Ah September, the leaves are changing color, it’s getting cold at night, and the sun is disappearing earlier in the day. September brings a lot of changes. One September constant, well it’s actually constant every month for me, is dividend income. I get paid, winter, spring, summer, and fall.
My September dividend income came in at $492.31. I’ve never had to say this before, but this month my dividend income is $115.01 less than my September 2015 dividend income. How could I make $607.32 last year and only $492.31 this year? Easy answer, I sold $70,000 worth of stock. In early August I chose to sell roughly 1/3 of my portfolio. I did this for three reasons: lock in profits, switch brokers, and to have more cash in hand to sell options.
This strategy shift did hurt my goal of making $7,500 in dividend income this year. However, I will make more than $7,500 in total income this year. As of September 30th, I’ve made $4,704.23 in dividend income and $3,548.43 in options income. I’ve made a total of $8,252.66. I expect to bring in total income of somewhere between $11,000 to $12,000 this year. All if this money is either DRIP invested or held back as cash for options trading.
My September Dividend Income
I was paid by 19 companies and 7 funds in September. This is the first month, I’m tracking funds in my dividend income calculations. These funds are either in my 401k, or my Acorns App investments. I’ve collected them before, but my account balances were so small it wasn’t worth tracking.
The largest dividends were paid by Copa Holdings, Flowers Foods, and Gilead Sciences. The smallest dividends were paid by iShares Treasury Bonds (SHY), iShares Corporate Bonds (LQD), and BP.
My September Dividend Income – Year-Over-Year
The chart below tracks my monthly dividends earned on a year-over-year basis. 2014 numbers are in blue. 2015 numbers are in red. 2016 numbers are orange. As shown, my September dividend income is down year-over-year. This trend will continue until such time as I buy back more stock.
As mentioned, I’m not worried about the drop in September dividend income. Total income is way up. I sacrificed $115 in September dividend income, to make $1,163 in September options income. Click To Tweet I made $1,048.33 more dollars this month by reducing my dividend income.
Wow, it was a busy month. I wrote 8 posts over at Options Hunting in September too. If you’re interested in learning more about my options strategies or to read my September Option Income Post, head over to Options Hunting. Moving forward I will not be posting month options revenue or related information on this site.
Overall Income
A few months ago I started tracking my overall income, not just dividends I had another fantastic income month. Here’s the past 3-months, plus September.
- June $1,286
- July $1,507
- August $1,420
- September $1,656
Overall income is dividend income and options income combined. In September I made $492.31 in dividends and $1,163.34 in options premiums. Added together and rounded to the nearest dollar, my September Dividend and Options Income was $1,656.
What was your September dividend income? What was your total September income?