April 2021 Dividend Report

Let’s start with mentioning that thankfully no one else in our family was infected with Corona and that we could succesfully end our home quarantaine last month. It’s amazing to me what kind of mental affects one can experience due to a cominbation of worrying about the safety of your family but also not being able to leave your house.

Leave the movie name in the comments for extra credits

Now that situation is behind us its time to focus on positivity and enjoying our time. We’ve been able to spend more time in and outside of the house and with me working from home, the additional time spent with my family has really been great. Besides more quality time it also continues to amaze me seeing our dividends grow and enter our brokerage account. 🙂

Without further delay, here are my results for April 2021:

Ticker	Amount (€)
PEP	3.68
PPL	6.88
IRM	26.53
KMB	4.09
HASI	3.74
LEG	11.33
CAH	8.94
O	3.83
CSCO	12.7
ADP	6.03
MDT	2.17
SPG	3.65
FDX	3.28
Ahold	39.44
Total	€136.29

No less then 14 companies deposited their dividends on my brokers account, ready to be reinvested (manually) in other stocks.

Here are the visuals:

And working towards my 2021 goal of €1750 in dividends received:

And (inspired by Engineering Dividends) a new graph with my annual dividend totals:

So we’re done with with month #4 and we are at 31% of our goal for 2021. Slightly behind schedule, but not by much.

April 2020: €137,27
April 2021: €136,29
Total dividend ever: €3365,63

An huge increase of 45,16% compared to last year so thats really something to celebrate! Since my focus of the recent months has been to bring more balance between US and non-US stocks, my additional investments in Ahold Delhaize really packed a punch this month!

The progress is still very real even though this is already my fifth year as a dividend growth investor since starting back in March of 2017 (with a monthly total of €1,98).

As always my results are converted from their base currency to euro and are post-tax.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the results of this month and ofcourse on your own results. Please let me know in the comments!

March 2021 Dividend Report

Hello my dear readers, followers, commenters, lurkers or a combination of the above. March has come and gone and it’s time for another update of my dividend results. Before that I would like to mention that I intended to comment more on your blogs as promised last month but unfortunately Covid-19 hit our home and my eldest has tested positive for Corona. While it always was a possibillity with going to school , it was still quite the shock when we got the news (my wife tested negative).

As far as health goes we can report that it looked like a severe flu with lots of couching and a high fever. Not unlike some flu’s my eldest has had before in our household. When someone in your home is infected with Corona you get all sorts of procedures and advice about isolating the person, etc. Thats really not possible with two kids below 7 years of age. So it was an “accepted risk” that we would also get it, but thankfully we seem to have been spared an infection so far (knock on wood please!). A second test performed on me and Mrs. Bot turned out negative as well last friday.

We have been in quarantine for about 10 days now and are going through new and final tests coming thursday, if we test negative we can break quarantine and enjoy our freedom again. I’ve never ever looked forward so much to just taking a walk around the block like this week. Funny how you always take health and freedom for granted until its taken (temporarily) away.

Even with all this, I’m thankful to know that our little snowball has kept growing and that our dividends have still rolled in like clockwork:

Ticker	Amount (€)
INTC	1.94
AFL	8.60
ADM	18.36
PFE	13.88
UPS	5.78
IBM	11.59
3M	12.62
WBA	9.63
PRU	15.47
ORI	12.83
O	3.83
ED	7.17
VFC	2.10
UNH	3.58
QCOM	8.91
JNJ	2.16
CWEN	1.15
Unilever	21.76
Total	€ 161.36

No less then 18 companies sent me a nice paycheck with a grand total of €161,36. This is my second highest dividend received ever! The only month that has ever been higher was September 2019 and that was due to a special dividend from ORI.

Änd the monthly visual:

Look at the pretty colors!

And working towards my 2021 goal of €1750 in dividends received:

And (inspired by Engineering Dividends) a new graph with my annual dividend totals:

So we’re done with with month #3 and we are at 23% of our goal for 2021. Decent enough for the first quarter!.

