September 2017 Dividend Income – $406.68

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We are now 9 months through the year, and the dividend income continues to pour in. And this past month … the passive income from dividends really started to pour in as we set a new all time monthly record!

In addition to earning that dividend income … we also continued to build our portfolio foundation up by investing new money into the market. It wasn’t the biggest month for new investments, but we still added more money to the market, which will fuel our future growth and income.

When it comes to growing a dividend income stream … new investments can really help to accelerate growth. But there are two additional ways we can build our future income that don’t take much work (or money).

First, you can grow your portfolio (and future income) by reinvesting all of the dividends you earn … either through dividend reinvestment plans (DRiP) or from lump sum investments.

Secondly, future growth is also helped through company dividend increases, which we received 4 this past month. Getting these increases is awesome … because we didn’t have to do anything except hold onto our shares for the long term.

Overall, it was a great month and another step towards building and growing this sustainable income stream.

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

2017 September Dividend Income Summary

For the first time ever … we earned over $400 in dividend income for a month. It was only 3 short months ago (June 2017), that we announced our first ever $300 dividend income month ever. That is some awesome growth in just 3 months time!

One of the reasons for the larger than normal increase was that we received a dividend payment from a stock (LMT) that we normally would have reported in October. We moved our shares of this stock from Computershare to Fidelity and the timing of the dividend payment changed. This means that October will be lower than normal … so it will all even out.

Despite this unexpected payment, we would have set an all time record anyways for dividends. We would have earned $353.90 in dividend income (without the LMT dividend), which was 3.25% higher than June!

Overall, we earned an awesome $406.68 in dividends from stocks that we own during September.

This obviously sets a new all time record for monthly dividend income earnings for us! It shatters the record we set back in June (2017).

Month by month, year by year … we continue to slowly grow this sustainable income stream.

Just take a look at the growth we have seen over the past 10 years based on September dividend income results –

• September 2008 – $14.63
• September 2009 – $15.69
• September 2010 – $24.89
• September 2011 – $34.75
• September 2012 – $59.64
• September 2013 – $70.97
• September 2014 – $133.83
• September 2015 – $226.27
• September 2016 – $276.78

September 2017 Dividend Income – $406.68

Note – We used to only report our dividend history back to 2012, but recently updated our records to start in 2008. That is the year we received our first dividend payment.

We saw an increase of 27.9% without the LMT dividend last month and 46.9% overall compared to September 2016!

This latest increase shows all the new capital we have invested into the market over the past year is working very hard.

September 2017 Dividend Breakdown by Company

We had a total of 17 companies pay us a dividend in September. Solid dividend paying companies like Archer Daniels Midland, Emerson Electric, and Johnson & Johnson gave our family a paycheck for not really doing much at all.

Recent investments in Aflac (AFL), Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Kroger (KR), Qualcomm (QCOM), and Target (TGT) over the past year are a big reason for these increases.

Note – Another big reason for the September jump (compared to June) is that our Lockheed Martin (LMT) dividend showed up in September instead of October. We used to hold these shares in our Computershare account and the dividend payments were always delayed in reaching our account until the 1st of the next month … so that is when we reported them. After transferring our shares to a Fidelity account … it appears these payments will show up sooner. No big deal either way!

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

• Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) – $19.20
• Aflac Incorporated (AFL) – $26.27
• Consolidated Edison (ED) – $25.99
• Emerson Electric (EMR) – $24.00
• The Kroger Co. (KR) – $0.13
• Intel Corp. (INTC) – $13.09
• Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) – $43.74
• Lockheed Martin (LMT) – $52.78
• McDonald’s Corp (MCD) – $35.14
• Microsoft Corp (MSFT) – $31.98
• Norfolk Southern Corp (NSC) – $16.17
• Realty Income Corp (O) – $13.32
• Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) – $6.84
• Target Corp (TGT) – $35.01
• Unilever (UL) – $7.87
• Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT) – $27.03
• Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM) – $28.12

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 September

Over the past 11 months, we have been focused on growing our forward annual dividend income to $3,000 by the end of 2017. We set this goal last November (2016) and have been busy investing new money into dividend stocks ever since then.

The goal requires that we invest 20% to 25% of our income … which can be difficult during certain times of the year. That comes out to around $1,400+ per month. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look good for hitting our goal … but that doesn’t mean we haven’t invested a good chunk of money over the past year either.

As you can tell below, we have been up and down with these new investments from month to month. The last couple months (including September) have been a bit down on our total investments, so we hope to start catching back up in October through the end of the year.

Here are the new investments we made in September –

• $127.36 in Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) – 3 shares
• $50.00 investment in Cincinnati Financial Corp (CINF) – .66 shares
• $63.54 in Kroger (KR) – 3 shares
• $187.32 in Altria (MO) – 3 shares

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

The total amount of new capital invested in September was – $428.22

Here are the new investment totals since the start of 2017 –

• 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 – $11,252.81

Growing Our Dividend Income

The dividend income earned in September ($406.68) was up over almost 27.9% from the same time last year (not counting the LMT dividend). That is truly incredible that we have grown our dividend income by that much over the past 12 months!

On top of the growth, for the first time ever we topped $400 in a month for dividend income. This is another little milestone that we hit and will help motivate us to keep building and growing our sustainable income stream.

All of the increases were from a combination of new investments made, dividend reinvestment’s, and company dividend increases.

Speaking on company dividend increases – we got several this past month – Verizon Wireless (VZ) 2.20%, Microsoft (MSFT) 7.69%, Realty Income (O) 0.24%, and McDonald’s (MCD) 7.45%.

Overall, those increases will boost our annual dividend income by $22.26! That is one of the best months ever for increasing our future dividend income from company raises.

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

We have earned a total of $1,929.42 in dividends for 2017 … which means we need to earn around $470 the remainder of the year. That is an average of $156 per month.

Note – As of September, we have already earned $11.26 more in 2017 compared to the entire last year (2016). And we have 3 more months of dividends to earn!

Unlike 2016, I think reaching our goal in 2017 will be well within reach. Last year, we set an unrealistic goal and didn’t come close to reaching it.

As long as we keep up with our new investments, I think reaching our 2017 dividend income goals can be attained. And if all goes well, we will be on our way to reaching a goal of $3,000 in dividend income for 2018!

At this point with 3 months to go, I think we have a chance to hit $2,500 in dividend income! It will be very close and will depend on getting some new money working for us as soon as possible.

How was your dividend income in September?

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