It’s time to talk dividends!  With February drawing to a close, I was happy to tally up all the dividend income for the month.

February turned out to be a good dividend month for me, too.  No records were set, but I was completely satisfied with my progress.

Unfortunately, the stock market performance in February wasn’t commensurate with my dividend income.  As a result, my Portfolio value dipped a bit during the month, but nothing to worry about.

Let me give you a quick preview of this month’s dividend income report…

My monthly dividend income surpassed $1.75K in February.  That’s a solid total, for sure.  Did I come close to topping $1.8K?  Stick around to find out.

Year-over-Year (YoY) dividend growth straddled the line between a single-digit and double-digit percentage increase.  Which side of the fence did I end up on?  The answer is moments away.

I was the recipient of a lucky 7 dividend raises in February.  A couple of those stocks provided a double-digit raise, too.  Love those!

I made 3 groups of Portfolio transactions, which kept my Portfolio activity fairly robust during the month.  I had 7 buy/sell decisions, which resulted in 2 stocks exiting my Portfolio, and 2 new ones joining.

With regard to additional forward dividend income from my 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital), one source delivered a triple-digit income boost all by itself, and another source fell just short of doing the same.  While the total didn’t live up to last month’s haul, the overall increase was excellent.  Keep reading to see how good it was.

Of course, I’ll be providing updated progress charts, too – for both monthly and annual dividends.  There’s plenty to cover, so let’s get to it.

Here are the dividend details for February 2025, leading off with my dividend income…

 

Dividend Income

 

February proved to be a terrific month for dividends, as my Portfolio collected a total of $1,753.90.  My YoY dividend growth snuck into double-digit territory, reaching 10.08%.  For a 2nd straight month, YoY growth failed to approach my 15% growth target.

A total of 19 companies paid me a dividend in February.  A stellar 7 of those payers managed a triple-digit dividend, too… with 2 of those 7 exceeding $200.  Even better, every stock provided at least $25.  Significant contributions all around!

My largest dividend of the month came from AbbVie (ABBV).  An outstanding $241.24 was delivered.  This was my largest dividend payment yet, regardless of month.  Thank you ABBV!  Also joining the $200 club was Nextstar Media Group (NXST), which provided $219.21.

My smallest dividend of the month came from Accenture (ACN).  The company sent $25.87 my way.  Realty Income (O) was roughly a trio of dollars ahead of this, paying me $28.88.

The increased dividend amounts from Starbucks (SBUX), NNN REIT (NNN), American Tower (AMT) 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 $27 in YoY dividend gains from NXST, exceeded $21 from ABBV, nearly added $14 from SBUX, and saw more than $12 from Procter & Gamble (PG).

Of the February stocks that paid me both last year and this year, one of them had a payout reduction.  That reduction came from General Dynamics (GD), and it was the result of a trim I did in early 2024.

As for new dividend payers this February, there was only one.  It was the closed-end fund I added this past December, DNP Select Income Fund (DNP).  I nearly doubled my position in this monthly payer since my initial buy, so the $65.23 is a nice bump relative to my 1st distribution.

Lastly, I had one stock that no longer paid me a dividend this February… and that was Hormel Foods (HRL).  I said goodbye to its $33.97 dividend when I exited my position a bit over a year ago.

 

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 ACN due to a portion of the dividend being withheld for foreign tax purposes, and 2) there was only a partial dividend reinvestment of CVS Health (CVS) due to my recent trim.  The result of all the dividend reinvestment was an additional $57.12 of forward dividend income.  It was good to top $50 again after a one-month hiatus.

The reinvestment of the NXST dividend accounted for nearly $11 of the forward dividend income total.  The ABBV reinvestment added more than $8.  DNP accounted for better than $5, while CVS contributed over $4 to my total.  Not to leave them out… three other companies provided more than $3 each, while another four topped $2.  Lots of healthy contributions this month!

