November 2017 Summary

The time really flies by. The weather outside is looking more and more like winter (it is snowing while I am writing this) and the days are quite short now. I can see the bright side of this as well, though. It’s nice to sit comfortably inside, watch some TV series or read a book while the weather outside is frightful, so I won’t complain. Instead let’s see how my portfolio worked during November, as it doesn’t care much about the weather ๐Ÿ™‚

Dividend Income

The second month of the quarter is usually the best month for me. This is which companies paid dividends in November (amount is after taxes):

Even though the amount is not big, I am happy to have these quality companies constantly paying me some cash. Slowly the money is accumulating in my investment account and it will help me with future purchases.

There was a lot of noise regarding AT&T recently. The price took a dive during the last few months. What does it mean to me? Well, not much – I am still receiving the same amount in dividends every 3 months. It actually shows an opportunity to invest, as quite a few fellow dividend investors did recently (Lanny’s and Bert’s from DividendDiplomats purchase here and DividendDaze’s purchase here). The price is actually already recovering from the low of ~$33 in the beginning of November to ~$36 currently.

Another “boring” company that paid me this month was Procter & Gamble. We are actually using its products daily. For the amount of $4,35 (EUR 3,66), I could buy a big bottle of Fairy dish washing liquid (EUR 1.51 for 900ml), a 50m Oral-B floss (EUR 2.07) and would still have some change. It feels good to buy products from companies you are invested to, no matter how small the investment is ๐Ÿ™‚

While everybody around looks to be talking about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, most of dividend investors stay true to the old-fashioned dividend-growth investing. Time will tell which strategy will work better in the long run. I am still thinking that aย birdย in theย handย is worth two in the bush. I like that I receive dividends in cash which means it’s a realized profit while you may only turn profit from cryptocurrencies by selling it at higher price. You need to determine a good exit point in that case. And greed usually keeps people hoping that the price will keep going up until the bubble suddenly bursts. In the meanwhile, I just keep stable dividend company stocks in my portfolio and don’t need to worry about the price swings as long as the dividends are paid.

Year on Year comparison

I will also compare the dividends with November of last year:

Unfortunately, I didn’t add any companies during the year that would pay in November so the difference is very small. Nevertheless, it’s a step to the right direction. I like that each company increased their dividend compared to last year, even though the average difference is less than 3%. Every small bit helps the snowball grow if I reinvest those dividends so I will take any growth I can have, as long as it is going to the right direction.

Dividend Increases

This month none of my companies raised their dividends so nothing to report here.

Other Passive Income

I received EUR 4,46 in interest from P2P lending this month. It increased slightly from the last month (was EUR 4,41 in October) as I didn’t add any additional funds to this platform last month. During November I couldn’t resist and added a small amount (EUR 22) so my current active loans balance stands at EUR 353,9 which is distributed among 22 loans. I am not planning to add any additional funds to P2P lending during December and it will only automatically re-invest received back loans.

Summary

In total (in EUR) I received EUR 15,62 during November from passive income sources. This brings the total amount for 2017 to EUR 96,79 which is only EUR 3,21 shy of my goal of EUR 100! I will be able to reach it easily and will be reporting a summary of my goals that I set when I started this blog in August. December is going to be an interesting month. I enjoy the process of evaluating my goals and thinking of new ones for the next year. I am also thinking about adding one more company to my portfolio shortly but I will write a separate post for it so stay tuned!

 

How was your month of November? Are you waiting for the year end to re-visit what you achieved throughout 2017? Please leave your comments below and thanks for reading!

14 thoughts on “November 2017 Summary

  1. Thanks for the mention. Glad we are fellow shareholders on a few stocks as I also own T and O as you know. Slow and steady wins the race. Looks like the snowball has started for you, too bad it doesn’t happen as fast as the snow falling outside. Looking forward to seeing you hit your yearly goal after next month. Keep up the good work!

    1. Hi DD,
      Thanks for stopping by! No matter how slow the snowball is rolling, I am happy nevertheless ๐Ÿ™‚

  2. Congrats on your dividends. Keep it up ๐Ÿ™‚ I managed to grab cheap T my self 20 shares for 33,8$/share. O, PG, CSCO there are the shares im looking at also. Although O does not look very sustainable in long term, but most of REIT operates this way – paying higher dividends and increasing share number.

    Totally agree on bitcoin and crypto-currencies. Its total speculative thing. As long as people buys it and everyone is on it the value goes up. Its totally same thing as Tulip crisis in 17th century. Latest things ICOs… I don’t know people gets crazy. DotCom bubble all over again ๐Ÿ˜€

    1. Hi P2035,
      Thanks for your comment! It’s nice that you managed to add T to your portfolio at the correct price, as it turns out – great timing!
      I think REITs are obliged to pay most of their income to shareholders, and O didn’t disappoint yet. Of course, I don’t know what the future will bring but I will stick to what I have for now.
      Regarding cryptocurrencies, we will see – I see a lot of successful examples around but I am not sure how it will stand in the long run. I also agree with comparison to Tulip crisis – I think that’s what J.P.Morgan’s Jamie Dimon said.
      -BI

  3. BI –

    $13.24 in dividends is solid and is only going to get better! Further, AT&T is set to announce an increase and I bet that Realty Income (O) will announce an increase for January here in a few weeks. Pumped!

    -Lanny

    1. Hi Lanny,
      Thanks for stopping by! I really hope that your predictions turn out to be true and AT&T with O will deliver yet another dividend raise for us!
      -BI

  4. Hey BI, spot on results! As we discussed earlier its great to see a fellow invester in the same startup phases. We both got paid by T and O, nice!

    Keep grinding and buying those quality companies and you’ll see a better increase next november.

    1. Hi Mr. Robot,
      That’s right, each purchase increases the dividends by quite a bit so we got to enjoy the startup phase. I will do my best to add a company or two for next November ๐Ÿ™‚
      -BI

  5. Nice to see your dividend income is higher than last year November, even without adding new money. The power of dividend growth investing.

    I’m with you on the cryptocurrency thing. I’m really skeptical of it and wouldn’t dare putting any money into it. I’ll just stick to good ol’ dividend stocks.
    -SD

    1. Thanks for stopping by SD! It’s good to know that I am not the only one who is skeptical about the crypto-hype!

  6. Your dividends are moving in the right direction… up! The progress may seem small now but it will be rolling before you know it. I’m glad to be a shareholder in O & PG as well. Keep adding quality companies and watch it grow.

  7. Grats on the dividend income BI. All those companies paid me as well. You’re absolutely right, the dividends you’re getting doesn’t care if it’s snowing outside or sunny. The money you’ve invested keeps working for you day or night, during any weather condition.

    I’m not going to lie, it’s very tempting to just want to dive in based on what’s happening with bitcoins right now. But, it’s also good to remember that, even though it’s hot today, it’s still a speculative market, and it may not be hot when you’re ready to sell.

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