I received $102.70 in taxable October 2020 dividend income. Not a bad month – I’m over $100 on an off-month, and had three small dividend increases.

The bigger theme is that my contributions have been mostly frozen the last few months. The reasons:
– I’m building up my savings for new house paint/siding
– I’m building up my savings for my 2021 Roth IRA contribution (two months away!)
– I’m continuing to max out (and catch up on) my 2020 401k, which I just don’t post about much

It’s taking major discipline for me to transfer funds into savings rather than my taxable stock accounts, but knowing that I’m still building up my tax-sheltered accounts scratches that itch for the most part.

ticker	total_payout_2020	total_payout_2019
MO	$18.06	$17.64
MDT	$13.92	$10.80
RSG	$12.75	$11.75
KO	$12.71	$8.80
KMB	$8.56	$8.24
IFF	$8.47	$7.50
CINF	$7.80	$6.72
CAH	$7.29	$7.22
CSCO	$7.20	$6.30
EMN	$5.94	$5.58
PPL	$0.00	$6.19
	$102.70	$96.73

I’m up 6% in passive income since last October. The biggest change since last year is that I closed out my PPL shares, dropping my income by $6. But, that drop was offset by new contributions to MDT and KO, along with some stead dividend increases sprinkled through the rest of my October payers.

Dividend Growth

	percent_increase	annual_increase_dollars
IFF	2.67%	$0.88
MO	2.38%	$1.68
RSG	4.94%	$2.40
Total		$4.96

October was another month where I can be thankful for no dividend cuts! I’m a bit more humble these days when it comes to my dividend increases.

MO (Altria) was interesting – their 9%+ dividend yield doesn’t fit with the rest of my portfolio, and I am honestly not sure how much more than increase their dividend. We will see. For now, I’m not selling it, but I’m not adding either. Unfortunately I’m down 50% overall on MO, and I’d trade some price appreciation or stability for the dividend increase if I could. This is their smallest increase in at least 12 years from what I can tell.

Forward Dividend Income

Year: 2019	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Total
dividend_increases	$7.00	$3.10	$36.71	$4.55	$5.99	$22.83	$3.01	$5.04	$13.20	$6.44	$2.61	$29.35	$139.83
dividend_reinvestments	$2.47	$-12.99	$3.47	$2.02	$2.05	$4.22	$1.80	$1.60	$6.79	$1.78	$1.78	$9.57	$24.56
new_contributions	$-0.30	$6.03	$0.02	$1.06	$0.03	$-0.51	$188.35	$276.00	$147.06	$93.04	$146.50	$32.79	$890.06
Total	$9.17	$-3.86	$40.20	$7.63	$8.07	$26.54	$193.16	$282.64	$167.05	$101.26	$150.89	$71.71	$1,054.46

Year: 2020	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Total
dividend_increases	$1.44	$8.76	$18.54	$-52.15	$-22.73	$31.08	$3.81	$0.00	$19.47	$4.96	$0.00	$0.00	$13.18
dividend_reinvestments	$1.88	$1.55	$10.38	$9.07	$1.78	$7.85	$-3.23	$2.50	$8.02	$1.57	$0.00	$0.00	$41.37
new_contributions	$2.24	$17.81	$37.11	$-1.16	$9.41	$6.34	$-30.23	$11.93	$-0.25	$0.19	$0.00	$0.00	$53.40
Total	$5.56	$28.12	$66.03	$-44.24	$-11.54	$45.27	$-29.65	$14.43	$27.24	$6.72	$0.00	$0.00	$107.94

My reinvestments and increases moved my total annual income needle up by $6.53 this month. Not too extravagant, but without any new contributions, I’m just coasting until I fund my 2021 Roth IRA.

It has also been three months now since my last dividend cut – yippee!

Purchases – ACN and LOW

These purchases are almost not worth mentioning, but free trades and partial shares make it easier to add little by little.

Purchased 0.42 shares of Accenture (ACN) @ $226.33/share

Purchased 0.12 shares of Lowe’s (LOW) @ $172.00/share

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Head on over to my portfolio page if you’d like to see what companies pay me in other months!