Time to tally those dividends for November!  I’m thankful for a cornucopia of dividends I received this past month.  No dividend records to report, but just good steady progress towards my ultimate goal of financial independence.

Not much time now until the end of the year.  Just like you might have last-minute Christmas shopping to get done, the same may be true with regard to a last-minute push to achieve your annual dividend goals.  So get out there and make it happen!  The good news about shopping for dividend stocks is that they pay you back over time.  🙂

I’m happy to report that I’m still on track to collect $10K in dividends for 2019.  I can’t wait to get the final numbers soon to make it official.   I love reaching all the milestones on this DGI journey, and this is a big one coming up for me.

With the markets moving higher in November, my Portfolio continues to move higher in value.  Couple that with the ever-growing dividend income stream and there’s a lot to be happy about from a financial perspective.

Let’s not wait any longer… check out my dividend income report for November.

 

Dividend Income

In November, I raked in an unusually round dividend total of $739.00.  It’s long odds to end with an even dollar amount!  My YoY growth was strong at 17.60% when compared to the $628.38 from November 2018.

A total of 15 companies paid me a dividend this month.  My long-time holdings delivered the most dividends for me, with the two newcomers from the past year making their appearance at the bottom of the list.

Abbvie (ABBV) was the lone dividend payer to crack the $100 payment level for me, $121.07 to be exact.  However, sometime in 2020, I expect Procter & Gamble (PG) to join that 3-digit club, as currently PG is not too far behind after delivering $94.94.  My lowest payer was Caterpillar (CAT) with a payment of $20.60.  CAT is a position I initiated just this past August.  This happens to be my first CAT dividend!

The increased dividend amounts from ABBV, Lowe’s Companies (LOW) and Starbucks (SBUX) were boosted by additional purchases over the past year.  Increased amounts for the other companies were a result of dividend increases and reinvested dividends over the past year.

A couple of stocks saw reduced payouts for me compared to last year.  Those stocks were Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI) and Hormel Foods (HRL).  Neither was due to a dividend cut though.  Instead, the OHI decrease resulted from some trimming I’ve done with the stock over the past year as I reduced its dividend weighting within my Portfolio.  The HRL decrease resulted from a trim I did just over a year ago at a time when I believed HRL to be overvalued.

As noted earlier, this November recorded 2 new dividend payers compared to last year.  CAT we already discussed.  The other is General Dynamics (GD).  I initiated my GD position back in April – it was my first 1st purchase of 2019.  I plan to add to both GD and CAT over time, so hopefully they won’t be at the bottom of the dividend list for very long.

Only 1 dividend from last November disappeared this time around.  That was the dividend for Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH).  I sold CTSH last month as it appeared they were changing directions within their business, putting a damper on growth.  In addition, there was no dividend increase this year!  It’s hard to stand for that, right?

I managed to reinvest all dividends in November, resulting in an additional forward dividend income boost of $23.38.  This is two cents more than last month!  I’m creeping up on at least $25 every month in additional forward dividend income due to reinvested dividends.  It’s only a matter of time!

Starting this year, I introduced another column in the dividend income table to show the actual number of “New Shares” that were purchased with the reinvested dividends.  In November, my reinvested dividends resulted in the purchase of over 9.9 new shares of stock.  I’m hoping for over 10 shares every month in 2020.

 

Dividend Raises

My Portfolio did not record as many raises in November as in October.  However, November was all about quality raises instead of quantity.  All raises were over 10%!  This led to an impressive bump in forward dividend income as you will see.

In November, I had 4 companies announce a dividend raise.  Not a shabby total, but less than the tremendous total of 7 from October.

ABBV wasted no time in starting November off, announcing a raise on the first day of the month.  The raise was 10.28%.  Thanks to ABBV already being one of my largest dividend payers, this percentage raise led to nearly half of this month’s additional forward dividend income.  A boost of over $50!

My next raise was the biggest for the month (in percentage terms).  It was a 15.38% boost from Air Lease (AL).  This resulted in almost $26 in additional forward dividend income.  AL is not a high-yielder, so I expect it to deliver strong dividend growth, and the company didn’t disappoint.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see 15% raises for at least the next 3 years, too.

Keeping the party going, Nike (NKE) followed a week later with an announcement of an 11.36% dividend raise.   Similar to AL, NKE’s yield is low, so I want to see above average dividend growth, and they provided it.

