Monthly Review: June 2012

Here is a review of what happened in June:

Dividends: I received a total of $131.60 in dividends from the following stocks:

• ADM: $10.50
• BDX: $11.25
• CVX: $18.00
• JNJ: $21.35
• MCD: $35.00
• NSC: $23.50
• UTX: $12.00

This was my second highest monthly total for dividends thus far this year. I now have a year-to-date total of $700.40, which puts me 53.9% of the way toward my goal of receiving $1,300 in dividends for 2012. It is nice to be slightly over the 50% mark halfway through the year.

Dividend Increases: I was pleased to see dividend increases announced for three of my stocks (click on each stock to see my post about the increase):

• GIS: 8.2% increase, $7.00 more in annual dividend income
• MDT: 7.2%, $3.84
• UTX: 11.5%, $5.48

These are all good-sized increases, so I am quite pleased. Thus far this year, there have been dividend increases for 16 of the 22 dividend growth stocks in my portfolio.

Savings: This month I saved $916 (31.4%) of my net income, which is my lowest monthly total thus far this year. I mentioned in previous posts that I anticipated my savings rate would take a hit in June due to some large annual expenses and travel costs (I went on a road trip to visit some friends at the start of the month). This results in year-to-date savings of $8,306, which puts me 69.2% of the way toward my goal of $12,000 in savings for 2012. Thus, in spite of lower savings in May and June, I remain on track to meet my goal.

Transactions: This was the first month of 2012 in which I did not buy any stocks. (I did not sell any stocks for the sixth consecutive month.) There are two main reasons why I stayed on the sidelines. First, I anticipated my low savings for June, so I wanted to conserve my limited cash. Second, even though I did have sufficient cash on hand to make one purchase, I could not make up my mind as to what to buy. I decided it might be best to exercise some patience and wait until I had a stronger sense of what I wanted.

Portfolio: My portfolio currently consists of 22 stocks and has a market value of $54,207.63 (including cash), which is a 4.5% increase compared with last month's value of $51,861.12. About half of the increase came from capital gains and the other half came from dividends and new capital.

Seeking Alpha: I did not publish any new articles on the investing website Seeking Alpha in June. However, I did earn $6.59 from additional page views of my previous articles, raising my Q2 total (to be paid in July) to $343.94.

Looking Ahead: July will be a good month for dividends, although I am not expecting any dividend increases to be announced for my stocks. I anticipate a substantial rebound in my savings rate, which will be nice after two below-average months. Given that I did not buy any stocks in June, I will have enough cash to make two purchases in July. However, I may wait until the second half of the month to see whether any good buying opportunities arise when companies report earnings.