The first quarter has come to a close!  We are pumped up to share our March dividend income summary.  My wife and I earned almost $5,000 in passive income this month. In this article, we will break down the dividend income received, the individual breakdown, and share how much of the income came from individual stocks and mutual funds or ETFs.

Why I Invest in Dividend Stocks

I invest in dividend stocks to grow a my passive income with dividend income. One day, my dividend income will be large enough to cover my monthly expenses and allow us to retire early. That is why we are always relentlessly searching for undervalued dividend stocks to buy. To put our hard earned cash to work.

We save a high percentage of our income each month, to help fuel our dividend stock portfolio. Having a high savings rate is a key pillar of our strategy and helps fuel the fire and push the snowball further down hill. While we are waiting to invest our money in the market, it is earning a high interest rate in accounts. There is NOTHING more critical than maximizing EVERY DOLLAR in your savings account.

READ: How To Maximize Your Cash – 4 Simple Methods! 

The 3 primary savings accounts I use are:

1. 1. SoFi – 4.6% APY on all savings accounts (lower for your checking account). The race for deposits is INTENSE! Banks and credit unions are offering great savings rates.
   2. Capital One 360 Savings – 4.25% APY – We use Capital One for our checking and savings account.
   3. Weathfront – 5.0% without promotion. 5.5% with an extra .5% by signing up using my referral link (Click Here).

Read: Interest Rates on High Yield Savings Accounts Are SOARING!

Bert’s March  Dividend Income Summary

Inn March 2024, we received $4,784.75 in dividend income! This was a nice 11.5% increase compared to last year.

We continue to see strong dividend growth annually. Over the last five years, our monthly dividend income has doubled. Transparently though, the growth rate has not been as strong in the last 3 years! It has been a great journey though and I don’t want to lose sight of the progress on our journey to financial freedom.

Putting the last 5 years of annual dividend income in a chart in this article will help me start appreciating the long journey that we are on and all the progress we have made over the years. 

March Dividend income Payments

Let’s take a look at the details in March. This is the fun part.  The following two tables detail the individual payments we received. Since it is the third month of the quarter…it is going to be a lot of individual payments

Fund Observations

We summarized the amount of income received from stocks versus funds.  59% of our March Dividend Income came from funds.

Despite buying 4 shares of Schwab’s High Dividend ETF (SCHD) every single week, it was not towards the top of our March payments. March is one of the lower months for SCHD for dividend payments.  Luckily though, with these purchases, we have crossed 200 shares of SCHD.  Our dividend income will continue to steadily increase, especially if the fund can return to its strong dividend growth.

In other fund news, our two top paying funds are VIIIX and VTSAX. Both of which are in our retirement accounts. We contribute significant contributions to these two funds each paycheck. That has definitely helped juiced up our dividend income!

The other funds did their parts as well. They delivered strong, consistent results that are allowing us to reinvest dividends and keep the dividend snowball rolling.

Individual Stock Observations

Now, let’s move to the individual dividend stocks.  Right out of the gate, one thing jumped out to us. Jonson & Johnson’s stock price has dropped.  My wife and I were able to drip nearly 1 share each since we own over 100 shares each of Johnson & Johnson.  Not a bad chunk of change from our favorite dividend king, right?!

In addition, we have two other individual stocks that paid us individual dividends that were over $100 per share. Those two companies were Target (TGT) and T.Rowe Price (TROW).  A Dividend King and Dividend Aristocrat. Again, two companies with amazing dividend increase streaks (despite low dividend growth the last few years).

When further reviewing the list, it makes me appreciate the effort we have been placing on growing our current positions instead of initiating new stock positions.  An example of this is Realty Income (O).  Realty Income has been one of my top stock buys in 2024.  In the last year, we have seen our monthly dividend income double from the REIT as a result.  Now, we are DRIPing 1 share per month!  We still have progress to make with this goal. There are too many small dividend paying positions in March.  However, each purchase puts us closer to building a larger position.

Summary – March Dividend Income

All in all, how can we be upset when we earned nearly $5,000 in passive income in a month?! Seeing results like these continue to motivate us to keep pushing ourselves to invest every single dollar we can.  Is our portfolio perfect? No. However, it fits our needs and is generating a TON of dividend income.  We will continue to review our investments and make it better. That’s all we can do!

How much dividend income did you receive in March?  What is your dividend income total?!

Bert