I received $106.44 in taxable dividend income for April 2021. The biggest change in April between this year and last year is that I sold PPL, but made moderate increases in my other ten payers. Luckily the moderate increases were enough to bump me just over my total from last year.
| ticker | total_payout_2021 | total_payout_2020 |
|---|---|---|
| MO | $18.06 | $17.64 |
| MDT | $15.08 | $11.88 |
| RSG | $13.60 | $12.15 |
| KO | $13.02 | $12.71 |
| KMB | $9.12 | $8.56 |
| IFF | $8.47 | $8.25 |
| CINF | $8.19 | $7.69 |
| CSCO | $7.40 | $7.20 |
| CAH | $7.29 | $7.22 |
| EMN | $6.21 | $5.94 |
| PPL | $0.00 | $6.22 |
| $106.44 | $105.46 |
This quarter contains a few of my longest-held stocks, which are also a few of my slower growers (KO, KMB, IFF) or even underperformers (MO, CAH). My metric is fairly simple – share value now compared with when I bought it assuming I’d reinvested dividends. Compared with the rest of the market, half my April payers have not performed too well in the last few years. They are historically dividend growth companies though, so I’m happy to hold on to them for the long term along with my other holdings that might be performing better than the market.
Dividend Growth
| percent_increase | annual_increase_dollars | |
|---|---|---|
| CINF | 5.00% | $1.56 |
| CSCO | 2.78% | $0.80 |
| KMB | 6.54% | $2.24 |
| KO | 2.44% | $1.24 |
| Total | $5.84 |
No double digit increases for me this month! I’m happy with CINF and KMB both being over 5%. I’m a little less pleased when I see an increase less than 3%.
KO is a company I’m happy to hold onto, but I haven’t added much in a long time. I have no plans to sell considering their brand.
I bought CSCO thinking they would benefit from more and more transition into cloud. I thought they’d see economies of scale with more hardware being set up in large data centers. I’m a little disappointed but will continue holding.
At my 1.52% average portfolio yield, I’d have to invest $384 to generate this much additional 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 |
| Year: 2021 | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| dividend_increases | $1.08 | $9.35 | $28.05 | $5.84 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $44.32 |
| dividend_reinvestments | $1.61 | $1.62 | $8.89 | $1.64 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $13.76 |
| new_contributions | $68.26 | $60.80 | $67.00 | $61.99 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $258.04 |
| Total | $70.95 | $71.77 | $103.94 | $69.47 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $316.13 |
I stayed on track with healthy contributions in April. Unfortunately, my 1950s steel water pipes under my house decided they’d had enough, and I decided to do a major, unexpected pipes upgrade. We will see how that affects my contributions in May and June, but luckily I had an emergency fund set up for projects like this. Hopefully I’ll keep my contributions going the same as I have so far in 2021.
Purchases – ACN, PG, TXN, UNH, VTI
Keeping with my 2021 goals, I added more to a few of the top positions in my portfolio.
Purchased 3.0 shares of Accenture (ACN) @ $284.70/share
Accenture has really benefitted as companies outsource and automate processes.
Purchased 1.0 shares of Proctor & Gamble (PG) @ $136.97/share
Just one of those names that you see in almost every store.
Purchased 5.0 shares of Texas Instruments (TXN) @ $188.36/share
It’s a good time for semiconductors!
Purchased 0.24 shares of United Health (UNH) @ $375.21/share
I reinvested my dividends into UNH this month once more. I’m almost to a whole number of shares, so I’ll probably refocus most of my dividends on another stock soon.
Purchased 10.0 shares of Vanguard Total Stock Market (VTI) @ $209.42/share
I keep enjoying building up my VTI holding, which is also one of my portfolio goals for 2021. Aside from the share performance, it’s nice to truly not have to worry about whether I made the right pick or not. Instead, I can just rest easy with VTI’s no-brainer diversity of holdings.