My crazy month has finally come to an end. We entered the month in the middle of an intense housing search and left with an accepted offer. Still can’t believe we are going to be first time homeowners! My wife and I celebrated our one year anniversary Memorial Day Weekend as well. The beauty of it all is that while all the noise of my personal life is rolling along, my dividend stocks are quietly doing their work in the background. This is one of my favorite articles to write each month, where I review my monthly dividend income total, compare the results to the earlier period, and check my progress as I embark on this journey of financial freedom. Now it is time to dive into detail. Check out my May dividend income summary!

 May Dividend Income Summary

This month, our family received $275.54 in dividend income, representing a 61.90% increase compared to May 2016. I mentioned last year that my wife and I were combining our finances and that I was going to start reporting our dividend income totals together. So to provide a true apples to apples comparison, I backed out the dividend income attributed to her portfolio. Even without the income from the stocks she owns, I posted a 14.41% year over year increase.  I’m very happy with the results and the table below provides a detailed breakdown of the dividends we received this May.

Here are some of the highlights from our dividend income totals:

• My wife was a MAJOR contributor to our success this month. She received dividends from four companies this month. While we share many of the investments, she received two dividends from companies that I do not own: Starbucks and Caterpillar. Starbucks is a company we have discussed a lot on this website, and I would love to further add to our position one day in the future.
• Loving, loving the increased dividend we received from Procter & Gamble (PG) this year. Couldn’t be happier that I decided to add to my position in January and capture four increased dividends during the year.
• It seems like every month I am discussing this in my monthly dividend income summary, but we received a nice bump from the fact that HCP paid their dividend in the second quarter of the month again in Q2. Which is strange considering the company paid their dividend in March, the third month of the quarter, in Q1. While the change is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, I continue to be amazed by the number of companies that are changing the month that they are paying their dividend. I wonder which company will do it next!
• I received my first ever dividend check from CVS Pharmacy, the most recent individual stock I purchased in 2017. Excited to receive a check from the preferred pharmacy of our household and look forward to many more in the future.

Summary

A pretty clean and quick dividend summary this month. There wasn’t a lot of activity going on, and I didn’t add any individual stocks to my portfolio. But my wife and I are all smiles here as we are very satisfied with the progress we notched compared to last year. Seeing a double-digit dividend increase just fuels my fire and has me even more excited and motivated to keep pushing forward. While I am going to see my cash flow reduced once we close on this house, one of my biggest fears of being a homeowner, we will continue investing as much as possible so we can continue to see our passive income stream grow.