Sunday, April 10, 2016

Monthly Report: March 2016

I post an update every month on the taxable dividend income I receive in my brokerage accounts, the non-taxable dividends 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 March 31, 2016:

Taxable Dividend Income (Total: $556.17)
  • Bank of America Corporation (BAC) - $6.38 (Increased 1.11% from March of last year)
  • Chevron Corporation (CVX) - $11.63 (Increased 4.87% from March of last year)
  • Consolidated Edison, Inc. (ED) - $108.96 (Increased 7.51% from March of last year)
  • Dunkin' Brands Group, Inc. (DNKN) - $0.28 (Increased 366.67% from March of last year)
  • Emerson Electric Co. (EMR) - $24.82 (Increased 4.81% from March of last year)
  • Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) - $18.93 (Increased 9.74% from March of last year)
  • Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) - $7.73 (Increased 10.43% from March of last year)
  • Kellogg Company (K) - $0.46 (Increased 206.67% from March of last year)
  • Mattel, Inc. (MAT) - $0.60 (Increased 328.57% from March of last year)
  • McDonald's Corp. (MCD) - $99.30 (Increased 8.42% from March of last year)
  • Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) - $208.64 (Increased 19.42% from March of last year)
  • Pepsi, Inc. (PEP) - $0.59
  • Pfizer Inc. (PFE) - $16.44 (Increased 10.78% from March of last year)
  • Realty Income Corporation (O) - $5.53 (Increased 9.94% from March of last year)
  • Southern Company (SO) - $14.08
  • Target Corp. (TGT) - $26.78 (Increased 11.07% from March of last year)
  • Time Inc. (TIME) - $0.20 (Increased 5.26% from March of last year)
  • Time Warner Inc. (TWX) - $4.51 (Increased 17.14% from March of last year)
  • Unilever plc (UL) - $0.24 (Increased 242.86% from March of last year)
  • V.F. Corporation (VFC) - $0.07
    • Total taxable dividend income of $556.17 increased 15.53% from March of last year.
New stocks purchased this year are AXP and VFC.  Existing positions I added fresh capital to this year are DNKN 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 as this is higher than 6-7%.

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

Non-Taxable Dividends (Total: $399.01)
  • Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (ADM) - $10.80
  • Chevron Corporation (CVX) - $13.00
  • Emerson Electric Co. (EMR) - $10.55
  • Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) - $8.84
  • Vanguard Long-Term Bond Index Fund (VBLTX) - $98.28 (Decreased 22.01% from March of last year)
  • Vanguard REIT Index Fund Admiral Shares (VGSLX) - $257.54 (Increased 86.89% from March of last year)
    • Total non-taxable dividend income of $399.01 increased by 51.25% from March of last year.
No new stocks purchased this year and no fresh capital have been added to existing positions.  The 22.01% year over year decrease for VBLTX does not paint an accurate picture because there was a long-term capital gain distribution of $29 in March 2015.  This bumped up the dividends for that month.  If we consider just the dividends received in March 2015, they were $97.01.  Thus, an apples to apples comparison would show a dividend increase of 1.31%.  Nothing to call home about, but definitely better than a dividend cut.  All other dividend increases are from dividends reinvested and dividend raises from the companies.  The increase in dividends for this month compared to last March is excellent as this is much higher than 6-7%.

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

Market Values (Total: $318,710.32)
  • Brokerage Accounts - $85,696.56 (Increased 8.29% from prior month)
  • Roth IRA - $60,027.31 (Increased 6.23% from prior month)
  • 401(k) - $172,986.45 (Increased 7.29% from prior month)
    • Total market value increased by 7.36% 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
  • 70.98%
Savings rate was excellent for this month!  This is the highest so far year to date; I just beat last month's savings rate by 0.98%.  50% or more in savings rate is definitely a big achievement for me.

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

How did you do this month?

6 comments:

  1. Wow I love to see a lot of the same stocks I have in my portfolio. Except I see that you were smarter than me and kept CVX. I ended up selling and pretty much regret that now.

    Awesome job with the %70.98 Savings Rate! I keep trying, but haven't gotten there yet. Maybe if I buy a crap load of Ramen. We'll see. =P

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    1. Hi Wallet Squirrel,

      My holding period with a stock is usually forever, unless something fundamentally is wrong with the business model. The only two stocks I have ever sold were TWC and TM. The reason I sold TM was to redeploy the capital into dividend growth stocks after I learned about this investing strategy. I sold TWC because it was finally at a gain and the only reason I owned it was because my parents had purchased it for me when I was younger. Both were sold at gains. I personally refuse to sell stocks at a loss because once you sell it, you've definitely recognized the loss. Otherwise, it's just a loss on paper.

      Thanks for the kind words. I was able to achieve a higher savings rate this month mainly due to the tax refunds I received this year.

      Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

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  2. Hey I just discovered your blog. Thanks for the update, I'm curious if you have thought about moving your Realty Income shares over to your Roth IRA. That would be a nice tax savings I would think.

    I was also looking at VBLTX not long ago and I just hate the way bond fund distributions erode over time but it's safe money that's better than putting it under the mattress. I own PZA which is a tax free bond ETF that suffers from the same dividend erosion. Just wondering what you think about it. Thanks a bunch!

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    Replies
    1. Hi Captain Dividend,

      I have thought about having Realty Income in my Roth IRA, but not at the current price it's been trading at. I don't plan on moving my taxable Realty Income shares over to the Roth IRA since that would require me selling them and I plan to buy and hold stocks forever. There would be tax savings for sure, but dividends in general are tax efficient since they are taxed at lower rates. At the time, I only had mutual funds in my Roth IRA because I hadn't discovered dividend growth investing yet. Even after discovering dividend growth investing, I still wanted to invest in mutual funds in my Roth IRA just to hedge my risk. For $5,500 I can invest in one mutual fund which owns hundreds of different companies. Whereas with individual stocks, I'd probably be able to invest in about 5 companies at $1,100 per company.

      VBLTX is yielding around 4% I believe and it pays out distributions every month, which is what I like since I'm looking for a passive income stream. I'm not too familiar with PZA, but if it's a muni bond ETF, then it's definitely tax efficient for Federal tax purposes. For me personally, I don't think I'll consider investing in muni bonds until I'm in a higher tax bracket. Nevertheless, building up a nice income stream over time from muni bonds is a great way to get tax free income.

      Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

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  3. First of all you have an amazing savings rate. Anyone who can save more than 50% is a rock star in my book and you exceeded that by far. Nice to see a healthy passive income stream as well for the month of March with many different names paying you. Keep it up.

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    Replies
    1. Hi DivHut,

      Thanks for your encouraging words. I'm pretty happy with my savings rate as well; the extra savings have been helping with further accelerating my mortgage payments. I'm looking forward to paying off this mortgage early. I recently took a look and I think I might be able to pay it off much earlier than expected.

      Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

      Delete