That didn’t take long.  We no sooner started the new year than there’s already 1 month behind us.  Time flies.

While the month evaporated fairly quickly (and we won’t get that time back), at least my Portfolio is off to a wonderful start.  Dividend income rolled in and I posted my best January ever.  My Portfolio value also ended the month at a new high.

Monthly dividend income eclipsed $1.6K, but where did it finish the month?  Year-over-Year (YoY) dividend growth for January reached a double-digit percentage, but did it exceed my 15% monthly target?  We’ll find out the answer to both very shortly.

Dividend raises were solid to begin 2025.  I had more than a handful of raises, but were any of them double-digit increases?  Yes!  There was more than one, too.  Sweet!

I’d call my Portfolio transaction activity fairly busy.  I had 7 transactions involving 6 holdings.  I did more buying than selling, but did my forward dividend income increase?  Stick around to find out.

As for additional forward dividend income from my 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital) only one source posted an amount better than I had in January of last year.  Still, the total from 2025 topped that of 2024.  Which source carried January for me?  You’ll know soon enough.

I’ve got updated progress charts to share as well, so stick around for that.

Let’s check out the dividend details for January 2025, beginning with my dividend income…

 

Dividend Income

 

I kicked off 2025 in my Portfolio by raking in dividends totaling $1,610.97.  This was my best January ever.

My YoY dividend growth just got into double-digit territory, finishing at 10.25%.  This wasn’t anywhere near my 15% growth target, but I’ll take it.  I only hit the 15% threshold one-quarter of the months in 2024.  I’d like to do better than that in 2025, but the larger my Portfolio gets, the less impact new capital investment will have.  Me turning off some of my DRiPs doesn’t help either.  I’ll be leaving my 15% target in place for 2025, but we’ll have to see how many times I cross that level this year.

A total of 24 companies paid me a dividend in January.  Six of those companies provided a triple-digit dividend, too.  Another 9 stocks provided a dividend in excess of $50.  Best of all, each of my dividends topped $20.  Excellent contributions from each of my holdings this month!

My largest dividend of the month came courtesy of Pepsico (PEP).  It was a sweet dividend of $164.88.  A bit further behind was a $133.59 payment from RPM International (RPM).

My smallest dividend of the month was $20.12 from FedEx (FDX).  However, just one penny larger at $20.13 was the dividend from The Walt Disney Co. (DIS).  If all my smallest dividends came in at $20 or better every month, I’d be a happy dividend investor.

The increased dividend amounts from UGI Corp. (UGI), OGE Energy (OGE), VICI Properties (VICI), Nike (NKE), Medtronic (MDT), Amdocs Ltd. (DOX), McCormick & Co. (MKC) and DIS 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 $19 in YoY dividend gains from JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), better than $15 from PEP & RPM, more than $9 from Automatic Data Processing (ADP), north of $8 from Illinois Tool Works (ITW) and another $7 from Merck & Co. (MRK).

Of the January stocks that paid me both last year and this year, only one of them posted a payout reduction.  That reduction was a hefty one from Altria Group (MO), which resulted from a trim I did late last year when I reduced my MO exposure by selling my most expensive shares.

As for new dividend payers in January, there was also just one.  That new payer wasn’t a stock, but the first closed-end fund that I added to my Portfolio, DNP Select Income Fund (DNP).  The monthly payer joined my Portfolio in December.  It debuted with a solid $32.50 distribution which will be getting larger next month since I’ve bought more shares of DNP in January.

Lastly, I had one stock that no longer paid me a dividend this January… Best Buy (BBY).  I gave up a $48.24 dividend when I sold.  I sold BBY in late February of last year, as dividend growth was waning and I wasn’t sure about the company’s growth prospects.

 

Nearly all my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them.  The exceptions were… 1) there was only a partial dividend reinvestment of MDT due to a portion of the dividend being withheld for foreign tax purposes, and 2) there was no reinvestment of my final dividend from OGE, since I eliminated the stock from my Portfolio.  The result of all the dividend reinvestment was an additional $46.23 of forward dividend income.  I came up shy of the $50 mark I exceeded in January of 2024.  The reinvestment of the PEP dividend accounted for almost $6 of the forward dividend income total, while UGI, VICI and MRK all contributed better than $3.  Eight other companies provided more than $2 each, too.

