The final month of the 3rd quarter didn’t look to shabby from a dividend perspective. I nearly posted record income. In addition, the stock market crept a bit higher, even though I didn’t make much headway in my Portfolio value.
With Q3 having come to a close, let me tally up my dividends from September, then I can look forward to the final quarter of 2025.
Here’s a preview of what’s to come in this month’s dividend income report…
Dividend income was quite nice, as it topped out above $2.4K. How high did the total get though? When it came to YoY growth, I performed very well there, too. I was able to exceed my monthly target of 15% for the first time in 3 months. Was there any chance I reached 20%? The answers to both those questions will be yours shortly.
With the majority of my dividends getting reinvested into the stocks that paid them, I secured a record amount of forward dividend income due to reinvested dividends in September. I’ll share the final number in a bit.
For the first time in 6 months I topped 4 dividend raises…. I received 6 in September! As usual this year, the raises were less than stellar, but a couple managed to hover around the 10% mark. Did the increased number of raises translate to triple-digit forward dividend income? Keep reading to find out.
I wouldn’t say there were a lot of Portfolio transactions in September, but I did make a cluster of 4 moves. The moves resulted in a minor investment and a decent forward dividend income boost.
The additional forward dividend income from my 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital) was solid in September, although it failed to top my total from last month, or the total from the September of last year. Still, good progress was made. I’ll detail how much came from each source later in the post.
Of course, I’ve got updated progress charts to share as well. The visual data from 2025 is nearly complete now that we have 3/4 of the year behind us.
Let’s get to it… here are the dividend details for my Portfolio for September 2025, starting with my dividend income…
Dividend Income
It was nearly record dividend income in September, with my dividend total ending up at $2,437.13. This was my 2nd-best total ever, only falling short of my record from this past June ($2,645.91).
On top of that, YoY dividend growth topped my 15% target for the first time in 3 months. It was even better than 20%, finishing at 20.71%. That’s the kind of YoY growth I’ve been missing the past couple of months.
I had 25 companies pay me a dividend this month. This was a nice rebound from the 18 from last month. Triple-digit dividend payers were plentiful in September as I notched a dozen of them. Another 8 companies paid me at least $50, too. All but two payers came in under $30. Thus, I received many substantial dividend payments this month.
Aflac (AFL) came through with my largest September dividend, at $200.72. This is my 3rd $200 dividend payer in my Portfolio. Qualcomm (QCOM) wasn’t too far behind, providing a $194.70 dividend. On the low end, providing my smallest dividend of the month, was Alphabet (GOOG), with a dividend of $5.26.
The increased dividend amounts from NextEra Energy (NEE), UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Hershey Co. (HSY) and Microsoft (MSFT) 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 an impressive $31+ in YoY dividend gains from AFL, and north of $12 from Pepsico (PEP). I also exceeded $11 from QCOM. Rounding out the double-digit additions, count more than $10 each from both T. Rowe Price Group (TROW) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).
Of the September dividend payers that paid me both last year and this year, only one of them had a payout reduction – Main Street Capital (MAIN). The reduction was the result of a fairly recent trim I executed due to the stock being overvalued in my estimation.
As for new dividend payers in September, I had a large number of them… 5. Chevron (CVX) is the investment that debuted with the largest dividend – $114.15. Next were the 3 closed-end funds (CEFs) that I purchased in the past year: PIMCO Corporate and Income Strategy Fund (PCN), DNP Select Income Fund (DNP), and BlackRock Health Sciences Trust (BME). PCN provided the most of the 3 CEFs with $105.03, while DNP was next with $68.38, followed by BME which delivered $59.66. Lastly, there was the $5.26 dividend from GOOG – a combination of my small position size and the stock’s low yield.
One stock no longer paid me a dividend this September. It was Pinnacle West Capital (PNW). I eliminated the position back in February to invest elsewhere. I gave up a $58+ dividend when I sold.
Normally, most of my dividends get automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them. That was the case in September, too. However, there were two exceptions. First, it was only a partial dividend reinvestment of ENB due to a portion of the dividend being withheld for foreign tax purposes. Second, my BlackRock (BLK) dividend didn’t get reinvested since my broker won’t do it when the share price is so high.