As a result of February’s reinvested dividends, I dripped over 20 new shares of stock.  The presence of DNP has pushed me over 20 shares for each of the past two months.  DNP accounted for almost 7 shares on its own in February, but six other Portfolio holdings dripped over 1 share each, including both Fastenal (FAST) and CVS eclipsing 1.5 shares.

 

Dividend Raises

My Portfolio had 6 dividend raise announcements in February.  This was one less than last month.  Sadly, it may be the most I have for a few months, as I’m about to enter the slowest stretch of the year for dividend raises.

So for now, I’m going to relish the dividend raises that came in this month.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good with regard to the raises.  While the quantity was good, some of the raise percentages left a lot to be desired.

Luckily, two of the raises were of the double-digit variety.  Another one came in around 5%, but the other three were sub-3%.  It was a couple of my smaller payers that saw the double-digit raises, so I didn’t see a monster bump in my forward dividend income, although I almost reached triple-digit income.

My first dividend raise of the month came from one of my top payers, Pepsico (PEP).  The company raised its dividend 4.98%.  This didn’t really come close to last year’s 7.11% increase, but basically coming in at 5% is a decent hike.  The raise resulted in $33.15 being added to my forward dividend income, which ended up being my largest forward dividend income increase this month.

The next day, I received my largest dividend increase percentage of February.  It was a 10.02% bump from Amdocs Ltd. (DOX).  This percentage was marginally lower than the 10.11% increase DOX posted last year.  This raise added $14.55 to my forward dividend income.

My next two dividend raises arrived a week later and were perhaps the most disappointing of the month, as they were lower than I’d hoped.

First came a 2.42% raise from T. Rowe Price Group (TROW).  Given that TROW has had muted dividend growth the past two years, this wasn’t surprising.  Amazingly, this percentage increase topped the 1.64% raise from TROW in 2024.  TROW is one of my largest dividend payers, so the boost to my forward dividend income was decent, at $17.04, despite the small raise.

This was followed the next day by a 2.50% raise from Cisco Systems (CSCO).  This raise came up short of the 2.56% hike provided last year.  I believe this is the 5th year in a row that CSCO has raised its quarterly dividend by just one cent.  I’m hoping CSCO can get to a point where raises show up in the 5%-7% range.  CSCO is not one of my larger dividend payers, so combined with the small raise, my forward dividend income only increased by $5.36.

As expected, NextEra Energy (NEE) delivered a double-digit raise… exactly 10.00%.  This was fractionally lower than the 10.16% raise from last year, but it was my 2nd double-digit raise of the month.  My forward dividend income increased by a good-sized $24.27.  NEE might have another double-digit raise in them next year if I correctly understand what the company is planning.

Lastly, Realty Income (O) announced their first, and what is most likely their most significant raise of the year in addition to the 4 token quarterly raises they usually provide in the last month of each quarter.  O raised 1.52%, which fell short of the corresponding 2.14% hike from last May.  This raise bumped up my forward dividend income by $5.28.

There were no raise announcements from Omnicom Group (OMC) or Hershey Co. (HSY).  This marks 4 years since OMC last raised their dividend, and 1 year for HSY.  Thus, both dividends are technically frozen.

 

 

After accounting for all my February dividend raises, my forward dividend income almost increased by triple-digits, falling a bit short with $99.65.  PEP and NEE accounted for most of the advance, but TROW and DOX contributed nicely, while CSCO and O pushed the total higher by at least $5.

I’d have to invest $3,774.62 at my Portfolio’s month-end yield of 2.64% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.

Looking ahead to March, I’m expecting a decrease in the number of dividend payers I get.  I’m pretty sure a triple-digit boost to my forward dividend income will be out of the question, too.  I expect to hear raise announcements from General Dynamics (GD), Qualcomm (QCOM) and American Tower (AMT), in addition to the token raise from O.  As it turns out, two of these companies have already raised their dividend this month, but I’ll save that for next month’s report.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

I was fairly busy in February making changes to my Portfolio.  I made a total of 7 transactions, consisting of 4 buys and 3 sells.  The buys added two new stocks to my Portfolio, while the sells eliminated two stocks.

