One month down in 2024, eleven more to go.  After a good 2023 for my dividend Portfolio, I began my quest to top those numbers this year.

I start with lots of optimism that I’ll achieve many, if not all my goals.  I just need to stay the course, remain diligent in my investing, and I’m sure success will come my way.

Let’s get a quick preview of my dividend highlights for this first month of the new year before I get into all the details…

Monthly dividend income topped $1.4K (the minimum I hope to clear each month in 2024), but how much higher did I finish?  The answer is coming soon.

As you probably know, I’ve got a monthly Year-over-Year (YoY) dividend growth target of 15%.  Dividend growth above 20% I consider to be excellent.  I can say I fell in between those two percentages in January.  However, which percentage was I closer to?

For a 3rd straight month, additional forward dividend income from my 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital) exceeded $200!  In fact, I exceeded that mark with just one of the three sources.  Sweet!  So, how big did the additional forward dividend total get this month?  Stay tuned.

Of course I’ll share updated charts showing my dividend progress each month this year, and for the year in total, too.  At the start of each year, the annual goals seem so far away, but I’ve got to start somewhere.

Anyway, let get some details, starting with my dividend income…

 

Dividend Income

 

To kick off 2024, I raked in dividends totaling $1,461.22.  That’s a solid total, no doubt.  This is more than double my January total from 5 years ago.  I like the progress.

My YoY dividend growth in January nearly eclipsed my “excellent” percentage of 20%, but fell a little short at 19.25%.  If I keep this up though, I will double my dividends in only 4 years time.

A total of 24 companies paid me a dividend in January.  I think that matches my largest number of payers in a single month.  Three of my dividend payers managed to deliver a triple-digit dividend, which I always like.  I’ve got some other stocks on the triple-digit horizon as well.

The largest dividend of the month came from Pepsico (PEP).  It was a payment of $149.29.  This was slightly ahead of the $143.74 dividend provided by Altria Group (MO).

As for the smallest dividend of the month, it was $9.00 from The Walt Disney Co. (DIS).  The company reinstated their dividend recently, after eliminating it at the start of the pandemic, and this was the first payment.

The increased dividend amounts from Automatic Data Processing (ADP), Medtronic (MDT), Realty Income (O) and McCormick & Co. (MKC) 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 more than $17 in YoY dividend gains from PEP after their healthy dividend raise last year, more than $16 from MO, north of $12 from RPM International (RPM), and topped $7 each from Merck & Co. (MRK) and Illinois Tool Works (ITW).

Of the stocks that paid me in both January of last year and this year, none of them posted a payout reduction.  I love seeing that.  My YoY dividend growth numbers certainly benefit from this.

As for new dividend payers in January, I had four of them… and for various reasons.  The largest payer was a new stock to my Portfolio, UGI Corp. (UGI), which nicely topped a $50 payout.  Being a new stock in my Portfolio is the main reason stocks show up here.  The nearly $50 dividend from Nike (NKE) slipped into January after the company switched from what was expected to be a December payment.  Doing the opposite and moving up their dividend payment (from February to January) was Quest Diagnostics (DGX), which provided over $41.  Lastly, DIS delivered that $9 dividend I mentioned earlier after reinstating its dividend.

As for stocks that no longer pay me a dividend in January, I only had one.  It was a dividend from Medical Properties Trust (MPW).  I eliminated MPW from my Portfolio last August, due to poor performance, bleak prospects, and a dividend that was on shaky ground.  It turns out that I sold days before MPW’s dividend cut.

 

As usual, all my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them.  The exception… DOX.  My broker doesn’t offer reinvestment with this stock.  The result of the reinvestment that did take place was an additional $53.77 of forward dividend income.  Make that now five months in a row exceeding $50.  A huge chunk of this month’s additional forward dividend income came from MO, which accounted for more than $13 by itself.  PEP contributed over $4, while UGI added more than $3, and yet another ten stocks topped $2 each.  There were plenty of stellar contributions all around.

