August 2015: Dividend Income, Trading Activity and Portfolio Snapshot

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.

• Babcock International--£13.03
• Bought 1 new share
• Banco Santander--£2.78
• This was actually c.£3.36 but had 21% deducted as withholding tax as it was paid cash rather than as a SCRIP. Future dividends are returning to SCRIP so will not be subject to this.
• National Grid--£19.71
• Bought 2 new shares
• HSBC Income Index Funds
• FTSE 250--£7.07
• FTSE All-Share--£4.37
• European--£4.74

Total for July: £51.72 ($79.46).

August has been a slow month for dividend income. Even after June and July having been around the £70 mark August is a much weaker one at £51.72. In fact, this is the lowest monthly income I have received since February this year. Still, it is not too bad.

August has always been a slow month for me as very few of the companies I hold payout at this time. However, fortune steps in through the means of my ETFs as all three of my main "income" ETFs payout in August with two of them being the sole dividend from the fund.

Historic Performance Comparisons

So, how does August 2015 compare to August 2014? Rather nicely actually. Last year I managed to scrape together £24.52. This means that I have doubled my income from last year.

What is more, last August the income came from only the ETFs and one other company (Banco Santander). You may have noticed that the Santander dividend cut made quite a dent on my income. Last year I received £11.03 (with fewer shares) from that one holding alone. It still remains an attractive long-term hold (and a good yield) but it has slashed my income somewhat.

As I noted last month, Q2 2015 left a massive quarterly target of £392.56 to beat. I don't expect Q3 2015 to beat this. Nonetheless, with £124.39 already chalked up just two months into the quarter I am already ahead of the £107.82 I earned in Q3 2014. Excellent news! What is more, September looks to be very strong which will hike me much higher I hope.

You can see more on my progress on my Dividends Received page. 

April and My Annual Goals

So how does August look in relation to my annual goals? Let's take a look:

Total Dividend Income: August--despite a modest total--still represents another pretty solid step towards my new 2015 dividend goal of £1100. So how close am I to my target now? Well, with this month's cash I am now at a total of £681.50 for the year. This leaves me at an excellent 61.95% towards my total after 8 months:

Monthly Average Income: With June and July being in the low £70's and August in the low £50's needless to say that my monthly average income (which was at  one point threatening the £100 mark) has been dragged yet lower. It now sits at £85.19. 

I am still amazed by this figure. If I could retain this throughout the rest of the year I would have an annual income of nearly £1025. As such, I am currently below the monthly average I would need to cross my £1,100 target line.

Am I worried? Not really. Rather excitingly, September and October are expected to be particularly strong months. Indeed, next month--on current predictions--should see me with an income total triple that of August. Hopefully this should put my income for the year back on track to beat this goal. We will see! 

Monthly Expenses: July, you may remember, was a tough month expenses wise for a variety of reasons. Alas, August was also a bit tough. Certainly, it was better than July. But I did have a couple of "unusual" expenses drop into my budget this month. 

One was a charity donation I give every year. Another was the purchase of some new walking boots for a short four-day holiday we had in the New Forest (my first one in years). All told, both contributed about £250 to my expenses.

Thanks to careful budgeting though I managed to keep everything else in order including dining out which could have been terrifying whilst on holiday. 

As a result of this, my expenses for this month came out at £920.43. To be honest, I am pretty chuffed with this. Especially if you take out the two "extraordinary" expenses mentioned above then my expenses total would have been just £672.43. That is a great underlying expenses rate which I hope I can maintain going forward.

This higher figure does, of course, impact on my average monthly expenses figure. So, how does it look after August? Without the "extraordinary" expenses included, my average monthly expenses this year would be at about £810. However, with them included it jumps up to £841.73. That is quite a hefty jump up after spending most of the year watching the rate plummet. 

At this figure, though, I am still (just) below my average expenses total for last year of £845. However, as you can see, it is pretty much the same. I hope that the next few months should see this pulled down again. However, we do need to plan a trip to Ireland for a wedding in October which complicates this a little.

Work Freedom Day: And what about my Work Freedom Day? How many days have I bought myself for this year? The answer is despite a month which saw lower income and higher expenses I have earned another 2 days. My dividend income now gets me up to 24 January 2015. 

Obviously this has left me a little adrift for reading my target of 10 February 2015 by the end of the year! However, hopefully the combined effects of higher income and lower expenses in the near future should get me back on track.

Portfolio Additions

August was a slow month due to limited funds with regards to new purchases. However I did manage to top up one position:

• FTSE 100 insurance giant, Legal & General (LSE:LGEN).

This new addition should add about £30 to my predicted annual dividend income. This is very good news indeed.

