Even though summer is coming to an end, my Portfolio remained hot with respect to dividend income. No record dividend income to speak of (maybe next month, though), but progress is steady and I’m setting myself up for a strong finish to 2024.
I can tell you I topped $1.5K in dividends this month, but you’ll need to keep reading to find out by how much I exceeded that threshold. Needless to say, I was pleased by the dividends I collected in August.
Once again, this month I notched another double-digit percentage for monthly Year-over-Year (YoY) dividend growth. However, was it good enough to top my usual target of 15%? The answer is coming soon.
August was light in terms of dividend raises received… only 2! Still, the forward dividend income from those two raises was quite respectable. Stick around to find out which companies came through for me this month.
Even lighter in August was the number of Portfolio transactions I recorded… just 1! I didn’t come across any of my Portfolio stocks that I felt I needed to sell. Alternatively, with stock prices climbing in recent weeks, I couldn’t find much that I really wanted to buy either. The single buy I did make resulted in some additional forward dividend income. Was it anything significant? You’ll know shortly.
After reaching a 2024 low point last month for additional forward dividend income from my sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital), I had a bit of a turnaround in August, as I was back to a triple-digit addition. Did I barely reach triple-digits, or did I blow past the $100 mark?
Of course, I’ll have updated dividend progress charts to share near the end of this post (both monthly and annual), so don’t miss out on seeing those.
But for now, let’s kick off this report with my August dividend details, starting with my dividend income…
Dividend Income
This August, my Portfolio collected a total of $1,560.69 in dividends. I’m happy to have exceeded the $1.5K level (and begin a new streak) after ending my streak of 5 consecutive months above $1.5K in July.
Compared to last month, my YoY growth dipped a bit to 11.64%. This fell short of my normal 15% target. However, I was still able to notch a double-digit growth percentage, so I can’t be too sad.
A total of 17 companies paid me a dividend in August. My mid-quarter months have my fewest number of dividend payers, but those I do have pay well. Six of my dividend payers delivered a triple-digit dividend… love that! This group was led by AbbVie (ABBV), which sent me a dividend of $224.15. Falling a bit short of the $200 mark, with $195.29, was Nexstar Media Group (NXST). I will have another $100+ payer by next quarter when CVS Health (CVS) pays me.
My smallest dividend of the month came courtesy of Accenture (ACN). It was $22.36 dividend that came my way. It’s not bad when your smallest dividend is upwards of $22!
The increased dividend amounts from CVS Health (CVS), Starbucks (SBUX), Texas Instruments (TXN), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), NNN REIT (NNN), Realty Income (O) and Accenture (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 $45 in YoY dividend gains from Nexstar Media Group (NXST) thanks to a big dividend raise early this year. Throw in another $18 in YoY dividend gains from ABBV, better than $12 from Procter & Gamble (PG), north of $9 from Fastenal (FAST), and more than $7 from both Lowe’s Companies (LOW) and Verizon Communications (VZ).
Of the stocks that paid me in both August of last year and this year, one stock posted a payout reduction – General Dynamics (GD). This reduction was due to a trim I made back in January.
As for new August dividend payers, I didn’t have any. This doesn’t happen too often, but it has in each of my past two middle months of the quarter.
With regard to stocks that no longer pay me a dividend this August… there was only one. This was the result of me purging Hormel Foods (HRL) from my Portfolio at the beginning of 2024. I exited my position due to the stock’s dwindling dividend growth and lackluster earnings growth over the previous 5 years. I gave up $32.57 in dividend income from HRL.
Once again, the majority of my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them. However, there were a couple of exceptions. VZ didn’t get reinvested by choice (I didn’t want to see this position grow any further), and ACN was only partially reinvested since a portion of the dividend was withheld by my broker for tax purposes.
With regard to the reinvestment that did take place, it added $45.82 of additional forward dividend income to my Portfolio. It was good to top $40 again, after a brief hiatus last month. ABBV and NXST each added better than $7 to this month’s additional forward dividend income total, while CVS threw in more than $4. PG and BMY managed to contribute in excess of $3 each, too.
As a result of reinvested dividends in August, I dripped almost 13 new shares of stock. This included nearly 2 new shares of FAST, and more than 1 new share of CVS, BMY, NXST, ABBV & NNN.
Dividend Raises
I entered August expecting a small number of dividend raises… only 2! That’s exactly what I got… and it was from the two companies I expected.
Typically, I have more than just a couple of dividend raises in August, but some of my normal ones got pulled forward into late July.
Despite the small number of raises, the two I did get were from a couple of my largest dividend payers. So, the additional forward dividend income that stemmed from those raises turned out to be pretty good.
Sadly, neither of the dividend increases reached a double-digit percentage. However, they both fell in line with expectations.
