Here we are to wrap up 2023 dividends with a look at my December dividend income.  It’s been a terrific year for my Portfolio in the sense that its value was up with the stock market, and record annual dividends were secured.

For many, December is often their largest dividend month of the year.  For me, it’s actually March.  I had a couple of special dividends this December, but unfortunately, it still wasn’t enough to notch a record monthly dividend total.  I’ll have more on this coming up.

Still, with major progress being made in 2023, and another year of even bigger totals on slate for 2024, I’ll keep investing as I have.

Here’s a quick preview of my dividend highlights for December before I get into the details…

Monthly dividend fell short of my $1,846.18 record, but was I able to surpass $1.8K for just the 2nd time ever?  You’ll know soon enough.

Year over Year (YoY) dividend growth was right around my 15% monthly target.  However, was it just above or just below?

Additional forward dividend income from my 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital) exceeded $200 for the 2nd straight month.  Did it exceed $200 by enough to set a new annual record for additional forward dividend income?  Did dividend raises lead all my contributors again?  The answers will be yours shortly.

Updated charts will show my dividend progress each month this year, and for the year in total.  These charts certainly reveal my long-term progress.

Let’s get to it!  Here are the dividend details we’ve been waiting for, beginning with my dividend income…

 

Dividend Income

 

In the last month of 2023, I collected a total of $1,808.88.  Eights are wild!  This was my 2nd-highest monthly dividend total ever, and the 2nd time I crossed the $1.8K level.

My YoY dividend growth in December fell just shy of my 15% growth target, coming in at 14.09%.  While I didn’t hit my target this month, I topped 15% YoY dividend growth in 8 of the 12 months in 2023.

A total of 22 companies paid me a dividend in December.  Thanks to a whopping $127.18 special dividend from Fastenal (FAST), eight companies were able to provide a triple-digit dividend this month.

The largest dividend of the month came courtesy of Broadcom (AVGO).  The dividend was $183.49, boosted by a 14.13% dividend raise earlier in the month.  Qualcomm (QCOM) and T. Rowe Price Group (TROW) weren’t too far behind with dividends of $169.86 and $164.24, respectively.

As for the smallest dividend of the month, $9.77, that was delivered by V.F. Corp (VFC).  It will also be my last VFC dividend, as I eliminated my VFC position in December, too.  The $13.78 dividend from Microsoft (MSFT) wasn’t much bigger.  That small yield from MSFT makes chunky dividends rather difficult.

The increased dividend amounts from Skyworks Solutions (SWKS), NextEra Energy (NEE), Realty Income (O), Cummins (CMI) and Microsoft (MSFT) were each helped by one or more purchases over the past year.

The noticeable jump from Main Street Capital (MAIN) was due to a special dividend on top of their regular monthly dividend.  The special dividend turned out to be a tad larger than the regular dividend.

Increased YoY amounts for all other companies were a result of dividend increases and reinvested dividends over the past year.  I added more than $26 in YoY dividend gains from AVGO, better than $14 from QCOM, more than $12 from SWKS, and surpassed $9 each from T. Rowe Price Group (TROW), Aflac (AFL) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).

Of the December stocks that paid me both last year and this year, one of them posted a payout reduction… and that was V.F. Corp. (VFC).  VFC  smacked me around with a pair of dividend cuts in the past year and that led directly to the reduction.

As for new dividend payers in December, I had three of them.  The largest payer was Fastenal (FAST), which came through with that special dividend I noted earlier.  The other two stocks, Enbridge (ENB) and Whirlpool (WHR), were new purchases of mine over the past year.  ENB debuted with a solid $79.47 dividend, while WHR arrived with $27.27 despite it being my smallest Portfolio position.

You’ll see I recorded three stocks that no longer paid me a dividend this December.  The one from Nike (NKE) happened to stem from the company paying their dividend in December last year, but delaying it until January this year.  The other two departures were a result of me purging the stocks from my Portfolio.  I said goodbye to Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) recently and 3M Co. (MMM) months ago due to deteriorating stocks prices and questionable dividend safety.

 

As usual, all my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them.  One exception though… my AVGO dividend did not get reinvested my broker (despite it being done in the past).  I suspect it might have had something to do with the stock price surpassing $1K/share.  I’ll have to follow up.  The result of all the reinvestment was an additional $51.28 of forward dividend income.  I’ve eclipsed $50 for four months in a row now… impressive.  The reinvestment of the TROW dividend accounted for more than $7 of my total, while MAIN and ENB both contributed better than $5.

