This is what dividend investing is all about!  Investing in dividend stocks allows YOU to earn dividend income, the best passive income stream!  Bias, you better believe it.

Time to dive into Lanny’s December 2022 dividend income results!  Were records set?  Almost to financial freedom?  One day and one month at a time!

Dividend Income

Dividend Income is the fruit from the labor of investing your money in the stock market.  Further, Dividend Income is my primary vehicle on the road to Financial Freedom, which you can see through my Dividend Portfolio.

How do I research & screen for dividend stocks prior to making a purchase?  I use our Dividend Diplomat Stock Screener and trade on Ally’s investment platform (one of our Financial Freedom Products), as well as SoFi’s investing application – commission free.

Related: Dividend Diplomat Stock Screener

Related: Financial Freedom Products

Related: 3 Financial Products to Create Wealth in 2022

I also automatically invest and max out, pre-tax, my 401k through work and my Health Savings Account.  This allows me to save a TON of money on taxes (aka thousands), which allows me to invest even more.  In addition, all dividends I receive are automatically being reinvested back into the company that paid the dividend, aka Dividend Reinvestment Plan or DRIP for short.  This takes the emotion out of timing the market and BUILDS onto my passive income stream!

Related: Tax Strategy – Part 3 to Reduce Taxes & Increase Investment.

Related: The Power of Dividend Reinvesting

Related: Why I Don’t Time or Predict The Market

Growing your dividend income takes time and consistency.  Investing as often, and early, as you can allows compound interest (aka dividends) to work it’s magic.  I have gone from making $2.70 in a single month in dividend income to well over … $10,000+ in a single month.  A NEW dividend income record was set in December of 2021. Was it broken this month?!  The power of compounding and dividend reinvestment is a wonderful component to the portfolio.  Each and every month, whether big or small, I continue to report the passive income that dividend investing provides me.  Why?

*Not pictured is my wife’s dividend income above*

I want to show YOU that dividend investing makes it possible to achieve financial freedom and/or financial independence.  We all start somewhere, but consistently investing, compounding (reinvesting) dividends and keeping it simple, allows you to be in a significantly better position than most.  Further, if I can grow this portfolio and income stream, YOU can too.

dividend income – December 2022

Now, on to the numbers… In December, we (my wife and I) received a dividend income total of $8,110.03.  There we go!  we crossed $5,000 yet again this year, for my wife and I.  This is true passive income and the investing from 2022 is paying off.  A LOT of this is in the retirement account, however.

The amount and number of stocks listed below show you what it means to buy and hold for the long term.  Most of the positions I have owned for YEARS, letting dividend growth and reinvestment do it’s thing.  This is what dividend investing for financial freedom is all about.  The passive income stream is growing at a RAPID pace.  A decade of investing is snowballing on it’s own, but we keep investing as much as we can.

2022 finished off with another down week, ending up below 3,900!  The market was DOWN 20% for the year.  Only 1 time since 1980 has the stock market been down back to back years.  Will this be the second time the stock market drops consecutively?  Are you investing in this recession?

In addition, the Fed has raised rates by 425 points so far this year, which is wild.  Do we see another 50 basis point increase in February?  Time will tell, but I will bet we do.  Student loan forgiveness is a mess, as they kicked the can on that down the road, deferring interest yet again.  The housing market is in straight cool down mode and Crypto is in a free fall thanks to FTX, causing bankruptcies to companies – such as BlockFi.

Here is the breakdown of dividend income for the month of December, between taxable and retirement (far right column, under “Retirement”) accounts.  In addition, “W” means my wife’s account:

So what happened in dividend income this month?

Vanguard’s High Dividend Yield ETF (VYM) sent $461 from my account and $382 to my wife’s.  In total, we are talking over $800 in ONE quarter alone in passive income.  That’s why we keep adding and stacking shares weekly!

Dividend aristocrats T. Rowe Price (TROW), McDonalds (MCD), Aflac (AFL), Grainger (GWW), ConEd (ED), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) all sent checks this way, amongst a few others.  That’s what it’s all about.

I also split out my retirement accounts in the far right column and the taxable account dividends are in the left two columns.  The retirement accounts are composed of H.S.A. investments, ROTH and Traditional IRAs, as well as our work 401(k) accounts.  In total, the retirement accounts brought in a total dividend income amount of $4,859.73 or 60% of the dividend income total.  Need to get the taxable to $5,000+, and whoop the retirements accounts ass.  COME ON!

Related: Maximizing your Roth for 10 Years… Then Set It & Forget It!

DIvidend Income Year over Year Comparison

2021:

2022:

Our dividend income was…. DOWN AGAIN from last year (A repeat from November)… dangit!  What happened?  

First, the 401k mutual funds for my wife and I, from our old employer is VINIX from Vanguard.  Since 2022 was down 20%, capital gain distributions were a LOT LESS, therefore, a lower payout was received.  That alone decreased our dividend total by $4,200.

Second, after taking that into effect, we actually were WAY up in our dividend totals.  I do want to recognize that.  T. Rowe Price (TROW) had the special dividend of $1.20 per share last year in 2021.  Therefore, that also caused a STEEP drop from 2021 to 2022.

Third, many increases and growth DID occur.  This financial freedom journey is not doom and gloom, especially when the totals cross $8,000.  Shell (SHEL) is back to growing their dividend, closer to pre-pandemic levels, as you can see above.  Vanguard’s ETFs continue to rocket up, with my VYM.

Lastly, it’s all gravy here.  This dividend income journey is incredible to be on, and I know 5 figures will be crossed in 2023.  I’ll bet my heart on it.

Overall, an incredible dividend month.  The push to $10,000 is on!  Keep on investing.

Dividend Increases

In December, we rocked in FOUR dividend increases, that really added a punch to the dividend stock portfolio.  

The increases below, for the most part, were anticipated.  Nothing really fell out of expectations.

CVS Health (CVS), though, was the one stock I wasn’t entirely sure on.  CVS began increasing their dividend again in 2021, post the Aetna acquisition.  Therefore, CVS now has 2 years in a row of growing their dividend, coming in hot with a 10% increase.

Related: The Impact of The Dividend Growth Rate!

Pfizer (PFE), though, was still slightly below expectations.  They need to shake this up, for the better of the shareholders, in 2023.

In total, the dividend increases created $32.39 in additional passive dividend income.  I would need to invest $925 at a 3.50% dividend yield in order to add that income.  Thank you for the increases, as I didn’t have to come up with the capital to create that form of income!

Dividend Income Conclusion & Summary

The name of the game is to apply what you learn through financial education.  The next steps are to maximize every dollar for investment opportunities and live life on your own terms.  My plan is to demonstrate that dividend income can be a revenue engine.  A revenue engine that allows you to take back control of your life.  A revenue engine to help you reach financial freedom.  Dividend investing, once you learn the right way, becomes easier and starts to immensely make sense!

Excited for the future, no doubt.  Further, all of the investing from last year and moves this year, shows that my aim to save 60% of my income, and making every dollar count, has provided the dividend growth.

If you are just starting out on your investment journey and you aren’t sure to start – please see the articles mentioned throughout this post.  We are trying to bring you financial education and help you reach your financial goals.  Further, if you are interested in our dividend stocks to buy for December, please see our YouTube channel, subscribe to our channel and check us out!  We’ll help break down further investing topics not only on this blog, but by showing you through video!

As always, thank you for stopping by, leave your comments and questions below.  Good luck and happy investing everyone!