Monthly Review: July 2012

Here is a review of what happened in July:

Dividends: I received a total of $119.48 in dividends from the following stocks:

• CNI: $6.23
• GPC: $24.75
• ITW: $14.40
• KO: $15.30
• MDT: $14.30
• PM: $38.50
• UNP: $6.00

This was a pretty good month for dividends. I now have a year-to-date total of $819.88, which puts me 63.1% of the way toward my goal of receiving $1,300 in dividends for 2012.

Dividend Increases: No dividend increases were announced in July for any of my stocks.

Savings: This month I saved $1,626 (54.7%) of my net income, which represents a nice rebound in my savings rate after two below-average months. This results in year-to-date savings of $9,932, which puts me 82.8% of the way toward my goal of $12,000 in savings for 2012. I was also pleasantly surprised to get a small pay raise ($54 per month), so my net income is now slightly higher.

Transactions: I bought one stock this month (click on the transaction to see my post about it):

• 50 shares of HRL

This purchase doubles my position in HRL and will increase my annual dividend income by $30. I did not sell any stocks for the 7th consecutive month.

Portfolio: My portfolio currently consists of 22 stocks and has a market value of $56,536.73 (including cash), which is a 4.3% increase over last month's value. A little less than half of the increase came from capital gains and the rest came from dividends and new capital.

Seeking Alpha: I published two new articles on the investing website Seeking Alpha (click on the titles to go to the articles):

• Illustrating The Factors That Affect Dividend Growth Investing
• Investigating How Stock Price Variability Can Benefit Dividend Growth Investors

In July I earned a total of $108.27 from these articles and additional page views of my previous articles. I also received a quarterly payment of $343.94 for page views of my articles from April to June. My year-to-date total is currently $452.21.

Looking Ahead: I anticipate that August will be my best month for dividends in 2012, mainly because I will be receiving my first semi-annual dividend from VOD. My savings rate will probably be decent, although I went on a road trip to visit friends at the start of the month (hence the delay in posting this review), so travel expenses will lower my savings a bit. Due to my strong savings in July and the quarterly income from Seeking Alpha, I will have enough cash to make two or three purchases in August. However, I do not see much in the way of great buying opportunities in the market at the moment. I may consider adding to one or two existing positions in my portfolio, but for the time being I am inclined to wait for a broad market dip.