Since I’m reporting on dividends for a quarter-ending month, I expect the dividend number to be large… and is was. However, the YoY growth in my dividend totals are slowing down now that I’m no longer reinvesting dividends, or new capital, but they do continue to grow. By next year, I think this will be more visible. As long as the dividend growth I do get outpaces inflation, I’ll be happy.
For now, my Portfolio continues to generate income and I put it toward my monthly living expenses. The dividends don’t provide all I need, but they put a good dent in the amount, so I’m glad to have them.
Here’s a preview of this month’s dividend income report…
September dividend income topped $2.5K, but was it enough to set a new monthly record. Keep reading to find out.
I didn’t record a monthly YoY growth percentage that reached double-digits. I wasn’t even close. I still have a 10% YoY growth target for 2026, but will probably need to move that to a more realistic target around 5% starting next year. September didn’t see me reach the 5% number either.
Usually, no dividends get reinvested each month any longer. However, in September I did have some… on accident. I’ll tell you why coming up.
My number of dividend raises in September ticked up by one compared to August. However, this didn’t result in more additional forward dividend income. Most of my raises were from small dividend payers, or from smaller positions. Most of my additional income from Dividend Raises came from just one dividend raise.
In September, I got around to reinvesting the sale proceeds from my Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) purge in early August. I also had a trim of one stock position. The net result was that I had additional forward dividend income this month due to investment of capital… a good chunk of it. I’ll share the total shortly.
For the first time all year, I received additional forward dividend income from all of my 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital). Usually, I’m limited to just contributions from Dividend Raises only. Because of this, I had my best month for additional forward dividend income all year… by a wide margin. More on this ahead.
Of course, I’ve got updated progress charts to share as well. We are in the homestretch of 2026 with only one quarter to go and the progress so far is noticeable.
Let’s check out the dividend details for September 2026, starting with my dividend income…
Dividend Income
This month, my Portfolio collected an impressive $2,542.83 in dividends. This was my 4th-highest monthly total ever, and it fell about $103 shy of my all-time best month (June, 2025).
I fell a bit flat when it came to monthly YoY dividend growth. I didn’t come close to double-digit percentage territory, and couldn’t top 5% either. I finished September with growth of 4.34%. This was my 2nd-worst monthly YoY growth percentage of 2026, trailing only the -1.47% from June. At least this month I had a positive number.
I had 26 companies pay me a dividend this month, with eleven of those dividend payers paying me a triple-digit dividend. Two of those eleven dividends exceeded $200, while the other nine all topped $120. All but two of my dividend payments eclipsed $20.
My largest September dividend payer was Aflac (AFL), which delivered $213.36. Coming a close second to this was Qualcomm (QCOM) which provided $203.33. As for my smallest dividends, the two that fell below $20, those came from Alphabet (GOOG) and Meta Platforms (META). The dividends were $5.51 and $3.16, respectively.
The increased dividend amounts from PIMCO Corporate & Income Strategy Fund (PCN) and Microsoft (MSFT) were helped by one or more purchases over the past year.
Increased YoY amounts for all other companies were the result of dividend increases and reinvested dividends over the past year. I added more than $16 in YoY dividend gains from Broadcom (AVGO), exceeded more than $14 from BlackRock (BLK), received north of $12 from AFL, and topped $8 each from QCOM, T. Rowe Price Group (TROW), Pepsico (PEP) and NextEra Energy (NEE). Throw in more than $7 each from Chevron (CVX) and Visa (V), too.
Of the September dividend payers that paid me both last year and this year, none of them had a payout reduction. This essentially means that I didn’t trim any of these holdings, nor did they cut their dividend.
As for new dividend payers in September, there were two of them. Eaton Vance Enhanced Equity Income Fund (EOI) was a fund I added early in September with some of the SWKS sale proceeds. Meanwhile, META was added almost a year ago.
Additionally, there was one stock that no longer paid me a dividend this September. That stock was SWKS, which I purged in early August due to poor performance, and the fact that they eliminated their dividend.
