Monthly Report: December 2017

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 December 31, 2017:

Taxable Dividend Income (Total: $793.70)

• 3M Company (MMM) - $5.98
• Bank of America Corporation (BAC) - $15.65 (Increased 61.34% YOY)
• Chevron Corporation (CVX) - $12.23 (Increased 0.91% YOY)
• The Coca-Cola Company (KO) - $20.87 (Increased 1.31% YOY)
• Consolidated Edison, Inc. (ED) - $118.87 (Increased 6.24% YOY)
• Dominion Resources, Inc. (D) - $3.96
• Emerson Electric Co. (EMR) - $26.82 (Increased 4.03% YOY)
• Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) - $30.79 (Increased 54.34% YOY)
• Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) - $8.56 (Increased 1.78% YOY)
• Kellogg Company (K) - $16.24 (Increased 2,852.73% YOY)
• The Kraft Heinz Company (KHC) - $12.50 (Increased 13,788.89% YOY)
• McDonald's Corp. (MCD) - $117.39 (Increased 9.31% YOY)
• Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) - $254.08 (Increased 10.18% YOY)
• Pfizer Inc. (PFE) - $18.43 (Increased 9.12% YOY)
• Realty Income Corporation (O) - $6.16 (Increased 6.39% YOY)
• Southern Company (SO) - $16.20 (Increased 7.86% YOY)
• Target Corp. (TGT) - $54.79 (Increased 64.98% YOY)
• Time Inc. (TIME) - $0.04 (Decreased 80.95% YOY)
• V.F. Corporation (VFC) - $18.34 (Increased 376.36% YOY)
• Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (WBA) - $10.00
• W.W. Grainger, Inc. (GWW) - $25.80
• Total taxable dividend income of $793.70 increased 28.47% YOY.

New positions I added fresh capital to this year are D, GWW, MMM, and WBA.  Existing positions I added fresh capital to this year are K, TGT, VFC, and XOM.  All other dividend increases are from dividends reinvested and dividend raises from the companies.  TIME cut its dividend so that's a bummer, but TIME is also a company in my portfolio as a result of my parents purchasing AOL for me many years ago.  Overall, 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 Dividend Income (Total: $1,939.17)

• 3M Company (MMM) - $8.37
• Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (ADM) - $12.11 (Increased 9.69% YOY)
• Chevron Corporation (CVX) - $13.34 (Decreased 1.55%YOY)
• Emerson Electric Co. (EMR) - $11.42 (Increased 4.20% YOY)
• Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) - $9.50 (Increased 1.93% YOY)
• Kellogg Company (K) - $8.22
• Target Corp. (TGT) - $10.24 (Increased 6.67% YOY)
• Unilever plc (UL) - $11.97
• V.F. Corporation (VFC) - $8.46 (Increased 11.90% YOY)
• W.W. Grainger, Inc. (GWW) - $6.50
• Vanguard Health Care Fund Investor Shares (VGHCX) - $1,457.35
• Vanguard REIT Index Fund Admiral Shares (VGSLX) - $381.69 (Decreased 21.77% YOY)
• Total non-taxable dividend income of $301.16 increased 12.55% YOY.

New positions I added fresh capital to this year are GWW, K, and MMM.  CVX had a YOY decrease due to the partial shares being liquidated when I consolidated brokerage accounts.  VGSLX had a YOY decrease as well, but the distributions are entirely up to the fund managers.  This is one of the annoying things about mutual funds; because the distributions are based on the fund managers' discretion, they fluctuate so it's difficult to get a reliable estimate of the amount of distributions expected to be received from year to year.  However, I don't want to sell these mutual funds since I want some diversification in case my individual stock picking skills don't pan out as well as I'd like.  All other dividend increases are from dividends reinvested and dividend raises from the companies.  Overall, I'm very happy with the total year over year dividend increase.

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

Market Values (Total: $508,071.57)

• Brokerage Accounts - $153,138.46 (Increased 2.41% from prior month)
• Roth IRA - $90,679.21 (Increased 0.86% from prior month)
• 401(k) - $264,253.90 (Increased 1.53% from prior month)
• Total market value increased 1.67% 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 as I had no savings.  I actually had to slightly tap into my emergency savings, but I can explain why.  The two main reasons I had no savings this month was because I spent a decent chunk of money on vacation, and also because I decided to pay my first and second quarter real estate taxes for 2018 this month.  Due to the new tax law changes signed by our president, I decided to accelerate my real estate tax payments due 2018 in 2017.  I think this is the right move for our family so I'm ok with not having any savings this month.

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

How did you do this month?