June 2016 Dividend Income And Expenses

Greetings humans and cephalopods!  Prepare yourselves! — It’s time once again for the monthly report!  In this regular post I show off all the details of our dividend income and expenses.  As the title says, this one is for June 2016.

So, without further adieu…

Expenses For June

June was another quiet month, like May…exactly the way I like ’em.

June expenses totaled $4130.70.  A fairly average month…but slightly higher than my projected $4k.  We still have 6 months to make up the difference, and summer has only just begun!  

June was a month for deep thinking — Thinking about what we should do with our money, and would we have enough to do it?  We talked about places to find investing ideas, and when not to invest.  We did end-up investing quite a bit in June (before the Brexit).

Home improvement projects, and yard-work took up most of our free time.  Oh, and I fixed-up some old tools.  

We traveled in June too!  The Tako family took a trip to Grandma and Grandpa Tako’s farm for a 3-day weekend.  Fuel costs ended up being slightly higher than usual due because of the trip (One tank of gas – about $30).  Lodging and food costs for the trip were $0.

Here in the Pacific Northwest our summers are quite mild.  Our gas & electricity bills tend to be less than $75/month in the summer.  This month, the gas and electricity bill ended up being $67.

Summer tends to be our cheapest months of the year; Food is cheaper, and food sales are abundant.  We spend $0 on heating and cooling in summer.  Yes, zero dollars!  We don’t even have a air conditioning system!  

Groceries and consumables for June totaled $525.65 for our family of 4.  That’s a little bit higher than usual, but not abnormally so.  We typically spend around $500/month for groceries.

Our expenses were higher than expected, but it wasn’t because we went crazy eating-out in June.  We cook most of our meals at home.  I was a one-man cooking army!  We only purchased take-out once!  Take-out was from our favorite teriyaki joint, a cost of $18.80.

Miscellaneous expenses this month include a couple of Amazon purchases.  Both items are for projects Mrs. Tako and I are working on — a drawer slide and some Titebond II wood glue.  Those items totaled $35.33.

We minimize costs by using Amazon when we can.  We avoid sales tax (high in our area) by purchasing items from out-of-state sellers, and utilizing free shipping deals — like this deal for a free month of Amazon Prime.  (Seriously, it’s a free month of Prime!)  

Our largest monthly expenses are always the mortgage and daycare, which amount to $2138.54, and $1200 respectively.  Those costs are fairly fixed, and rarely change month-to-month.

Dividends For June

Now for the fun part — dividends!

Our intention is to live entirely off our taxable dividend income for the year.  I’ve estimated this will work-out to around $4k per month (if we manage to invest all of our excess cash).  For the time-being, we aren’t touching our taxable accounts.  Our intention is to just let them grow.

June was a good month for dividends.

Awesome!  June’s dividends of $4722.67 exceeded our June expenses by $591.97.  That will go a long way toward filling in the gaps we see during dry months, like May.  What’s the year look like for 2016?

We’ve received a total of $20,820 in dividends so far in 2016.  That’s about $4,000 behind where I want to be, but we still have significant amounts of cash to invest.  We’ve been working on it (more on this below), but it’s a significant chunk of change left to invest.

June Investment and Portfolio Changes

As I mentioned in May, we’ve been shuffling around our investments a bit.  ENH is no longer our largest holding (not counting index funds).  In May, we sold $91k of our ENH investment and invested in a “Well Known Energy Company”.  This lowered our ENH dividends in June because of that sale.  “Them’s the breaks” as they say.

But there’s good news coming!  August will see a gigantic kick in the pants from our new investment (the “Well Known Energy Company”).  Dividends will end up being significantly higher than those from ENH.  Yay for higher dividends!

June saw several additions to our position in the “Well known Energy Company”.  These purchases amounted to $63,469.  The “Well Known Energy Company” is now our largest holding at 15% of our taxable portfolio…and still growing.  

When I finally reveal what-the-heck the “Well Known Energy Company” is, I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do.  It’s a great investment story waiting to be told!  For now, we’re keeping it quiet because I’m still buying!

As I said last month, I’m not buying this position for today’s returns.  I’m buying it for tomorrow’s returns.  It’s a growth story that will result in higher returns on capital, higher dividends, and ultimately more capital appreciation….eventually!

It might take 5-10 years for this to be realized, but I’m prepared to wait.

How was your June?  Do you live off the dividends?

[Image Credit: Flickr1, Flickr2]