I basically, sold Pinnacle West Capital (PNW), added some cash, and added to my Chevron (CVX) position.

Later in the month, I was busy in the Information Technology sector.  I trimmed my Broadcom (AVGO) position since its weighting got very heavy, swapping it for new holding Intuit (INTU).  That was followed by a single-share add of Microsoft (MSFT) to keep that position growing.

I wrapped up the month by unloading all my shares of McCormick & Co. (MKC), adding some cash, then investing in new holding, Flowers Foods (FLO).  This was primarily a yield play.  I did give up some dividend safety with this move though.

Details for all these transactions can be found in this trio of posts…

 

Recent Transactions – PNW & CVX

Recent Transactions – AVGO, INTU, MSFT

Recent Transactions – MKC & FLO

 

My transactions resulted in a net investment of $726.71 into my Portfolio.  My forward dividend income increased by a solid $128.22, too.  The majority of this resulted from the swap of MKC for FLO.

With two stocks being eliminated from my Portfolio, and two being added during the group of transactions, the number of stocks/funds in my Portfolio remained at 58.

 

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.

 

 

I’m off to a strong start in 2025 with respect to additional forward dividend income.  I received outstanding contributions from all my sources in February and tallied another stellar month.  Accounting for all the sources, I added $284.99 of additional forward dividend income.  While this fell short of last month’s total, it topped the total from the same month last year by over $80.

Investment of Capital was my leading source in February, providing $128.22.  This nearly tripled the amount from Investment of Capital in February of last year.

I just missed out on achieving a triple-digit month from Dividend Raises, finishing at $99.65.  So, even though this source didn’t reach the total from last month, nor surpass the total from the same month last year, I feel good about the final number.  Unfortunately, I’m behind my pace from last year from this source.  Could this be another year of dwindling dividend growth?

Reinvested Dividends had a very good performance in February, adding $57.12 in forward dividend income.  This exceeded the total from last month, and the total from Feb. 2024.  Hopefully I can average over $50/month for the entirety of 2025.

Just two months into 2025, my $676.30 total for additional forward dividend income is already more than 1/4 of the way to eclipsing last year’s total of $2,441.98.

 

Progress Charts

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

Two months into 2025 and the progress is looking good.  I approached $1.8K in February and plan to top $2K in March… perhaps I can establish a new monthly record!

 

 

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

I’ve already collected more in two months of 2025 than in all of 2015.  Let’s keep this going!

 

 

Summary

I tallied nearly $1,754 in dividend income in February.  Thus, that now makes two awesome months to kick off 2025.  YoY dividend income growth has slowed a bit compared to previous years, but in February I was able to squeak out a double-digit percentage with 10.08%.

February brought 19 dividend payments to me.  Seven of those were triple-digit dividend payments, with a couple of those topping $200 – from ABBV & NXST.

Reinvested Dividends generated more than $57 in additional forward dividend income in February.  This brought my two-month average over $50/month.

I recorded 6 Dividend Raises this month, one less than in January.  Both DOX and NEE managed to deliver 10% raises, while all the others came in south of 5%.  A raise of almost 5% from Pepsico (PEP) provided the most forward dividend income, at $33.15.  All my raises increased my forward dividend income by almost $100.

February was fairly busy with Portfolio transactions.  I recorded another 7 transactions, the same amount as in January.  The transactions were comprised of 4 buys and 3 sells.  PNW and MKC exited my Portfolio, while INTU and FLO joined it.  I also trimmed AVGO, while adding shares of CVX and MSFT.  I finished the month of February with a net investment of close to $727.  My forward dividend income climbed by over $128 due to the Portfolio transactions.

Tallying the contributions from all sources, nearly $285 of forward dividend income was added my Portfolio in February.  I’m ahead of last year’s pace for additional forward dividend income, too.  It’s nice to be off to a good start in 2025!

 

Did you receive lots of dividend raises in February?  This month usually has plenty of companies announcing dividend raises.  Have you been active making Portfolio transactions to begin 2025?  Please share in the Comments!

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