Woohoo!  It’s time to tally up my monthly dividends and prepare to smile.  With May complete, I have now locked in 5 months worth of income thus far in 2024, and I’m looking for more.

Summer will begin in about 2-3 weeks, and it feels like my Portfolio income is heating up with the coming change in seasons.  We’ll see shortly.

I’m pushing hard to meet my annual goals.  I’ve got a lofty target of $20K in annual income that I’m trying to reach.  It’s within the realm of possibilities and it would certainly be a sweet outcome for the year.

Speaking of goals, next month I’ll be posting my mid-year goal review.  Hopefully, I’m in good shape to accomplish my annual goals, but if not, I’ve got 6 months to rectify the situation.

Here’s a preview of what’s in store for my May dividend income report…

Mid-quarter months provide the fewest number of dividend payers for me, but the income is still quite good.  That’s primarily due to these months having the biggest dividend payer in my Portfolio.

Dividend income was solid in May, as was the Year-over-Year (YoY) dividend growth for the month.  No real surprises in May… and the shifting dividend payments of the past 2 months were not present this time around.  Thank goodness.

While my quantity of dividend raises for May doubled up the quantity from April, none of the raise percentages came close to entering double-digit land.  I’ve entered the slow part of the year with respect to dividend raises in my Portfolio so I wasn’t expecting much.

Each of my three annual forward dividend income sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital) were OK in May, but nothing to get excited about.  Together they allowed me to record another triple-digit forward dividend income boost.  Unfortunately, it was my lowest combined monthly total thus far in 2024.

Of course, there will be updated dividend progress charts (both monthly and annual) to share with you, too.  So, stick around for that.

Alright, let’s kick this off… starting with my dividend income for May.

 

Dividend Income

 

In May, my Portfolio eclipsed $1.5K in dividends for the 4th month in a row, and just topped last month’s dividend total as well.  In all, I collected $1,529.92 in dividends.

The corresponding YoY growth didn’t reach my 15% target, but it still reached double-digit territory, coming in at 11.27%.  I’ll take that.

A total of 17 companies paid me a dividend in May.  This is easily my lowest total compared to the other two months of the quarter.  However, the best dividend payer in my Portfolio pays out this month.  That stock is AbbVie (ABBV), and it provided a whopping $222.03 dividend.  This was one of six triple-digit dividend payers I had during the month.  The $193.23 from Nexstar Media Group (NXST) wasn’t too shabby either.

My smallest dividend of the month was fairly significant if I think about it.  Accenture (ACN) delivered my smallest dividend in May, at $19.70.  Almost $20… hard to argue with that.

The increased dividend amounts from CVS Health (CVS), Starbucks (SBUX), Texas Instruments (TXN), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), NNN REIT (NNN), Realty Income (O) and ACN 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 $44 in YoY dividend gains from NXST, topped $18 from ABBV, and received north of $12 from Procter & Gamble (PG).  The YoY gains from Fastenal (FAST) came despite a trim of the position in the past year.

Of the stocks that paid me in both May of last year and this year, only one of them posted a payout reduction, and that was General Dynamics (GD).  This reduction resulted from a trim of the position that I made back in January.

As for new May dividend payers, there weren’t any.  With no new mid-quarter stocks, and no dividend payments shifting into the month, there was nothing to make note of.

With regard to stocks that no longer pay me a dividend this May… there was one – Hormel Foods (HRL).  With a stock price that hasn’t trended up over time, and deteriorating dividend growth, I decided to sell out back in January, giving up the $32.35 dividend.

Once again, the majority of my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them.  However, as is now usually the case, there were some exceptions.  First, VZ didn’t get reinvested, as this was the first payment after turning off my DRiP.  Similar to Altria Group (MO) last month, I didn’t want to see my VZ position get bigger, and with the big VZ yield it was growing faster than I wanted.  Second, my ACN dividend didn’t get entirely reinvested, as a portion was withheld by my broker for tax purposes.

With regard to the reinvestment that did take place, I racked up $48.08 of additional forward dividend income.  I could have topped $50 easily had I not turned off the VZ DRiP.  ABBV and NXST added over $8 each to this month’s additional forward dividend income total, while CVS came in north of $4, and Procter & Gamble (PG) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) accounted for more than $3.  Throw in another 6 companies that added more than $2 each and it certainly was a good month.

As a result of reinvested dividends in May, I dripped over 13 new shares of stock.  This included 7 stock positions getting better than 1 new share.  This was led by Fastenal (FAST), which added 1.859 shares.

 

Dividend Raises

Compared to April, I was able to double up the number of dividend raises I received in May.  It went from two to four.  While that sounds great, it didn’t quite turn out so wonderfully.

Why would I say that?  Well, despite 2x the number of raises, I managed less in additional forward dividend income from those raises.

None of the raises topped 5% either, which didn’t help.  Still, my forward dividend income grew this month, so I’ll take it.

The raises started with a 2.08% hike from Main Street Capital (MAIN).  This was a tad less than the 2.22% raise from the same time last year.  MAIN usually has regular dividend raises more than one time per year, and offers up special dividends as well.  Thus, it’s hard to compare raises percentages until the year’s tally is complete.  Still, it was nice to have MAIN provide their first regular dividend raise of 2024 (their first special dividend of 2024 came back in March).

After roughly a two-week wait, my next dividend raise was delivered by Realty Income (O).  O announced what shapes up to be their biggest dividend raise of the year, a 2.14% boost.  The equivalent O raise last year came in February, and it was 2.41% at that time.  I expect 3 additional, smaller quarterly raises from O throughout the remainder of the year, starting next month.

