October 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.

• Amlin--£11.26
• Final dividend payment. I sold position in September.
• Diageo--£24.08
• Bought 1 new share
• GlaxoSmithKline--£37.05
• Bought 2 new shares
• HSBC--£18.82
• Bought 3 new shares
• Interserve--£22.59
• Bought 3 new shares
• Old Mutual--£8.64
• Bought 3 new shares
• PZ Cussons--£9.22
• Bought 3 new shares

Total for October: £131.65 ($203.50).

September saw one of my biggest single monthly dividend incomes. October has followed a similar trend with another £130 total--it is my fourth biggest monthly haul ever.

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

Sadly, this will be the last appearance of Amlin in these income lists. A favourite company in a favourite sector (speciality insurance) I sold it recently after it was purchased by Mitsui Sumitomo. About £11 will be lost from next years tally as a result.

However, the PZ Cussons income above does not include my recent purchase. Consequently, my income from that holding (not including dividend growth) will be over double the total above next year. Fortunately, this more than replaces the lost Amlin income.

Rather nicely I have also managed to add quite a nice amount of additional shares with this months income. Of the 7 companies that paid a dividend, I was able to with every one except for Amlin (modestly) increase my holdings in them with the proceeds.

Historic Performance Comparisons

So, how does October 2015 compare to October 2014? Very well indeed! Last year I managed to pull in £40.26. This means that I am sitting on an income about 325% larger than this time last year. Excellent progress.

October also marks the start of the final quarter of 2015. And what start! Already it is the fifth largest quarter I have ever had. It bodes well for a solid performance as we head towards the end of the year. Although November and December are--usually--weaker months. I should easily be able to sail ahead of the total for Q4 2014 (£171.24).

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

This Month and My Annual Goals

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

Total Dividend Income: October'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 £968.20 for the year. This leaves me at an excellent 88.02% towards my total after 10 months:

Monthly Average Income: Last month--after a couple of weaker months--I managed to pull my monthly average income back up to £92.95. This, as I noted at the time, would get me across my target line if it was maintained.

The strength of October's income has helped drag my average higher still to £96.82.

This is a brilliant figure. If I could retain this throughout the rest of the year I would have an annual income of over £1160. As such, I am currently modestly ahead of my target income for the year.

This will be handy as, as I mentioned above, November and December will likely be weaker months. November already has all dividends declared and is likely to just come in above £50. December is stronger but I certainly needed to be ahead of schedule at this stage to get me across the the £1100 line.

Monthly Expenses: July through September were, as I mentioned last month, very hard expenses wise. Fortunately, October sees me back on track.  

Me and Miss DD went to the wedding in Ireland earlier this month. Many expenses for this hit this month again. However, fortunately, cost-cutting elsewhere as well as a lot of the costs already being paid meant that I am back down to a better figure.

My expenses for this month came out at £775.21 (much lower than the £900+ months of late). To be honest, I am pretty chuffed with this. 

Again, £200 of this came from holiday-related expenses. I was actually pretty surprised when this sub-£800 figure came out and had to check it twice.

Rather pleasingly this lower total also means that I am--once again--running below last years monthly average of £845. Thanks to October's more modest total I am back down to an average of £841.64 per month. Hopefully this will keep dropping!

Work Freedom Day: And what about my Work Freedom Day? How many days have I bought myself for this year? Thanks to a combination of higher dividend income and lower expenses I have pulled in an additional 6 days (you read that right)! My dividend income now gets me up to 4 February 2015. 

Obviously this still leaves me 6 days adrift for reaching my target of 10 February 2015 by the end of the year! I noted last month that this goal was looking increasingly challenging. 

I suspect that if I am going to reach that goal I am going to have to see a sharp drop in my average monthly expenses as I don't think my predicted income alone will pull me passed that target (though I will be close).

Portfolio Additions

October has been a very modest month with regards to activity with only one purchase:

• S&P 500 consumer giant, Procter & Gamble (PG)

This new addition should add about £7.50 (minus withholding tax) to my predicted annual dividend income. This is pretty good for such a small holding.