Reinvested Dividends
Each month, my normal routine is to have no dividends automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them. That’s because I instead use the dividends to cover some of my monthly living expenses.
However, I purchased a new holding this month and the default in my brokerage account for new holdings is to reinvest dividends. I forgot to switch off this action before the dividend came, and thus it got reinvested. So, this month I have a token amount of additional forward dividend income from this source.
Reinvesting my EOI dividend generated $2.38 of additional forward dividend income.
Dividend Raises
I was expecting to receive 5 dividend raises in September. Yet, only 4 were delivered, as one of the expected raises slipped to October.
For the 4 dividend raises that I did get, none reached the 10% mark I wish for. A couple of the raise percentages were pretty good, one was underwhelming, and one was just the expected token raise.
The resulting additional forward dividend income that I got from the raises was only OK. One raise provided the majority of the income.
Compared to last month, the additional forward dividend income due to dividend raises took a step down, despite the extra dividend raise this month.
My first September dividend raise came from VICI Properties (VICI). This REIT delivered a 2.22% dividend raise, just a little better than half of the 4.05% hike from last year. VICI’s dividend growth percentage has now declined each of the past three years. My forward dividend income climbed by only $6.07 due to the lackluster raise.
Next up was the token quarterly raise from Realty Income (O). The 0.18% raise was O’s third raise of 2026, and it added $0.69 of additional forward dividend income. Its total raise for the year rose to 0.56%. In 2026, O has yet to provide the one big annual raise (~2%-3%) it usually delivers. Based on the tough year REITs are having in this rising interest rate environment, I’m not expecting this larger raise to come.
Microsoft (MSFT) delivered my best raise (in percentage terms) for September at 7.69%. While this was a step down from the 9.64% raise from last year, I appreciated the above average hike. The raise only boosted my additional forward dividend income by $6.63 since my MSFT share count is low and its yield is small.
Finally, I received the most additional forward dividend income as a result of the dividend raise from Texas Instruments (TXN). The company’s 7.04% raise added $26.30 to my forward dividend income. This nearly quadrupled the next closest amount in September. The best part was that the raise easily topped the 4.41% hike that TXN provided last year. I haven’t had too many companies providing a bigger raise this year compared to last year, so I’ll happily take it!
The one raise I was expecting in September that slipped into October was the raise from Accenture (ACN).
After accounting for all my September dividend raises, my forward dividend income increased by $39.69. This was ~$20 less than what I received last month with one less raise. It was also less than the $67.55 that I received in September of last year. The absence of the ACN and Verizon Communications (VZ) raises this September accounts for the difference.
I’d have to invest $1,526.54 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.60% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.
Looking ahead to October, the number of dividend raises should continue to escalate. I expect to hear raise announcements from ACN and Starbucks (SBUX), as these should be carryovers from September. Then there are the usual October dividend raises I’m expecting from Lockheed Martin (LMT), RPM International (RPM), Visa (V) and AbbVie (ABBV). So, that’s six expected raises in total. I’m expecting I’ll have a chance at adding a triple-digit amount of additional forward dividend income from raises, too. I’ve already received four of these expected raises for October, but I’ll defer reporting on those until next month.
Dividends Due To New Investment
September saw me execute a handful of trades as I reinvested the proceeds from my August sale of SWKS into several holdings, as well as trim my META position.
The SWKS proceeds were reinvested to accomplish a few different objectives. First, I wanted to bolster several of my smaller holdings, including VICI, Intuit (INTU) & Amdocs Ltd. (DOX), each of which have declined significantly in 2026. Second, I wanted to enhance my Accenture (ACN) position, and lower my cost basis, given this stock has also dropped quite a bit this year. Finally, I added Eaton Vance Enhanced Equity Income Fund (EOI) to direct some money back into Tech names as well as ensure I recouped the dividend income lost with the SWKS sale.