Finishing out the month was HRL, announcing a 10.71% raise.  Despite being a Dividend King (over 50 consecutive years of dividend increases), HRL continues to deliver outstanding dividend growth.  HRL has 10%+ growth over the 1-yr, 3-yr, 5-yr and 10-yr reporting periods.

 

All totaled, these dividend raises contributed $103.57 to my additional forward dividend income.  Wow, all this from 4 raises… see… quality raises.  November’s 4 raises delivered more additional forward dividend income than the 7 raises I had in October.  In addition, this was my 3rd best monthly total for the year, and 3rd time crossing into triple digits for the year.

I’d have to invest $3,983.46 at my Portfolio’s current average yield of 2.60% in order to equal the same boost to my annual forward dividend income that these dividend raises provided.  More raises please!  It makes my investment work so much easier.

Looking forward, December will most likely be a light month on the dividend increase front.  While REITs Realty Income (O) and W.P. Carey (WPC) should announce raises, they will probably be below 0.25% each.  Other than those two, I only expect a raise announcement from Eastman Chemical (EMN).  As it turns out, EMN already announced their raise before I could get this post out.  However, I’ll save the details for next month.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

While I did have a stock sale in November (CTSH), I managed to post a few smaller purchases, and one significant one, that more than compensated for the sale.  Thus, I didn’t have to worry about a second straight negative month when it came to additional forward dividend income due to new investments.  It’s no fun seeing numbers in the red, so I’m happy to be back in the black.

You can find all the details in this recent post: Recent Transactions – CTSH, SBUX, XOM, CSCO, MMM.

The net result of all my transaction activity was that my forward dividend income increased by $103.06.  This happened to be my 2nd largest monthly total of the year in this category.

I still have some capital to invest, so I remain on the lookout for a possible purchase.  However, acceptable prices are getting harder to come by given the rising market.  Still, it seems there’s always something worth purchasing no matter how high the market gets, you just have to find it.

 

Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income

This year I continue with tracking the additional forward dividend income generated each month from the trifecta of sources: reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and new capital investment.

I’m also showing 2018’s totals so that that we can compare as the year goes along.

As noted at the start of the year, I anticipate that my Reinvested Dividends total will move higher in 2019, but that I’ll see a reduction in the total from the Dividend Raises and the Investment of Capital.  With just one month left this year, this prediction looks like it will come true.

 

‘Dividend Raises’ managed to squeak out a victory in November, beating ‘Investment of Capital’ by a small margin.  Couple these two triple-digit totals with the steady amount I collect from ‘Reinvested Dividends’ and I posted the 2nd best monthly total for additional forward dividend income for the year.  November’s total trailed only the monthly total from June, where Investment of Capital dominated the total that month.  Looking at the annual totals thus far, I believe it’s a foregone conclusion that Dividend Raises will finish the year again as my #1 generator of additional forward dividend income.  Never underestimate the power of the dividend raise!

I was hoping to achieve $1,600 in additional forward dividend income for the year, but it seems unlikely to me given that I’d need over $159 in new forward dividend income in December.  The dividend raises and new capital investment just won’t be there in December to support it.

Through November, my 2019 average monthly amount of additional forward dividend income being generated stands at ~$131/mo.  This is roughly a $10 increase from last month’s average.

 

Progress Charts

The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.  It continues to look great!

 

 

On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.

In November, I surpassed the annual total from 2018.  It’s all gravy in December.  As noted earlier, I expect to cross $10K by the end of December.  I’ll have to adjust the Y-axis scale at that time to show something bigger than $10K… more work, but oh so worth it!

 

Summary

In November, I was able to collect exactly $739 in dividends, showing 17.6% YoY growth.  Good totals, for sure.

While I secured 4 dividend raises, that’s usually not enough to result in over $100 in additional forward dividend income just from raises, but that’s what happened thanks to 10%+ raises from all 4 companies.

I made 5 transactions in November, one sale and four purchases.  This netted me over $100 in additional forward dividend income as well.

My Portfolio’s forward dividend income made good headway thanks to contributions from the trifecta of dividend income sources.  My forward dividend income now stands at $10,718.29, bringing my average monthly dividend income to over $893/mo.  I’m hoping I might be able to reach $10,800 by year’s end, meaning an average of $900/mo. moving forward.

On the year-end horizon is collecting $10K in annual dividends.  Exciting times ahead!

 

Do you have any last-minute stock shopping to do before year’s end?  Any end-of year purchases planned in order to help you reach your annual goals?  Please share in the Comments!

I have updated the Portfolio & Dividends pages in conjunction with this monthly update.