May was an incredible month for my personal dividend income and a kick in the face for net worth. The new money that I’ve invested in dividend growth stocks the last fewmonths is really starting to make an impact.
Personal Dividend Income
I mentioned in my last reportthat slow months can be difficult to keep motivated. Graphing and charting were extremely important to keepfocused. Well, that wasn’t necessarythis month… this month’spersonal dividend income results did everything I need to keep me full engaged.
Full disclaimer, the reason for this month’s huge growth wasn’t because I’ve been picking the worlds most amazing dividend stocks that have doubled their dividends since last year. A big portion of the growth is from capital I’ve put to work now that I can controlmy 401k holdings.
Let’s get to it.
This month, I received$305.86in dividend income. On average, I was paid$11.32from 27 different companies (really, 26 companies and 1 preferred shares fund)! This month’s dividend income statement shows a tremendous120.69%increase overlastMay.
Dividend Income - May 2017
This month’s dividend covers my: cell phone, internet, electricity, water and gas. That’s all of my “utilities” (internet is a utility right?)
Here is a chart of my passivedividend income progress over the last 2 years.
Thedividend portfoliohas been updated.
Net Worth
This month thenet worth really took it on the chin. While I hate showing all the red, it’s real life and it’s unpredictable. Sadly, no sugar coating can make this report better.
Let’s do the numbers…
Cash
Our never-ending home improvement project reared its ugly head again this month. We enlisted some help to wrap-up some of the minor finishingwork. This set us back almost 800 bucks. Plus, we spent another $400ish on a construction dumpster to get rid of all the “yard art” (Aka: construction trash) from our big renovation project.
It will be worse next month. We are currently picking out paint colors and will have our house painted next month. This is going to be a ridiculously huge expense. But, that’s why we saved the cash. However, it isn’t taking nearly as long to spend it as it did to save it. Funny how that works.
Real Estate
As you may have noticed, my primary home declined in value by $50,000 this month. Yikes!
So, what had happened was… I am in the process of refinancing my home and had an appraisal done. Well, it turns out that whileZillow thinks my house is worth almost $650,000 and I think my house is worth $565,000 the professionalwho has the inside scoop, and who did some actual market research, says it has a current value of $515,000.
The report showedrecent local sales of some similar sized homes in our area. Obviously, I’m disappointed that it didn’t appraise higher (I dothink it would sell for more). However, I would rather use accurate data in my report and be surprised on the upside then disappointed on the downside when it comes time to sell the house.
This is a great segue. I’m refinancing my house. Here’s why. After doing some math, I discovered I was able to do three awesome things by refinancing now. First, I was able to lower my interest rate by over a full point! I hadn’t gotten around to refinancing during the super low rate times. Second, I amreducing the length of my mortgage by 8 years by refinancing to a 15 year term mortgage. Third, since I’m a wheeling and dealing machine and got lots of quotes (which is always a good idea), I am only paying a little over a thousand dollars in financing costs.
Oh, yeah, and since I’ve been paying extra on my mortgage for so long, my monthly mortgage expense doesn’t change at all. I’ll be paying the same monthly mortgage payment, but an extra 200+ a month will be going to principal. I’ll recoup the refinancing cost within the first six months. Not a bad deal!
On the rental side, life is good. Once again, there were no problems and everyone paid on time!
Wrap-up
So my net worth dropped a substantial amount, but I try not to dwell on the negative. I’ll be a millionaire again (maybe next time a real one), it will just take a bit more time. On an high note, my dividend income is going to continue to grow like crazy for the next few months. These 120%personal dividend income monthly YOY gains will be common place for the next year. It’s an exciting position to be in and I’m very grateful.
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