Time in the Market dividend review – December 2017

Happy new years everyone and welcome to the last dividend review for 2017.

This is the big one for us mutual fund and ETF investors. It’s a month I’ve been looking forward to for a while. It will be the deciding factor in whether I hit my dividend goals for the year.

I hope everyone reading had a great holiday break and enjoyed the time off. That is if you were lucky to have some to end the year.

If not, here’s a joke from joke bear to make you feel better before we get into the dividend review. I find that it’s often nice to start the day with something silly or humorous especially if you’ve had a tough week at work or if you’re like me and have to go back to work after a long break. That’s why joke bear is here to give me a joke!

What starts with an E, ends with an E but often only has one letter?

An envelope.

It’s true what they say; You can throw an envelope as far as you want, but it’ll still be stationery.

Now that we’re all sufficiently tickled, let’s take a look at my dividends and how Steve, my dividend employee did in what is usually his best month of the year.

As a reminder, December 2017’s total was $2940.09 and I need to hit least $2629.01 this month to hit my annual goal of $8000. 

December comes in with an excellent total of $2946.31!

Steve really got his hands dirty this month and pulled in an impressive $17.68/hr this month.

This December’s total isn’t much of an increase over 2017 as it grew by $6.22 or a 0.2% improvement. That’s not a lot but I’m happy with any growth and the small % is driven by the variability of mutual fund/ETF payouts. As an example of this variability that can occur any given year, one of my major international holdings typically pays once in December. However, this year  the fund also paid out in June this month as well effectively lowering my December payout by ~$230.

That’s why it’s the annual income that matters and December’s solid payout brings my annual total up to $8317.30 or a good deal above my annual goal of $8000!

That takes Steve’s hourly wage for the year up to $4.16/hr which is a nice little raise from the $3.51/hr he got last year.

The December dividend growth may be small but the yearly total is an 18.42% increase over last year and that’s what I’m looking for – a solid increase every year.

That level of growth shows why I set my bronze goal this year at 9250 which is higher than my gold goal last year. I’m expecting and trying to sustain this level of growth going forward and even improve upon it if I can.

My income this year also included some long term and short term capital gain payouts. Those I don’t track as dividends. The reason I don’t is that those payouts are more irregular(last year barely had any, this year had a lot) and can’t be counted on as well as dividends. The total for those was $2673.13 and brings the total income for the year up to $10990.43.

The great thing about dividends is reinvesting them with Steve, my dividend employee and letting them work for me. Reinvesting December’s dividends will generate an extra $64.82 in forward income.

The year’s total reinvested will generate $182.98 for next year. Since I reinvest the capital gains, including that in the total means I generate an extra $241.79 in forward income from all income collected this year.

The best part is that more than 75% of this income is in my tax-advantaged accounts. That means I don’t have to pay any taxes on it right now!

I’m pretty excited by the 2017 data and can’t wait to see how I do in 2018. I started tracking this data in late 2015 and the results speak for themselves. The graph is certainly pointing in the right direction and I’m eager to see 2018 raise the bars even higher.

The fact that I’m generating over $8000 in income and growing it at a fast pace is a great motivator. It makes me want to keep what I’m doing and pumping money into the stock market. I set some harder goals for myself in 2018. The easiest goal goes from $8000 to $9250 and I’m dedicated to hitting those goals.

That’s it for today’s update. I wish you an excellent, happy, healthy and fruitful new year. Thank you for being a part of this journey.

December Total : $2946.31
2017 Total : $8317.30
Portfolio monthly hourly wage : $17.68/hr
Portfolio annual hourly wage : $4.16/hr