March 2020: €137,27
March 2021: €161,36
Total dividend ever: €3229,34

An nice increase of 17,55% compared to last year so I can’t complain about that. As noted last month some payouts are now in different months compared to last year so that skews the results a bit.

The progress is still very real even though this is already my fifth year as a dividend growth investor since starting back in March of 2017 (with a monthly total of €1,98).

As always my results are converted from their base currency to euro and are post-tax.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the results of this month and ofcourse on your own results. Please let me know in the comments!

January 2021 Dividend Report

Is it me or did January just fly by? It sometimes seems that time is going increasingly faster each day, but that maybe because that days seem a lot alike these days. We’re still in full lockdown here but it has been announced that primary schools are re-opening as of next week. Hopefully this is one of the first of many steps to go back to the future…erhm…normal!

Amazingly enough its already February and everything is in full swing for the new year. That leavs one more thing for me to finish up the first month of 2021 and that is to post my results and boy do I have some nice things to show you!

Ticker	Amount (€)
PEP	3.54
PPL	6.59
IRM	25.56
KMB	3.68
HASI	3.54
LEG	11.25
CAH	8.87
O	3.78
CSCO	12.3
ADP	5.79
MDT	2.15
SPG	3.63
ORI (*)	57.65
Total	€148.33

Just look at that special dividend!

No less than 13 companies payed me a dividend with a nice total of €148,33. If you look at the visuals thats quite a big increase compared to last year. So what happened? ORI, thats what happened! Another special dividend from ORI, my second special dividend ever and for a second time from the same company.

Änd the visuals:

And working towards my 2020 goal of €1750 in dividends received:

So we’re done with with month #1 and we checked a nice 8% off our total. A great start for 2021!

January 2020: €79,14
January 2021: €148,33
Total dividend ever: €2971,77

A awesome increase of 87,43% compared to last year. Although to be fair, that special dividen skews the results a lot. So if we remove the special dividend from the equation we get a normalised growth rate of 14,58% compared to last year.

The progress is still very real even though this is already my fourth year as a dividend growth investor since starting back in March of 2017 (with a monthly total of €1,98).

As always my results are converted from their base currency to euro and are post-tax.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the results of this month and ofcourse on your own results. Please let me know in the comments!

These are my buys from Q4 2020

It’s been a while since I last posted about what stocks I am buying, so Ithought I’d share my buys of the last quarter of 2020. One of the things I need to do more is to analyse my portfolio and tweak my diversification. Diversification Mr. Robot, what on earth do you mean? Your portfolio seems pretty well balanced with only a few outliers (like IRM)?

Well thanks for the compliment, I really appreciate it! But to be completely honest there is still some work to do. When I created my first treemap it already showed that my balance in GICS sectors needs more finetuning. With a large portion of my portfolio in Healthcare and Technology it made clear that sectors like Consumer Staples-Cyclical-Discretionary and Utilities needed more work.

What my treemap did not show (because I didn’t check for it) was my geographical diversification. The larger part of the blogs and information out there is from a US-perspective. There are various Dutch en EU blogs and thankfully this list keeps on growing, but most of my inspiratoin/investigation used to come from abroad. When I did finally check on my balance between US/non-US stocks it scared me quite a bit. So it was time to take action!

Which movie is this? Add it to you comment for kudo’s!

So it should be no suprise that my most recent buys were solely non-US stocks, actually they were solely Dutch/EU stocks! Here are the companies that I bought:

Unilever and Ahold needs no introduction I like to think, but maybe the other two companies do:

Wolters Kluwer N.V. (WKL), together with its subsidiaries, provides professional information, software solutions, and services in Europe, North America, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. The company operates through Health; Tax & Accounting; Governance, Risk & Compliance; and Legal & Regulatory divisions. The company serves clinicians, nurses, accountants, and lawyers, as well as tax, finance, audit, risk, compliance, and regulatory sectors. Wolters Kluwer N.V. was founded in 1836 and is based in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands.