Luckily, one of the quarterly payments will also drop into my account this calendar year which will be helpful.

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	197	£2,767.85	£3,042.28	9.85%	5.69%	▬
2	Unilever	LON:ULVR	73	£2,113.04	£1,854.01	7.52%	2.76%	▬
3	Interserve	LON:IRV	289	£1,608.29	£1,728.78	5.72%	4.13%	▬
4	HSBC	LON:HSBA	295	£1,497.42	£1,804.86	5.33%	6.24%	▬
5	AstraZeneca	LON:AZN	33	£1,372.65	£1,406.30	4.88%	4.35%	▬
6	Legal & General	LON:LGEN	518	£1,355.09	£1,387.14	4.82%	4.30%	▬
7	Diageo	LON:DGE	70	£1,311.47	£1,230.23	4.67%	3.01%	▬
8	PZ Cussons	LON:PZC	407	£1,229.67	£1,233.10	4.37%	2.65%	▬
9	WPP	LON:WPP	84	£1,226.84	£1,291.03	4.36%	2.62%	▬
10	Royal Dutch Shell "B"	LON:RDSB	66	£1,127.61	£1,418.27	4.01%	7.12%	▬
11	Barclays	LON:BARC	412	£955.84	£1,079.25	3.40%	2.80%	▬
12	BP	LON:BP	241	£929.42	£1,070.71	3.31%	6.63%	▬
13	Hansteen Holdings	LON:HSTN	597	£740.88	£689.25	2.64%	4.03%	▬
14	Imperial Tobacco	LON:IMT	21	£733.32	£599.64	2.61%	3.67%	▬
15	Babcock International	LON:BAB	73	£702.78	£709.88	2.50%	2.45%	▲
16	Britvic	LON:BVIC	100	£699.00	£756.06	2.49%	2.99%	▼
17	Old Mutual	LON:OML	326	£692.10	£623.66	2.46%	4.10%	▲
18	Sky	LON:SKY	63	£688.94	£567.65	2.45%	3.00%	▬
19	National Grid	LON:NG	72	£667.07	£637.30	2.37%	4.63%	▼
20	Lancashire	LON:LRE	93	£662.87	£613.45	2.36%	1.36%	▼
21	SSE	LON:SSE	42	£635.05	£567.77	2.26%	5.85%	▼
22	Stock Spirits	LON:STCK	331	£630.56	£660.86	2.24%	1.40%	▲
23	BHP Billiton	LON:BLT	60	£629.13	£1,040.84	2.24%	7.47%	▼
24	BT Group	LON:BT.A	128	£595.20	£515.52	2.12%	2.67%	▲
25	Rolls-Royce Holdings	LON:RR	86	£593.44	£682.44	2.11%	3.30%	▼
26	Carillion	LON:CLLN	157	£479.64	£541.12	1.71%	5.81%	▬
27	Banco Santander	LON:BNC	98	£356.15	£515.86	1.27%	4.00%	▬
28	Seeing Machines	LON:SEE	6600	£339.24	£499.16	1.21%	0.00%	▬
29	Tesco	LON:TSCO	155	£284.12	£518.20	1.01%	0.63%	▬
30	Procter & Gamble	NYSE:PG	5	£247.12	£231.80	0.88%	2.95%	★
31	Blinkx	LON:BLNX	500	£124.25	£493.68	0.44%	0.00%	▬
32	XL Group	NYSE:XL	3	£73.90	£55.24	0.26%	2.60%	▬
33	South32	LON:S32	58	£39.17	£0.00	0.14%	0.00%	▬
	TOTAL			£28,069.92	£30,065.34	100%	4.03%
	TOTAL ($)			$43,451.03	$46,475.00

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 £2.66 added to my charitable microfinance account. This means that 2015's dividend income has resulted in £30.52 dropping into that account so far. This is a hefty £24.85 ahead of last years total.

How did you do?

How did your dividend income look for October? 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]