As a result of January’s reinvested dividends, I dripped close to 20 new shares of stock.  This included over 3 shares of MO, more than 2 shares of UGI, and better than 1 share each from OGE Energy (OGE), Comcast (CMCSA), VICI Properties (VICI) and RPM.

 

Dividend Raises

My dividend raises stole the ‘forward dividend income’ show in January.  Even though it wasn’t a record sum this month, it was a magnificent total nonetheless.

My Portfolio saw a total of 6 dividend raises, but two of them really carried the month for my Portfolio.

The two best raises carried double-digit percentages.  A third raise I’d put in the good category.  The final three were disappointing though.

Let’s tackle the raises in the order they arrived…

My first raise of the month was one of the disappointing ones.  BlackRock (BLK) delivered a 2% raise, even less than the 2.46% raise from last year that I felt wasn’t up to snuff.  That’s two consecutive years of lackluster raises.  Considering BLK had better than a 12% annualized raise percentage over the previous decade, I’m hoping BLK can fix this by next year.

Fastenal (FAST) came through with a very agreeable raise of 11.43%.  While this failed to match the 12.9% boost from last year, I can’t complain about a double-digit dividend hike.  With FAST being one of my larger dividend payers, the raise translated into nearly $54 of additional forward dividend income.

Delivering a raise that was in-line with my expectations was Comcast (CMCSA).  Its 6.9% raise was solid, but certainly not extraordinary.  CMCSA also failed to match last year’s raise percentage, which was 7.41%.  The raise was good enough to add nearly $17 of additional forward dividend income.

Like BLK, another stock that came up way short of expectation was Air Products and Chemicals (APD).  The stock’s raise percentage decline from 8.02% last year to 1.14% this year was a bit shocking.  My additional forward dividend income increased by less than $3 with this raise… a lost opportunity for sure.

My best raise of the month was a massive 25.19% hike from Nexstar Media Group (NXST).  Amazingly, this was a sharp step down from the 50% boost provided last year.  Despite that, this huge raise boosted my forward dividend income by almost $154, accounting for roughly 60% of this month’s total.  This is often more than I collect in a single month from several stocks.  In the past decade, NXST has never failed to deliver at least 20% YoY dividend growth.  Wow!  My Yield-on-Cost for my NXST shares is now 9.6%.

After getting my head in the clouds with the NXST raise, I came back to Earth after hearing of the T. Rowe Price Group (TROW) raise.  It was just a 1.64% raise, even falling short of the 1.67% raise from last year.  These past two years from TROW have provided raises that are nothing close to their annualized double-digit hikes over the previous decade.  I believe TROW can eventually get back to historical dividend raise percentages, but not until their payout ratio can be brought down.

 

 

After accounting for all my January dividend raises, my forward dividend income increased by a stellar $249.19.  NXST provided the majority of this, but the contribution from FAST was significant, too.  I got $10 contributions to additional forward dividend income from BLK and TROW, despite their very low raise percentages, due to each being one of my larger dividend payers.

I’d have to invest $9,061.45 at my Portfolio’s recent yield of 2.75% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.

Looking ahead to February, I’m expecting another half dozen dividend raises, but with less impact to my forward dividend income.  I expect to hear from Quest Diagnostics (DGX) and Amdocs Ltd. (DOX) after they didn’t announce in January.  I also expect to hear from Pepsico (PEP), Cisco Systems (CSCO), NextEra Energy (NEE) and Realty Income (O).  When all is said and done, I’m hoping I’ll have another triple-digit increase to my forward dividend income, but we’ll see.  As it turns out, I’ve already heard dividend raise announcements from two of the companies I just listed, and two I wasn’t expecting at all.  However, I’ll save those details for next month.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

I’d say I was pretty busy with regard to Portfolio transactions in January.  Considering I made just a total of 37 moves last year, to have 8 in just the first month of 2024 qualifies as active.

I didn’t make any moves until half the month was over, but then the floodgates opened.

Things started with me eliminating a stagnant stock from my Portfolio and then using the sale proceeds to increase my positions in three existing Portfolio stocks.

