November 2015: Dividend Income, Trading Activity and Portfolio Snapshot

Apologies for the delayed portfolio update at the end of the year. I have been rather busy with all my other responsibilities!

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--£3.36
• Carillion--£8.95
• Bought 2 new shares
• Hansteen--£12.54
• Bought 10 new share
• Procter & Gamble--£1.84
• Sky--£12.92
• Bought 1 new share
• WPP--£13.36

Total for October: £52.97 ($80.02).

September and October were two of my biggest monthly dividend incomes so far with both months pulling in mid-£100 totals. November has always been a weaker month for me and this year it is no different.

Nonetheless, it was stronger than it had ever been before. Again, it was a month marked by diversity of income. Banks, industrial services, property, media and consumer companies all chipped in a little income to my tally. Fantastic to see.

Rather nicely I have also managed to add quite a nice amount of additional shares with this months income. Of the 6 companies that paid a dividend, I was able to increase my holdings in half of them.

Historic Performance Comparisons

So, how does November 2015 compare to November 2014? Very well indeed! Last year I managed to pull in a fairly measly £19.28. This means that I am sitting on an income about 274% larger than this time last year. Excellent progress.

October's bumper income set me off to a solid Q4 2015 total. Indeed, at £131.65 it got me very close to my Q4 2014 total of £171.4 in just one month. Needless to say, November's total has tipped me over that Q4 2014 total already at £186.62. This is fantastic as its means anything more added in December will merely bolster my year-on-year Q4 income growth.

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

This Month and My Annual Goals

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

Total Dividend Income: November's modest income has also helped push me tantalisingly close to my 2015 dividend goal of £1100. Indeed, it means I have crossed the £1,000 mark for the first time ever.

So how close am I to my annual target now? Well, with this month's cash I am now at a total of £1,021.17 for the year. This leaves me at an excellent 93.19% towards my total after 11 months:

Monthly Average Income: Last month--after a couple of stronger months--I managed to pull my monthly average income back up to £96.82. This total, if maintained, would easily get me across my £1,100 target.Indeed, if achieved throughout a whole year I would have had an annual income of over £1160. 

November's weaker income means that i have dropped back from this a little to £93.19. Despite this slight drop, this average would still see me cross the £1100 mark (just!).

I am still on track, and luckily December looks like it is going to be a good performer. I am therefore fairly confident my 2015 annual income target is still likely to be hit.

Monthly Expenses: October saw my expenses get back on track after a few expensive months. November has added to that further thankfully. 

Despite a number of extraordinary expenses I managed to keep other areas pared to the bone. As a result, I managed to come away from the month with expenses sitting at a very modest £700.41. lower still than the solid October total of  £775.21 and much lower than the £900+ months which had occurred before this. To be honest, I am pretty chuffed with this. 

Needless to say, this means that I am--once again--running below last years monthly average of £845. Thanks to October and November's more modest totals I am back down to an average of £828.80 per month. Hopefully December will see this drop again!

Work Freedom Day: And what about my Work Freedom Day? How many days have I bought myself for this year? Thanks to my lower expenses, even the more modest income for this month means I have pulled in an additional 2 days! My dividend income now gets me up to 6 February 2015. 

Obviously this still leaves me 4 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 have to say, it looks nigh on impossible at the moment. We will have to see how it looks at the end of December.

Portfolio Additions

November has been a very modest month with regards to activity with one sale and one purchase. I sold:

• FTSE 100 utility giant, SSE (LON:SSE)

To replace it, I topped-up my holding in:

• FTSE 250 consumer goods company, PZ Cussons (LON:PZC)

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	£2,630.48	£3,042.28	9.47%	5.99%
2	Unilever	LON:ULVR	73	£2,038.89	£1,854.01	7.34%	2.89%
3	PZ Cussons	LON:PZC	643	£2,013.88	£1,958.58	7.25%	2.55%
4	Interserve	LON:IRV	289	£1,583.72	£1,728.78	5.70%	4.20%
5	HSBC	LON:HSBA	298	£1,562.09	£1,821.55	5.62%	6.19%
6	AstraZeneca	LON:AZN	33	£1,461.54	£1,406.30	5.26%	4.18%
7	Legal & General	LON:LGEN	518	£1,381.56	£1,387.14	4.97%	4.22%
8	Diageo	LON:DGE	70	£1,322.58	£1,230.23	4.76%	2.99%
9	WPP	LON:WPP	84	£1,262.18	£1,291.03	4.54%	2.54%
10	Royal Dutch Shell "B"	LON:RDSB	66	£1,055.12	£1,418.27	3.80%	7.78%
11	Barclays	LON:BARC	412	£948.14	£1,079.25	3.41%	2.82%
12	BP	LON:BP	241	£890.83	£1,070.71	3.21%	7.07%
13	Babcock International	LON:BAB	73	£761.11	£709.88	2.74%	2.26%
14	Imperial Tobacco	LON:IMT	21	£745.06	£599.64	2.68%	3.97%
15	Sky	LON:SKY	64	£711.26	£579.22	2.56%	2.95%
16	Hansteen Holdings	LON:HSTN	607	£703.33	£701.14	2.53%	4.32%
17	Britvic	LON:BVIC	100	£702.50	£756.06	2.53%	2.98%
18	Old Mutual	LON:OML	329	£655.37	£630.16	2.36%	4.37%
19	National Grid	LON:NG	72	£648.79	£637.30	2.34%	4.76%
20	BT Group	LON:BT.A	128	£614.40	£515.52	2.21%	2.58%
21	Lancashire	LON:LRE	93	£608.69	£613.45	2.19%	1.52%
22	Rolls-Royce Holdings	LON:RR	86	£511.65	£682.44	1.84%	3.83%
23	Carillion	LON:CLLN	159	£487.34	£547.48	1.75%	5.79%
24	BHP Billiton	LON:BLT	60	£474.21	£1,040.84	1.71%	10.13%
25	Banco Santander	LON:BNC	98	£348.53	£515.86	1.25%	4.13%
26	Stock Spirits	LON:STCK	331	£348.21	£660.86	1.25%	2.56%
27	Seeing Machines	LON:SEE	6600	£330.00	£499.16	1.19%	0.00%
28	Procter & Gamble	NYSE:PG	5	£257.33	£231.80	0.93%	2.90%
29	Tesco	LON:TSCO	155	£250.99	£518.20	0.90%	0.72%
30	Johnson & Johnson	NYSE:JNJ	2	£136.33	£135.85	0.49%	2.48%
31	Blinkx	LON:BLNX	500	£111.25	£493.68	0.40%	0.00%
32	Visa	NYSE:V	2	£106.14	£100.62	0.38%	0.53%
33	XL Group	NYSE:XL	3	£77.52	£55.24	0.28%	2.48%
34	South32	LON:S32	58	£32.16	£0.00	0.12%	0.00%
	TOTAL			£27,740.99	£30,512.53	100%	4.08%
	TOTAL ($)			$41,963.71	$46,102.75

NB: This data is actually from 4 December rather than 30 November.

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 £3.61 added to my charitable microfinance account. This means that 2015's dividend income has resulted in £34.13 dropping into that account so far. This is a hefty £28.46 ahead of last years total.

How did you do?

How did your dividend income look for November? 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]