Luckily, some of that will also come in 2015 with the interim dividend payment (which my top-up came prior to the ex-dividend date for) being paid in September. My top up has thus pretty much doubled the original income I was expecting from LGEN. Nice.

Portfolio Snapshot: Risers and Fallers

Below is the breakdown my holdings in terms of their weighting. I also include whether they:

• ▲ = Moved  up places during the month;
• ▼ = Moved down places during the month;
• ▬ = Same place as last month;
• ★ = New addition this month. 
• ★ = Large top-up purchase this month.
• ★ = Large sale this month.

	Company	Ticker	Shares	Value	Cost	Weight	Yield
1	GlaxoSmithKline	LON:GSK	195	£2,613.98	£3,015.93	9.98%	5.97%	▬
2	Interserve	LON:IRV	286	£1,671.67	£1,711.53	6.38%	3.93%	▬
3	HSBC	LON:HSBA	292	£1,514.60	£1,789.11	5.78%	6.14%	▬
4	AstraZeneca	LON:AZN	33	£1,359.60	£1,406.30	5.19%	4.42%	▬
5	Legal & General	LON:LGEN	512	£1,293.82	£1,371.81	4.94%	4.45%	★
6	Diageo	LON:DGE	69	£1,193.70	£1,211.56	4.56%	3.26%	▬
7	WPP	LON:WPP	84	£1,135.18	£1,291.03	4.33%	2.83%	▬
8	Royal Dutch Shell "B"	LON:RDSB	65	£1,105.57	£1,401.75	4.22%	7.19%	▬
9	Barclays	LON:BARC	411	£1,074.56	£1,076.63	4.10%	2.49%	▬
10	Unilever	LON:ULVR	40	£1,049.20	£998.11	4.01%	3.18%	▬
11	BP	LON:BP	237	£854.12	£1,056.67	3.26%	7.13%	▬
12	Babcock International	LON:BAB	73	£707.37	£709.88	2.70%	2.44%	▲
13	Amlin	LON:AML	134	£687.25	£688.50	2.62%	5.26%	▲
14	Hansteen Holdings	LON:HSTN	597	£686.55	£689.25	2.62%	4.35%	▼
15	Britvic	LON:BVIC	100	£665.60	£756.06	2.54%	3.23%	▲
16	Imperial Tobacco	LON:IMT	21	£660.14	£599.64	2.52%	4.20%	▼
17	Sky	LON:SKY	63	£656.64	£567.65	2.51%	3.15%	▼
18	Old Mutual	LON:OML	326	£646.56	£623.66	2.47%	4.39%	▼
19	BHP Billiton	LON:BLT	58	£646.03	£1,020.52	2.47%	7.06%	▬
20	Stock Spirits	LON:STCK	330	£644.69	£658.91	2.46%	1.40%	▲
21	Rolls-Royce Holdings	LON:RR	86	£639.41	£682.44	2.44%	3.06%	▼
22	National Grid	LON:NG	72	£615.54	£637.30	2.35%	5.01%	▲
23	SSE	LON:SSE	41	£602.93	£552.99	2.30%	6.01%	▼
24	Lancashire	LON:LRE	93	£600.74	£613.45	2.29%	1.51%	▼
25	BT Group	LON:BT.A	126	£548.88	£506.66	2.10%	2.85%	▲
26	PZ Cussons	LON:PZC	171	£545.56	£519.43	2.08%	2.51%	▼
27	Carillion	LON:CLLN	157	£533.34	£541.12	2.04%	5.23%	▬
28	Banco Santander	LON:BNC	98	£396.54	£515.86	1.51%	3.67%	▬
29	Seeing Machines	LON:SEE	6600	£313.50	£499.16	1.20%	0.00%	▲
30	Tesco	LON:TSCO	155	£296.59	£518.20	1.13%	0.61%	▼
31	Blinkx	LON:BLNX	500	£118.75	£493.68	0.45%	0.00%	▬
32	XL Group	NYSE:XL	3	£72.75	£55.24	0.28%	1.72%	▬
33	South32	LON:S32	58	£41.35	£0.00	0.16%	-- %	▬
	TOTAL			£26,151.37	£28,780.03	100%	4.24%
	TOTAL ($)			$40,281.78	$44,260.81

Charity

A few months I explained my new method for linking my investing activities to my charitable giving.

This month has seen an additional £2.23 added to my charitable microfinance account. This means that 2015's dividend income has resulted in £22.81 dropping into that account so far. This is a hefty £19.87 ahead of last years total by this stage in the year.

For my standard charity giving total August added a reasonable 25p. My total for 2015 is now £2.82. That is about £1.88 ahead of 2014 up to this point in the year.

How did you do?

How did your dividend income look for August? What new holdings did you pick up or old ones topped up? 

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