Another month has gone. It’s hard to believe that the year is almost over. Indeed, in addition to the upcoming end of the year, Game of Thrones reminds us that winter is coming! But, while we prepare for the future, it’s important to take a look at where we’ve been. I will do that by providing another monthly dividend income report.

I expect October was a slow month. To see how slow, you will just have to keep reading. I’m also looking forward to doing some more riding on my motorcycle. Since I’ve been overseas, I wasn’t able to do a lot of riding. But, I just got my bike back recently, and currently getting it serviced. I will definitely be doing some riding before it gets too cold or too rainy. But, that’s not why you’re here. So, enough stalling. Let’s dive in.

Dividend Income

In October, I received a total of $48.09 in dividends broken down as follows:

NO. STOCK NAME DIVIDENDS 1 CSCO Cisco Systems $11.50 2 KMB Kimberly Clark $13.56 3 KO Coca-Cola $14.58 4 O Realty Income $8.45 $48.09

Not a bad start for the beginning of the last quarter of the year. Almost at $50. I’m quite sure I will cross that threshold in the next quarter. However, the real prize will be when I finally get this quarter to cross the 3-digit threshold. In the meantime, I hope to maintain the minimum level of contributions to my dividend portfolio.

Recently, I asked: Should I Buy A House? It’s an important question for me because one of the ways in which I was thinking about saving for the downpayment and closing costs was to limit my monthly contributions. I’m hoping it won’t get to that point, but I also want to buy another house. I will keep you posted. I’ve noticed that my expenses, even though non-recurring, are expensive. For some reason, I find reasons to spend money. This may be part of the lifestyle creep that I talked about recently. Right now, I’m spending a small fortune getting my bike in good enough condition to safely ride on the road. So, new tires, a new battery, service, etc, all add up. I’m really hoping to spend less money in the coming months, notwithstanding the fact that Christmas is coming.

Annual Comparison

Below is a graphical representation of my dividends this year as compared to last:

Here is the raw data:

MONTH 2017 2018 Rate April $0.41 $31.47 7575.61% May $2.85 $79.33 2683.51% June $16.89 $98.51 483.24% July $5.99 $42.32 606.51% August $21.95 $108.44 394.03% September $28.72 $111.15 287.01% October $23.21 $48.09 107.20% My portfolio increased a respectable $107.20% from last year. I continue to look forward to decent growth rates in the months to come. Although the growth rate will be significantly smaller as I work with larger numbers, I do plan on increasing the minimum contributions to my portfolio annually – even if saving for a down payment and closing costs slows that down a bit. That, combined with dividend income, will help my dividend portfolio snowball faster. Finally, the Dividend Tracker has been updated accordingly.



Forward Annual Dividends At the time of this writing, my forward annual dividend is $1,195.16. A month ago, my forward annual dividend projection was $1,150.16. This represents an increase of $45.00 or 3.91% in my forward annual dividend income. This is a slightly larger increase in dollar amount, but a slightly smaller decrease in percentage from the previous month.

I have my eyes set on crossing the $1500 mark and even the $2000 mark. I’m still a bit far off, but it’s always good having a goal to work towards.

Conclusion

No matter what is going on in my life, my dividend portfolio is hard at work. Whether my expenses are low or high, it doesn’t matter. My dividends are there working for me bringing me dividend income. It helps that I have a long-term horizon of at least 15 years. Although, there’s a decent chance that I will be relying on dividends for the rest of my life. But, I am taking it one month at a time.

Let me know your thoughts by commenting below. I hope you enjoyed Halloween. But, as we approach the end of the year, remember: Winter Is Coming!