Now that 2024 is behind us, I can share the Portfolio dividends I collected for December, and the entire year.  It was a 2nd consecutive outstanding year in the stock market, and my Portfolio followed suit.

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

I didn’t set any dividend records for December, but the dividend results were strong.  Monthly dividend failed to top $2K, but it did exceed $1.9K.  Where in that range did it land?  The answer is coming up.

Year-over-Year (YoY) dividend growth for December didn’t come close to attaining my 15% monthly target.  Did I at least see a double-digit percentage?  Find out shortly.

Additional forward dividend income from my 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital) swung positive after a decline last month.  Not only did it swing positive, but my total exceeded $500 for the 1st time ever.  But how high did the total get?  Keep reading to hear about the record total.

Updated charts will show my dividend progress each month this year, and for the year in total.  One of the charts needed a Y-axis adjustment due to the ever-increasing dividend total.  Stick around to see the long-term progress.

Wait no longer!  Here are the dividend details for December 2024, beginning with my dividend income…

 

Dividend Income

 

In the last month of 2024, I raked in a total of $1,944.54.  I came up shy of $2K, but it was a nice total despite that.  Still, this was my 3rd-highest monthly dividend total ever.

My YoY dividend growth in December only reached half of my 15% growth target, finishing at 7.50%.  Unfortunately, I only topped 15% YoY dividend growth in 3 of the 12 months in 2024.  The last time was back in April.  It’s getting harder to reach 15% YoY growth given my growing Portfolio size.

A total of 21 companies paid me a dividend in December.  With the special dividend paid by Main Street Capital (MAIN) in December, I ended up having 10 of those companies provide a triple-digit dividend this month.  Another 8 stocks provided a dividend north of $40.  The dividends were plentiful and significant this December!

The largest dividend of the month was delivered by Broadcom (AVGO).  The dividend was $195.01, boosted by a 11.32% dividend raise in the middle of month.  Qualcomm (QCOM), T. Rowe Price Group (TROW) and Aflac (AFL) weren’t too far behind with dividends of $183.93, $174.29 and $170.41, respectively.  AFL jumped into the conversation after a 16% dividend hike in early December.

My smallest dividend of the month was $15.36 from Microsoft (MSFT).  All my other dividends were at least twice the size of the one from MSFT, except for the monthly dividend I got from Realty Income (O), which came in at $28.55 this month.

The increased dividend amounts from BlackRock (BLK), Enbridge (ENB), Skyworks Solutions (SWKS), Visa (V), NextEra Energy (NEE) and Cummins (CMI) were each helped by one or more purchases over the past year.

The bump from MAIN was helped by a special dividend on top of their regular monthly dividend.  The special dividend this December turned out to be a bit larger than their same one from last December.

Increased YoY amounts for all other companies were a result of dividend increases and reinvested dividends over the past year.  I added more than $30 in YoY dividend gains from AFL, better than $14 from QCOM, more than $11 from AVGO, and another $10 from T. Rowe Price Group (TROW).

Of the December stocks that paid me both last year and this year, none of them posted a payout reduction.  Basically, this means I didn’t have any stock trims, or dividend cuts.

As for new dividend payers in December, I had a pair of them.  Both stocks were added to my Portfolio in 2024 – one early and one late.  Hershey Co. (HSY) debuted with the largest dividend – $43.15.  However, the other stock, Chevron (CVX), wasn’t far behind with its initial dividend of $40.75.

I had three stocks that no longer paid me a dividend this December.  The one from Fastenal (FAST) went away since it was a special dividend from last year that wasn’t repeated this year.  That’s easy enough to forgive.  The other two departures though were a result of me purging the stocks from my Portfolio.  I eliminated Whirlpool (WHR) and V.F. Corp. (VFC) after those companies deteriorated from both an earnings and dividend safety perspective.

 

Nearly all my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them.  The exceptions were… 1) my BLK dividend did not get reinvested by my broker due to the stock price being too large (around $1K/share), and 2) there was only a partial dividend reinvestment of Enbridge (ENB) due to a portion of the dividend being withheld for foreign tax purposes.  The result of all the reinvestment was an additional $51.99 of forward dividend income.  It was nice to surpass $50 again after a two month hiatus.  The reinvestment of the TROW dividend accounted for more than $7 of the forward dividend income total, while ENB and MAIN both contributed better than $5.  JNJ and QCOM both added north of $4 each, too.

