After 35 years of clocking in and out of work and religiously saving at least 10% annually in my 401K every year, my countdown to financial independence is in sight. Each month is a step closer and let’s look at how this past month is getting me there.
For the month of February I made $2640.74; a decrease of 12.18% versus this time last year. This decrease was expected, last year I had some Jan dividends bleed into February and AT&T (T) paid their last full dividend prior to the cut. Officially T is behind me now so 2nd month of a quarter should get better.
In February I received 15 dividend raises from ALE, ALL, AVA, BCE, BEP, BEPC, CPT, IBCP, MMM, O, PEP, PRU, PSX, TROW & WMT. Together this will add an additional $350.16 to my annual income going forward.
For the month I did my regular purchase of ETF SCHD. I also sold my Haelon (HLN) position which I received from a GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) spinoff. Wasn’t too thrilled with this holding. Once they got through the Zantac lawsuit relatively unscathed and didn’t start a dividend policy, I reached my limit and dumped this low growth no dividend dead weight position. Proceeds from the sale were quickly reinvested into something more productive (SCHD).
Not much going on at the home front so here are the metrics we love to see.
After 35 years of clocking in and out of work and religiously saving at least 10% annually in my 401K every year, my countdown to financial independence is in sight. Each month is a step closer and let’s look at how this past month is getting me there.
For the month of January I made $4369.93; an increase of 18.13% versus this time last year. A very nice way to start the year off.
In January I received 6 dividend raises from APD, CVX, FAST, KMB, UPS & VLO. Together this will add an additional $151.49 to my annual income going forward. However, AQN cut their dividend by 40% essentially negating the gain.
For the month I did my regular purchase of ETF SCHD. I also sold my GATX position as the stock was getting too rich, with a div yield of just 1.92%, P/E of 26 and a mid-single digit dividend growth rate. I thought my money could be put to better use by funneling all the proceeds into SCHD which has a higher yield and dividend growth rate (technically a distribution growth rate).
Another change to portfolio was Newtek (NEWT) officially changing from a business development company to a bank holding company changing the classification of my holding from BDC to an equity dividend growth. Since this left a gap in my portfolio for a BDC allocation of 5% I initiated positions in Main Street Capital (MAIN) and Capital Southwest Corp (CSWC). These two buys did not bring the portfolio up to my 5% allocation (almost 1% short) but my intention is to DRIP the dividends over time until I hit the desired allocation.
On the home front there is a lot to unpack. We started the year coming off the relaxing holidays by packing up all the decorations for another year. We closed on my father-in-law’s house and paid all his outstanding medical bills from the proceeds. All that is left to do is get through probate even though there is little value left to the estate. It has been hard to watch this event unfold as a lifetime of building a life is liquidated in a matter of months. Makes your efforts for carving out a life feel insignificant knowing it can all disappear in a New York minute. The experience has left my wife and I questioning our own situation to start cleaning up our possessions and ask why we are holding on to this or that.
In mid-January another family crisis emerged as my oldest sister, who is 68 and alone, fell and broke her leg. For now her care has fallen into my hands and I also had to assume taking over her financials, bill paying, and finding her a place to live once she finishes rehabilitation. This has been a challenge as she is low income and physically unable to work. We have a plan to get her to a better place financially, but it is something that will take years to improve upon. In the meantime, I feel confident our plan will get her a place to live with some level of dignity.
As I was dealing with the latest family crisis my daughter let us know she is finally being let go at the end of March as the company she works for is closing its doors. Such is the life of working for biotech startups which usually have a lifespan of 5 to 7 years. She was lucky enough to have stayed until the very end and impressed many of the board members. She believes a few of the board members may offer her a job at another of their start-ups. Thankfully she was still living with us with the intent of saving for a home so financially the impact is lower.
Finally, just when I thought I was going to leave the month of January unscathed I came down with a case of shingles. This is my own fault as I had been lazy about getting the vaccine. Kept telling my wife I should get it but never got around to doing it. Now I get to have a couple weeks of living in pain thanks to my laziness.
Enough of me droning on, here are the metrics we love to see.
After 35 years of clocking in and out of work and religiously saving at least 10% annually in my 401K every year, my countdown to financial independence is in sight. Each month is a step closer and let’s look at how this past month is getting me there.
For the month of December I made $5753.31; an increase of 7.51% versus this time last year and since this is December I can also report my annual dividend income overall increased 10.2%.
In December I received 4 dividend raises from AMGN, AVGO, PFE & WM. Together this will add an additional $52.48 to my annual income going forward. However, the PFE raise of 2.5% was too low for my liking and I sold the entire position and reinvested it into SCHD (note PFE is a component of SCHD) which added an additional $102.98 to my forward dividend income.
