February 2015: Dividend Income and Trading Activity (Updated)

Revised: Slightly changed value of Banco Santander dividend. Also adjusted total accordingly.

Every month I am going to be providing a breakdown of the dividend income received from my shares. The overall monthly total will be included on the main “Dividends Received” page.

• Banco Santander--£9.20
• Given as 2 new shares (SCRIP)
• BT Group--£4.88
• Bought 1 new share.
• Imperial Tobacco--£18.75
• HSBC ETFs--£3.78

Total for February: £36.61 ($56.48).

Unlike January, February has seen dividends coming in not from one source but from four. What is more, they contributed a pretty nice bit of income. £36.61 does mean that it is only slightly higher than January but higher it is!

This also means that--as a result of me receiving no dividends in February 2014--my income has again increased by 100% year on year.

What is more, this represents another healthy step towards my 2015 dividend goal of £800. So how close am I to my target now? A pretty nice 9.1%:

This means that only two months in and I am already almost 10% towards my goal for the year. What is perhaps more exciting is that March and April are looking to be very strong months which are likely to be threatening to topple December 2014 (during which I earned over £111) as my highest dividend income in a single month.

This has also meant that I am considerable ahead of my 2014 monthly dividend average of £27.48. And, at £73.18 in the first two months alone, I am not only well ahead of my full Q1 income last year (£21.60) but, in fact, it already represents the third best quarter so far. With the bumper March I am anticipating I should find Q1 2015 to be my largest dividend quarter ever. Excellent news.

And what about my Work Freedom Day? How many days have I bought myself so far this year? The answer: 2 Jan 2015. Not huge, but is is certainly a solid start!

Purchases

During February I have also invested in two new FTSE 100 companies:

• Oil mega-cap, Royal Dutch Shell "B" (LON:RDSB).
• Largest utility on the London Stock Exchange, National Grid (LON:NG).

I also added to one previous FTSE 100 holding:

• Banking mega-cap (and largest company on the FTSE), HSBC Holdings (LON:HSBA).

These two new purchases and top up should together add about £114 to my annual dividend income for the coming year.

[Creative Commons image from Flickr user 401(k) 2012]

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