Monthly Report: August 2015

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

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

Taxable Dividend Income (Total: $33.66)

• Hasbro Inc. (HAS) - $0.08
• Kinder Morgan, Inc. (KMI) - $18.35 (Increased 18.92% from August of last year)
• The Procter & Gamble Company (PG) - $10.02
• Realty Income Corporation (O) - $5.15 (Increased 8.88% from August of last year)
• Yum! Brands, Inc. (YUM) - $0.06
• Total taxable dividend income of $33.66 increased by 66.96% from August of last year.

New stocks purchased this year are HAS, PG, and YUM.  All other dividend increases are from dividends reinvested and dividend raises from the companies.  I'm very happy with the total year over year dividend increase.

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

Non-Taxable Dividends (Total: $98.57)

• Vanguard Long-Term Bond Index Fund (VBLTX) - $98.57 (Increased 3.56% from August of last year)
• Total non-taxable dividend income of $98.57 increased by 3.56% from August of last year.

I consider increases of 6% to be average, so the increase in dividends for this month compared to last August is below average.  This past August marks the first purchase of dividend growth stocks in my Roth IRA account.  I have not sold the existing mutual funds in my Roth IRA, but I plan on purchasing only dividend growth stocks moving forward.  Hopefully, this change in strategy will pay off big time many years down the road, and I will look back on this day and be glad I made this decision.

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

Market Values (Total: $277,506.17)

• Brokerage Accounts - $69,587.69 (Decreased 5.86% from prior month)
• Roth IRA - $51,521.83 (Increased 2.32% from prior month)
• 401(k) - $156,396.65 (Decreased 4.11% from prior month)
• Total market value decreased by 3.44% from prior month.

The market value of the Roth IRA includes my recent dividend growth stock purchases.  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

• 3.35%

Savings rate was terrible for this month.  I plan on applying all future savings towards accelerating the mortgage payment.

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

How did you do this month?