Speaking of SCHD this is a good lead into my weekly buy and sell reports. Some regular readers may have noticed I stopped reporting my weekly activity and its for a simple reason. Back in June I recognized that dividend ETFs, specifically SCHD, became too cheap to ignore and I started a position. By September I realized an ETF was the most practical method for me to buy into a down market. Since that time, most of my buys have been and still are SCHD. As such my weekly reporting became repetitive (bought SCHD, bought SCHD, and so on). Until I stop buying SCHD I saw no use in the same boring posts every week that I bought SCHD.
On the home front my wife & I had been so focused on resolving family issues we lost track of time and Christmas seemed to appear out of nowhere. We were so distracted neither of us felt in the holiday spirit. This all changed however once family started to arrive at our house to celebrate. Even though it was bitterly cold that Christmas morning (14F / -10C) all the issues and problems just melted away as we exchanged stories and laughed all the while enjoying the warmth a woodburning stove, good food and drink. We even hit a point where my children and nieces found a stash of old pictures and when we investigated what they were laughing about there was some pics of me from the 80’s. The running joke of the night was that I was an extra in the Netflix series Stranger Things.
Here is one of the pics they had and that is me on the left with my younger brother. I still remember the day that photo was taken. I gave my brother an old pair of my hockey skates and he was trying them out on the ice.
Enough of me droning on, here are the metrics we love to see.
After 35 years of clocking in and out of work and religiously saving at least 10% annually in my 401K every year, my countdown to financial independence is in sight. Each month is a step closer and let’s look at how this past month is getting me there.
For the month of November I made $3055.39; a decrease of 5.56% versus this time last year. With the shortfall primarily from the AT&T dividend cut earlier in the year.
In November I received 3 dividend raises from ARTNA, MRK & SNA. Together this will add an additional $77.50 to my annual income going forward.
On the home front we had a little excitement as I stopped someone from stealing my son’s car. While I prevented the theft the damage was already done. He smashed the rear passenger window and dismantled the steering wheel column to hotwire the car. Looking back, it was stupid of me to engage as there were two others waiting in a nearby car which was also stolen. I could have been shot or severely beaten but adrenaline took over and guess I was not thinking clearly. Police eventually tracked down the would-be robbers as well as the other stolen car thanks to my description. At least no one was hurt and we have insurance.
Hopefully your month was not as exciting unless the excitement was over getting dividends.
After 35 years of clocking in and out of work and religiously saving at least 10% annually in my 401K every year, my countdown to financial independence is in sight. Each month is a step closer and let’s look at how this past month is getting me there.
For the month of October I made $3672.03; an increase of 10.93% versus this time last year. This is below my 12.5% goal but still acceptable as most of my new and reinvested funds have been buying stocks that payout in the last month of a quarter.
In October I received 3 dividend raises from ABBV, ARCC & PNW. Together this will add an additional $309.73 to my annual income going forward. The bulk of that comes from ARCC with their large 11.6% raise. Looking at next month AT&T will be the big question mark if they are returning to their traditional November timeframe for announcing a dividend raise.
On the home front I spent my time getting the house ready for winter. Only things I have left to do is change the oil in my snow blower and clean my chimney before I startup the woodstove and wait for that first snowfall.
At work it is time to renew my benefits. Out-of-pocket costs increased 9.16% with a breakdown of each benefit as follows, Medical Insurance +10.45%, Life Insurance +6.1% and Disability Insurance +4.04%.
One last cool thing I love about this month is it changes my retirement calculator. In my new image at the top of the post the years column went from 5 to 4, it is getting real baby!
After 35 years of clocking in and out of work and religiously saving at least 10% annually in my 401K every year, my countdown to financial independence is in sight. Each month is a step closer and let’s look at how this past month is getting me there.
For the month of September I made $5719.32; an increase of 10.15% versus this time last year. This is below my target of 12.5% but expected as NEWT cut back its dividend after the PPP loans were done. While it was a good month for dividends, my portfolio value severely dropped and was at the lowest point year to date as I am down -15.4%.
In August I received 5 dividend raises from LMT, MSFT, OGE, VZ & WPC. Together this will add an additional $55.36 to my annual income going forward. Thankfully the dog days of a dividend raise summer are over and raises begin to pick up in September.
On the family front my middle daughter came down with COVID. She has since recovered but was kind enough to share as I now have COVID as I write this update. Not really feeling up to writing much more so here are the charts:
After 35 years of clocking in and out of work and religiously saving at least 10% annually in my 401K every year, my countdown to financial independence is in sight. Each month is a step closer and let’s look at how this past month is getting me there.
