Last year, I was inspired by Engineering Dividends’ post on weighted portfolio growth, who was actually inspired themselves by Passive Income Pursuit’s post.

Engineering Dividends just did a 2018 post, and inspired/reminded me again!

First, I made columns for my 2018 holdings:

• Ticker symbol
• Annual dividend frequency (4 for quarterly stocks, 2 for DIS and ACN)
• Shares owned at time of dividend increase
• Dividend payment per share at time of increase
• Dividend payment at time of increase
• Percent dividend increase
• Total Dividend Paid by Portfolio in 2018

Next, I made a new column to calculate Weighted Dividend Growth using the same formula as Engineering Dividends and Passive Income Pursuit:

Percent Increase * Dividend Payment * Shares Owned * Annual Dividend Frequency / Total Dividend Paid

My 2018 weighted dividend growth totaled to 12.42%! For comparison, my 2017 growth was 7.39%.

I made a deliberate effort in 2017 to refocus on dividend growth. My early investments reflected my tendency to grab high yielders, and now I focus on low yielders with more room for growth.

2018 was also a good year for dividend increases in general, so I’m not sure if I will keep up this 12.42% growth going into 2019.

ABBV, VTI, TXN, MO, and BA were my top 5 dividend growth drivers. This takes into account my holding value along with its dividend increase(s).