EMF’s December 2020 Dividend Income Review

Welcome back to my monthly dividend Investing review where I will analyse my dividend Income for December 2020.

2020 will be a year that nobody will forget in a hurry. I don’t think anybody could have predicted the devastating effect COVID-19 would have. On a personal note, I ended up selling my café business during the first lockdown. It was a hard decision at the time, but as I sit here in our 3rd lockdown it has turned out to be a good decision.

With my extra free time, I decided to set up an online store with my 10-year son. The goal of this store is to help teach him about business and if he can make a little profit along the way then that is a bonus. His shop can be viewed here for anyone interested – Gym Tribe

From an investing point of view, it was certainly a rollercoaster of a year. The markets crashed hard in March, but it was also a good example of why you should not panic. As dividend Investors, the most important aspect is cash flow and income. Prices will fluctuate, but companies with strong balance sheets and cash flow will be able to navigate through the tough times.

For this report, you might notice that the spreadsheet I am using to track my investments has changed. I recently downloaded the investment portfolio tracker from the measure of a plan. What I really like about this Gsheet is that it handles currency very well and I can view everything in Euro. I hope won’t mind, but iv added a few different things to suit my own investments but I would highly recommend that you check out the original.

Hope you enjoy my review and drop me a line if you have any questions!

December Dividend Income

In December 2020 I earned €117.80 in Dividend Income. This is up from €50.22 in 2019 which is an increase of 234%. 10 companies paid me a dividend compared to 9 in 2019 but there were also a lot of changes. Companies that I added were Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, and Royal Dutch Shell.

Companies that I sold were J.M Smucker , LyondellBasell Industries, Target and Sonoco.

December Dividend Raises

An Important part of a dividend growth reinvesting strategy is that companies increase there dividends regularly.

• IBM Dividend per share YoY increased from $1.62 to $1.63
• MMM Dividend per share YoY increased from $1.44 to $1.47
• WBA Dividend per share YoY increased from $0.4575 to $0.4675
• O Dividend per share YoY increased from $0.227 to $0.235
• KO Dividend per share YoY increased from $0.40 to $0.41

Dividend Income Chart

The goal of my portfolio is to generate enough dividend income to cover my everyday expenses. Every month I deposit at least €1250 in one of the companies in my portfolio. As you can see from the chart below, The dividends that I have been receiving each month have been slowly trending upwards.

Last year I received a total of €1115 in dividend income. Due to the additional purchases, I have been making every money, my expected income now exceeds €1500. My goal for 2021 is to increase my forward income to €2000.

I currently have a 75%/25% split in US companies to European Companies. Information Technology and Consumer staples currently make up 50% of the portfolio and My current top 5 holdings are Realty Income, Royal Dutch Shell, Danone, Intel, and AT&T

At this stage in my portfolio, the impact of new capital minimizes the impact of dividend hikes and dividend reinvestment. But over time dividend growth will become very important. Organic dividend growth is when dividends are increased without adding new capital or reinvesting them. I aim for at least 5% organic growth per year. I have not calculated the organic growth this year because I made so many changes to my portfolio but this will become an important metric going forward.

To calculate my organic dividend growth rate, I will keep a record of my holding at the end of 2020 and I will check to see how much each company increased dividends at the end of 2021.

Thats it for December, It is inspiring to read other peoples journey so please Drop a comment below with your own blog link if you write a montly update.

Thanks for stopping by!

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