September 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.

• AstraZeneca--£18.98
• Barclays--£4.11
• Bought 1 new share.
• BHP Billiton--£23.35
• Bought 2 new shares
• BP--£15.52
• Bought 4 new shares
• BT Group--£10.71
• Bought 1 new share
• Imperial Tobacco--£4.49
• Lancashire--£3.02
• Legal & General--£17.66
• Bought 6 new shares
• Royal Dutch Shell--£20.10
• Bought 1 new share
• SSE--£25.34
• Bought 1 new share
• Stock Spirits--£3.01
• Bought 1 new share
• Unilever--£8.44
• XL Group--£0.32

Total for September: £155.04 ($234.73).

After a few months of pretty quiet dividend income I am back to a heftier one with September as the the big payout season hits. Indeed, this month's total of over £155 is three time larger than August and comfortably over twice larger than both June and July.

This month sees another diverse set of companies passing cash back to me. Healthcare, banks, insurers, miners, oil supermajors, telecoms giants, utilities and consumer products and beverages companies all make an appearance. This sort of income diversity is really nice to see.

Rather nicely I have also managed to add quite a nice amount of additional shares with this months income. Of the 13 companies that paid a dividend, 8 of them I was able to (modestly) increase my holdings in them with the proceeds. At some point I will take a look at the compounding effect of this on my portfolio. It would be interesting.

Historic Performance Comparisons

So, how does September 2015 compare to September 2014? Very well indeed! Last year I managed to pull in £63.14. This means that I am sitting on an income about 250% larger than this time last year. Excellent progress.

What is more, last September included the contribution from my previously high-yielding holding Catlin Group which was acquired in May this year. Consequently, this growth is actually even more impressive than it originally seems.

September also marks the end of the third quarter of 2015. Over this last quarter I managed to tally up £279.44 in dividend income. Not bad at all. Of course, this is considerably short of my record-breaking Q2 2015 total of £392.56.

Nonetheless, it is comfortably ahead of both Q1 2015 (£164.55) and--most importantly--Q3 2014 (£107.82). All in all, then the year-on-year quarterly improvement is about 260%. Another excellent performance.

Also--unlike Q2 2015--this quarter included no special dividends whatsoever. I can therefore expect to see the total around about the same next year.

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

This Month and My Annual Goals

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

Total Dividend Income: September's significant dividend income means I have made yet another hefty leap towards my 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 £836.55 for the year. This leaves me at an excellent 76.05% towards my total after 9 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 a lot lower of late. Last month the average sat at £85.19. 

However, this months heftier total has pulled me back up to a monthly average of £92.95.

This is a brilliant figure. If I could retain this throughout the rest of the year I would have an annual income of over £1115. As such, I am currently modestly ahead of my target income for the year.

Even better news, October should be an equally strong performing month. Maybe not quite as much as September has been but certainly enough to leave me ahead of my target going into the last two months which--at current predictions--look to be a bit slower. 

Monthly Expenses: July and August were both tough months expenses wise. Sadly, the same applies to September. 

Me and Miss DD are having to go to a wedding in Ireland later in October. Although I am looking forward to the opportunity to visit Ireland for the first time it is--unfortunately--rather expensive. As such, both September and October look likely to be "heavier" months again.

On the plus side, many of the large holiday expenses have fallen in September with some others spread out in October as well. As such, the month is not as bad as it could have been.

Nonetheless, my expenses for this month came out at £970.32 (higher than Augusts at £920.43). To be honest, I am pretty chuffed with this. 

Basically, the Ireland-specific expenses come in at about £300 in September. As such, without these "extraordinary" expenses I would be at about £670. This is pretty much identical as last months "underlying" expenses. Hopefully, once these "extraordinary" expenses start to slow down (which they will) I will be able to get down to monthly expenses rates of c.£700 again which would be a huge relief.

This higher figure does, of course, impact on my average monthly expenses figure. So, how does it look after September? With the "extraordinary" expenses included, my average monthly expenses has jumped from £841 to £856. That is quite a hefty jump up after spending most of the year watching the rate plummet. 

This also means that--annoyingly--I am now running a monthly average above my total for last year of £845. Hopefully, even if October is also an expensive month, November and December will see me able to pull it down a little (hopefully).

Work Freedom Day: And what about my Work Freedom Day? How many days have I bought myself for this year? The answer is despite another high expenses month my higher income for September has helped add an additional earned another 5 days. My dividend income now gets me up to 29 January 2015. 

Obviously this still leaves me 12 days adrift for reaching 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. Nonetheless, the goal is looking increasingly challenging.