RELX PLC (RELX) provides information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers in North America, Europe, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Scientific, Technical & Medical; Risk & Business Analytics; Legal; and Exhibitions. The company was formerly known as Reed Elsevier PLC and changed its name to RELX PLC in July 2015. RELX PLC was incorporated in 1903 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

So with these stocks I not only increase my geographical diversification I also counter the (continuing?) devaluation of the US dollar. The latter has seriously impacted my received dividends last year and it also shows in my prognoses for my projected annual dividend income. With all these buys combined (I am Captain Planet! Just kidding! :)) my current forward income stands at a total of €1414,-.

What do you think about my buys? Did you buy anything recently? Let me know in the comments!

December 2020 Dividend Report

This post marks the official financial end of DGI year 2020 and what a year it has been! From a pandemic, markets crashing, the US elections to working fulltime from home. I hope all my fellow bloggers and your families remain healthy and stay safe in 2021. My best wishes to you all!

Thankfully my portfolio was only slightly affected by all these changes in 2020. With a dividend suspension from Walt Disney (with 2 shares my smallest position) and a 38% dividend cut from SPG (with 4 shares also a small position) being my only slights.

I shared my 2020 year-end review with you already, so straight towards the final results:

Ticker	Amount (€)
INTC	1.84
AFL	7.26
ADM	17.62
PFE	13.31
UPS	5.64
IBM	11.39
3M	12.33
WBA	9.50
PRU	14.46
ORI	12.03
O	3.75
ED	6.95
VFC	2.05
UNH	3.48
QCOM	8.54
JNJ	2.13
CWEN	1.10
Total	€133.38 + 3,15 (FDX)

Edited 27/1/2021, I forgot a dividend payment from FedEx!

No less than 18 companies payed me a dividend tallying up to €136,53.

Änd the visuals:

And working towards my 2020 goal of €1500 in dividends received:

So we’re done with with month #12 and I finished at 92% of my goal for 2020. I came up short with €117,89 left to go. Although I didn’t make the goal I’m still pretty proud of what I achieved in a year like 2020!

December 2019: €128,55
December 2020: €136,53
Total dividend ever: €2823,44

A marginal increase of 6,21% compared to last year. What happened? As you might have noticed I’ve been able achieve steady double digit growth throughout my months, averaging about 45,68%. I did come checking and found out that the payout schedule of one of my larger EU positions (Unilever) has shifted towards a different date, combine that with the devaluation of the dollar and lack of buys with a payout in quarter ending months and there you go.

The progress is still very real even though this is already my fourth year as a dividend growth investor since starting back in March of 2017 (with a monthly total of €1,98).

As always my results are converted from their base currency to euro and are post-tax.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the results of this month (and year while you’re at it!) and ofcourse on your own results. Please let me know in the comments!

2020 year-end review and thanks

When I checked my Goals page I realised that I haven’t updated that page in a while, it was still in Dutch! So that means it has been collecting some virtual dust for quite some time. I have since remedied that and updated it not only to English but also to incorporate every goal and result of the past years!

I also found out that even though I did set goals for 2020, I never actually posted them here. It must have slipped my mind at the beginning of the year. But do not worry! I did write them down somewhere and I’m still able to share them with you:

• Receive €1500,- in dividend: The last dividends are yet to come into my bank account, but I already know that I won’t be making this goal. I did come close however! How close? You’ll find out in my December dividend report in early January.
• Increase forward income to €1500: With all our extra finances going towards buying the land beneath our house (skipping the need for a mortgage) there was only our monthly deposits. Together with the devaluation of the dollar in 2020 we ended the year on €1400,- post-tax. Inching forward and the lack of significant progress is a bit frustrating sometimes.
• Side-hustle €500: I think I totalled on €35,- so I need to step up my game here.
• Save €7500 towards downpayment of our mortgage: We payed off an extra €1105 this year. The rest went to buying our land,
• Write a 30 blogposts: Nope, 16 in total.
• Spend less time with my phone (30 min/day): Essentially the same as last year, off to a great start and some succes in between but I still average an hour + everyday. Thats at least 365 hours of screentime this year. Granted some of it was work-related but thats maybe a few hours.
• Spend more time with my family: Well with the different variations of lockdown here In The Netherlands this was a pretty easy goal to reach 🙂
• Read 6 self-improvement books: I’ve read the following books: The Infinite Game (Sinek), Ladder der Leiderschap (De Bondt), Never Split the Difference (Voss), The Culture Code (Coyle), Politieke Intelligentie (van Oosterhout) and working on Handboek Teamcoaching (Vroemen).
• Exercise 2-3 times a week: This is a succes, granted the last two months of the year I failed miserably due to some illness but the rest of the year was great!
• Start with meditation: I’ve only recently started in November, so its definitely a work in progress.