As for META, I trimmed my most expensive shares, hoping to purchase them back at a lower price, but the stock has advanced since then. We’ll see if I get that chance over the coming weeks. For now I’m holding on to the sale proceeds rather than reinvest them elsewhere. The trim didn’t impact my additional forward income too much given META’s tiny yield.
The details for these transactions can be found in the following two posts…
Recent Transactions – SWKS, ACN, VICI, INTU, DOX, EOI
My transactions resulted in a net investment of $1,658.08 into my Portfolio. In addition, my forward dividend income rose by a whopping $472.39 due to the handful of moves.
My sale of META was only a trim, and the buys of ACN, VICI, INTU & DOX were of existing holdings. Thus, these transactions didn’t change the number of holdings in my Portfolio. However, since the SWKS sale was a purge, and EOI was a new addition, the number of stocks/funds in my Portfolio still settled at 57.
Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income
In 2026, I will continue tracking my additional forward dividend income generated each month from the trifecta of sources: reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and new capital investment. However, expect nearly all the action to be from dividend raises.
I’ll show 2025 totals as well, so that we can compare as the year progresses.
September was my first month in 2026 that I got contributions from my trifecta of sources, and it will probably be the last.
I don’t usually have contributions from Reinvested Dividends anymore since I use the dividends for living expenses as opposed to reinvesting them. Even the contributions from Investment of Capital aren’t too frequent, as they typically only occur when I sell one holding to buy another. Having all three this month feels like a return to previous years… I’ll take it.
As it was, Investment of Capital easily led the way in September as my top source. This was followed by Dividend Raises and then Reinvested Dividends. All totaled, the sources provided $514.46 of additional forward dividend income. This was my highest total in 2026, and highest since June of 2025.
For the year, Investment of Capital has vaulted into the lead for most forward dividend income provided, surpassing Dividend Raises. I expect Dividend Raises to take the lead by year’s end if I don’t make further Portfolio transactions, but that seems unlikely. Time will tell.
I’m hoping to reach $750 for Dividend Raises this year, but one bad month in this last quarter could destroy that hope. Also, could $1.5K combined from all the sources in 2026 be a possibility?
Progress Charts
The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.
The month of September has shown YoY growth in every year since I began my Portfolio and that didn’t change this year. It wasn’t huge growth, but it was growth nonetheless.
On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.
I’ve collected over $18.6K through 9 months of 2026. This tops my dividend total for all of 2023 by nearly $1K. I’m projecting that I’ll finish north of $24.6K by the time 2026 is complete.
Summary
What a September! I raked in a stellar $2,542.83 in dividends during the month. It came close to an all-time monthly dividend high, but fell about $100 short.
A double-digit percentage for YoY dividend income growth wasn’t in the cards though. I didn’t sniff my 10% target, falling well below that mark at 4.34%.
There were 26 dividend payments in my Portfolio in September. Of those, eleven were triple-digit dividends including a pair that exceeded $200. My largest dividend was just over $213 from AFL. All but two of my dividends were better than $21. There were plenty of solid dividend payments this month.
I had a little over $2 of additional forward dividend income from Dividend Reinvestment this month, as I mistakenly forgot to turn off reinvestment for a new holding.
My Portfolio notched four dividend raises in September… one more than last month. However, there was less additional forward dividend income to show for it… a shade under $40 for September. One expected raise, as well as another possible one, slipped to October. A couple of the raise percentages were pretty good, landing in the 7%-8% range.
I also had positive additional forward dividend income due to Investment of Capital, despite my META trim, as I finally got around to reinvesting my SWKS sale proceeds from August. I had a net investment of over $1,658 that added over $472 of forward dividend income.
Tallying the contributions from all three sources, I added north of $514 of forward dividend income in September.
How did your portfolio fare with regard to dividend income in this quarter-ending month? Any dividend records set? Please share in the Comments!
I have updated the Portfolio & Dividends pages in conjunction with this monthly update.