I wrapped up the month with another set of four moves, one sale and three buys again.  However, this time I started by only trimming a position.  I followed by lightly adding to two of my smaller Portfolio positions, then using the majority of my investment to add an old favorite back to my Portfolio.

Details for all 8 of my January transactions can be found in the following pair of posts…

 

Recent Transactions – HRL, CVS, SBUX, NNN

Recent Transactions – GD, CMI, NEE, HSY

 

My transactions resulted in an net investment of $793.04 into my Portfolio.  My forward dividend income increased by a total of $42.09.

With one stock exiting my Portfolio, and one being added back, the number of stocks in my Portfolio remained at 59.

 

Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income

In 2024, I’ll continue tracking my additional forward dividend income generated each month from the trifecta of sources: reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and new capital investment.

I’ll show 2023 totals as well, so that we can compare as the year progresses.

I got off to a terrific start in January with respect to additional forward dividend income.  Dividend raises led the way, as they usually do, but I had good contributions all around.

 

 

Accounting for all the sources, I added $345.05 of additional forward dividend income in the first month of 2024.  This was my first time topping $300 since last January.  If this is anything like last year, this will prove to be my best month of the year.  I hope it’s not though.

My January total this year didn’t quite match the impressive $398.51 total from January 2023, but it still brought a smile to my face.  The primary difference was the lower total in Dividend Raises.

Dividend Raises easily outpaced my other sources in January… nearly 5x the total from my 2nd leading source, Reinvested Dividends.  This was the 3rd consecutive month that Dividend Raises provided triple-digit additional forward dividend income.  Outstanding!

The monthly Reinvested Dividends total creeps higher ever so slowly over time… it’s so satisfying .  I surpassed $50 for the 5th consecutive month in January.  In 2024, I hope to exceed $40 each month, at a minimum.  I may start turning off a few of my drips soon, which will hinder my chances to top that $40 mark.

The contribution from Investment of Capital brought up the rear.  It was $42.09.  If this is the lowest monthly amount from any of my contribution sources in a given month, it should be a good year.

 

Progress Charts

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

My January dividend total this month shows a nice leg up from 2023 on the chart.  Let’s hope there are many more months of such YoY dividend growth in store for me in 2024.

 

 

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

I suspect I might have to adjust my Y-axis maximum higher in November.  The question is, will I have to adjust it higher than $20,000 in anticipation of crossing that threshold by the end of 2024.  It will be an exciting year if that’s the case!

 

 

Summary

In January, I raked in more than $1,461 in dividends.  I’d say the new year started off well in my dividend Portfolio.  I had an even stronger start when it came to YoY dividend income growth.  I came close to reaching the 20% mark this month… well ahead of my 15% target level.

A whopping 24 companies delivered a dividend payment.  While only three of those payments topped $100, all but five were north of $40, and only one fell short of $17.

Reinvested dividends came close to providing nearly $54 in additional forward dividend income in January.  That’s five straight months I’ve topped the $50 threshold.

January brought 6 dividend raises, but half of them disappointed with their raise percentages (2% or less).  Thankfully, of the remaining three raises, one was good, one was very good, and the final one was outstanding.  The two best raises were from NXST and FAST, at 25.19% and 11.43%, respectively.  These two raises alone provided better than $207 in additional forward dividend income.  All the January raises increased my additional forward dividend income by better than $249.

Portfolio transactions occurred at a better-than-average clip in January.  I made eight total moves in two sets of four.  Each set of four had one sale and three purchases each.  Among the moves I made, I eliminated Hormel Foods (HRL) from my Portfolio altogether, trimmed my General Dynamics (GD) position, brought back Hershey Co. (HSY) after a multi-year absence, and added a few shares in five other stocks.  The net investment for the entire set of transactions was about $793, adding about $42 in forward dividend income.

Tallying the contributions from all sources, over $345 in forward dividend income was added my Portfolio in January.  It was a terrific start to 2024… no question about it.

 

Did the dividends you collect in January provide a good start to the new year?  Have you already added/subtracted a stock to/from your portfolio in the first month?  Please share in the Comments!

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