My first raise of the month arrived early in August, and it was the best in terms of raise percentage. Illinois Tool Works (ITW) hiked their dividend by 7.14%. which topped last year’s 6.87% raise. This resulted in $26.80 of additional forward dividend income. In 2024, I haven’t had too many of my companies manage to top their previous year’s dividend raise percentage, so this was good to see.
My second and only other dividend raise of August came from Altria Group (MO). Its 4.08% boost was slightly lower than last year’s 4.26% increase, but still fell within my range of expectations. The MO raise added $24.02 to my forward dividend income… a solid increase for me.
After accounting for both of my August dividend raises, my additional forward dividend income rose by a healthy $50.82. With only two stocks contributing to that number, I feel like I couldn’t ask for too much more.
I’d have to invest $1,925.00 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.64% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.
Looking ahead to September, it’s the start of my best 6-month period on the calendar for dividend raises. I expect to receive up to 10 dividend raises, although they are from some of my smaller dividend payers, so the impact to my forward dividend income won’t be huge. Still, I look forward to all the announcements. I expect to hear from Verizon Communications (VZ), VICI Properties (VICI), Microsoft (MSFT), Starbucks (SBUX), Texas Instruments (TXN), OGE Energy (OGE), Accenture (ACN) and Realty Income (O) at a minimum. There’s a chance I hear from Lockheed Martin (LMT) as well, although they announced in early October last year. The possibility of a raise from American Tower (AMT) exists, however the company chose to forego some of their quarterly hikes in recent quarters, so I won’t count on that one. Two of my expected announcements have already arrived, and an unexpected one, too, but I’ll save these for next month.
Dividends Due To New Investment
There weren’t many Portfolio transactions I made in August. There was only a single transaction… a buy.
I added to my smallest Portfolio position, although it still carried that designation despite the addition.
Details about my lone transaction are available in the following post…
The buy resulted in a net investment of $439.70 into my Portfolio. Due to the sub-1% yield that DIS has, I only added $4.50 of additional forward dividend income from the transaction.
Since DIS was an existing Portfolio position, the number of stocks in my Portfolio remained at 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.
In August, I made it back to recording a triple-digit month for additional forward dividend income. But it wasn’t by much… just a little over $1. This is hopefully the start of a new long streak of $100+ months.
Once again, Investment of Capital was the laggard source. My single purchase during the month only added $4.50 to my forward dividend income total, although that was an improvement compared to last month (-$5.06). It wasn’t close to the total from last year though ($100.17).
For the 7th time in 8 months, Dividend Raises provided the largest monthly contribution to my additional forward dividend income ($50.82). However, Reinvested Dividends weren’t far behind ($45.82). The contributions from Reinvested Dividends and Dividend Raises were solid, even though they both fell short of their totals from August 2023.
While there weren’t any impressive totals from any of the sources, they did combine to deliver $101.14 of additional forward dividend income. This was my 2nd worst monthly showing of 2024, just surpassing the total from last month.
I’m now slightly behind pace with respect to exceeding last year’s total for additional forward dividend income. However, I think I can get ahead of pace again in September. This would also keep open the possibility of topping my best-ever total of $2,224.04 achieved back in 2021.
Progress Charts
The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.
YoY growth this August didn’t match what I achieved last year, but the progress was still good. I project it will be either 2 or 3 more years before I’m topping $2K in August.
On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.
I’ve nearly reached $13K in dividends through August. This was only hundreds of dollars shy of matching what I collected in all of 2021.
Summary
Another month down! There were no big Portfolio events in August, but solid progress was made nonetheless.
I collected just more than $1,560 in dividends this month on the back of 11.64% YoY dividend income growth. I didn’t reach my 15% YoY growth target for the month, but I’ll take the double-digit percentage any month.
My Portfolio was paid a dividend by 17 different companies, with 6 of them providing a triple-digit dividend. ABBV paid me the most in August ($224.15), while ACN paid me the least ($22.36). Only two of my dividend payers delivered a dividend less than $43.
Reinvested Dividends came through with nearly $46 of additional forward dividend income. I would have topped $50 had I not turned off the drip for VZ recently.
I only received a couple of Dividend Raise announcements in August, just as expected. The two companies that hiked (ITW & MO) are a pair of my better dividend payers. Thus, the low number of raises still resulted in a sizable increase of nearly $51 in additional forward dividend income.
I made just a single Portfolio transaction in August. It was a buy of one of my existing holdings – DIS. It was a small purchase to try and bolster my smallest Portfolio position. I ended up investing almost $440, but for only $4.50 in additional forward dividend income (due to the low yield for DIS).
Tallying the contributions from all sources, I added a tad more than $101 in additional forward dividend income to my Portfolio in August. I’m happy to eclipse the $100 mark again, but hopefully next time I’ll accomplish it with more headroom than in this instance.
Which stock paid you the biggest dividend in August? Did you exceed the 2 dividend raises I had? Or make more than 1 Portfolio transaction this month? I hope so! Please share in the Comments!
I have updated the Portfolio & Dividends pages in conjunction with this monthly update.