The stock market continues to melt up this summer. Another good month has left my Portfolio value higher. I’ve also got plenty of dividends to rake in and tally up from August, too.
I didn’t make any big Portfolio changes this past month either. Instead I essentially left my Portfolio alone and let it cook.
Here’s a preview of what’s to come in this month’s dividend income report…
Dividend income settled around $1.7K for August, but on which side of that threshold did I fall? As for for YoY growth, I didn’t sniff my monthly target of 15%. Did I at least manage a double-digit percentage? The answers to both those questions are coming soon.
With my investment account transition (from regular brokerage account to a trust brokerage account) now complete, I was able to reinvest the majority of my dividends in August. This led to my 2nd-best month ever for additional forward dividend income from this source. I’ll soon let you know how high the total got.
August brought another 4 dividend raises to my Portfolio. That’s now 5 consecutive months I’ve hit that same number of raises. Although one of the raises was sub-2%, one came in north of 15%! Unfortunately, I didn’t reach triple-digit additional forward dividend income from the raises, but it was still a solid amount. I’ll share the total coming up.
After a very busy July with regard to Portfolio transactions, I slowed way down in August. There was just a single buy. However, it was a decently-sized investment, so the forward dividend income boost was good.
My monthly additional forward dividend income from my 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital) saw good contributions all-around. Each source was able to provide at least $60. All together, they topped $200, which was enough to top my total from last month, and more than double the total from August of last year. Progress!
I’ll share my updated progress charts as well. It’s always good to see the monthly and annual income growth in visual form.
Let’s wait no longer… here come the dividend details for my Portfolio for August 2025, starting with my dividend income…
Dividend Income
August dividend income ended up a bit shy of $1.7K. It was a good month nonetheless, as I collected $1,682.59 in dividends.
Unfortunately, YoY dividend growth came in well short of my 15% target. I barely got half way there, as it finished at 7.81%. I’ve certainly had worse months, but it would have been nice to at least hit the 10% mark.
I had 18 companies paying me a dividend this month. This was a noticeable drop off from the 26 in each of the past two months. However, I did secure 6 triple-digit dividend payers in August, which is one more than I had last month. In addition, there were 7 companies that paid me at least $50, too. Even better, all payers delivered more than $25.
AbbVie (ABBV) delivered my largest August dividend, at $245.53… actually, this was my largest regular dividend ever. Not far behind at $224.37 was Nexstar Media Group (NXST). On the other end of the spectrum, providing my smallest dividend of the month, was Main Street Capital (MAIN) with a dividend of $25.71.
The increased dividend amounts from Starbucks (SBUX) 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 tacked on more than $29 in YoY dividend gains from NXST, and better than $21 from ABBV. I also secured in excess of $19 from Fastenal (FAST) and nearly $11 from Procter & Gamble (PG).
Of the August dividend payers that paid me both last year and this year, only one of them had a payout reduction. The reduction was from MAIN. It was the result of the trim I executed a little over a month ago when the stock appeared to have a stretched valuation. As expected, MAIN has climbed another 6% higher since then.
As for new dividend payers in August, I had 3 of them. They are the 3 closed-end funds that I’ve purchase in the past year: DNP Select Income Fund (DNP), BlackRock Health Sciences Trust (BME), and PIMCO Corporate and Income Strategy Fund (PCN). DNP debuted with the most ($67.93), while BME was next ($59.24), followed by PCN ($45.00).
Two stocks no longer paid me a dividend this August. I purged both CVS Health (CVS) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) this past March, lightening up in Healthcare. Sadly, I had to recoup a significant amount of lost dividend income, as CVS was delivering a $99.30 dividend and BMY was providing a dividend of $62.79.
Normally, most of my dividends get automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them. There was one exception in August though. It was only a partial dividend reinvestment of ACN due to a portion of the dividend being withheld for foreign tax purposes.
The result of the dividend reinvestment that did take place was an additional $63.28 of forward dividend income. This fell short of my best total ever, but did manage to be my 2nd-best total of all-time.
The reinvestment of my NXST dividend accounted for more than $8 of the forward income total, while ABBV and Verizon Communications (VZ) provided north of $7 each from reinvestment. Closed-end funds DNP, BME & PCN added around $5 each to the forward dividend income total as well.
As a result of August’s dividends that did get reinvested, I almost dripped 26 new shares. DNP accounted for nearly 7 shares all by itself. PCN dripped over 3 shares while FAST and VZ exceeded 2 shares each.
Dividend Raises
Once again, for the 5th straight month, I received 4 dividend raises. Thankfully, I expect to break that string next month as I enter into the 6-month window where I have my best dividend raise activity.
The dividend raises I received in August were split between the early and late portions of the month.
One of my 4 raises delivered a larger percentage increase than the company provided last year. Also, one of my newest holdings raised by a double-digit percentage, which is always nice to have.
It only took until the 1st day of August for my first dividend raise to occur. It was a 7.33% hike from Illinois Tool Works (ITW). This just exceeded the 7.14% raise that ITW provided last year. Given that ITW is one of my larger dividend payers, the forward dividend income added from this ITW raise was a sizable $30.20, which was slightly more than half my monthly total.
