July Review / August Preview, 2016

Back from vacation Gremlin here to talk about July and the next few months.   So vacation was great, I went to the UK and Italy and saw a lot of cool stuff.  I will put together a post on that soon, just been lazy of late.  I watched the end of the Euros over there and was happy to see CR7 and Portugal win (why? because he is a good player, and its nice to see a new team win, especially from a smaller nation).  Though, Iceland winning would have been cooler.

Now the focus is on my new job, which starts in less than two weeks.  In the mean time I will be wrapping up my current position.  One thing I will note is that my pay schedule will change from once every two weeks to monthly, which sucks.  This will mean cash is tight for a brief period, however my salary increase will really start to fit in quickly, and debts will be punished.

July:

I was able to put $90 and purchased a new share of YUM stock.  It was a small purchase, and I did not feel like it warranted any posting.

Last month I brought in a total of $84.98 in dividends ($65.47 taxable, $19.51 Roth).  This is an increase from last year ($77.69 total) by 9.4%.  Not a bad increase, but it could have been higher had I held onto Chubb stock, but I am happy with my decisions concerning that situation earlier this year.  Those transactions have given my DFS and AMP stock.

In terms of dividend increases, I realized two this month from from Realty Income (O) and CIBC (CM).  The raises ranged from 0.5% to 2.5% (local currency). 

Next month I will realize no dividend increases. Thus far for 2016, I have realized 20 dividend increases.  Boom.

August:

Our only long term debts are our cars and my wife's student loans, and her loan won't last the year.  With my new job rapidly approaching there will be a brief hiatus on putting extra cash towards debts, until I start getting paid.  Once that happens, all bets are off and I will be crushing debts with this extra cash.

Next month should produce around $91 in dividends, which is a 35% YOY increase.  Investing wise this will be a bare bones month or two.  Once my pay period becomes more regular, watch out debt, watch out.

My portfolio page is currently up to date.

Hope everyone has a great August!
- Dividend Gremlin
- Long all stock tickers mentioned