The result of the dividend reinvestment that did take place was a record $84.08 of additional forward dividend income. This topped the $77.45 generated last March.
The reinvestment of my PCN distribution accounted for nearly $11 of the forward income total, while TROW provided nearly $9 and PEP delivered over $7. Four other positions added more than $5 to my forward income total in addition to four more positions boosting the total in excess of $4 each. Quality contributions all around!
As a result of September’s dividends that did get reinvested, I dripped over 32 new shares. PCN accounted for better than 8 shares all by itself, with DNP tacking on nearly 7 more shares. Enbridge (ENB) was my only other holding to exceed 2 shares from its reinvestment.
Dividend Raises
In September I broke out of the 4 dividend raises rut (after 5 months) and expanded to 6 dividend raises! September starts the 6-month window where my Portfolio usually sees its best dividend raise activity of the year. Bring it on!
Sadly, none of the raises my companies provided exceeded their raise percentage from last year.
Most of this month’s dividend raises fell under the 5% threshold, which seems to be normal for 2025. However, a pair of raises showed up around the 10% mark, with one falling just under that level, and one just over.
My first dividend raise of the month was delivered by VICI Properties (VICI). It was a 4.05% hike that failed to top the 4.22% raise from last year. This was good enough however to add $10.33 in forward dividend income.
Just a day later Verizon Communicatons (VZ) announced a 1.85% dividend raise. This was slightly lower than the 1.88% raise the company provided last year, and it follows the dwindling percentage trend from VZ over the past several years. Since VZ is one of my larger dividend payers, the meager raise still resulted in a decent forward dividend income increase of $8.52.
Next up was the token quarterly dividend raise from Realty Income (O). It was a tiny 0.19% dividend boost. This was the 4th of what should be 5 dividend raises O will provide this year. The raise increased this year’s dividend percentage to 2.08%, with one more token raise to come. The final percentage raise for the year will most likely fall short of the final 2.92% hike from 2024.
The remaining raises in September came from three of my Information Technology stocks. Things started with a dividend raise from MSFT in the middle of the month. MSFT raised 9.64%, but this came up shy of its 10.67% raise last year. The boost to my forward dividend income was an acceptable $6.61. I never expect a big increase here given the small yield MSFT has.
Next was a 4.41% hike from Texas Instruments (TXN). I would say I was disappointed with this raise, as it’s now been 3 consecutive years with a sub-5% raise from TXN. Even worse, the percentage continues to decrease, as last year’s raise was 4.62%. The forward dividend income increase was good though, as it added $15.16 thanks to my decent position size and the 3%+ yield of the stock.
My final Tech stock raise (and final raise of the month, no less) came from Accenture (ACN). The dividend increase was my largest of the month in percentage terms, coming in at 10.14%. Unfortunately, this was a decrease from the 14.73% boost that ACN provided in 2024. ACN also provided my largest forward dividend income increase of the month – $26.25. ACN hasn’t typically been a big dividend payer for me, thus limiting the impact its dividend hike has on my forward dividend income, but I’ve been increasing my position this year due to its price decline, and thus the income boost has become more noticeable this quarter.
After accounting for all my September dividend raises, my forward dividend income increased by $67.55. This amount topped the total from last month ($60.04), as well as the total from September of last year ($61.10).
I’d have to invest $2,588.12 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.61% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.
Looking ahead to October, I’m probably looking at one less dividend raise than in September. However, I’m hoping the raises I do get result in more forward dividend income… something in the triple-digits. We’ll see. I’m expecting to hear raise announcements from Starbucks (SBUX) since it didn’t announce in September, Lockheed Martin (LMT), RPM International (RPM), Visa (V) and AbbVie (ABBV). Three companies from my list above already announced a dividend raise for October, but I’ll save reporting on those for next month.
Dividends Due To New Investment
I made four Portfolio transactions all on the same day in September. The moves included one stock trim, and three purchases that enhanced three existing Portfolio positions.
