Wow it’s hard to believe that it’s September already. This is the month that we will see Baby T1.0 starting preschool and the start of NHL hockey pre-season. It’s hard to believe that Baby T1.0 is preschool age already. Not too long ago he was born in our apartment in Vancouver (planned home-birth). It’s amazing to see how much he has grown and how independent he has become already. Since the Vancouver Canucks didn’t make it to the playoffs last season, this was a long off-season for us Canucks fans. I can’t wait for the reason to start and see how the Canucks will do this year.
Without further ado, let see how much dividend income we received for August 2016.
Dividend Income
In August we received dividend income from the following companies:
Apple (AAPL)
Pure Industrial REIT (AAR.UN)
Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO)
Corus Entertainment (CJR.B)
Dream Office REIT (D.UN)
Dream Global REIT (DRG.UN)
Dream Industrial REIT (DIR.UN)
General Mills (GIS)
H&R REIT (HR.UN)
Inter Pipeline (IPL.TO)
KEG Income Trust (KEG.UN)
Kinder Morgan (KMI)
National Bank (NA.TO)
Omega Healthcare (OHI)
Procter & Gamble (PG)
Potash (POT.TO)
Prairiesky Royalty (PSK.TO)
RioCan REIT (REI.UN)
Royal Bank (RY.TO)
Starbucks (SBUX)
AT&T (T)
Vodafone (VOD)
Verizon (VZ)
In total we received $1,115.20 in August 2016 from 23 different companies. $1,115.20 is an all time high for monthly dividend income. Woohoo! Out of the $1,115.20 received, $346.71 was in US currency and $768.49 was in CAN currency. This is about a 30-70 split. Please note, we use a 1 to 1 currency rate approach, so we do not convert the dividends received in US dollar into Canadian currency. Reason for doing this is to keep the math simple and avoid fluctuations in dividend income over time due to changes in the exchange rate.
The top 5 payouts came from Royal Bank, National Bank, Bank of Montreal, Omega Healthcare and Vodafone. It’s a little interesting to see that 3 of the top 5 were Canadian banks. The top 5 payouts correspond to about 60% of our August dividend income.
Dividend Growth
Compare to August 2015, we saw a 20.27% YOY increase. A really solid number given that we received over $900 in dividend income last August. I’m definitely happy to see that our hard work of saving and investing are paying off this month.
Thanks to DRIP, we were able to purchase additional 13 shares of different dividend paying stocks. This increased our annual dividend income by $25.78.
The $25.78 increase in annual dividend income may seem insignificant but I don’t see it this way. Considering a 3% dividend yield, it would take $859.33 of new capital to generate this kind of annual dividend. By enrolling in DRIP, we are making our money working hard for us. 🙂
Dividend Increases
In August a number of companies that we own in our dividend portfolio announced dividend increases:
- Royal Bank increased dividend by two cents to 83 cents per share.
- Bank of Nova Scotia increases dividend by two cents to 74 cents per share.
Both are small dividend increases but I’ll take it as they increased our forward annual dividend by almost $50. At 3% dividend yield, that’s roughly $1,600 that we didn’t have to invest. Again, another perfect example of our money working hard for us so we don’t have to.
Conclusion & Moving Forward
August was a record breaking month for us, having received over $1,100 in dividend income for the very first time in our relatively short dividend growth investing life. Now the next milestone is hit $1,200 in monthly dividend income! Every month, I am very grateful and ecstatic of receiving dividend income for doing absolutely nothing at all. I always do a secret happy dance whenever I tally our monthly dividend income. At $1,115.20, this passive income amount covered roughly 42% of our necessities budget in August. Becoming financial independent via dividend income is definitely possible!
So far in 2016 we have received $8,139.15 in dividend income. Given the past monthly dividend income, we should break the $10,000 mark by October. Will we make our goal of over $13,000 in dividend income for 2016? I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.
Dear readers, how was your August dividend income?