It’s been almost one year since I started tracking my dividend income for my personal finance blog. Over the last twelve months, I received a total of 1,062.62EUR in dividend income, which got reinvested to accelerate future portfolio growth and dividend income.
Looking at the numbers there are some interesting observations, the main one being that the dividend I receive varies greatly from month to month. Last month was an all-time high of 173.88EUR but in February it was just 18.31EUR.
August and February seem to be very weak months in terms of dividend income as I have few stocks that pay out during these months. May and April on the other hand are months with very high dividend income, this is mainly because of a few European dividend stocks that pay out just once or twice a month.
While the payout date of stocks is not one of the criteria I use when purchasing a dividend stock, it seems I could definitely use some more stocks that pay in February and August to balance things a bit more.
Over the next twelve months, I expect to receive dividend income in excess of 1,236.26EUR. I’m getting a bit more speculative here but I think that unless I suffer another big dividend cut, the 2017 figure will likely be in excess of 1,400EUR. All figures mentioned are after all applicable taxes.
How much does your dividend income fluctuate? Do you have wild month-to-month swings or do you focus on creating a balance?
Dividends are Coming 
Congratz on one year DGI!
I just started a little now. The question to have a nice monthly evenly spread income is on my mind as well. I am convinced that it should not be the driver to select stock. The focus should be on good, stable payers.
When you have all the data and know what the pattern will be, you can come up with a plan to overcome this. April/May are big months. Transfer some to a savings account to fill the gaps in other months…
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The one year is for the blog, I made my first DGI investment around August 2014. Maybe I should have done a bit more work to include the older data, that would show off more of the growth path. Total dividend received since 2014 is 1358EUR.
While the swings don’t really bother me a lot I do wonder if it will eventually even out a bit. At the moment the answer seems no as most stocks on my watch list don’t pay in February.
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Nice! Sounds like 20% growth, not bad ast all 😀
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Happy Anniversary! To your question, February is my weakest month as well. But … at your investing stage – it doesn’t matter much. Just focus on good companies at good prices. CLX, SBUX, AAPL and PNC are all February payers though most are currently overpriced (I think). . You’ll find the the semi-annual and monthly payers get in the way of a flat payout goal. And the ones paying stock dividends. Then there are currency fluctuations (like US$, C$, Au$ and Eu in my portfolio). No, I think a balanced payout cycle is only an aspiration.
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Hi seekingreturns, thanks for stopping by. I think you’re right, balancing out the payments isn’t really important, my main goal is to increase my future dividend stream.
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DAC,
Excellent progress, congrats! It’s really interesting to see your portfolio and dividend income grow because we started at the same time and seem to invest at the same pace. As a result, we’re roughly on par!
This reminds me to update my blog as well, I’ve sorely neglected it the past month.
Keep it up!
Cheers,
NMW
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Hi NMW,
Nice to hear from you again. We indeed started around the same time, in fact, your blog was one of my sources of inspiration when I just started with DGI. Looking forward to hear about your progress!
Regards,
DaC
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Congrats on one year 🙂
Nearly all of Australia’s companies pay half yearly in March & April and September & October. It is only really banks and REITs that pay in other months. Which makes those 4 months great, and the rest very small.
As long as we get good dividends on an annual basis, I do not mind when they pay.
Tristan
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