January 2023 Dividend Income

 

Hard as it may be to believe, we are already 1/12 of the way through the year.  January has come and gone, and as such, we take a moment to look back at the dividends that came in.  This won't total won't come anywhere close to last month's humdinger, but we'll see how things went regardless.

Paramount Global (PARA): $2.45 (+$0.74 QoQ, +$1.72 YoY)

HP (HPQ): $0.19 (+$0.08 QoQ)

Kimberly Clark: $5.87 ($1.23/$4.64 IRA)  (+$4.65 QoQ, +$4.70 YoY)

Iron Mountain (IRM): $3.82 (+$0.04 QoQ, +$0.18 YoY)

JP Morgan Exchange Traded Fund (JEPI): $4.58 (+$0.73 QoQ)  (IRA) 

Best Buy (BBY): $6.71 (+$0.09 QoQ, +$1.59 YoY)

PepsiCo (PEP): $5.27 ($1.82/$3.45 IRA) (+$0.04 QoQ, +$3.84 YoY)

McCormick (MKC): $0.05 

Nasdaq 100 Covered Call ETF (QYLD): $0.19 (+$0.07 YoY)

GlobalXSuperDividend (SDIV): $0.13 (+$0.01 QoQ and YoY)

AGNC: $1.34 (+$0.06 QoQ, +$0.84 YoY)

Main Street Capital (MAIN): $0.19 (+$0.05 QoQ, +$0.16 YoY)

Realty Income (O): $3.74 ($1.50/$2.24 IRA) (+$0.14 QoQ, +$2.52 YoY)

Franklin Resources (BEN): $3.06 (+$0.14 QoQ, +$0.51 YoY)

Leggett & Platt (LEG): $1.84 (+$0.46 QoQ, +$1.40 YoY)

Stag Industrial (STAG): $0.13 (+$0.09 YoY)

Armanino Foods of Distinction (AMNF): $0.60 (+$0.30 YoY)

Invesco High Dividend Low Volatility ETF (SPHD): $0.15 (+$0.03 QoQ)

Campbell's (CPB): $4.10 ($0.40/$3.70 IRA) 

Baird Aggregate Bond Fund: $2.21 (401K)

That brings the taxable sub-total to $26.25.  That's up $8.80 from last year.  It is down a bit from last quarter, but it's only a few cents and that's because a couple of stocks and ETF's paid last month instead.  I'm good with it.

Retirement accounts brought in $20.82.  Almost an even split.

Grand total comes to $47.07.  Still short of that $50, but it'll get there.

Interest clocked in at $2.36.

In addition to the Robinhood buys (which you can read about here, here, here, and here) I also began my plan to buy 1 share of Realty Income every week. I nabbed 5 shares this month, so that's off to a good start.  My daily VTI/Crypto/gold and silver buys are also chugging along pretty nicely.  Best Buy debited my account for its monthly transaction, but the purchase hasn't gone through quite yet.  I'm guessing that'll constitute a February buy.  I kind of figured that was going to happen, but I'm still hyped to see it start growing.

Still need to update the portfolio.  I'll get around to it at some point this month.

Don't want to jinx it, but so far 2023 seems to be off to a decent start.  There's still a lot of year left, though, so we'll see how things play out going forward.  

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Robinhood Buys: 1/30/2023

 

Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG): $5

General Mills (GIS): $5 (Roth)

Exxon Mobil (XOM): $5

Kellogg (K): $5 (Roth)

SJW (SJW): $5

Clorox (CLX): $5 (Roth)

Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD): $5

Colgate (CL): $5 (Roth)

Kraft-Heinz (KHC): $5

Northrop Grumman (NOC): $5 (Roth)

Both SCHD and SJW crossed the full share threshold.  Exxon Mobil is freakishly close, but not quite there yet, next week. Other than that, we just keep chugging along.

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Finance and Wealth Building is a Downhill Battle

 
"Building wealth is a marathon, not a sprint"

You've likely heard or read this more than once.  Wealth doesn't happen overnight.  It takes years of effort and consistency.  It's important to remember that because if you get impatient, you start making mistakes and shooting yourself in the foot.  As great as it would be to envision your money moves as some sort of dramatic "Dragon Ball Z" style power up, that's just not how it works, at least not in the early to mid-stages.

While this is important to keep in mind while on your journey, one thing that I'm surprised doesn't get brought up more is the fact that it's a downhill battle.  That is to say that the further along you go, the easier it gets.  Compound interest starts to kick in, the dividend reinvestment snowball starts to get rolling, company increases have a bigger and bigger impact as your portfolio builds.   Soon, you do start to see more drastic progress.  It gets even better when you realize that it is just going to happen automatically going forward.