All in all I’m pretty happy with my results for the year, especially considering it was during a global pandemic.

As much as I’m on this (FIRE) path for myself and my family, I use this blog as a way to document my journey and keep myself accountable. But truth be told, I never would have kept publishing reports if not for you, my readers. So here is a big shot out to my regular commenters of the past year(s):

Paul from Engineering Dividends
Bert & Lanny from Dividend Diplomats
Broke Investor
P2035
DividendPortfolio
ReverseTheCrush
DeKleineKapitalist (Dutch)
DeKleineDividendBelegger (Dutch)
DividendPortfolio.nl (Dutch)
Mr. Groeigeld (Dutch)
MooiDividend.nl
PolliesDividend (inactive)
Dividendcompounder
DesiDividend
TimeintheMarket
My Dividend Dynasty
PassiveCanadianIncome
Jordan from MoneyMaaster.com
Tom from DividendsDiversify
Keith from DivHut
Bob from TawCan
DAH from DividendsAndHobbies

Thank you all for your support, inspiration and motivation and a happy New Year!

These are my buys for Q2 and Q3 2020

Welcome my fellow investors! It’s been a while since I last posted my buys, so here we go for a short and sweet post about my activity during the second and third quarter of this year!

Date	Company	# Shares	Price
4-5-2020	AFL	10	$35,72
4-5-2020	ADM	10	$34,77
4-5-2020	WBA	4	$42,41
3-6-2020	LEG	10	$35,34
3-6-2020	FDX	2	$138,15
3-6-2020	OHI	6	$33,15
6-7-2020	IRM	12	$26,34
6-7-2020	T	8	$30,32
6-7-2020	ED	5	$73,90
6-7-2020	AFL	1	$35,92
18-8-2020	WKL	8	€ 70,22
18-8-2020	CSCO	6	$42,24
25-8-2020	WKL	9	€ 71,04
27-8-2020	CWEN	2	$25,94
25-9-2020	UNA	10	€ 50,70
25-9-2020	ADP	2	$129,23
25-9-2020	CWEN	3	$24,12

My more avid readers will spot the two new companies immediately: WKL & CWEN! One Dutch dividend “aristocrat” and a somewhat more volatile/speculative dividend stock since its all about the green stuff! Energy that is, not marihuana :).

Wolters Kluwer: “Wolters Kluwer is a Europe-listed global information services company. It operates across four distinct business segments serving a wide array of clients: health (26% of 2019 sales), tax and accounting (31%), legal and regulatory (23%), and governance, risk, and compliance (20%). Within these divisions, Wolters aims to be the industry leader in a variety of niche, higher-value services.”

Clearway Energy: “Clearway Energy, Inc. is a leading publicly-traded energy infrastructure investor focused on modern, sustainable and long-term contracted assets across North America. Clearway Energy’s environmentally-sound asset portfolio includes over 7,000 megawatts of wind, solar and natural gas-fired power generation facilities, as well as district energy systems. Through this diversified and contracted portfolio, Clearway Energy endeavors to provide its investors with stable and growing dividend income.”

With all these buys my new annual forward income has risen to €1394,- (euro, post-tax). Come to think of it, that means that I added about €38,- in additional forward income in 6 months. Thats actually not that much given the money invested but I (mostly) have the dollar/euro conversion rate to thank for that and two dividend cuts (DIS and SPG).