As a result of December’s reinvested dividends, I dripped nearly 16 new shares of stock.  This included over 2 shares of MAIN, and close to 2 shares of FAST and ENB.  Throw in more than 1.5 shares each of AFL and TROW, plus more than 1 share of QCOM, and there were plenty of significant contributions.

 

Dividend Raises

Not only did I receive gifts from my friends and family this holiday season, but several companies in my Portfolio were in a giving mood as well.

My Portfolio delivered a total of 7 dividend raises to me… with one sticking out relative to the others.

That top raise was a double-digit percentage boost, leading to a sweet hike in my forward dividend income.  Another company came oh so close to providing a double-digit raise as well.

The best part… all the raises translated into triple-digit additional forward dividend income.

My first raise of the month was not only my 2nd largest raise percentage in December, but it provided the 2nd best forward dividend income increase, too.  CVS Health (CVS) hiked their dividend by 9.92%, just below the 10% raise from last year.  This raise added a nice $29.10 to my forward dividend income.

The next day I received a pair of smaller raises from Eastman Chemical (EMN) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY).  The EMN raise was a fairly disappointing 2.53% increase that only added $5.53 to my forward dividend income.  This raise couldn’t even top EMN’s 3.95% hike from the previous year.  The raise from BMY was better at 5.26%, leading to an additional $12.24 of forward dividend income.  However, the raise also failed to top last year’s raise of 5.56%.

I only had to wait another day for my best raise of the month.  Broadcom (AVGO) announced a stellar 14.13% hike, topping the 12.2% raise from 2022.  Since AVGO is one of my largest dividend payers, this resulted in a whopping $90.87 boost to my forward dividend income.  This made up more than half of my monthly total, as you’ll soon see.

Several days later a couple more dividend raises rolled in.  The first one was the standard, small quarterly raise from Realty Income (O).  The raise was 0.20% and added $0.62 to my forward dividend income.  Combined with the 4 other raises provided by O during the year it resulted in a total 2023 percentage increase of 3.22%.  The other raise was a decent 5.63% boost from Amgen (AMGN) that increased my forward dividend income by $14.03.  Unfortunately, this dividend hike didn’t live up to the 9.79% raise AMGN gave in 2022.

Lastly, I had the 3rd raise this year from American Tower (AMT).  Typically AMT raises quarterly, but missed one of those increases earlier in the year, so we ended up with three.  AMT provided a 4.94% raise this month that added $5.87 to my forward dividend income.  All totaled, the three 2023 raises from AMT resulted in a total 8.97% hike.  I can live with that!

 

 

After accounting for all my December dividend raises, my forward dividend income increased by a robust $158.31.  AVGO provided the majority of this, but Healthcare stocks CVS, AMGN & BMY delivered double-digit forward dividend income increases, too.

I’d have to invest $5,715.16 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.77% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.

Looking ahead to January, I’m expecting plenty of companies to offer up raises, hopefully resulting in a triple-digit income boost.  I expect to hear from Fastenal (FAST), BlackRock (BLK), Comcast (CMCSA) and Nexstar Media Group (NXST) for sure.  I also anticipate announcements from Air Products & Chemicals (APD), Amdocs Ltd. (DOX) and Quest Diagnostics (DGX) as well, however, these could easily slip into February based on what I’ve experienced in the past.  Either way, I hope 2024 gets off to a terrific start on the dividend raise front.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

I just had one cluster of trading activity for the month.  All on the same day, I sold one of my poorly-performing holdings and used the sale proceeds to continue building out three smaller holdings.

It was less “new investment” and more of a stock swap.  However, a tiny bit of cash was needed to complete the entire set of transactions, and I did end up increasing my forward dividend income.

Details for all four of my December transactions can be found in the following post…

 

Recent Transactions – VFC, NEE, CMI, MKC

 

My transactions resulted in an net investment of $49.57 into my Portfolio.  My forward dividend income increased by a total of $21.63.

With one stock exiting my Portfolio, and the three purchases being additions to existing holdings, the number of stocks in my Portfolio dropped to 59.

 

Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income

In 2023, I continued tracking my additional forward dividend income generated each month from the trifecta of sources: reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and new capital investment.

I showed 2022 totals as well, so that we could compare as the year progressed.

