Dividend Income

September Dividend Income & Net Worth Report

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Dividend-Income-and-Net-Worth-October-2015This month’s net worth and dividend income report is BANANAS! Incredible number all around and I am thrilled! Lets get right to it!

Dividend Income

September’s dividend income was incredible. It truly is one for the record books (for me at least). As a point of reference, this month alone I received just $20 shy of my total dividend income from 2014! Incredible!

So, the big announcement… this month I received $236.35 in dividend income! (ONIK, OINK!) That’s a whopping 800% increase from last September. I couldn’t be more delighted with the progress made in one short year. I realize it’s not enough for me to retire on but, it is a huge step in the right direction.

I only just changed over my investing strategy to that of a strict dividend growth investor one year ago. It’s astonishing how quickly the money starts piling up. This month I received 19 mini paychecks from some of the largest companies in the world for doing nothing! I didn’t go to any meetings, I wasn’t productive and I didn’t sell a thing. They paid me cash for making smart investment decisions… that’s all!

BBL was the company that made the biggest impact with their biyearly dividend payment of $33.16. While I do like receiving quarterly payments (or even better, monthly), these larger biyearly dividend distributions are a lot of fun! Other honorable mentions go to the small dividend payments made in the taxable account I started 2 months ago. While each of these dividend payments aren’t much individually, the totals of all the small dividends sure do add up!

Below is a list of the company and dividends received for the month.

[table id=3 /]

Here is a link to my dividend portfolio.

Net worth

What a month.  If you care to, you can read my previous article about car accidents here.  Briefly, both my wife and I were in separate car accidents this month and victims of stupid drivers.  The guy that ran into me bent up my hood and bumper.  The guy that ran into her totaled her car and caused her some serious whiplash.  It will be several months of rehab before she is back to normal.

Let’s do the numbers…

Net-Worth-Report-October-2015

 

As they say, cash is king and I was happy to have plenty of it when my wife’s car was totaled.  We didn’t have to worry at all about how we were going to afford her new car or wait for a check from the insurance company.  I’ve been hoarding cash for some home improvement projects that I have yet to begin.  Once I know the exact costs of the home improvement projects, I’ll move the extra cash into some productive assets, dividend growth stocks.

Primary Home

My house shot up this month in value (1.56%) according to Zillow.  It’s amazing how common these swings in values have become.  I would not pay that much for my house today.  I now suspect Zillow is just adjusting the values + or – 1% every other month to keep people coming back to their website.  However, A few months ago, my city assigned a value of over $560,000 on my house for tax purposes.  I appealed the new assessed value with the city two months ago and it’s still pending.

While we are talking about the primary home, my wife and I sat down and determined this doesn’t have to be the house we live in for life.  This is a big deal for her as the location is pretty much ideal.  This is a really hard and life changing decision.  However, we purchased significantly more house than we need.  And if we truly want to retire early, selling this house and buying a new, mortgage free home is essential.

We came to the conclusion that paying extra money towards our primary home mortgage every month is no longer necessary.  Taking a page out of Dave Ramsey’s play book, we will now redirect that extra money towards our rental property and snowball that debt.  I suspect we’ll have rental property #2 paid off in roughly 4 years.  

Cars

This brings us to the car situation.  My recently wrecked car goes into the shop this week to get repaired on the other guys insurance company’s dime.  However, factoring in the wreck, my car has dropped another 6.2%.  It looks like this wreck depreciated my car an extra 1.5%.

As you may notice, my wife’s car just increased in value by 61%.  Obviously, that’s her new car’s value.  After her car was totaled, we received $6,000 from the insurance company.  We then added in another $8,000 and found her a, super-duper fancy car.  Her new, used, car is 6 years newer and has 80,000 less miles than her old car.  Not to mention its much nicer and isn’t missing an upgrade.  Moral of the story, buy used cars… your dollars go much further!

We obviously would have preferred for her to have not gotten hit and had her drive her old car for another 10 years.  But, since that isn’t an option, I think this horrible situation turned out as well as it could have.  I’ll write about the strategy used to get this awesome deal from the dealership later.  We made out great and according to KBB.com, our car is actually worth more than we paid for it.

So there you have it.  Our net worth is up and our dividend income is making great progress.  There is no doubt that I’ll kick through the $1,000 dividend income milestone next month.  I’ll keep grinding on this end.

 

Was this also a record breaking dividend income month for you? 

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!

6 Comments

  1. Awesome progress Blake! It’s amazing how many stocks we have in common. It’s almost like looking at my portfolio! Unfortunately I missed out on BBL’s massive divvy but that stock is on my radar. Keep it going!

    Ken

    • Blake

      Hi Ken,

      I wish our account balances were the same 😉 Your month was incredible. It will be another year or so before I’m raking in $450 a month in dividend income!

      As always, thanks for stopping by and commenting!

  2. This is wonderful. I appreciate your transparency. It is encouraging for new dividend investors like myself. Keep up the quality investing!

    Laura Beth

    • Blake

      Hi Laura Beth,

      Its funny, the more I receive in dividends, the more I appreciate this style of investing and wish I would have started earlier. Keep up the great work over there!

      Thank you for commenting and stopping by!

  3. Nice dividend income for the month. Only a couple names in common between our portfolios for the month of September. Just goes to show there are many ways to skin the dividend cat. Thanks for sharing. Keep that snowball growing.

    • Blake

      Thanks DH!

      You’re right… dividend growth investors have more choices than money to invest. Its more about noticing values when they popup than a lack of quality dividend growth stocks to choose from.

      Thanks for commenting!

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