If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?
This is the very reason why I want to use the money to do some of “the working”, and one day, it will do all of the working so I don’t have to work myself to misery :P. The way I want to achieve this is through dividend investing. While I’m sleeping or vacationing, the businesses such as WMT, JPM, BNS and etc are still functioning and the dividend engine is still splitting out dividends. The dividends get reinvest to get more dividends.
I’d like to document this process of letting the money do the working as it’s happening. That is why I’ve been consistently do a monthly dividend income report to keep track.
January was a tough month. CNN has an article noting 95% of investor lost money in January (including me). The S&P was down 5% and the DOW was down 5.5%. I had 70% of my 401k in S&P, I was happy that my account didn’t go down as deep. I also made some serious purchases with BAC, Foxa, UNP, POT, PRU, and F during the sell off, hopefully these purchases would pay off.
Noted: Mr. WRI was happy that he didn’t lose any money being 100% cash position. Well, more power to him, but until he can execute any buys, his cash flow is way low.
My company made a mistake of not deducting from payroll in December, so in Janary when the market was at its lowest, they did a make-up payroll deduction. I ended up buying more shares in the midst of the sell off. It was awesome how things worked out.
Here are they payouts I received in Jan of this year from 11 companies:
FCPT – FOUR CORNERS PROPERTY TR INC 012916 3 $0.60
JPM – JPMORGAN CHASE & CO 013116 20 $8.80
TD – TORONTO DOMINION BK NEW 012916 10 $3.61
BNS – BK NOVA SCOTIA HALIFAX 012716 10 $4.98
BXMT – BLACKSTONE MORTGAGE TRUST INC 011516 20 $12.40
O – REALTY INCOME CORP REIT 011516 50 $9.55
STWD – STARWOOD PROPERTY TR INC 011516 20 $9.60
WPC – W P CAREY INC 011516 10 $9.65
BXLT – BAXALTA INC 010416 10 $0.70
BAX – BAXTER INTERNATIONAL INC 010416 10 $1.15
WMT – WAL-MART STORES INC 010416 150 $73.50
$134.54
Last year, this month, I reported dividend income of $0. This year, I shot up to $134.54. It went up from $125.23 in October. I’d love to see this number to grow closer to $500.
There is a new dividend payout member: FCFT is the REIT that has splitted from Daren restaurant (the companies that owns Olive Garden and red lobsters). It now starts paying dividend which is great. I only own 3 shares, so $0.60 added to my quarterly income.
From this month forward, I will no longer receive dividend payout from BXLT as I’ve sold it on the news that it will be bought by Shire. I took the 35% gain and ran away. 😛
Noted I’ve up my shares in Walmart substantially , so my payout is now sitting at $73.50/quarter. I initiated a position at $78 after shares has fall down from the near $90. WMT shares was on the down trend, it went as low as $56. Since then, I kept on averaging down, my cost is at $68. And Walmart is trading at $65. I was hoping it would go to the low $50s before buying to a full position. It didnt happen even during the flash sell off in January. Oh well, I’m pretty happy at this level.
January is generally a low payout month, I’m happy that this year I wasn’t sitting at $0 payout. $134 could be enough to cover my grocery bill for 2.6 week. 😛 right now I don’t need that money yet, so it will go straight back into my account to buy more shares of companies that will pay me dividend. I’ll let it does it things- grow!
What’s about you? Did you have a smacking January? How did your portfolio perform?
I made some beef jerky from the beef I bought from Walmart. 😛
This is the kind of stories that makes me want to jump into dividend investing…. Good job
Thank you for visiting and commenting. Document my dividend payout every month is a discipline way for me to keep track of it, and hopefully sparks some inspiration.
Cheers!
The growth if the dividend snowball is great to see, even if it is not my snowball
Congarts on the dividend received, Vivianne. Ignore what the market does on a weekly/monthly basis and simply buy quality companies regularly at decent valuations. That dividend income stream will keep growing and bring you closer to FI.
Best wishes
R2R
R2R,
Thanks so much, bro. Always appreciate the support and enthusiasm.
keeping on buying and building that dividend stream is the dream. :p
Best!
January was definitely a tough month overall for stocks, but that just means a lot of great stocks are available on the cheap. Very nice income too!
The beaten up market create a lot of choices right now. It’s good to be a dividend growth investor! 🙂
Have fun over there with the shopping. Hope you’re able to nab some solid opportunities.
Keep it up Vivianne. You’re on a roll. It’s wonderful receiving money especially dividends. Slow and steady and what’s the rush right? Cheers and enjoy! Take care.
Nice job over there with >$700k portfolio. I’m trying to be more like you – Staying consistent, adding to the snowball, and moving forward at every opportunity.
Great businesses you own over there! 🙂
Vivianne
I like the way you think about WMT, but even at those prices I would grab few more shares. this January Sell off gave us a lot of good companies in low prices, but i’m short in cash to buy them.
And to go from $0 to $134 this is how the snowball rolling works.
Sharon – Divorcedff
Walmart has increased their selection of organic. And with large amount of order they seems to beat out whole food and Kroger. As a budget conscious, I’m too lazy to shop at multiple shop, Walmart is a 1-stop shop right now. Their balance sheet will improve when their online investments start to payoff.
At the time everything on my portfolio was in red, I was going to buy more of each when price drop an additional 10% from my last averaging down. It’s difficult to catch the falling knife, and see when it actually touches the ground to safely pick it up. 🙂
What a difference a year makes. You are definitely headed in the right direction growing your dividend income from zero to a respectable amount today. As you said about Mr. WRI, he may have cash but his cash flow is low. That’s crucial. Nice photo of that beef jerky too by the way. What’s the recipe?
Awesome. Thank you very much!
Wow, now that’s a year-over-year dividend increase. Nice work Vivianne. BTW – your beef jerky looks yummy!
I see that the market doesnt fades you any bit. You are still buying and even more now than ever. Bravo.
One day it’ll pay off nicely and replaces to work for you instead 🙂
Great month! I tend to ignore the short term fluctuations in my portfolio because I will drive myself insane if I were to sweat over each short term fluctuation in this current market environment. It seems like every other week the market decides to act up and decline on us. You are really close to covering a full month of groceries. Hopefully by January 2020 you will knock that out!
Bert
P.S. That beef jerky looks amazing. Feel free to share any extras you may have 🙂
Those looks like great beef jerky. Did it take a long time to make? Don’t worry about the short term portfolio value, you’re investing for the long term. 🙂
Long term is the key! Thanks for the reminder!
30 mins prep time – The beef jerky doesn’t take that long. The majority of the time probably on sliding the meat. I’m from the mountain range, so we use to make deer jerky with the same recipe also. Have fun making it, hope to see some pix on your blog.