December was an outstanding month with respect to additional forward dividend income.  It capped off a strong year, even though I didn’t quite surpass last year’s annual total.

 

 

Accounting for all the sources, I added $231.22 of additional forward dividend income in the final month of 2023.  This was my 4th time this year that I topped $200 for the month.

My December total was quite good, even though it fell a bit shy of the $258.20 total from 2022.  The primary difference was minimal Investment of Capital this year compared to last.

Dividend Raises provided the majority of my additional forward dividend income in December, totaling $158.31.  Reaching triple-digits in the category for the 2nd month in a row (after a 9-month drought during the year) was exciting.

Reinvested Dividends continued to be solid.  I surpassed $50 for the 4th time in a row by notching $51.28 in December.

My Investment of Capital total of $21.63 was essentially from a swap of Portfolio stocks.  I mentioned previously that I’d barely invested any new capital in December.

For the year, I tallied $2,114.93 in additional forward dividend income.  This was less than $90 away from exceeding last year’s total of $2,202.56.  This was also about $110 off my all-time high of $2.224.04 that I posted in 2021.  I could have surpassed both the 2021 & 2022 totals in 2023 had I avoided those VFC dividend cuts.  I’ll have to plan for a new record next year!

Once again, Dividend Raises was my largest contributor to my annual additional forward dividend income total.  Reinvested Dividends managed to secure its spot as my 2nd best source by surpassing Investment of Capital this year.  I’d expect this to be the standard ‘order of finish’ in the years to come.

2023 marked my 3rd consecutive year of recording more than $2K of additional forward dividend income for my Portfolio.  That’s quite motivating!

 

Progress Charts

The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.

Every month in 2023 was better than the corresponding month from 2022.  That’s just how I drew it up!

Let’s see if a $2K month is in the cards in 2024.  I do have to say though, it seems like a longshot.

 

 

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

One can see there was a growth uptick in 2023 relative to the few previous years.  Hard not to like that, right?  Reaching $20K in annual dividends is a possibility in 2024 if I can duplicate my efforts from 2023!

 

 

Annual Growth

Now that we’ve wrapped up 2023, 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 2023 with $17,634.92 in dividends, surpassing the $15,208.55 in dividends I collected in 2022.  YoY growth for 2023 thus equaled 15.95%… my best showing in the past 4 years.  That’s hard to do when the Portfolio size is getting bigger each year.  This growth was helped by special dividends during the year from FAST and MAIN, but hindered by two dividend cuts from VFC.

Forward Dividend Income

As for my annual forward dividend income numbers, I finished 2023 with $18,578.06 in forward dividend income ($1,548.17/month), while I finished 2022 with $16,465.09 ($1,372.09/month).  So, YoY growth in forward dividend income for 2023 was 12.83%.  Not bad!  This translated into an average of an additional $176.08 in monthly dividend income thanks to my progress in 2023!

 

Summary

In December, I collected nearly $1,809 in dividends… just my 2nd time topping $1.8K in a single month.  YoY dividend income growth of almost 14.1% fell just below my target level of 15%.

I happily accepted a total of 22 dividend payments.  Eight of those payments topped $116, with the $183.49 from AVGO leading the way.

Reinvested dividends provided more than $51 in additional forward dividend income in December, allowing me to finish with nearly $589 for the year from this source.

I had 7 dividend raises in December, bringing my total to 64 for the year.  AVGO also set the pace in this category in December, providing a 14.13% hike.  All my December raises boosted my additional forward dividend income by just over $158, bringing my yearly total close to $1,085.

My Portfolio had one cluster of four transactions in December.  I eliminated VFC and used the proceeds to add to my NEE, CMI & MKC positions.  The net investment for the entire set of transactions was just less than $50, but it still added close to $22 in forward dividend income.

Tallying the contributions from all sources, over $231 in forward dividend income was added my Portfolio in December.  For the year, forward dividend income rose by almost $2,115.  Unfortunately, this annual total came up a little short of what I tallied in 2022.

I closed out 2023 by collecting $17,634.92 (or an average of $1,469.58/month) in paid dividends for the year.  This equated to 15.95% YoY growth.

As for forward dividend income, I finished 2023 with a total of $18,578.06 (or $1,548.17/month).  This translated to 12.83% YoY growth.

 

How did 2023 treat your dividend portfolio?  Did your portfolio grow as you wished?  Did you have to overcome any setbacks?  Please share in the Comments!

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