As many of my readers know, I love dividend stocks and believe dividends provide a great source of passive income. Quarterly, I provide updates on my dividend income, dividend goals and if I buy dividend stocks.
Using ‘The Dividend Report‘ section of my blog, I share the progress of my goals. I also share dividend growth stock ideas and thoughts. Additionally, I will share the rationale behind any future purchases or sales. Dividends are truly a wonderful thing.
The Dividend Report
For over three years, I have been working towards the same goal. I want my average dividend income to provide $1,500/month. As I solidify my path to financial independence, I want dividends to be 25-33% of my monthly retirement income. This goal may be revised upwards over time. I track my dividend income with Personal Capital and store the data on a Google Sheet.
In case you were wondering, real estate will provide the rest of my retirement income.
Q2-2019 Dividend Income
2019 is my 7th year of tracking dividend data! I’m making some huge progress this year. I cannot believe I’ve been tracking my progress for so long. It’s true what they say, what gets measured gets improved. It’s fun to watch the progress I’ve made over time.
The graph below shows my dividend income history since 2013:
The table below shows my dividend history since 2013:
As you can see from the chart and graph, my dividend income has slowly and gradually increased over time. This is one of the many joys of compound interest and dividend growth stocks. You can also see the presences of exponential growth in my dividend income.
Q2-2019 vs Q2-2018
Last year’s Q1 dividend income was $987.86. This quarter I earned $1,667.79. This is $679.93 or 68.83% more compared to the same time period last year. Imagine if your job paid you 60% more this year. There are two main reasons for the large increase in my dividend income. First, I have more money invested. Second, most of my stocks keep increasing their regular dividend payments. I also drip (dividend reinvestment plan) some of my dividend stocks. This means each quarter I own more shares of the same stock and collect even more dividends.
This quarter vs. last quarter
My Q2-2019 dividend income was $1,667.79. Last quarter (Q1-2019), my income was $1,288.85. This is a $679.93 or 52.75% increase from last quarter. The strong improvement is partially from individual stocks increasing their dividends and continuing to regularly invest. I still buy an index fund every week and aggressively contribute to my 401k.
Progress towards my goal
My average monthly dividend income is now $538.88 ($6,466.57 / 12 months = $538.88), which is 35.93% of my goal of $1,500/month. Previously, I was at 32.15% of my goal. I hope to build off this success and get even closer to my goal this year. My stretch goal is to achieve $1,500/month by the end of 2019. Candidly, this will be near impossible. However, I will continue to offensively build wealth and invest regularly.
New Purchases
I made no new individual stock purchases in Q2-19.
Congrats on getting the dividend portion of your income up! I have dividend stocks in my retirement portfolio via Vanguard, but for ongoing cash flow, we are opting for rental real estate where we can be more hands-on. We also prefer researching real estate issues over companies.