I received $525.97 in taxable December 2020 dividend income. I think this is everyone’s favorite dividend month of the year! The third month of each quarter is always my best because I have over half my taxable holdings in VTI.
Back in 2016, I decided on dividend growth investing over real estate investing. At the time, I thought a rental unit might return a few hundred per month. Dividend growth investing came with a slower start and no leverage, but also no hassles. It’s great to now be making a few hundred per month in passive income!
| ticker | total_payout_2020 | total_payout_2019 |
|---|---|---|
| VTI | $345.93 | $365.39 |
| MCD | $19.35 | $16.25 |
| UNH | $13.75 | $11.88 |
| TRV | $12.75 | $10.66 |
| KO | $12.71 | $12.40 |
| MSFT | $12.32 | $11.22 |
| MMM | $10.29 | $10.08 |
| BLK | $10.02 | $0.00 |
| RTX | $9.97 | $0.00 |
| AVY | $9.92 | $8.12 |
| MGA | $8.80 | $8.03 |
| HD | $7.50 | $6.80 |
| AWR | $7.37 | $0.00 |
| SO | $7.04 | $6.82 |
| V | $6.72 | $6.30 |
| IBM | $6.52 | $6.48 |
| NOC | $5.80 | $5.28 |
| JNJ | $5.05 | $4.75 |
| PFE | $4.94 | $4.68 |
| ADM | $4.68 | $4.55 |
| EMR | $4.54 | $4.50 |
| BA | $0.00 | $14.39 |
| WFC | $0.00 | $9.69 |
| PFG | $0.00 | $4.95 |
| FLO | $0.00 | $0.76 |
| $525.97 | $533.98 |
I was a bit surprised to see that I didn’t get to my 2019 numbers this December. Boeing’s cut is the most obvious difference, followed by my WFC, PFG, and FLO sales earlier this year. VTI’s December payment this year was down this year at $0.78/share, where last year’s was $0.89, which makes up the rest of the difference. I added payments from BLK, AWR, and RTN, along with some organic dividend increases and reinvestments sprinkled through the rest.
I’m not too worried about the shortcoming this year because I feel like I’m in a good spot going forward!
Dividend Growth
| percent_increase | annual_increase_dollars | |
|---|---|---|
| V | 6.67% | $1.68 |
| MSFT | 9.80% | $4.40 |
| EMR | 1.00% | $0.18 |
| MCD | 3.20% | $2.40 |
| AVY | 6.90% | $2.56 |
| VTI | 1.33% | $15.59 |
| Total | $26.81 |
Microsoft came through with a nice increase, while V was a little under what I’ve come to expect over the last few years. Obviously it’s not a normal year! MCD was underwhelming. AVY’s dividend was flat for six quarters prior, so it’s great to see a healthy increase there. I calculate VTI’s increase based on a rolling 3-year average to normalize the ups and downs a bit, and I’m very happy with this quarter’s payment.
EMR continues to grow dividends at a snail’s pace. It’s one of my earlier purchases that I won’t be adding to any time soon.
At 1.80% yield, I’d have to contribute $1,489 to generate this much income.
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 | $20.70 | $26.81 | $60.69 |
| dividend_reinvestments | $1.88 | $1.55 | $10.38 | $9.07 | $1.78 | $7.85 | $-3.23 | $2.50 | $8.02 | $1.57 | $2.07 | $9.03 | $52.47 |
| new_contributions | $2.24 | $17.81 | $37.11 | $-1.16 | $9.41 | $6.34 | $-30.23 | $11.93 | $-0.25 | $0.19 | $19.35 | $51.72 | $124.48 |
| Total | $5.56 | $28.12 | $66.03 | $-44.24 | $-11.54 | $45.27 | $-29.65 | $14.43 | $27.24 | $6.72 | $42.12 | $87.56 | $237.62 |
I managed to finish off 2020 strong, bumping my additional forward income for the year up from to $150 to $238. It was a slow year for increases, along with a few dividend suspensions, and I didn’t contribute as much as I would have liked.
I did build up my savings quite a bit, and got a new furnace/AC. The comfort of having AC in the summer probably outweighed any dividend-related disappointments.
I can also say that I maxed out my Roth IRA and 401k with index funds, which isn’t reflected in the chart or numbers above. Love tax shelters! I expect 2021 to be a good year.
Purchases – NEE, BLK, VTI
Purchased 10.31 shares of NextEra Energy (NEE) @ $75.44/share
I really have no energy representation in my portfolio unless you include utilities (SO). I wish I had joined the NEE train a long time ago, but decided to start a small holding this month. I plan to add to this. It’s nice to have some exposure to electricity delivery, which I think has room to keep growing.
Purchased 1.27 shares of BlackRock (BLK) @ $701.10/share
BLK now holds the #10 spot in my portfolio. I’m glad to have it there, and it has already performed really well for me. I rounded out my shares to a nice even four, and will probably add shares elsewhere for the near future.
Purchased 9.78 shares of Vanguard Total Stock Market (VTI) @ $191.54/share
VTI keeps growing, both in dividend and in share price. I’m happy to have more and more of my portfolio percentage in VTI (currently 51.4% of my taxable holdings). I put the same amount of contributions into VTI as I did into NEE and BLK this month, and also gained 1.78 shares via reinvestment. It’s nice not to have to think about it at all!
Head on over to my portfolio page if you’d like to see what companies pay me in other months!
Making per what you estimated for real estate and no hassles with tenants. What is better than getting paid to sit on your butt and collect checks.
Awesome report, Dividend Dozer. Congrats on the nice haul of passive income. I love how you started off the post by comparing dividend investing to real estate investing. Dividend investing is slow in the beginning and it does lack leverage like you said. But I think it is a more passive form of income down the road. Your charts look amazing btw, so much detail. What do you create them with?
Thanks Graham! Totally agree – the passiveness is really nice. I do own my house, and that is enough maintenance for me.
Thanks for asking about the charts – I use Python and Plotly (which is a graphing library). I have a goal to write a post to share the code, but honestly I want to clean it up – it’s pretty sloppy but it works!