Later that week, Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) provided a dividend raise, too. However, it was only a 1.43% raise, or about half its 2.94% raise from last year. This was my most disappointing raise of the month. The increase to my forward dividend income from this raise was a lackluster $6.13.
More than two weeks elapsed before my next raise… a 3.92% dividend increase from Altria Group (MO). This raise came up a bit shy of the 4.08% raise MO provided last year. However, it was good enough to result in an increase of $16.01 to my forward dividend income. I haven’t been reinvesting my MO dividends (by choice), or buying more shares, thus a raise is the only way my MO dividend gets larger.
My last dividend raise of the month was my largest in percentage terms. It came courtesy of one of my newer Portfolio holdings, Intuit (INTU). The raise was a whopping 15.38%. I love seeing those double-digit raises! Due to INTU being one of my smaller holdings though, with a low yield to boot, the big dividend hike only resulted in a modest $7.70 increase to my forward dividend income.
After accounting for all my August dividend raises, my forward dividend income increased by $60.04. This amount fell short of the total from last month, but did exceed the total from August of last year.
I’d have to invest $2,274.24 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, the number of dividend raises I receive should climb higher. I’m expecting to hear raise announcements from 6 different Portfolio companies, and possibly a 7th. On the docket should be dividend raises from Verizon Communications (VZ), VICI Properties (VICI), Microsoft (MSFT), Texas Instruments (TXN), Accenture (ACN), and the quarterly token raise from Realty Income (O). The wildcard is Starbucks (SBUX), which could announce in September (as it has in the past), or in October (like it did last year). Four companies from my list above already announced a dividend raise this month, but I’ll save reporting on those for next month.
Dividends Due To New Investment
In August, I made just a single Portfolio transaction. It was a fairly significant addition to my Accenture (ACN) holding.
ACN has declined in price rather significantly this year. So much so, that this often overvalued stock has been trading with a more reasonable valuation.
The stock trades near a 52-week low, has a yield about 1 percentage point above its 5-year average yield, and also trades much lower than its 5-year average forward P/E ratio.
The details for this lone August transaction can be found in the following post…
My single transaction resulted a net investment of $3,560.70 into my Portfolio. This increased my forward dividend income by a healthy $88.80.
With ACN already being part of my Portfolio, 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.
It was another triple-digit month with regard to additional forward dividend income. Accounting for all the sources, I added $212.12 of additional forward dividend income in August. This bested the $191.67 from last month, and more than doubled the $101.14 from August of last year.
Perhaps the best part, each source contributed at least $60 to the monthly total. That hasn’t happened since March.
For the 3rd consecutive month, Investment of Capital was the leading contributor. The $88.80 added in August came from just a single investment. It was a decent mix of a sizable investment coupled with a decent yield for the purchased stock.
Reinvested Dividends posted their 2nd-best month ever for additional forward dividend income… $63.28. This only trailed the $77.45 amount from March.
It was Dividend Raises that delivered the least this month, which is quite unusual, especially given that it’s typically my best source for additional forward dividend income. The $60.04 total from Dividend Raises wasn’t bad, it was more so that the other sources just had a good month.
If I add another $200+ in additional forward dividend income in September from the 3 sources, I will eclipse last year’s record total of $2,441.98 in additional forward dividend income. At this time Investment of Capital is carrying my totals for the year – making up more than half of it. Reinvested Dividends are holding their own, but the contributions from Dividend Raises will probably fall short of its total from last year.
Progress Charts
The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.
August proved to be a good month with nearly $1.7K in dividend income. The steady progress in August is quite evident on the chart – a nice staircase up and to the right.
On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.
Over $14.6K in dividend income has been collected through two-thirds of the year. This is already more than I collected in all of 2021!
Summary
Dividends were plentiful in August. I raked in $1,682.59. YoY growth of 7.81% was a bit disappointing, as it fell way short of my 15% target, but it’s getting harder to reach that target as the Portfolio continues to grow.
I recorded 18 dividend payments for my Portfolio in August, a reduction from the 26 in each of the past 2 months. I’m satisfied with that number though.
In addition, 6 of my dividend payments reached triple-digits in August, with the $245.53 from ABBV leading the way. This was my largest single regular dividend payment ever.
Portfolio transactions were limited in August, as I made just one of them. The buy was a decent investment in one of my existing holdings – ACN. This increased my additional forward dividend income by nearly $89.
Reinvested Dividends were outstanding in August, providing their 2nd largest total ever. The contribution was more than $63 of additional forward dividend income.
In August, for the 5th straight month, I received 4 dividend raises. This resulted in a tad over $60 in additional forward dividend income. In percentage terms, INTU provided my largest raise (15%+), but it was the 7%+ raise from ITW that delivered most of my additional forward dividend income.
Tallying the contributions from all sources, over $212 of forward dividend income was added to my Portfolio in August. At this rate, it’s possible I exceed last year’s record total for additional forward dividend income by the end of next month!
Which portfolio stock provided the largest dividend for you in August? Which one announced the biggest dividend raise? How has your additional forward dividend income been growing thus far in 2025? Please share in the Comments!
I have updated the Portfolio & Dividends pages in conjunction with this monthly update.