Portfolio Additions

September has been a modestly active month with a sale and two top-ups:

• FTSE 250 consumer goods company, PZ Cussons (LSE:PZC).
• I sold FTSE 250 insurer, Amlin (LSE:AML) and invested the proceeds into the FTSE 100 consumer goods giant, Unilever (LSE:ULVR)

This new addition should add about £47 to my predicted annual dividend income. This is very good news indeed.

Luckily, some of that will also come in 2015 with a quarterly dividend payment from Unilever being paid in December. My top up has, in fact, pretty much doubled the original income I was expecting from Unilever in that month. Nice.

NB: I have also opened a position in Procter & Gamble. More on that next month, however.

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	£2,504.78	£3,015.93	9.30%	6.23%	▬
2	Unilever	LON:ULVR	73	£1,969.54	£1,854.01	7.31%	3.06%	★
3	Interserve	LON:IRV	286	£1,687.40	£1,711.53	6.26%	3.90%	▬
4	HSBC	LON:HSBA	292	£1,481.90	£1,789.11	5.50%	6.38%	▬
5	AstraZeneca	LON:AZN	33	£1,388.31	£1,406.30	5.15%	4.40%	▬
6	Legal & General	LON:LGEN	518	£1,232.84	£1,387.14	4.58%	4.73%	▬
7	Diageo	LON:DGE	69	£1,227.17	£1,211.56	4.56%	3.17%	▬
8	PZ Cussons	LON:PZC	404	£1,192.61	£1,224.02	4.43%	2.71%	★
9	WPP	LON:WPP	84	£1,158.41	£1,291.03	4.30%	2.77%	▬
10	Royal Dutch Shell "B"	LON:RDSB	66	£1,059.96	£1,418.27	3.93%	7.73%	▬
11	Barclays	LON:BARC	412	£1,020.73	£1,079.25	3.79%	2.62%	▬
12	BP	LON:BP	241	£834.22	£1,070.71	3.10%	7.54%	▬
13	Hansteen Holdings	LON:HSTN	597	£718.19	£689.25	2.67%	4.16%	▲
14	Imperial Tobacco	LON:IMT	21	£706.02	£599.64	2.62%	3.81%	▲
15	Britvic	LON:BVIC	100	£687.20	£756.06	2.55%	3.04%	▬
16	Babcock International	LON:BAB	73	£671.60	£709.88	2.49%	2.57%	▼
17	National Grid	LON:NG	72	£662.26	£637.30	2.46%	4.66%	▬
18	Sky	LON:SKY	63	£662.13	£567.65	2.46%	3.04%	▲
19	Lancashire	LON:LRE	93	£642.93	£613.45	2.39%	1.43%	▲
20	SSE	LON:SSE	42	£635.88	£567.77	2.36%	5.84%	▲
21	Old Mutual	LON:OML	326	£624.29	£623.66	2.32%	4.54%	▼
22	BHP Billiton	LON:BLT	60	£622.50	£1,040.84	2.31%	7.70%	▼
23	Stock Spirits	LON:STCK	331	£613.18	£660.86	2.28%	1.49%	▼
24	Rolls-Royce Holdings	LON:RR	86	£589.53	£682.44	2.19%	3.32%	▼
25	BT Group	LON:BT.A	128	£542.85	£515.52	2.02%	2.92%	▬
26	Carillion	LON:CLLN	157	£476.90	£541.12	1.77%	5.84%	▬
27	Banco Santander	LON:BNC	98	£347.36	£515.86	1.29%	4.24%	▬
28	Seeing Machines	LON:SEE	6600	£317.46	£499.16	1.18%	0.00%	▬
29	Tesco	LON:TSCO	155	£278.23	£518.20	1.03%	0.65%	▲
30	Procter & Gamble	NYSE:PG	3	£142.31	£135.11	0.53%	3.06%	★
31	Blinkx	LON:BLNX	500	£131.75	£493.68	0.49%	0.00%	▬
32	XL Group	NYSE:XL	3	£71.94	£55.24	0.27%	2.67%	▬
33	South32	LON:S32	58	£37.27	£0.00	0.14%	-- %	▬
	TOTAL			£26,902.36	£29,881.55	100%	4.21%
	TOTAL ($)			$40,796.02	$45,251.13

Charity

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

This month has seen an additional £5.05 added to my charitable microfinance account. That is my biggest single monthly contribution yet. This means that 2015's dividend income has resulted in £27.86 dropping into that account so far. This is a hefty £22.19 ahead of last years total by this stage in the year. 

How did you do?

How did your dividend income look for September? 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]