As a Dividend blog, I like to keep a monthly tally of my dividend income and net worth.  This serves two purposes.  First, it keeps me actively focused on my goals and second, it allows me to document my path to financial freedom.  If nothing else, hopefully my story will encourage and prove the process for others looking to follow a similar path.

October Dividend Income

It’s hard following up gigantic months, like September, with monthly dividend income sums that are a quarter of the previous month’s haul.  However, it’s important to keep in mind that the totals are not what matters right now, it’s the year over year income percentage increase that’s really important.  October has been a decent month with regards to total income but a fantastic month in terms of percent increase from last year.

Let’s get to it.

This month I received $281.63 in dividend income.  On average, I received $21.86 pay checks from 13 of the world’s best companies.  I’ve said it before, but being a dividend income investor is the best job I’ve ever had.

Dividend Income - October 2017

This is a huge 141.99% increase over October 2016!

October’s dividend blog income shows electricity, gas and internet are covered from dividend income.  Not a bad a deal for not having to trade a minute of my time for Money.

Here is a chart of my dividend income progress over the last 3 years.

The dividend portfolio has been updated.

Net Worth

Net worth is slowly starting to crawl it’s way back.

Let’s do the numbers…

Cash

It’s not a big increase, but it’s certainly better than another decline.  With the load of medical bills we’ve had to pay (and the big ones that come due this month) it’s a miracle we were able to stay positive at all.  Next month though, that’s a different story.

My wife’s surgery will end up costing us right about $4,500.00.  This is a drop in the bucket when it comes to her health and I would gladly pay whatever was necessary.

Oh, speaking of the surgery, everything went very well!!!!  She is recovering nicely and it seems like the surgery will result in a big increase in her quality of life!

Real Estate (Steer clear of Ditech!)

Well, we did it.  We put rental property #1 on the market.  This is a very exciting time for us.  We have had a few showing so far, but no offers yet.  I guess we priced it right as no one has complained about the cost and people are coming to look at it… just not ponying up.

Rental #2 is still moving along well.  The renter continues to pay on time and we continue to deposit checks on time.  It’s a great relationship, however, I do not have a good relationship with the mortgage company that bought my loan.

Ditech (the holder of our loan) has some pretty shady business practices and has tried to extend my loan several times.  We  pay extra on this mortgage every month.  We obviously want it paid off as quickly as possible. You do that by paying extra towards principal. Well, we had to  jump through several hoops (which is ridiculous) and spend easily an hour on the phone previously (about a year ago) to ensure that additional money paid to them goes towards principal.  Sounds logical and should be easy right?  It’s not with those thieves at Ditech.

Instead of defaulting to extra money going towards principal, they hold it and put extra money into escrow and then credit the money towards future monthly mortgage payments. This is not how you pay down principal, but it is how they ensure the length of your loan and keep you paying all of that additional interest you are trying to avoid. Really, who would pay an extra $500 every month in order to get ahead on monthly payments? No one.  After that initial hour on the phone, we were assured that the account would be correctly coded for future “extra to principal” payments.

Perhaps there was a coding update a couple of months ago, or maybe they were just up to their tricky thievery. Luckily we are aware of this problem and noticed it within 2 months this time around. The money will get correctly applied and once again the future extra payments should go to principal, but not without hassle.

Morale of the story, if you have Ditech (or any shady mortgage company), pay close attention to your monthly statements and where your extra payments are being applied.

Wrap-up – Why I keep a dividend blog

So, with regard to the dividend blog, I now have 3 full years of data – dividend income and net worth on the site.  The dividend income growth has been incredible and I can say for certain, that I would not be nearly as close to where I am to reaching my goals without keeping this dividend blog.  It’s provided me an outlet to share and the motivation to track my progress.

If starting a dividend investing blog has ever crossed your mind, I highly recommend you take the leap!  The community of other dividend bloggers are extremely friendly and supportive (thanks guys)!  It is without a doubt the best decision I have made concerning to my financial future.