Dividend and Expense Review - August 2019

For some reason, August is when I get all my insurance bills. It’s the car insurance month and it’s also the renter’s insurance month. On top of that, I’ve got my standard health insurance bills coming through and it’s a recipe for a tough savings month.

We’re also taking a trip to Atlanta in a month and I booked the flights and car rental in August. That means that expenses trended up so savings rate will trend down.

In fact, August has historically been my worst savings month. I guess the insurance bills are part of that but I’m assuming other expenses always come up. Since I started tracking, my highest savings rate August was 21.1% in 2016. Last year, I actually had a negative savings August here due to the start of some wedding expenses.

On the dividend side, August is another of the smaller months. I own a few shares of Apple that pay in August. However, the rest is just bonds, money market payments and my growing M1 Finance payouts. Still, I’ve grown my YTD dividends nearly 36% YTD so I’m hoping another decent bump over last August. After January, all of my months have hit $200+ so I’m hoping that’s the case this month as well.

That’d be great to see before we proceed to September, one of my big months for the year, but before that we’ve gotta look at August!

Last year’s August came in at $184.68 on the dividend side so let’s see where I sit now.

August Dividends

August clocks in at $255.52! That’s a 38.4% bump over last year.

It’s a continuation of the $200+ streak that started in February. It’s great to see this growth continue into the year. That’s a direct result of the great savings rates I’ve had throughout the year. August may not be great because of all these insurance bills but the year started off great so I’m in a really good spot.

That plus the compounding growth will continue to get these numbers up every year. The growth in year 1 and 2 was small but now it’s starting to really ramp up!

The August dividends will grow my forward income by $5.88! It’s not huge but I won’t complain about extra money.

They also bring the total for the year so far to $5937.74, a growth rate of 35.5% over this time last year.

Steve, my dividend employee, earned $1.53/hr this month. For the year, Steve’s hourly wage is $4.45 which isn’t quite amazing but it will improve as the last four months include two of the big ones.

You can see that in the graph below.

September will be impressive and so will December. October was an outlier last year as some dividends typically paid in September lagged a bit so I’m not sure that will happen again. It may mean a decrease in October if it doesn’t but it should help September grow quite a bit.

December is also ahead and it’s quite possible we hit a $4,000 month for the first time ever! I do have an expensive month or two coming up but will keep saving as much as possible to get that number as high as possible.

August Total : $255.52
2019 Total : $5,937.74
Portfolio monthly hourly wage : $1.53/hr
Portfolio annual hourly wage : $4.45/hr

Insurance Bills and Savings Rate

Last year’s August savings rate was -6.08% as my wedding expenses started to heat up. Add that to all my insurance bills and you’ve got a recipe for a bad month.

Let’s see where I ended up this August.

My savings rate came in at 32.8%. Adding in employer contributions takes that up to 39.8%.

On a gross income basis, I saved 24.5% of my money with 29.8% after employer contributions.

That’s pretty damn good. It continues a streak of solid months and instantly biggest my biggest August ever. It’s not a 50%+ month that I’ve had plenty of this year but I’m still pretty happy with it.

Rent was the #1 expense this month but spiked in August due to the renter’s insurance renewing this month. It’s not a huge payment but renter’s insurance is a good peace of mind item that is pretty useful if anything ever happens.

Travel was #2 and includes my flights and car rental for Atlanta. We have an airbnb booked down there too but my wife paid for that. That trip happens in October and will mean some expenses on that end. I plan to have some expensive meals so it’s good to pre-pay some of the expenses now!

The car payment includes my next insurance bill which is a bigger one. Car insurance is the highest insurance bill I have right now beyond health insurance. I assume once I’m a home owner, that will eclipse that but until then, it’ll be car insurance.

Beyond that, we didn’t do a ton. I’ve been keeping my restaurant expenses down since I’ll be spending a lot in that area in Atlanta.

Overall, while this isn’t the biggest month, it’s still a good trend of beating what I saved last year.

You can see that in the graph above. There’s a lot of good looking months in purple. The purple is above last year in every month aside from June and even that was a 50% month this year.

The great results are a combination of things. First, I’ve earned some side income and continued to increase my income via my job. Second, I’ve been more focused on reaching my goals and being reasonable with my expenses each month. I started off strong and intend to continue that into the last few months of the year. I know October will be rather expensive since I have a vacation planned but I still plan to end the year with good results.

That’ll mean good things for my dividends too. I honestly can’t wait to see my December results and see where I end up for the year. The goal is to smash my 2018 dividend record and I think I’m on pace to do just that.

As always, thanks for reading and hopefully you all had a great month too! Here’s to a great September as well! That’s always a great month as well.