For the month of August I made $2963.55; an increase of 12.19% versus this time last year. The gain is a bit illusionary as 2 normal July payouts slipped to August this year and without those the YoY difference is a gain of just 13 cents or essentially a 0% gain. The AT&T dividend cut was the reason for miniscule growth.
In August I received 1 dividend raises from FAF and 1 reinstated dividend for GM. Together this will add an additional $67.49 to my annual income going forward. Thankfully the dog days of a dividend raise summer are over and raises begin to pick up in September. Overall August was a weird month for the portfolio as I saw my portfolio rise to a YTD gain of 2.4% by mid August but by the end of August it came back down and is now at a YTD loss of 6.8%.
On the family front my father-in-law passed away after a 9 month battle in nursing homes. He was just a few weeks away from turning 90 so he led a long life. Even though we knew it was coming it was still emotional. I was absent from the blogging world for a few weeks because of this, some things are just more important.
Meanwhile my middle daughter (who just graduated college) decided to move out into her own apartment. I give me children the option to live at home for 3 years to build up savings but she wanted independence. She has always had an “act first – think later” attitude so I think this will be good for her as she learns more from experiences than advice. Thankfully her apartment was on a first floor so I didn’t have to heft any heavy furniture up flights of stairs.
After 35 years of clocking in and out of work and religiously saving at least 10% annually in my 401K every year, my countdown to financial independence is in sight. Each month is a step closer and let’s look at how this past month is getting me there.
For the month of July I made $3,740.41; a decrease of -5.3% versus this time last year. GSK’s dividend cut along with two dividend payouts sliding into August. GSK’s dividend cut was due to its Haleon (HLN) spin-off. HLN does not pay a dividend yet but hopefully will announce a dividend policy later in the year that compensates for the cut.
In July I received 6 dividend raises from ARCC, CMI, DUK, R, SJM, and WBA. These raises will add an additional $89.63 to my annual income going forward. My biggest disappoint was the Ryder (R) raise of 6.9% which first did not meet inflation and second did not meet my expectation of a 20% raise. On the flip side, the raise from ARCC was unexpected as they increased their dividend back in February, this raise brings their total increase up to 4.88% which is sweet for a high yield BDC.
After 35 years of clocking in and out of work and religiously saving at least 10% annually in my 401K every year, my countdown to financial independence is in sight. Each month is a step closer and let’s look at how this past month is getting me there.
For the month of June I made $5,789.87; an increase of 26.38% versus this time last year. Biggest payout I have had this year, if only the first two months of a quarter were this nice.
In June I received 3 dividend raises from GIS, ODC and WPC. These raises will add an additional $32.70 to my annual income going forward. June is a tough month for raises so I’ll take anything that comes.
Taking a mid-year look at my annual income growth goal of 12.5%, my income is currently exceeding that goal by 3% and the bulk of that is due to the massive 49% dividend raise from United Parcel Service (UPS) back in February. Since UPS is my largest position it made a significant dent, without that I would have been closer to my goal.
On the home front I am finally caught up on maintaining properties for two homes (mine & my father-in-law’s) and I can finally start enjoying summer. Last year we started our backyard movie nights and cannot wait to get that started again, best part is we could not get a screen last year because of supply chain issues but I was able to get a 120” screen and cannot wait to try it out. My daughter caught Covid and had a side effect of something called “Covid Eye”, long story short her eye is as swollen as Rocky Balboa’s except she didn’t say cut me Mick.
On another note, fellow blogger Northern Lights Investment is back from a very dangerous surgery and is blogging again but still in need of much recovery and far from out of the woods. Also, another callout to fellow blogger Dividend Portfolio as he battles cancer and faces a tough road ahead. Try to keep both in your prayers as they can use all the help they can get.
After 35 years of clocking in and out of work and religiously saving at least 10% annually in my 401K every year, my countdown to financial independence is in sight. Each month is a step closer and let’s look at how this past month is getting me there.
For the month of May I made $2,821.76; an increase of 13.98% versus this time last year. Not too shabby considering this was the first month of AT&Ts lower payout.
In May I received 8 dividend raises from AQN, BNS, CM, CTO, LEG, PKG, PSX and TU. A solid month for raises that should add an additional $221 to my annual income going forward.
On the home front it has just been busy as I take care of maintaining property for two homes (mine & my father-in-law’s). The good news is all this yard work is making me loose some of the winter fat and hopefully I’ll be slimmed down to my usual summer weight.
My middle daughter graduated from college this month and already started a full-time career in corporate accounting. Down to just one child left in college and fingers crossed he will be graduating early in December of 2023. Next milestone is to get all three kids out of the house and on their own. Here are the charts we love to see:
Simple Dividend Growth 