As a result of December’s reinvested dividends, I dripped over 14 new shares of stock.  This included over 2 shares of MAIN, and close to 2 shares ENB.  TROW and AFL dripped nearly 1.5 shares, while QCOM and SWKS increased by more than 1 share.

 

Dividend Raises

I received plenty of dividend raises in December.  There were 8 raises in all – one more than last December.  My Portfolio companies were in the giving spirit!

All of the raises came in the first half of the month, as companies took care of business prior to the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

Three of the raises reached double-digit territory, which I always enjoy.  Even better, two of those 10%+ raises came from a pair of my largest dividend payers.

The best raise was my first raise of the month.  It was best not only in terms of raise percentage, but the boost it provided to my forward dividend income.  Aflac (AFL) announced a 16% hike to their dividend, which translated into a $109.54 increase in my forward dividend income.  Raises like that are the reason I love dividend investing.

One day later, Enbridge (ENB) announced a 3.01% raise.  After converting to U.S. dollars, the raise led to a $13.40 increase to my forward dividend income.

Another double-digit hike came courtesy of The Walt Disney Co. (DIS) just another day later.  The DIS increase was 11.11%.  Coupled with its 50% raise back in February, the total raise percentage provided by DIS in 2024 was 66.67%.  The boost to my forward dividend income from Disney’s December raise was just $4.02 – due to the small DIS position size I have in my Portfolio.

Once again, one day later came another raise.  It was a 2.47% hike from Eastman Chemical (EMN).  I was a bit disappointed with this one, as this marks two consecutive annual raises south of 3%, and three straight years south of 4% for EMN.  This raise added $5.76 to my forward dividend income.

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 0.19% and it added $0.65 to my forward dividend income.  Combined with the 4 other raises provided by O during the year it resulted in a total 2024 percentage increase of 2.92%.  This raise fell short of the total 3.22% raise from O last year.  The other raise was a decent 5.78% boost from Amgen (AMGN) that increased my forward dividend income by $15.67.  This raise percentage was actually an increase compared to last year.  AMGN was just 1 of 11 stocks from my Portfolio that managed this feat.

Next up was a 3.33% dividend boost from Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY).  This added $8.57 to my forward dividend income.  Sadly, this raise was a decline from the 5.26% raise BMY provided last year.

To wrap up the raises, it was Broadcom (AVGO) announcing an 11.32% hike – my 3rd double-digit raise for December.  The forward dividend income increase from this raise was a wonderful $79.32.  This amount is better than the total I see from some individual months.  Also, factoring in the 0.95% raise from AVGO back in September, the total raise percentage from AVGO for 2024 was 12.38%.

There were no raise announcements from CVS Health (CVS) or American Tower (AMT).  Both chose to forego any dividend increase in December.  This puts CVS in a dividend freeze since it hasn’t raised its dividend in over a year.

 

 

After accounting for all my December dividend raises, my forward dividend income increased by a stellar $236.93.  AFL and AVGO were the primary contributors to this total.  This was my 2nd-best total from dividend raises for all of 2024, only falling short of the $249.19 I had back in January.

I’d have to invest $8,940.75 at my Portfolio’s year-end yield of 2.65% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.

Looking ahead to January, I’m expecting several companies to offer up raises.  The result should be a triple-digit income boost.  I expect to hear from Fastenal (FAST), BlackRock (BLK), Comcast (CMCSA) and Nexstar Media Group (NXST) for certain.  The possibility of announcements from Air Products & Chemicals (APD), T. Rowe Price Group (TROW), Amdocs Ltd. (DOX), Quest Diagnostics (DGX) and Chevron (CVX) exist as well, however, these could slip into February based on what’s transpired in previous years.  Either way, 2025 looks like it will get off to an outstanding start with respect to dividend raises within my Portfolio.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

Trading was subdued in my Portfolio in December.  I was mostly focused on getting ready for the holidays.

However, I did buy one thing.  It wasn’t a stock, but rather a closed-end fund… the first of its kind for my Portfolio.

I’d been looking for a place to invest the sale proceeds of my Altria Group (MO) trim in late November, all while trying to boost my dividend income – not easy to do given the high yield MO has.

Some cash was invested along with my MO sale proceeds, so my forward dividend income got quite the boost from my buy.

Details for my lone December transaction can be found in the following post…

 

Recent Buy – DNP

 

My transaction resulted in a net investment of $4,635.00 into my Portfolio.  My forward dividend income increased by a significant $390.

With my purchase adding a brand new holding to my Portfolio, the number of stocks/funds in my Portfolio rose to 59.