As a result of January’s reinvested dividends, I dripped over 20 new shares of stock.  This may be the first time I’ve topped 20 shares from dividend reinvestment.  This included over 3.5 shares from newcomer DNP, and more than 2 shares each from UGI & VICI.  Four other stocks dripped over 1 share, including Comcast (CMCSA), PEP, RPM & MRK.

 

Dividend Raises

There were 7 dividend raise announcements within my Portfolio this past month.  This was one more than last January.  All the raises came in the 2nd half of the month.

Two of the raises were of the double-digit variety… love those.  Three of the raises I’d classify as average, with the remaining two leaving me wanting for more.

My 10%+ raises came from a pair of my largest dividend payers, so they had a nice impact on my forward dividend income.  Unfortunately, one of the worst percentage raises this month also came from one of my largest dividend payers.  So, it was a bit of a mixed bag this month, but overall, I like what I received.

My first dividend raise of the year turned out to be my best of the month, at least in terms of raise percentage.  Fastenal (FAST) delivered a 10.26% raise.  This fell short of the 11.43% raise provided last year, but any double-digit hike is acceptable to me!  The raise resulted in $51.79 being added to my forward dividend income.  This was a nice start to the 2025 dividend raises for my Portfolio!

This was followed up by a paltry 1.13% raise from Air Products & Chemicals (APD) about a week later.  Sadly, this was lower than the 1.14% raise from APD last year.  This raise only added $2.88 to my forward dividend income.  Free cash flow has been stunted for APD these past couple years.  I don’t expect the dividend raises to improve until the company’s free cash flow does.

My second, and last, double-digit raise of January arrived a week later.  Nexstar Media Group (NXST) announced a 10.06% raise.  This was the first time NXST failed to have a least a 20% dividend raise since 2014.  A terrific run came to an end, but again, I can’t complain about a double-digit raise.  The raise boosted my forward dividend income by stellar $80.14, my best dollar increase of the month.

Perhaps my most disappointing raise of the month was announced by BlackRock (BLK).  The company delivered a 2.16% dividend hike.  At least it bested the 2% raise from 2024.  Dividend growth for BLK has been poor the past three years, with each raise coming in under 2.5%, well below their longer-term growth rates.  Their earnings payout ratio is coming down though, close to the low end of management’s range, so I expect dividend growth might pick up next year.  I added $12.35 to my forward dividend income, despite the small raise, mainly since BLK is one of my larger dividend payers.

Despite delivering bad news related to their broadband subscriber losses, Comcast (CMCSA) still hiked their dividend 6.45% this month.  This was a step down from the 6.9% raise from last year, but still respectable.  The raise translated into an additional $17.52 of forward dividend income for my Portfolio.

Quest Diagnostics (DGX) announced a 6.67% dividend raise in January.  I consider this a decent raise, falling a bit short of good.  This hike actually beat its 5.63% raise from 2024.  It added $12.01 to my forward dividend income.

Sneaking in its raise on the final day of January was one of my newer holdings, Chevron (CVX).  CVX announced a 4.91% raise.  This didn’t quite live up to the 7.95% increase offered up last year, but it was roughly what I expected.  Since CVX is one of my newer positions, and still rather small, the raise only added $8.08 to my forward dividend income.

There were no raise announcements from Amdocs Ltd. (DOX) or T. Rowe Price Group (TROW) in January, even though I left open the possibility that it might occur based on history.  I’ll expect them to arrive in February as they typically do.

 

 

After accounting for all my January dividend raises, my forward dividend income increased by a very healthy $184.77.  NXST and FAST did most of the heavy lifting, but there were $10+ contributions from three other raisers.  This was a good start to 2025.

I’d have to invest $7,079.31 at my Portfolio’s month-end yield of 2.61% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.