Perhaps the most disappointing dividend raise of the month was announced by Medtronic (MDT).  The company could only manage at 1.45% dividend hike, trailing last year’s 1.47% raise.  MDT has been struggling to drive earnings growth since the start of the pandemic, so muted dividend raises will most likely continue until earnings pick up again.  On the bright side, MDT has a very safe dividend and its current payout ratio in the low 50% range is a comfortable spot.

Finishing off the month was Lowe’s Companies (LOW).  The company provided my largest raise of the month at 4.55%.  Unfortunately, this fell short of the 4.76% raise LOW delivered last year.   The additional forward dividend income from this year’s LOW raise topped $20, and was nearly half of my total for the month.

In 2024, most of my Portfolio holdings have been failing to top their dividend raises from 2023.  Here’s hoping this trend reverses in the 2nd half of the year.

One other raise I had hopes for in May would have been from American Tower (AMT), which has been doing quarterly raises (for the most part) over the past few years.  Sadly, AMT chose to forego any raise this May.  So, I’ll have to hold out hope for next quarter.

As I expected, UGI Corp. (UGI) froze their dividend in May… maybe next year, once the business gains some clarity.

 

 

After accounting for all my May dividend raises, my additional forward dividend income increased by $40.72.  This fell short of last month’s total.  In addition, it was my lowest monthly contribution from raises thus far in 2024.  However, the total did eclipse last May’s total, so I’ll hang my hat on that for now.

I’d have to invest $1,502.58 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 June, I expect to receive another 4 raise announcements.  I expect to hear from UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Caterpillar (CAT) and FedEx (FDX), in addition to hearing of the token quarterly raise from Realty Income (O).  As of this writing, one of my expected raises was already announced, but I’ll save that for next month’s report.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

There were a handful of transactions (5) I made in May.  This included a sale in which I purged Whirlpool (WHR) from my Portfolio and essentially moved the investment proceeds into Enbridge (ENB).  I added to three other existing positions over the course of the month, too.

In most cases, with the buys I boosted the size of some of my smaller positions, working their weighting in my Portfolio toward the 1% level.  However, I also added to a stock already exceeding a 1% weighting – Starbucks (SBUX).

A couple of the additions (ACN & DOX) were in the Information Technology sector, where I’m usually looking to add shares.

Further details about each of these investments can be found in the following trio of posts…

 

Recent Buy – SBUX

Recent Transactions – WHR & ENB

Recent Buys – ACN & DOX

 

The five transactions resulted in a net investment of $1,020.37 into my Portfolio.  My forward dividend income increased by $21.18, too.  This is an effective yield of 2.08% for the net investment, which comes up short of my average Portfolio yield.

With the elimination of WHR from my Portfolio, and each of the purchased stocks being existing holdings, the number of stocks in my Portfolio slipped by one to 57.

 

Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income

In 2024, 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 2023 totals as well, so that we can compare as the year progresses.

 

 

Accounting for all the sources, I tallied $110.80 of additional forward dividend income in May.  My total has been getting progressively worse with each month in 2024, but that’s to be expected with the accompanying decline in the contribution from Dividend Raises, my primary contribution source.  Happily though, the total did reach a triple-digit level for the 10th straight month.  I hope to keep these triple-digit totals going through the summer, as that’s when my monthly totals are usually lowest.

While I fell short of last month’s income total, I was able to exceed the total from a year ago.  I’m about $58 ahead of last year’s pace at this point in the year.  Thus, topping last year’s additional forward dividend income total is looking like a decent possibility.

For the first time in 2024, Dividend Raises was not my leading additional forward dividend income provider.  In May, Reinvested Dividends claimed that title.  This was despite a reduction in the category resulting from choosing to stop reinvesting my VZ dividend.  Dividend Raises wasn’t too far behind Reinvested Dividends in May, and each of them provided roughly twice the contribution from Investment of Capital.

What I did like to see from each contribution source was that they all surpassed their contributions from May of last year.  Progress!

 

Progress Charts

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

I crossed the $1,500 dividend level in May… make that four straight months exceeding that threshold.  Perhaps I can keep this up through the end of 2024, although it may be a challenge in July.

 

 

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

Almost $8K in five months… not bad!  I’m close to averaging $1.6K/month in 2024.  I look forward to having to adjust the Y-axis scale on my chart when the end of the year comes around.

 

 

Summary

Dividend income was solid once again.  My Portfolio recorded almost $1,530 in dividends for May.  YoY dividend income growth was close to 11.3%, too.  While this growth didn’t reach my 15% target, it’s hard to argue with posting a double-digit percentage.

My mid-quarter months have my fewest number of dividend payers (17 in May), but they provide some of my largest dividends.  ABBV led the way this month, providing a bit more than $222.  There were five additional triple-digit dividends, too, and only one dividend came in less than $26.

Reinvested Dividends delivered over $48 of additional forward dividend income.  May was the first time my VZ dividend didn’t get reinvested, after turning off my VZ DRiP.

I received four Dividend Raises during May, but none of the raise percentages were able to reach 5%.  Still, Dividend Raises resulted in almost $41 of additional forward dividend income.

The five Portfolio transactions I executed in May resulted in a net Investment of Capital of a little more than $1K.  There were 4 purchases and 1 sale.  The sale resulted in WHR being eliminated from my Portfolio.  All the moves led to exactly $22 of additional forward dividend income.

Tallying the contributions from all sources, nearly $111 in additional forward dividend income was added to my Portfolio in May.  The string of consecutive months exceeding $100 has reached 10.

 

As we head into the quarter-ending month of June, the potential exists for my Portfolio to see a record dividend income month… and perhaps even reach $2K for the first time ever.  Exciting times ahead!

 

How long have you been building your dividend portfolio?  Do you basically reinvest all your dividends, or do the dividends partially or completely fund your expenses?  Please share in the Comments!

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