 

Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income

In 2024, 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 2023 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 was the first time I eclipsed $500 in a month, and December’s addition helped me break my record annual total that I set back in 2021.

 

 

Accounting for all the sources, I added $678.92 of additional forward dividend income in the final month of 2024.  This easily surpassed my previous record total for any month of $467.97 set in February 2018.

Investment of Capital provided the majority of my additional forward dividend income in December, totaling a record $390.

Reinvested Dividends contributed a significant amount to my forward dividend income this month as well.  I had my 2nd-best total from this source in 2024, an impressive $236.93.

While Reinvested Dividends provided the smallest contribution to my forward dividend income in December, the $51.99 it added was still a quality amount.  It was the 6th time in 2024 that I added at least $50 from Reinvested Dividends.

 

For the year, I tallied $2,441.98 in additional forward dividend income.  This shattered my all-time high of $2,224.04 that I posted in 2021.

For the 7th straight year, Dividend Raises were the largest contributor to my additional forward dividend income total.  The $1,270.46 from Dividend Raises in 2024 topped my previous record total of $1,203.26 from 2021.  Investment of Capital managed to become my 2nd-best source this year by barely surpassing Reinvested Dividends ($589.96 vs. $581.56).

2024 marked my 4th consecutive year of adding more than $2K of forward dividend income for my Portfolio.  I’ll be striving to top $2.5K in 2025!

 

Progress Charts

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

Outside of March (when I had some shifting dividend payments), every month in 2024 provided more dividends than the corresponding month from 2023… just as I would hope.  I should be making a Y-axis adjustment to this chart in 2025, as I surpass $2K in a month by enough to make it noticeable.

 

 

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

The solid annual growth continued in 2024.  Unfortunately, I came up a bit shy of the $20K level I was shooting for as a stretch goal.

 

 

Annual Growth

Now that 2024 has come to a close, 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 2024 with $19,866.60 in dividends, surpassing the $17,634.92 I collected in 2023.  YoY growth for 2024 thus equaled 12.65%.  This growth was helped by special dividends from MAIN during 2024.  The 12.65% growth was a slowdown relative to the 2022 to 2023 change of 15.95%, but still quite good.  Keeping the YoY growth numbers elevated will be harder to do as my Portfolio gets bigger each year.

Forward Dividend Income

As for my annual forward dividend income numbers, I finished 2024 with $21,003.31 in forward dividend income ($1,750.28/month), while I finished 2023 with $18,578.06 ($1,548.17/month).  So, YoY growth in forward dividend income for 2024 was 13.05%.  I’ll take it!  This translated into an average of an additional $202.11 in monthly dividend income thanks to my progress in 2024!

 

Summary

I collected nearly $1,945 in dividends this December.  This was my 3rd-best monthly showing ever.  YoY dividend income growth, however, fell well short of my 15% target when it came in at 7.5%.

I received 21 dividend payments this month.  Ten of those payments topped $102, with the $195.01 from AVGO being the largest of the bunch.

Reinvested dividends provided almost $52 in additional forward dividend income in December, allowing me to finish with nearly $582 for the year from this source.

I had 8 dividend raises in December, bringing my total to 61 for the year.  AFL delivered my largest raise in December, providing a 16% hike.  All my December raises boosted my additional forward dividend income by nearly $237, bringing my yearly total over $1,270.

As for my Portfolio transactions, there was only one in December.  I got around to investing my MO sale proceeds from late November and added my first closed-end fund to my Portfolio.  I bought the DNP Select Income Fund (DNP), a monthly payer with a yield north of 8%.  The net investment was $4,635, and it added a whopping $390 in forward dividend income.

Tallying the contributions from all sources, nearly $679 in forward dividend income was added my Portfolio in December!  That’s a record for any month.  For the year, forward dividend income rose by almost $2,442.  This annual total also eclipsed my previous record annual total of $2,224.04 that I tallied in 2021.  It was a terrific December and a wonderful 2024.

I closed out 2024 by collecting $19,866.60 (or an average of $1,655.55/month) in paid dividends for the year.  This equated to 12.65% YoY growth.

As for forward dividend income, I finished 2024 with a total of $21,003.31 (or $1,750.28/month).  This translated to 13.05% YoY growth.

 

How did your portfolio fare in 2024?  Did your portfolio grow as you had hoped?  Are you planning to change anything up in your dividend portfolio for 2025?  Please share in the Comments!

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