I took advantage of a short-lived rise in the price of Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) to reduce my position in this under-performing Tech stock. I then used those sale proceeds and a bit of cash to invest in NNN REIT (NNN), Accenture (ACN) and FedEx (FDX). NNN received the largest investment, with ACN and FDX each getting about half the amount of NNN. The additions to NNN and FDX were primarily to increase their position size in my Portfolio. The ACN addition saw me continue to build out my position in the stock while its price is depressed.
All the details for these September transactions can be found in the following post…
Recent Transactions – SWKS, NNN, ACN, FDX
My transactions resulted a net investment of $367.58 into my Portfolio. This increased my forward dividend income by $33.96.
With SWKS remaining in my Portfolio after the trim, and the 3 purchased stocks already being part of my Portfolio, the number of stocks/funds in my Portfolio stayed 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’d posted a triple-digit addition to my forward dividend income every month this year, and that didn’t stop in September. Accounting for all the sources, I added $185.59 of additional forward dividend income in September. Unfortunately, this didn’t quite measure up to the total from last month ($212.12), or the total from September of last year ($278.50), but I’ll happily take it.
Somewhat surprisingly, Reinvested Dividends was the leading contributor (it’s usually the laggard). As noted earlier, the $84.08 added in September from this source was a record. My investments in my three CEFs earlier this year proved to be a major catalyst in this regard.
Dividends Raises were solid in September. It’s hard to argue that when the $67.55 total topped the total from both last month and last September. I’m expecting the contribution from Dividend Raises to heat up some in the next 6 months as I hit what is usually my best stretch of the year in this category.
Bringing up the rear in September was the contribution from Investment of Capital. The $33.96 added was the 2nd lowest monthly contribution from this source in 2025. Furthermore, it wasn’t really close to the contribution from this source last month ($88.80) or from last year ($163.00). The nearly $34 is actually a decent amount, but it pales in comparison to the other monthly contributions from Investment of Capital this year.
The most notable item from this month is that my Portfolio has now exceeded the record forward dividend income total posted last year. The $2,450.17 I’ve managed so far this year just passed the $2,441.98 from 2024… and I’ve got 3 months left to pad my record total! I expect Reinvested Dividends to register a record forward dividend income amount for the year, too. These two sources should help to make up for the reduced contribution I’m getting from Dividend Raises in 2025.
Progress Charts
The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.
September came through with my 2nd-best monthly dividend total ever – over $2.4K in dividend income. That makes it 10 straight years showing an increase in dividend income in September.
On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.
My Portfolio has already totaled over $17K in dividend income in just 9 months. This approached the annual total from just two years ago. That’s some serious progress!
Summary
It was nearly a record dividend amount in September, but it came up a bit short. Still, I collected a whopping $2,437.13. Even my YoY growth was outstanding, as it easily eclipsed my 15% target and came in at 20.71%.
My Portfolio notched 25 dividend payments in September. This is just one shy of the most payments I’ve received in a single month.
Nearly half of those 25 payments (12) were triple-digit dividends, with the $200.72 from AFL carrying the torch in September. There were plenty of other significant dividends during the month, too, as only 5 failed to reach at least $50.
My Portfolio registered a record amount of forward dividend income from Reinvested Dividends in September – more than $84.
Dividend Raises broke out a bit, as I recorded 6 raises in September after receiving 4 dividend raises in each of the past 5 months. The dividend hikes resulted in better than $67 of additional forward dividend income. The raise from ACN was my largest in both percentage terms (10.14%), and in the amount that it delivered in additional forward dividend income ($26.25).
I executed 4 Portfolio transactions in September – 1 sale (a trim) and 3 purchases of existing holdings. I trimmed SWKS, then used the sale proceeds and some cash to buy some NNN, ACN & FDX. My additional forward dividend income was boosted by nearly $34 with the moves.
Tallying the contributions from all sources, over $185 of forward dividend income was added to my Portfolio in September. This was enough to help my Portfolio exceed last year’s record total for additional forward dividend income. Now it’s time to pad my record total through the end of this year.
Did you record a record-setting dividend income total in September? What was your biggest dividend of the month? Please share in the Comments!
I have updated the Portfolio & Dividends pages in conjunction with this monthly update.