Oh well it still means that I’m averaging more then €116,- per month! 

Augustus 2020 Dividend Report

Summer has come and (almost) gone. I’ve spent a nice three weeks in the southern of France with the Bot family. Three weeks of no laptops, work, stress or anything. Great weather, friends, family, the pool, the river and flip flops. Can’t wait to go back there again!

There has been enough stress in the past few months at work. Unfortunately it resulted in a change of my role which wasn’t part of my plans. Time will tell if I can reach the same amount of motivation and energy within my new role and responsibillities. I will defintely go for it. 🙂

Thanksfully, the dividends remained nice and stable. Here are my results!

Ticker	Amount (€)
T	26.27
GIS	3.53
CVS	10.10
AH	11.90
TXN	6.43
ABBV	25.32
OHI	12.97
PG	4.52
HRL	1.66
O	3.83
Total	€106,53

No less then 10 companies succesfully payed me this month, this never gets old :). I was a bit disappointed that I received slightly less then the second month of Q2 even with some small additional purchases. Analysis shows that this is caused by the dollar / euro exchange rate.

And onto the visuals:

And working towards my goal for 2020:

So we’re finished with month #8 and I’m at 58% of my goal for 2020. I’m still behind schedule so it might not be possible to make this goal. Especially since I will not be able to do additional buys between my monthly ones since we are purchasing the land beneath our house (yes this is still pending).

August 2019: €82,56
August 2020: €106,53

A nice 29,03% growth compared to August last year. As always my results are converted from their base currency to euro and are post-tax.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the results of this month and ofcourse on your own results. Please let me know in the comments!

Portfolio treemap: Your help is welcome!

Inspired by Engineering Dividends (who in turn was inspired by Young Dividend) I analysed my own portfolio and created a treemap based on sector and total current value of the stocks I own. I’ve spent some time in the past to check on my sector allocations, but not recently. This graphical way is a lot easier! 🙂

There is a lot to be learned from this graph:

• My largest sectors are healthcare, Information Technology and Consumer Defensive.
• From these largest sectors Healthcare is the most diversified with 8 companies, followed by IT (6) and Consumer Defensive).
• The next four sectors Real Estate, Industrials, Communications Services and Financials are quite evenly divided in value.
• Real Estate shows 5 companies, while the others consists of three companies each, all somewhat evenly balanced except for DIS.
• Next in size is Consumer Staples, consisting out of three companies which are roughly equal in size.
• Utilities and Concsumer Cyclical are the next sectors comparable in size, here there is a small diversifcation in Utilities, there is none in Consumer Cyclical with only LEG there.
• The smallest sector is Consumer Discretionary with only a small position in VFC.
• The difference in value between my three largest sectors and three smallest is quite large.
• I’m missing 2 out of the 11 GICS: Energy and Materials.

Here is my question to you:

“What suggestion / pointer / remark / can you give me based on the above diagram?”

And a small disclaimer: I’m not taking your comment as investing advice, I’m looking for opinions!

I would love to read your comments!

July 2020 Dividend Report

A short and sweet update! Here are my results:

Ticker	Amount (€)
PPL	7.21
IRM	22.42
KMB	4.04
PEP	3.85
HASI	3.82
LEG	11.93
CAH	9.41
O	4
CSCO	11.22
FDX	3.39
ADP	4.8
MDT	2.27
UNH	3.77
SPG	3.76
Total	€95,89

No less then 14 companies our paying me this month. I was a bit dissapointed that I didn’t cross the €100 mark this month. With some additional buys that shouldn’t be a problem anymore in the final quarter of this year.

And onto the visuals:

And working towards my goal for 2020:

So we’re finished with month #7 and I’m at 51% of my goal for 2020. I’m still behind schedule so this will be an exciting few months to see if I can still make it.

July 2019: €64,98
July 2020: €95,89

A solid 47,57% growth compared to June last year. As always my results are converted from their base currency to euro and are post-tax.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the results of this month and ofcourse on your own results. Please let me know in the comments!