“But Josh, I don’t want to write things down.” I know, I know. Creating a spreadsheet is probably the most boring thing you can do in your free time. However, when it comes to dividend investing, it is a must. To truly appreciate the art of dividend investing, you have to track your…. Dividends.
I started investing in June 2019. My first interest received was $0.03. It took me three months to get my first dividend- in August of 2019. The payment was from Papa John’s, and it was a total of $0.23. And yes, that was my total dividend income in August 2019. The final amount for August 2019 was $0.23. I had to repeat that fact- for effect.
In February 2021, I received a payment of $6.78 for AT&T. I genuinely appreciate the amount of $6.78 from one company because I had to grind my way up to this amount. People from the side don’t appreciate how much money $6.78 is for us dividend investors.
Dividends vs. Royalties
When you document your dividend journey, you will also form an appreciation for other passive income sources. Everything you do for passive income will be compared to dividend investing, and you will soon learn that dividend investing is not a wealth generation tool. The idea is to use a wealth generation tool to grow your money system (dividend portfolio). Let’s look at other wealth generation tools.
Real Estate. I am a huge proponent of renting rooms in your house. We went out two rooms for $800 each. For context, you would need $240,000 invested to achieve $800 a month of dividend income (at 4% dividend yield). $480,000 to reach $1,600/month. Both of these numbers are very large and very achievable over time. It is faster to rent out rooms and fund your money system.
Military Retirement. Let’s say my military retirement will be $7,000/month. I would need $2.1 million to achieve this amount of income from dividends.
Royalties. I will be paid about $30 from royalties in my second month of Kindle publishing. I would need $9,000 investing in dividends to reach this level of cash.
When you document your dividend journey, you will learn to appreciate all forms of passive income. Seeing your dividends growing every month is also such a relaxed feeling. I love waking up and seeing large amounts of dividends deposited into my account. For this reason, my favorite platform is Cash App. The dividends are deposited right into your checking account. I earned $18 from dividends on my Cash App this month.
Intro to REITs part IV: REITs vs Rentals
I did not spend this $18 on myself; I re-invested it into my portfolio- but how cool would it be to go to McDonald’s wholly paid for by my dividends? That is the real power of dividend investing; it is another source of income.
I started my entire passive income journey because of dividend investing. I was staring at my spreadsheets, waiting for my pennies to roll in. I am proud of my portfolio and will continue investing until my last days- hopefully passing all this knowledge to my children.
I use Google sheets to document everything. You can go as in-depth as you’d like. At first, I recorded everything. Now I am too busy to spend a lot of time documenting everything, but I fondly remember those first few months!
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Disclosure: I am not a financial advisor or money manager, and any knowledge is given as guidance and not direct actionable investment advice. I am an Amazon Affiliate. Please research any investment vehicles that are being considered. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
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