Dividend Income

Income from Dividends & Net Worth Report – February 2017

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February’s income from dividends and net worth were on fire… in a good way!  This big, bull market continues to grow by leaps and bounds and taking my net worth with it.  However, it’s making it increasingly difficult to find good values and caused me (that’s my excuse anyway) to miss a pretty important goal.

Dividend Investing Income

February turned out to be an awesome month for dividend income.  Nowhere near covering my all monthly expenses, but it did cover a few.  My mobile phone bill, electricity, water and gas were covered by this month’s income from dividends.  All my utilities (except for internet – which is pretty much a utility right?).

Lets get to it.

This month I received $203.66 in income from dividends. On average, I was paid $9.25 from 22 different companies (specifically, 22 companies and 1 preferred shares fund)!  This month’s dividend investing income is a fantastic 34.65% increase over last February.

Income from Dividends - February 2017

Here is a chart of my passive dividend income progress over the last 2 years.

The dividend portfolio has been updated.

Net Worth

As I mentioned above, net worth is setting highs with the market.  Whether or not this is sustainable is the question.

Let’s do the numbers…

Cash

After the last few months of seeing this number show up in red, its a great change to see some green, even if the number is small.

I’ve identified that I have a spending problem.  It’s my mortgages.  I spend way too much extra money paying them down.  Now, as a practical point, that’s not a bad thing – and something I could scale back if I wanted.  However, with the market hitting super highs, I feel like paying off debt is more in tune with my short term goals.  (I’m also way behind on my debt pay down goals and would like to catch-up)

My cash includes a full year expenses emergency fund, which will stay stagnate.  Some people will balk that I am being way to conservative and leaving a lot of future dividend income on the table.  While I agree the opportunity cost might be high, but having a large, safe, pillow of emergency fund cash helps me sleep better at night.

Real Estate

As I said above, I’ve been working hard to pay down mortgages this month.  I had some pretty good progress paying almost $1,000  more down then I normally do.

Interesting aside, Zillow now believes that my primary house is worth over 670k now.  Its crazy.  That’s over a 100k more than what I think it would sell.

The rental properties were great again this month.  No problems and everybody paid on time!

Cars

Ha, one care increased in value this month!  On average, they decline roughly a 1 – 2% each month.

Wrap-up

I’m thrilled with the progress I’m making.  Income from dividends is continuing to grow at a decent clip and net worth is within striking distance of the big ONE.  However, I missed my goal of investing a minimum of $1,500 this month… by like $1,500.  I have a huge issue with not making purchases at these inflated values.  I need to get over it.  While, I do have limit orders set, nothing is hitting or even getting close.

Where are we in the bull market is the question that is sticking in my mind.  Do we really have lots of room to travel up?  According to the Shiller PE Ratio, things don’t look that way.   Are Trump’s new tax cuts and deregulation going to happen soon enough to make a difference?  Can this market continue to climb this mountain of hope for the next 4, 5, 6… 12 months?

Enough of all that pessimism,  lets talk about the GREAT NEWS!  I am now in control of my 401k.  I now have a little over 200k to invest and will start selling puts soon to begin building that portfolio.  It’s going to be an interesting learning experience as I’ve never had that kind of money at my disposal.

 

I'm a dividend growth investor who is aiming to retire early in 4 years at the age of 45. My goal is to live off the income my dividend portfolio and rental property produce exclusively and leave the corporate rat race. I hope you will join me in this journey!

11 Comments

  1. Mostly solid companies. I’ll have to revisit Potash. I was waiting for their dividend to drop.

    So close to a million. Keep up the good work.

    • Blake

      Hi Lee,

      Yeah, I wouldn’t buy POT right now either. They have a lot more work to do.

      Thanks for dropping by and commenting!

  2. That’s a solid month any way you slice it! I do agree that I’m a bit pessimistic about the market’s prospects but my portfolio keeps growing so I’m not sure I should be!

    • Blake

      TITM,

      I hate being a downer during this bull market… and I haven’t really been. I’ve put lots of money to work the last few years and will continue to. Its just tougher finding reasonably valued companies now… but they are out there!

      Thank you commenting.

  3. Solid results for the month of Feb. Looks like a couple of names did most of the lifting for the month. Do you plan to equalize your dividend income a bit more going forward so as to not be too dependent on just a handful of stocks for your income stream. Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work.

    • Blake

      Hi DivHut!

      Yeah, there were a few that did a lot of the heavy lifting this month. I won’t be selling anything, however, this new 200k of capital will change those percentages quite a bit. I just need some of my limit orders to hit!

      As always, thank you for stopping in and commenting!

  4. Increasing your dividend income by over 1/3 year on year AND having your car increase in value…thats like hitting the lottery. Congrats on achieving the almost impossible. -PS

    • Blake

      HA! Almost like winning the lottery. Maybe I should start playing?

      Thanks for stopping in and giving me a laugh!

  5. I also used to wait for limit orders to fill, but in a bull mode if I want something I use market orders. Limit orders really only protect you on very low volume stocks. High volume stocks are usually good to buy from 1030 to 3PM. I never buy at open or close.

    • So Blake, I just found your site, I don;t find who you use for brokerage. I see you have very many stocks and that looks like a lot of work to me. I use Vanguard and mostly their ETF and funds to get my dividends. VPU for utilities, VNQ for reits, VYM for general dividends, VHT for health etc. I am getting almost 4k per quarter of dividends in our IRAs (with wife).

      • Blake

        Hi Frank,

        Welcome, I’m glad you found the site.

        I have a few accounts (Schwab, Tradeking, MS), but for my taxable account I use Interactive Brokers. I really use limit orders as protection from myself. After I do the research and figure out what I want to buy. I then determine what price I’m willing to pay. Once that is done, I create the limit order and forget about it. That way, I don’t have to keep referring to a separate spreadsheet all the time & it keeps me from waiting for a better deal (once my price is hit). Here is a post I wrote about limit orders a little awhile ago https://www.thedividendpig.com/dividend-investing-psychology-why-i-use-limit-orders/

        Vanguard funds are great! For me though, I prefer to build my own fund. I enjoy the subject and consider the work a hobby. Congratulations on the awesome quarterly dividend income. Isn’t it wonderful to see those cash payments posted to the account! I can’t wait to reach that level of success!

        Once again, I’m glad you found the site and thank you for your comments!

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