Dividend Portfolio Update for May 2018

Every month, I like to perform a dividend portfolio update. There’s two reasons why I like to track my investments. The obvious reason is to do it for myself. I like to see which stocks I’m buying and selling. I also love to watch my annual income increase on a monthly basis.

The other reason is I do it for my readers. I find that a lot of people are interested in the stocks that I follow and some love to ask me questions. The dividend growth community is a lovely and welcoming community and I hope it continues and makes a lot of investors financially stable. Sadly, I never learned anything about investing while in school. It was something that i had to pick up by reading articles online. I’m finding that still reigns true as a lot of college graduates come out of college with a job, but no idea on what to do with their money. Let’s do our part in helping them become dividend growth investors!

And now, on with the update!

Summary

• $182.25 in dividends
• Added $3,500 to the portfolio this month
• Added $317.45 to my annual income.
• Sold 2 positions.

Account Deposits

As usual, I automatically pull out $200 per paycheck with automatic deposit and at the end of the month I throw whatever is left into the account. I also decided to add an additional $3,100 into the account. This is quite a bump up from usual months.

$200 + $200 +$3,100 = +$3,500

Dividend Payouts

Here are the companies that paid me dividends this month:

Using Google Docs, I keep a running spreadsheet of how much dividend income I receive every month. I think it’s important to realize the growth of your passive income over time. In May 2017, I received $87.49 in dividend income. If we do the math, that means my May dividend income has increased a whopping +108% compared to the previous year.

Monthly Total: +$182.25

Stock Purchases

I bought quite a few things this month.

• 5 shares of XOM @ $76.70
  This energy stock has been paying increasing annual dividends for the last 36 years and is currently yielding over 4%. This adds +$16.40 to my annual income.
• 10 shares of PG@ $71.95
  This dividend champion has been paying increasing annual dividends for over 61 years and is currently yielding over 4%. Consumer staples have been taking a hit lately so I feel there’s good value to be had here. This adds +$28.70 to my annual income.
• 20 shares of SO @ $44.60
  This energy stock has been paying increasing annual dividends for the last 18 years and currently yields 5.4%. This adds $48.00 to my annual income
• 50 shares of T @ $31.80
  This telecommunications juggernaut has been paying increasing annual dividends for the last 34 years and currently yields 6.1%.  This adds +$100.00 to my annual income.
• 30 shares of GIS @ $42.91
  I started a long term position into this consumer staple stock. It’s been paying increasing annual dividends for the last 14 years and currently yields 4.6%. It also has over a 8% dividend growth rate over 5 years. This adds +$58.80 to my annual income.
• 4 shares of IBM @ $143.30
  Currently IBM shares are yielding over 4.4% with a 5 year dividend growth rate of 12.3%. This adds +$25.12 to my annual income.
• 1 share of O @ $51.90
  I DRIP’d one share of one of my favorite stocks this month. This adds +$2.63 to my annual income.
• 27 shares of CPB @ 33.58
  Another consumer staple stock that’s been getting hit hard lately. It currently has a 4.2% yield.  This adds +$37.80 to my annual income.

Total = +317.45 to my annual income

Stock Sells

• 51 shares of SBSI@ $34.02
  SBSI was originally an experiment under the terms that they not only paid a cash dividend, but they also gave out stock dividends every year. They recently announced that they would be discounting the stock dividend so I decided to just let it go. Not all was lost however, as I ended up making a little bit of profit as well as a year of dividends.  This reduces my annual income by -$61.20.
• 56 shares of OHI @ $28.36
  This reduces my annual income by -$147.84.

Portfolio News

• PSX has declared $0.80/share dividend, an increase of 14%
• FLO has declared  $0.18/share dividend, an increase of 5.9%

Conclusion

In the month of May, I continued to grow my dividend portfolio with good companies. I started a big investment into the consumer staple sector and plan on adding more over the next few months. Until next time!

Please feel free to check out my new portfolio and dividend champion screener pages.

Thanks again for reading my Dividend Portfolio Update for May 2018!