June 2015 Dividend Portfolio Updates

June has passed and I’m pleased to announce that it was by far the best month of my short dividend growth investing career. It’s amazing how time flies. I remember how anxious I was back in April when I was buying like crazy but still looking for my first dividend.

In May I received my first dividends in both my Dividend Empire and my Dividend Retirement portfolio which totaled $83.33.  I’ve also made a bunch of contributions and purchases.  All of this hard work finally paid off in June.  I completely blew away my previous months, collecting a total of $249.15 in my two dividend growth portfolios!!

In this post I will detail my transactions, dividends received and my progress against goals for both dividend portfolios.  For a description of each portfolio and how I fund each portfolio you can check out my post on my current investment plan.

 

June 2015 Dividend Empire Portfolio Update

Contributions:

This is the most depressing section.  We are in the process of selling our home and buying a new home so there is a lot of uncertainty around our financial situation.  For that reason I did not make any contributions to my TradeKing account other than dividends received and only added $50 to my Loyal3 account.  I wanted to have plenty of funds on hand just in case any surprises came up during these real estate transactions. clicking here will provide you with more information.

I did have some cash left over in my TradeKing account from last month so I was at least able to make a purchase.

 

Dividends Received:

Now for the good stuff.  I received six dividend payments in the Empire portfolio this month for a total of $58.81.  This is slightly below the $60 I received last month, which included a $47 payment from AT&T.

All dividends received in my TradeKing account are automatically reinvested and the shares purchased with these dividends increased my forward income $1.85.  Dividends received in my Loyal3 account were taken as cash and will be combined with next month’s contributions to make a purchase.

 

Date	Ticker	Div Amount	Action	Shares Purch	Resulting Sh	Salary Increase
6/1/2015	F	$15.00	Reinvested	0.978	100.978	$0.59
6/1/2015	WFC	$18.75	Reinvested	0.333	50.333	$0.50
6/10/2015	XOM	$14.60	Reinvested	0.17	20.17	$0.50
6/17/2015	HSY	$0.14	Cash	0	–	–
6/17/2015	MCD	$0.44	Cash	0	–	–
6/29/2015	TROW	$9.88	Reinvested	0.126	19.126	$0.26
	Total:	$58.81			Total:	$1.85

 

Pay Raises:

I did not receive any dividend increases in the Empire portfolio.

 

Purchases:

Purchases made in addition to dividend reinvestments listed above:

• 6/7/15 – 0.2743 shares of HSY (Loyal3)
• 6/8/15 – 0.2634 shares of MCD (Loyal3)
• 6/19/15 – 19 shares of WPC (TradeKing)

 

Forward Income Progression:

I was able to increase my forward income by $75.84 this month, better than the $48 increase in May.  At this pace I could possible break the $1k mark by the end of the year.

 

Progress Against Goals:

I have already achieved 4 of my annual goals in the empire portolio – initiate the portfolio with $15k, diversify across 5 sectors, have a portfolio YoC over 3% and start a blog.  Let’s see how I’m doing on my other 2 goals.

1. Have a portfolio value over $25k by the end of the year:

 

The May data point did not include the cash in my accounts that I used to purchase WPC this month.  So realistically there was not much of an increase in account value from May to June.  I am still well within reach of my goal, needing to average $1064 per month to reach $25k by the end of the year.

2. Receive $500 in dividends this year:

I’m starting to close the gap here.  I need to average $64 per month for the rest of the year to reach my goal of $500.  I will certainly fall short of this unless I start making some new purchases.  Pressure is on…

 

June 2015 Dividend Retirement Portfolio Update

Contributions:

This month I contributed $753.10 to my Retirement portfolio.  $578.16 came from my 401k contributions and company match and $174.94 came from dividends received.

 

Dividends Received:

I received 9 dividend payments this month for a total of $190.34.  This is by far a record for my Retirement portfolio – destroying the $23.33 I received last month.

All dividends received in this account are accumulated and combined with contributions to selectively reinvest in dividend growth stocks in the future.

 

Date	Ticker	Dividend / Sh	Shares	Div Amount	Action
6/9/2015	JNJ	$0.75	30	$22.50	Cash
6/10/2015	CVX	$1.07	27	$28.89	Cash
6/11/2015	MSFT	$0.31	70	$21.70	Cash
6/15/2015	O	$0.19	60	$11.37	Cash
6/15/2015	ORI	$0.19	195	$36.08	Cash
6/15/2015	CMP	$0.66	33	$21.78	Cash
6/18/2015	HD	$0.59	26	$15.34	Cash
6/30/2015	GLW	$0.12	144	$17.28	Cash
			Total:	$190.34*

*Forgot to include UNP in the table – paid $15.40 on 6/30/2015

Pay Raises:

One stock in my Retirement portfolio, Realty Income Corp (O), raised it’s dividend last month.

Date	Ticker	Old	New	Old Annual	New Annual	% Increase
6/16/2015	O	$0.1895	$0.1900	$2.274	$2.280	0.26%
			Position YoC		Portfolio YoC
Old Salary	New Salary	Pay Raise	Old	New	Old	New
$284.25	$285.00	$0.75	4.76%	4.77%	3.35%	3.35%

 

Purchases:

• 6/4/15 – 65 shares of O
• 6/8/15 – 30 shares of CVX
• 6/25/15 – 43 shares of VLO

Forward Income Progression:

 

Through stock purchases and a single dividend pay raise my forward annual income increased $396.28 to a total of $1731.76 in June!  At this rate my forward income should be close to $4000 by the end of the year.

 

Progress Against Goals:

I set 4 goals for my Dividend Retirement portfolio this year:  Diversify across all sectors, own stock in 30 different companies, have an account value of at least $100k and receive at least $1500 in dividends.  Here is my progress:

1. Sector diversification:

The only sectors I am missing are telecommunications and utilities.  There are currently no telecom stocks that catch my eye but I’m looking into Southern Co (SO) to potentially fill my utility void.

2. Own stock in 30 different companies: I currently own stock in 16 different companies.

3. $100k account value:

This graph only tracks my investments and does not include cash on hand.  I have about $6k in cash and $42k worth of mutual funds that still need to be cashed in as part of my 401k conversion to dividend growth stocks.  I plan on aggressively buying stocks with these funds in the next couple of months.

4. $1500 in dividends:

I’m starting to lose hope with this goal.  June, September and December are my best months for dividend income and this June hardly put a dent in my deficit.  I have received a total of $198.27 in dividends which leaves me with around $1300 to go.  I will need to average $217 per month for the rest of the year.  Unless I start doing some massive purchasing this one is out of reach.

 

Summary

So far on my journey I have received a total of $317.08 in dividends: $118.81 in the Empire portfolio and $198.27 in the Retirement portfolio.

In order to achieve some of my goals I need to really pick up the pace.  June was a slow month for me in terms of buying new stock.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  One, I just have a lot of things going on in my life (real estate jobs styling houses with antiques to be sold).  Second, I have been setting some low-ball limit orders looking to pick up some stocks at serious discounts.

In the coming months hopefully some of these will fill and/or I will find some other bargains to buy.  The capital is available, I just need to find the right stocks. For home loans I recommend going to https://www.sofi.com/home-loans/ which is a company that can really help you out if you ever need one.

Even though I might not reach a couple of my goals I am still very pleased with my progress.  I have gone from receiving $0 in dividends back in April when I started my journey to $249.15 dividends just 2 months later in June.  I have also made numerous purchases of high quality dividend growth stocks that should continue to give me pay raises on my way to early retirement and building an empire for my descendants.

 

How was your June?  Is everyone on pace to meet their goals?  Let me know in the comments section below!