Alright, these are some exciting times.  December has past so we can tally up the dividend income for the month and the year!

While the stock market pulled back a bit in December, my Portfolio income kept rolling in as usual.  It’s a glorious thing.

Most of this post will be dedicated to my December dividend income.  Here’s a quick preview…

December typically isn’t a record month for me (it’s March), but it is a quarter-ending month, so the income is quite good.  I rode right past the $1.5K mark, but keep reading to get the final total.

As you probably know, I target 15% Year-over-Year (YoY) dividend growth each month.  Sometimes I top that number, sometimes I don’t.  Sadly, I didn’t make it in December, but did I come close?  You’ll know soon enough.

I had an excellent month of additional forward dividend income generated from my reinvested dividends.  With the market trading lower than where it finished 2021, reinvested dividends worked well in 2022.  I can tell you I topped $50 in additional forward dividend income due to reinvested dividends in December.  How much higher did I go?

Dividend raises were solid in December as well.  I heard raise announcements from all the expected companies… enough of them to record a 2nd straight month of triple-digit forward dividend income.  However, I needed $164.47 to notch a new annual best for forward dividend income from dividend raises.  Did I make it?  Stick around to find out.

There wasn’t much in the way of Portfolio transaction activity in December (I must have been wrapped up in holiday activities!).  I only managed a pair of stock buys.  Yet, I was able to boost my forward dividend income from investment of capital by north of $50.  Where did the total end up?  I’ll let you know shortly.

When adding up the forward dividend income contributions from all 3 of my sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital), I posted my best monthly total of 2022, well above $200.  I needed $279.69 to set a new annual best.  Think I made it?  We shall see.

It was terrific finish to the year.  Let’s get to the specifics, starting with my December dividend income…

 

Dividend Income

 

For December, I collected a total of $1,585.54 in dividends.  I was hoping to cross $1.6K, but fell a bit short.

Even my YoY dividend growth for December of 11.88% came up a bit shy of my 15% monthly target after exceeding the $1,417.23 that I was paid in December of 2021.  Still, it was good progress.

A total of 22 companies paid me a dividend in December, with more than half of them providing more than $50.  Even better, seven of my dividend payers topped $113.  I love all those triple-digit dividends!

My dividend payers were led by Broadcom (AVGO) which sent me beautiful payment of $156.60.  This just squeaked past the $155.07 that was paid by Qualcomm (QCOM) and the $154.53 from T. Rowe Price Group (TROW).  I can’t recall such a tight grouping at the top for a single month.

My smallest dividend was the $6.57 sent by NextEra Energy (NEE).  That was less than the $10.35 paid to me by Microsoft (MSFT).   I’ve been able to add to my MSFT position this year and build a double-digit dividend from them.  However, I haven’t been as successful doing that with NEE, even though I’d like to.  Perhaps I can add to NEE in 2023.

The increased dividend amounts from TROW, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Skyworks Solutions (SWKS), Amgen (AMGN), Pinnacle West Capital (PNW), VF Corp (VFC), Visa (V) and MSFT were each helped by one or more purchases over the past year.

Increased YoY amounts for all other companies were a result of dividend increases and reinvested dividends over the past year.  I added over $25 in YoY dividend gains from AFL, more than $22 from BlackRock (BLK), better than $21 from AVGO, over $17 from QCOM, and had in excess of $12 from Union Pacific (UNP).

Ending my quest for a 3rd month in a row where no stocks had a payout reduction compared to the same month a year ago was 3M Co. (MMM).  The reduction in dividend payout was due to my trimming of the stock over the past year.  If its stock price was a bit higher I probably would have exited my MMM position already.

I only had one new dividend payer this December.  It was Cummins (CMI), which provided a $15.92 dividend.  I established my CMI position in April of last year.  I’ve been looking to add to my position and boost that dividend payout, but I haven’t found the price to be right since my initial buy.

As for stocks no longer paying me a dividend in December, I had one of those, too, in Gilead Sciences (GILD).  I sold out of GILD last year due to its fading dividend growth and its under-performance over a long period of time.  Of course, the stock finally shot up in price after I sold.  I certainly missed the $77.80 that GILD paid me last December.

