December 2017 Dividend Income – $448.58

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How We Earned $448.58 in Dividend Income in December 2017I am pretty sure I say this at the end of every single year … but dang it is hard to believe that 2017 is over and we are reporting our dividend income results for December.

Overall, 2017 was a fantastic year for building our dividend income stream. Each month of the year we saw growth in our portfolio. It was without a doubt our best year yet for earning (and building) dividend income.

Invested $12,000 of New Money into Dividend Stocks

In addition to earning a record amount of dividend income, we were able to invest over $12,000 of new money into the stock market. That was less than we had hoped, but still a great accomplishment for our family.

These new investments will eventually grow and compound, just like those from last year and the year before.

To wrap up the year, I wanted to take the time to post our latest dividend income results.

I find this to be helpful as it shows the small steps we are taking in building this income stream. Since we are not loaded with unlimited cash to invest, my wife and I simply invest what we can one month at a time.

As you can see below, consistently investing and growing your portfolio will provide awesome returns over the course of several years.

So … here is our dividend income portfolio results for December, 2017 –

2017 December Dividend Income Summary

When it comes to dividend investing, my favorite month is … December.

Not only is it the last month of the calendar year and we have the opportunity to see our yearly dividend totals … it is normally the highest month (or second) of the year for dividend income.

Well … guess what? We set an all new monthly dividend income record this past month. In fact, we shattered the old record that we set back in September (2017).

Compared to 2016, our dividend income grew by over 66.8% from December of last year! Seriously … that is so awesome!

Note – We got a special dividend paid in December by Cincinnati Financial (CINF) which pushed our income totals way past September. Without that special one-time dividend, we would have been about $3 shy of our September record.

Take a look at the growth we have seen over the past 10 years based on December dividend income results –

December 2017 Dividend Income – $448.58

As mentioned earlier, we saw an increase of almost 67% last month compared to December 2016!

That is truly some amazing growth and I am totally pumped going into 2018.

December 2017 Dividend Breakdown by Company

Overall, we had 19 stocks pay out a dividend in December.

Awesome companies like Aflac, Consolidated Edison, Johnson & Johnson, McDonald’s, and Exxon Mobil gave our family a paycheck for basically not lifting a finger. How cool is that?

Here is the breakdown of dividend income (by stock) in December –

  • Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) – $20.16
  • Aflac Inc. (AFL) – $27.53
  • Best Buy Corp. (BBY) – $3.44
  • Cincinnati Financial (CINF) – $43.25
  • Consolidated Edison (ED) – $26.20
  • Emerson Electric (EMR) – $24.25
  • Intel Corp (INTC) – $13.19
  • Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) – $43.88
  • Coca-Cola Company (KO) – $5.64
  • The Kroger Co. (KR) – $0.88
  • Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT) – $58.34
  • Realty Income Corp (O) – $13.36
  • McDonald’s Corp (MCD) – $37.98
  • Microsoft Corp(MSFT) – $34.62
  • Norfolk Southern Corp (NSC) – $16.25
  • Target Corp (TGT) – $35.37
  • Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) – $6.84
  • Unilever (UL) – $8.07
  • Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM) – $29.33

Note – All of the dividends we currently receive are reinvested into new shares of the same stock using DRiP – except those purchased through our Robinhood account.

New Capital Invested in December

The first 6 months of 2017, we did a pretty good job investing new money into our taxable dividend stock portfolio. A big part of that was using $5,000+ of our tax return in the spring to invest.

The second half of the year we have slowed down a bit on investing new money because of different priorities and have been focusing more on tax deferred accounts. But we still have managed to keep a few investments going in this portfolio.

Here are the new investments we made in December –

  • $40.10 investment in Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) – 1 share
  • $50.00 automated investment in Cincinnati Financial (CINF) – 0.676 shares
  • $36.76 investment in Hormel Foods (HRL) – 1 share
  • $54.92 investment in Realty Income Corp (O) – 1 share
  • $27.65 investment in Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI) – 1 share
  • $50.00 automated investment in Exxon Mobil (XOM) – 0.597 shares

Note – All of these investments were made through our Robinhood, Computershare (XOM), and AmStock (CINF) accounts … which means we did not pay any commissions or fees on these trades.

The total amount of new capital invested in December was – $259.43.

Here are the new investment totals for the year –

  • December 2017 Investments – $259.43
  • November 2017 Investments – $333.53
  • October 2017 Investments – $273.33
  • September 2017 Investments – $428.22
  • August 2017 Investments – $350.76
  • July 2017 Investments – $694.02
  • June 2017 Investments – $1,448.59
  • May 2017 Investments – $1,232.63
  • April 2017 Investments – $4,862.18
  • March 2017 Investments – $988.23
  • February 2017 Investments – $647.76
  • January 2017 Investments – $600.42

New 2017 Investments – $12,119.10

Conclusion

The dividend income earned in December ($448.58) was up over 66% from the same time last year. These increases were from a combination of new investments made, dividend reinvestment’s, and company dividend increases.

Our goal for 2017 was to earn $2,400 in dividend income.

We beat that target by a ton and earned a total of $2,651.43 in dividends for 2017 … which was $250+ over our original goal. Compared to 2016, we increased our dividend income by $733.27! I would love for a repeat performance of those numbers for 2018.

I will be putting together a year in review for our 2017 dividend income post in the future along with a 2018 goals post. Starting in 2018, we also plan to start publishing our tax deferred dividend income results as well.

How was your dividend income in December?

Full Disclosure – At the time of this writing, we owned shares in the following stocks noted in this post – ADM, AFL, BBY, CINF, ED, EMR, HRL, INTC, JNJ, KO, KR, LMT, O, OHI, MCD, MSFT, NSC, TGT, QCOM, UL, and XOM. The material above is not a recommendation to buy. Please do your own research on a company before deciding to invest.

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