Looking ahead to February, I’m expecting the dividend raises to keep rolling in for one more month before calming down in March.  I hope to see another triple-digit income boost in February, but I suspect I won’t.  I expect to hear raise announcements from DOX and TROW (after not hearing anything last month), and also from Pepsico (PEP), Cisco Systems (CSCO) and NextEra Energy (NEE).  The possibility of a hike from Omnicom Group (OMC) exists, but I suspect the company will keep their dividend frozen, especially given the pending merger with Interpublic Group (IPG) that should close later in 2025.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

Portfolio activity was decent in January.  I made a total of 7 transactions involving 6 of my holdings.  I made 5 buys and 2 sells.  The sells were comprised of one stock trim and one stock elimination.

The moves were spread out across the month of January, but the majority of the transactions took place later in the month.

I added to a couple of my smaller holdings in NNN and HSY.  I trimmed CVS a bit given its struggles last year and its reduced dividend safety.  I purged OGE given its minimal dividend growth over the past couple of years.  Finally, I bought NEE and DNP to keep my Utilities weighting about where I had it prior to the OGE sale, while also boosting my dividend income some.

Details for all my transactions were lumped into just a single post after the conclusion of January…

 

Recent Transactions – NNN, HSY, CVS, OGE, NEE, DNP

 

My transaction resulted in a net withdrawal of $745.48 from my Portfolio.  Despite this, my forward dividend income actually increased by $160.31 thanks to some high-yield purchases, especially DNP.

With one of my sales eliminating a stock from my Portfolio, the number of stocks/funds in my Portfolio slipped to 57.

 

Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income

In 2025, 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 2024 totals as well, so that we can compare as the year progresses.

 

 

Accounting for all the sources, I added $391.31 of additional forward dividend income in January.  This total would have been my best for any month in 2024, short of December.

As it usually does each month, Dividend Raises set the pace for income from any of my sources, providing $184.77 in January.  Unfortunately, this couldn’t exceed the outstanding total of $249.19 from the same month last year.

Investment of Capital wasn’t too far behind though.  This source provided another $160.31, nearly quadrupling its amount from a year ago, too.

Reinvested Dividends couldn’t quite get to a $50 contribution, but the $46.23 it did provide is solid.  This is only about $2 less than my average month from Reinvested Dividends in 2024.

All totaled, the $391.31 in additional forward dividend income was nearly one-sixth of my entire total from last year ($2,441.98), so 2025 is looking good after just one month.

In 2025, I’ll be looking to top that annual record of $2,441.98 I set just last year.  That would mean adding more than $203.50/month of additional forward dividend income on average.

 

Progress Charts

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

It was nice to top that $1.6K mark for dividends in January.  2025 should be another record year as my progress continues!

 

 

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

It looks like such a long way to go to eclipsing last year’s dividend income total.  However, I know that stair step pattern should continue once 2025 is complete.  I look forward to the journey.

 

 

Summary

I started the new year pulling in nearly $1,611 in dividend income… a terrific beginning for 2025.  YoY dividend income growth was a bit muted though, at 10.25%… well short of my 15% target.

I received 24 dividend payments in January (I think this might have been my highest number for any month).  Six of those dividend payments got into triple-digit territory.  The $164.88 from PEP led all payments.

I was hoping Reinvested Dividends would provide at least $50 in additional forward dividend income in January, which it didn’t, but better than $46 was close.

Dividend Raises were strong in January, as I received 7 of them – one more than this time last year.  In percentage terms, FAST provided the largest hike at 10.26%.  However, the 10.06% raise from NXST provided the most forward dividend income, at $80.14.  In total, all the raises boosted my forward dividend income by almost $185.

When it came to Portfolio transactions, I was fairly busy during January.  I made 7 transactions – 5 buys and 2 sells.  I added shares of NNN, HSY, NEE and DNP, while trimming CVS and eliminating OGE.  I ended the month with a net withdrawal of almost $750, however, I still increased my forward dividend income by over $160 by adding some high-yielding shares.

Tallying the contributions from all sources, over $391 of forward dividend income was added my Portfolio in this first month of 2025!  I’m well on my way to exceeding last year’s record total, assuming I can keep up the good pace.

 

Did your portfolio’s dividend income provide a good start for 2025?  Were you as busy as me with regard to transactions in the first month of the year?  Please share in the Comments!

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