As usual, all my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them.  The additional forward dividend income boost that resulted from the reinvestment was $51.18.  This was my 3rd best total of 2022, only trailing the slightly better amounts in June and September.  TROW was the biggest contributor to this total with close to $7.  Eleven more stocks delivered $2 or more.  The contributions were widespread.

As a result of December’s reinvested dividends, I purchased over 14 new shares of stock.  This included just over 2 shares of VFC and nearly 2 shares from Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA).  More than 1 share came from each of the following stocks: AFL, TROW, Main Street Capital (MAIN) and QCOM.

 

Dividend Raises

All of my dividend raises were announced in the first half of the month.  There were 6 raises in total.  After that, I just coasted to year-end.

I would say three of my December raises were quite good, a couple were just average, and the last one was a bit insignificant.

The first dividend raise of the month came from Eastman Chemical (EMN), which raised their dividend by 3.95%.  This was a noticeable step down from last year’s double-digit raise, but it would be hard to expect EMN to continue with those.

My largest percentage raise came a week later and it came from Broadcom (AVGO).  AVGO delivered a pleasant 12.2% increase to their dividend which boosted my forward dividend income by a healthy $68.08 – my best increase of the month by far.

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) announced on the same day as AVGO, but BMY only managed a 5.56% raise.  This was nearly half of the double-digit raise that BMY provided last year.

A few days later a got another pair of dividend raises…

The first raise came from Amgen (AMGN), which just missed a double-digit raise with a 9.79% boost.  This was quite comparable to the raise that AMGN provided in each of the previous 4 years as well.  This resulted in another $21.46 of additional forward dividend income.

Unfortunately, my next raise was only one of the four small quarterly boosts from Realty Income (O).  It was a 0.2% raise that provided $0.51 of new forward dividend income.  In 2022, O did not provide their typical 5th raise of the calendar year, which is typically their biggest.  I’m hoping O gets back on schedule with their big boost this January.

Finishing out my raises for not only December, but for all of 2022 as well, was CVS Health (CVS).  It was a 2nd consecutive annual raise of 10%.  It added $25.83 of additional forward dividend income.  I feel like waiting for CVS to boost their dividend again after that Aetna acquisition has been worth it.  A couple of double-digits raises can do that.

 

 

Adding up the dividend raises from December, my forward dividend income increased by $135.02.  This was even better than last month, but not as good as the December total from 2021.  It was a good way to close out the year, even if I’d been hoping for more.

I’d have to invest $4,982.29 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.71% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.

Looking ahead to January, I’m expecting fewer raises, but hopefully a larger boost to my forward dividend income.  I should be hearing about raises from BlackRock (BLK), Fastenal (FAST), Comcast (CMCSA) and Nexstar Media Group (NXST).  If all goes well, each raise would be 8% or greater.  Then there’s the possibility of the raise from O (their biggest of the year – I’m thinking 2%-3%), as well as one from Air Products & Chemicals (APD) if they announce their raise in late January instead of early February (as they’ve done before).

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

Portfolio moves were minimal in December.  There were no sales to speak of but there were a couple of buys, one of which established a new Portfolio position.

This was a noticeable decrease in Portfolio activity compared to the past couple of months.  I guess I had plenty of things occupying my time in December.

With the first buy I kept building out a position that I only started at the beginning of June.  I continued to buy Medtronic (MDT) as its price continued to drift lower.  This purchase was my 7th of MDT in the past 7 months.

My other buy was of a stock I’ve been wanting to add to my Portfolio for some time.  The stock price dipped enough for me to make a move and finally establish a position in Accenture (ACN).  Adding to my Information Technology holdings has been a priority for me for at least the past couple of years, so finding something to add to my Portfolio that meets that criteria, and which offers good dividend growth, was appealing.

Details for the two buys can be found in the following pair of posts…

 

Recent Buy – MDT (again!)

Recent Buy – ACN

 

The two buys resulted in a net investment of $3,349.50.  In addition, my forward dividend income rose by an even $72.

With ACN being a new holding, the number of stocks in my Portfolio increased to 59.

 

Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income

In 2022, I continue tracking my additional forward dividend income generated each month from the trifecta of sources: reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and new capital investment.

I show 2021 totals as well, so that we can compare as the year progresses.

 

 

In December, I accumulated another $258.20 of additional forward dividend income.  It just so happens that this was my best monthly showing of 2022.  It was also my 6th time crossing the $200 level during the year.

