September Dividend Income and Net Worth Report – 2020

Well, September didn’t really go anywhere in terms of the market. With a Presidential election just over a month away, and corona virus still disrupting much of the world – a stagnate market isn’t all that bad. Dividend income was close to a record high and net worth actually achieved a grand result this month.

September Dividend Income

This month I received $2,724.73 in dividend income!  On average, I was paid $35.39 from 77 different companies!  This month’s dividend income is a fantastic 12.35% increase over September 2019.
That’s a equates to $299.41 more dividend income than last September!  This is a nice change, and a trend I hope will continue!

Here is a chart of my passive dividend income progress over the last 5 years.

The dividend portfolio has been updated.

Here are the dividend stock purchases I’ve made between September 2019 and 2020 that have added to this dividend income growth.

September’s dividend income covers all my expenses for the month!

September Dividend Growth (Dividend Increases)

Here are the realized dividend increases I earned this September.  Dividend growth has been a little lack luster this year, but I do have a small ray of sunshine to report.

This September I received 9 dividend increases! And 2 companies that increased their dividend over 10%!

September’s dividend increase adds a respectable $41.49 in annual dividend income. The nine dividend increases are the equivalent of investing an extra $1185.43 of new money at 3.5% yield!  Without a doubt, I’m thrilled with the increases this month.

September Dividend Cuts (Dividend Decreases)

Sadly, those increase barely scratch the surface of the dividend decreases I received this month. Every 4 months (until things change) this section is going to be a gut punch.

Below are the realized dividend decreases I received this September.

This month I received 12 dividend decreases!  This sums up to $312.69 of lost dividend income this period! 

That’s the equivalent of shredding $8,934 instead of investing it at a 3.5% yield.  Like I said, this will be terrible for quite some time. And while I’m tempted to remove this section and just move on, I won’t. I think it’s important that I’m reminded (and whom ever else is reading this) that dividend cuts are awful events and reinforces just how important diversification is to the portfolio.

The total net dividend decrease for September was ($271.20 [increase – decrease]).

Net Worth

Net worth is continuing to slowly crawl it’s way up.

Let’s do the numbers…

Cash

So, after last month’s big spending and paying for some final fitments for the house, we got hit with a large, but expected bill. Our property tax bill for our new home is no longer managed by a lender anymore and we needed to pony up. Fortunately it is something we had planned for so it’s not an out of the blue bill, but there went $4k.

Other than that, cash outflows is still low during these covid times. Food costs have increased a bit, but we are buying better foods in an attempt to be healthier as well as keep things interesting and not eating out at all.

Real Estate

Not a lot going on here other than paying the property taxes. I have been looking at rental properties potential around our new area. While the homes are less expensive here, the condition of the homes and the neighborhoods are a questionable. However, I will keep looking for great deals.

Our rental property is still performing well. The tenant just re-upped a new two year lease and is paying their bills on time. No complaints.

Wrap-up

Dividend cuts/suspensions have impacted results this year considerably. To that point, I started tracking my dividend growth monthly in September of 2018. Until February 2020 my average monthly dividend growth had been $76.91 (not bad). Fast forward to today, my monthly average dividend increase has become an average decrease of ($4.93). Five months of decreases has destroyed a year and a half worth of increases. Ugh.

I don’t have an immediate plan to end this pain and sell any of the large companies that are causing the majority of this “dividend drag” (e.g. BA, DIS, F). I’m still waiting until after the virus – or more so, our reactions to the virus to subside. Until then, I will keep putting money to work every month and look for the best values I can find. However, I suspect I’ll default to safer, dividend aristocrat names, in many different sectors, for the time being.