April 2018 Dividends Received

April finished. Like clock work, the corporations I hold shares in deposited cash into my brokerage account as usual. Here is the breakdown:

Ticker	Total	Taxable	401k
MO	$380.81	$328.11	$52.70
PM	$353.66	$305.18	$48.48
KMB	$77.84	$37.99	$39.85
KO	$71.30	$71.30
XEL	$66.30	$66.30
MKC	$62.40	$40.44	$21.96
O	$56.82		$56.82
ADP	$45.45	$45.45
MDT	$44.29	$30.98	$13.31
ITW	$41.61	$41.61
SYK	$13.72	$9.45	$4.27
INTEREST	$1.63	$0.21	$1.42
	$1,215.83	$977.02	$238.81

The cash flow is getting better each month. The growth in my monthly dividend is due to my steady contribution every month for the last 4-5 years. It is starting to pay off it seems.

In addition to my periodic contributions, my dividends also climb due to each company's dividend increase. On average, the dividend increases this year so far is around 12%. This is much higher than the 10-10.5% increases I got in previous years. I think this is due to the tax reduction to corporations. If you estimate my annual dividend income from my portfolio as ~$12,000, then a 12% dividend hike on top of an average 2.8% portfolio dividend yield (reinvested) equals around 15% of income growth just from the portfolio growing by itself. 15% growth on $12,000 means my portfolio will grow its annual income by $1,800 to $13,800 all on its own. To put this in perspective, to get $1,800 in additional annual dividend income one needs to put $60,000 dollars to work on 3% yielding equities!

The 3 month average dividend received is creeping upward. In May I predict I will get $550 and June around $1200.