September Review / October Preview, 2016

Hobbling Gremlin here to talk about this past month and the road ahead.  The road ahead starts with a twisted ankle, which will slow up my personal progress, but not my FI progress.  As I write this I know that one of my wife's student loans is gone (the highest interest loan which was at 6.8%).  There is still a 2.8% loan out there for her education, and that one is looking like it will be done next month.  Otherwise the normalcy of life has started again with the school year restarting.  This also means two paychecks back in the house, time to make these next few months count.  Though that normalcy is also to be short-lived, when you live in the DC area, election time should fill you with dread.  Not the dread of whoever wins, rather the dread of road closures and stupid rules for traffic. 

September:

I bought a bunch of new stock in my new Pre-Tax IRA account, which was funded with rollover money from my old 401k.  This was done in two phases; phase 1 and phase 2.  I will begin count these dividends along with others, but they will not be counted towards my year end goals. In addition, I added one share of YUM in my Loyal3 account, but only one so it was not worth an article. 

Last month I brought in a total of $115.43 in dividends ($75.50 taxable, $39.93 Roth).  This is an increase from last year ($79.91 total) by 44.5%.  Growth surely cannot maintain such high percentages, but with the new pre-tax IRA counting in the future surely the numbers will begin to balloon.

In terms of dividend increases, I realized four this month from Hershey's (HSY), Kellogg's (K), Realty Income (O), and Target (TGT).  The raises ranged from 1% to 7%. 

Next month I will realize two dividend increases.  They will be from O and Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS).  The increases range from around 0.2% to above 2.8%. Thus far for 2016, I have realized 25 dividend increases!

October:

Things are getting exciting.  As I noted above, one of my wife's student loans is gone.  Since last December (when I first looked into this) we have plowed $7.6k into her debt and now just about $850 remains.  It may seem like a small drop in the bucket, but it is a huge stride forward.  Within a few months our savings will be bouncing along with more investments.  This is the start of something big, I can feel it.

Next month should produce around $80 in dividends, which is a 51% YOY increase. At this point I will already eclipse last year's totals, which is just great.  .

My portfolio page is currently up to date.

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