Monthly Report: March 2015

I plan to post an update every month on the taxable dividend income I receive in my brokerage accounts, the non-taxable distributions I receive in my Roth IRA account, the market value of my taxable brokerage accounts as of the end of the month, the market value of my Roth IRA as of the end of the month, the market value of my 401(k) as of the end of the month, and my savings rate as of the end of the month.

Below is the monthly report as of March 31, 2015:

Taxable Dividend Income (Total: $481.42)

• Bank of America Corporation (BAC) - $6.31 (Increased 404.80% from March of last year)
• Chevron Corporation (CVX) - $11.09 (Increased 10.90% from March of last year)
• Consolidated Edison, Inc. (ED) - $101.35 (Increased 7.75% from March of last year)
• Emerson Electric Co. (EMR) - $23.68
• Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) - $17.25
• Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) - $7.00
• McDonald's Corp. (MCD) - $91.59 (Increased 8.61% from March of last year)
• Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) - $174.71 (Increased 13.70% from March of last year)
• Pfizer Inc. (PFE) - $14.84 (Increased 11.33% from March of last year)
• Realty Income Corporation (O) - $5.03 (Increased 8.87% from March of last year)
• Target Corp. (TGT) - $24.11 (Increased 24.60% from March of last year)
• Time Inc. (TIME) - $0.19 (Increased 35.71% from March of last year)
• Time Warner Inc. (TWX) - $3.85 (Increased 16.67% from March of last year)
• Dunkin' Brands Group, Inc. (DNKN) - $0.06
• Kellogg Company (K) - $0.15
• Mattel, Inc. (MAT) - $0.14
• Unilever plc (UL) - $0.07
• Total taxable dividend income of $481.42 increased by 25.36% from March of last year.

Recent stock purchases from this list are JNJ in my brokerage account and DNKN, K, MAT, and UL in my Loyal3 account.  All the other dividend increases are from dividends reinvested and dividend raises from the companies.  I'm very happy with the dividend increases.

You can see a schedule of all the dividends I have received here.

Non-Taxable Distributions (Total: $263.81)

• Roth IRA - $263.81 (Increased 24.25% from March of last year)

The increase in distributions for this month compared to last March is excellent.  Double digit increases are what it's all about!  But to be fair, part of the distributions this month were from long-term capital gains.  Comparing just dividends alone for a more accurate comparison, the distributions increased by 10.59%.  It's not 24.25%, but it's still very sexy.

Market Values (Total: $278,766.39)

• Brokerage Accounts - $69,737.09 (Decreased 1.15% from prior month)
• Roth IRA - $53,083.76 (Increased 0.82% from prior month)
• 401(k) - $155,945.54 (Increase 0.75% from prior month)
• Total market value increased by 0.28% from prior month.

I'm not too concerned with the market value of my taxable brokerage accounts since the investment strategy with that is solely to generate a growing stream of dividend income.  As long as the dividends keep coming and are increasing, I'm not too worried.  Nevertheless, it's still interesting to see how it is performing.

You can see a schedule of the market values for my brokerage accounts, Roth IRA account, and 401(k) account as of the end of every month here.

Savings Rate

• 0%

Savings rate was terrible for this month; I actually spent more than I earned, so I had to tap into my savings.  So technically it should be a negative savings rate.  These one-offs were for wedding gifts, taxes, and hosting a large dinner party.  I'm going to need to save more aggressively the remainder of this year to get back on track.

You can see a schedule of my savings rate by month here.

How did you do this month?