Monthly Report: August 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 August 31, 2016:

Taxable Dividend Income (Total: $21.59)

• American Express Company (AXP) - $0.05
• Dunkin' Brands Group, Inc. (DNKN) - $0.28 (Increased 366.67% YOY)
• Hasbro Inc. (HAS) - $0.09 (Increased 12.5% YOY)
• Kinder Morgan, Inc. (KMI) - $4.92 (Decreased 73.19% YOY)
• The Procter & Gamble Company (PG) - $10.47 (Increased 4.49% YOY)
• Realty Income Corporation (O) - $5.65 (Increased 9.71% YOY)
• Yum! Brands, Inc. (YUM) - $0.13 (Increased 116.67% YOY)
• Total taxable dividend income of $21.59 decreased 35.86% YOY.

New stocks purchased this year is AXP.  Existing positions I added fresh capital to this year is YUM.  All other dividend increases are from dividends reinvested and dividend raises from the companies. Total taxable dividends are down significantly compared to last month because of KMI's dividend cut.  I still plan on holding onto KMI as I believe it will bounce back.

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

Non-Taxable Dividend Income (Total: $105.73)

• Kinder Morgan, Inc. (KMI) - $7.61
• Vanguard Long-Term Bond Index Fund (VBLTX) - $98.12 (Decreased 0.46% YOY)
• Total non-taxable dividend income of $105.73 increased 7.26% YOY.

I'm not too thrilled about the 0.46% decrease YOY for VBLTX.  In the past, I never really analyzed my income from my investments and compared it to the year before.  Since discovering dividend growth investing and comparing my dividends received in the current month to the same month in the prior year, it's been an eye opener.  Because VBLTX is a bond fund, there is no requirement that the distributions need to increase year after year.  However, I figured that if my distributions are being reinvested into the same mutual fund, naturally the dividends should increase.  Apparently not.  I'm realizing that I will not be able to depend on the mutual fund distributions when calculating my cash flow.  I can't depend on these distributions for a steady reliable stream of income because this month shows me that it can decrease at any given time.  I will have to base my calculation to retire based on my dividend stocks and not my mutual funds from a cash flow perspective.

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

Market Values (Total: $344,450.96)

• Brokerage Accounts - $86,966.75 (Decreased 1.24% from prior month)
• Roth IRA - $65,174.48 (Decreased 1.62% from prior month)
• 401(k) - $192,309.73 (Increased 1.39% from prior month)
• Total market value increased 0.14% 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

• 67.51%

Savings rate was excellent for this month!  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?