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Earning dividends has been the most successful form of side income for me since starting The Money Sprout. Since I continue to invest in only the best dividend paying stocks, I have seen this income stream grow year after year.
At the end of each month I report out the dividend income earned, new money invested, and any additional changes made to our dividend stock portfolio.
Here are my results for July, 2014 –
2014 July Dividend Income Results
Even though only 4 stocks I own paid out a dividend in July, I still saw growth in my portfolio. This month continued to show that I am slowly building a sustainable income stream by owning some of the best managed companies in the world!
Note – All of the stocks currently in my dividend portfolio pay quarterly dividends, which means my monthly totals really fluctuate. Instead of comparing my dividend income each month, I focus on a 3 month rolling average. As long as that value is increasing each month, I know that my portfolio is growing.
July 2014 Dividend Income – $77.98
Note – All of my dividends I currently receive are reinvested into new shares of the same stock using DRiP. The only exceptions are stocks that I purchase through my LOYAL3 account – which does not currently offer dividend reinvestment.
Here is the breakdown of dividend income (by stock) in July, along with the number of new shares added from DRiP –
- Cincinnati Financial (CINF) – $30.91 (.64 shares)
- The Coca-Cola Company (KO) – $2.89 (LOYAL3 – No DRiP)
- Lockheed Martin (LMT) – $35.71 (.22 shares)
- Sysco Corporation (SYY) – $8.47 (.23 shares)
New Capital Invested in July
My investment philosophy right now is to build my portfolio through dividend reinvestment’s and from new capital. Since I am still in the allocation phase of building my dividend income portfolio, I need to continue to invest new capital at any chance I can get.
Just like past months, I was able to take advantage of my automatic monthly investment plans in July. These plans are a great way to accumulate stock in a variety of companies with minimal capital to invest and with very little investment costs.
At the beginning of the year I set a monthly goal to invest at least $850 in new money into the market. I did not hit the $850 goal in July and actually decreased significantly from June.
Here are the new investments I made in July –
- $50 automatic investment in Intel (INTC) – 1.61 shares
- $25 automatic investment in Coca-Cola (KO) – .59 shares
- $50 automatic investment in Microsoft (MSFT) – 1.19 shares
- $50 automatic investment in Verizon (VZ) – .97 shares
- $50 automatic investment in WalMart (WMT) – .66 shares
- $250 automatic investment in Exxon Mobile (XOM) – 2.42 shares
Note – As with all of my recent purchases, all of my stock buys in July were from automatic monthly investments. Unfortunately, due to policy changes at LOYAL3, I had to decrease a few of my automatic investments to $50.
The total amount of new capital invested in July was – $475, which was below my goal of $850 per month. Here are my new investment totals for the year –
- January Investments – $1,747.41
- February Investments – $475.00
- March Investments – $575.00
- April Investments – $725.00
- May Investments – $725.00
- June Investments – $725.00
- July Investments – $475.00
New 2014 Investments – $5,447.41
Final Thoughts
The dividend income earned in July ($77.98) was not as high as last month. Back in June I recorded my highest monthly total to date, but also had 11 stocks in the portfolio pay out a dividend compared to 4 in July.
While looking at my monthly dividend totals can be helpful, I prefer to focus more attention on the 3 month rolling average. Since all of the companies I own pay a quarterly dividend, the average of the past 3 months makes it easier to track month to month totals. During July, I was able to raise my 3 month rolling average to $78.12, which is an increase of $.12.
My total dividend income earned for 2014 so far (January to July) is – $523.05.
Full Disclosure – At the time of this writing, I owned shares in the following stocks noted in this post – CINF, INTC, KO, LMT, MSFT, SYY, VZ, WMT, and XOM. The material above is not a recommendation to buy. Please do your own research on a company before deciding to invest.
