30
CODI $144.00
DHY $ 38.50
DMF $ 12.30
DSM $ 22.83
EAD $ 9.03
EDF $ 45.00*
EXG $114.00*
NCV $ 45.50
OIA $ 4.30
PFN $ 36.00
PNNT $ 81.00
RA $ 69.85
VFL $ 15.00
ZTR $ 33.90
TOTAL $844.51

* Includes Return of Capital

$844.51? That’s not too bad. I was hoping for the high 800s, but hey I’ll take it. Any money gained from not trading one’s time is a win in my book.

Overall, January was a fairly uneventful month. No new stock buys or sells and, thank goodness, no dividend cuts. EHI didn’t pay out in January but they did pay out early in December. One pleasant little surprise is that CLM raised its dividend from 23.26 cents to 23.65 cents. For me, this 1.68% increase amounts to an additional 78 cents per month. Yeah, that’s not exactly something to make one jump with joy, but I’ll take it anyway. For my ETF heavy portfolio, dividend increases are a rarity (although I hope that will change as I invest more in dividend growth stocks), so it’s always a surprise to me when it does happen.

How was your January?

Image Credit: jarmoluk (pixabay.com)