This applies to liabilities as well as assets.  The longer you stay focused on eliminating debt, the easier it gets.  The balances start to shrink, which means that the amount of interest that you get charged starts to dwindle as well.  You start to see more and more progress as time goes on.  Soon, you're eliminating entire payments from your monthly budget and improving your cash flow dramatically.  Going back to the earlier comparison, it's almost like chucking off a set of weighted clothing during a fight.  

Yes, building wealth is a marathon, but it's a weird kind of bizarro marathon where you start off exhausted and gradually get your energy back as you run towards the finish line.  Maybe it's just me, but that's a nice little extra motivator.  Knowing that the waters get smoother ahead does make it easier to hunker down for the short term and endure the rougher waves to ensure that you get to that point.

Click here to open an E-Trade account

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Robinhood Buys: 1/24/2023

 

ConEd (ED): $4

General Mills (GIS) $4 (Roth)

Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG): $4

Kellogg (K): $4 (Roth)

HP (HPQ): $4

Clorox (CLX): $4 (Roth)

Schwab US Dividend Equity Fund (SCHD): $4

Colgate (CL): $4 (Roth)

SJW (SJW): $4

Northrop Grumman (NOC): $4 (Roth)

ConEd broke the full share threshold.  A bunch of the others today came very close but didn't quite make it.  Hopefully, next week should see that come to pass.  We've got a ways to go as far as the Roth goes so those'll be staples in the months ahead.

Click here to open an E-Trade account

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Robinhood Buys 1/17/2023

 

ConEd (ED): $5

General Mills (GIS): $5 (Roth)

Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG): $5

Kellogg (K): $5 (Roth)

Realty Income (O): $5

Clorox (CLX): $5 (Roth)

Main Street Capital (MAIN):  $5

Colgate-Palmolive (CL): $5 (Roth)

Exxon Mobil (XOM): $5

Northrop Grumman (NOC): $5 (Roth)

Both MAIN and O crossed the full share threshold, so that's pretty cool.  Love reducing the amount of post-decimal digits.  On a similar note, I'm hitting the same positions in the Roth and won't be adding any new ones until a position crosses that aforementioned bar.  I don't want to make the same mistake I made with the main Robinhood account and overload on fractional positions. 

Click here to open an E-Trade account

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Robinhood Buys: 1/11/2023

 

I intended to have the automatic recurring buys be the brunt of my investment moves...buuut I gotta pull the trigger myself every so often.  I do still plan to put more focus on defense, given what's coming, but I think I can move the needle on this front as well.

ConEd (ED): $3

General Mills (GIS): $3 (Roth)

Realty Income (O): $3

Kellogg (K): $3 (Roth)

Main Street Capital (MAIN): $3

Clorox (CLX): $3  (Roth)

Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD): $3

Colgate-Palmolive (CL): $3 (Roth)

HP (HPQ): $3

Northrop Grumman (NOC):  $3  (Roth)

One interesting development, and I'm surprised I didn't mention this before, is that Robinhood now offers IRA's.  Even better, they match a portion of your contribution (1% to be exact).  Naturally, I decided to take advantage of it.  As noted above, I decided to go with the Roth.  I was tempted to just slip money in over the course of the year and then fire it in a massive DBZ style blast of capital in December, but DCA has been working well so far and if I play it right, I may still be able to do that, albeit to a much lesser extent.  We'll just have to see how things play out over the course of the next few months.

Click here to open an E-Trade account

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2022 Dividend Income

 

I missed out on being able to do this last year due to technical difficulties, but it was always interesting to tally up the total for the year.  As such, let's see how things went in 2022.

January: $18.30

February: $51.03

March: $22.65

April: $24.07

May: $57.10

June: $28.62

July: $29.53

August: $66.58

September: $70.71

October: $49.23

November: $92.40

December: $251.76

Grand total comes to $761.98. 2020's total was $215.02 so that's not too bad for 2 years of growth.  Sadly, I wasn't able to provide separate totals for taxable and retirement accounts as there was a transition period where I lumped it all together.  Speaking of retirement, you can clearly see the impact of the IRA transfer and when it kicked in. Could 2023 see the grand total crack the $1,000 mark?  SRLP is out of the equation, so I am starting off with a setback, but we'll see how things play out.  Should be interesting, to say the least.