Once again, all 3 sources provided solid contributions to my monthly total, but Dividend Raises led the way (typically the case), beating the combined total from Reinvested Dividends and Investment of Capital.

Adding that December total of $258.20 to my annual total put me at $2,202.56 for the year.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for me to eclipse last year’s additional forward dividend income total of $2,224.04.  Missed it by that much!

With the down market in 2022, Dividend Reinvestment had a solid year.  I blew away last year’s income boost of $373.96 by an impressive amount, tallying $489.28 in 2022.

Dividend Raises in 2022 fell just short of the forward dividend income boost provided by them in 2021.  It was $1,173.82 vs. $1,203.26, respectively.  I came up short again!

As for Investment of Capital, early in the year my investments replaced lost investment income from the sale of high-yielding stocks, as opposed to providing new investment income.  Due to this, for 2022 I came up well short of the forward dividend income total that new capital investments had in 2021.

Despite coming up just short on new income from Dividend Raises, and short on my Additional Forward Dividend Income total, it was a good year.  Adding another $2K to my projected dividend totals for next year (and years to come) is a wonderful thing… it keeps the snowball rolling.

 

Progress Charts

The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.  It was a solid finish to 2022.  Let the dividends starting rolling in for 2023!

 

 

 

On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.  I kept the stair steps going in 2022.  No doubt, another Y-axis adjustment will be required in 2023… I look forward to it!

 

 

Annual Growth

Now that 2022 is over, let’s take a look at the YoY growth of my actual dividend income, as well as my forward dividend income.

Actual Dividend Income

The annual numbers for actual dividend income can be seen in the chart just above.  I finished 2022 with $15,208.55 in dividends, besting the $13,466.05 in dividends I tallied in 2021.  YoY growth for 2022 thus equaled 12.94%, well below the 15.74% growth from last year.  A good chunk of this decrease is due to the absence of the TROW special dividend in 2022 compared to 2021.  My YoY growth would have been closer to 16% otherwise.  I’d like to hit 15% YoY growth in 2023, but the larger dividend totals each year will make that more challenging if my investment of capital doesn’t grow with the size of those dividend totals.

Forward Dividend Income

How about my annual forward dividend income numbers?  Well, I finished 2022 with $16,465.09 in forward dividend income ($1,372.09/month), while I finished 2021 with $14,261.70 ($1,188.48/month) in forward dividend income.  So, YoY growth in forward dividend income for 2022 was 15.45%.  I’ll take that.  That’s an average of another $183.61 in monthly dividend income thanks to my progress in 2022!

 

Summary

I said hello to another $1,585 in dividends in December.  It wasn’t any sort of record, but it was a welcomed total, for sure.  YoY dividend income growth didn’t reach my desired level, but it’s hard to complain about nearly 11.9% YoY growth.

I had seven of my dividend payments top $113, with the most being $156 from AVGO.  There were 22 dividend payers in all.

Reinvested dividends provided more than $51 in additional forward dividend income in December, allowing me to finish with over $489 for the year.

I was graced with another 6 dividend raises in December, bringing my total to 58 for the year.  These December raises boosted my additional forward dividend income by just over $135 in December, totaling nearly $1,174 for the year.  My best December raise was a 12.2% hike from AVGO, which also resulted in my largest income boost for the month from any of the stocks in the group.

I only made 2 Portfolio transactions in December.  This consisted of 2 buys.  In one case, I kept adding MDT, a new holding for 2022.  In the other case, I established a new position in ACN, another Information Technology stock for my Portfolio.  The net investment for the two buys was more than $3,349.  Additional forward dividend income rose by exactly $72 thanks to these December purchases.  For the year, all my buys & sales resulted in more than a $539 boost to my forward dividend income.

Tallying the contributions from all sources, over $258 in forward dividend income was added my Portfolio in December.  For the year, forward dividend income rose by just over $2,202, falling just shy of my total from 2021.

I closed out 2022 by collecting $15,208.55 (or $1,267.38/month) in paid dividends for the year.  This equated to 12.94% YoY growth.

As for forward dividend income, I finished 2022 with a total of $16,465.09 (or $1,372.09/month).  This translated to 15.45% YoY growth.

 

How did your portfolio fare in 2022 with regard to actual dividends and forward dividends?  Did you obtain the YoY growth you were looking for?  Please share in the Comments!

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