The total dividends that I have collected in the year 2020 is S$15,532.60. This is an increase of 47.26% or S$4,985.20 as compared to the amount of S$10,547.40 that I have collected in the year 2019. This year, I probably struck the jackpot as the sudden increase in dividends collected was due to a special dividend payout by Convenience Retail Asia.
What is Dividend Investing?
If you have followed my blog long enough, you have probably read that I am a dividend investor. This means that I buy stocks such as REITs that consistently pay dividends. Reinvesting the collected dividends further compounds the amount collected.
I consider a stock to be an excellent dividend stock if
a) Able to grow its dividend payout year on year (y-o-y)
b) Increase its share price due to investor’s confidence in the stock
c) Consistent payout in dividends
d) Pay special dividends time to time
How To Track Your Dividends
You may wonder how I track my dividends since I am holding so many stocks in my portfolio. Since May 2016, I am using Stocks Café to keep track of my dividends as it automatically tracks dividend payouts and there is no need for manual entry. This has saved me a lot of time.
Projected Dividends Collected In 2021
Stocks Café has this feature that project your future dividends based on the following assumptions:
a) You will hold the same stocks and amounts until the end of the year, and
b) all stocks will give the same amount of dividends, on the same ExDate, as the previous year
Based on the projection, I will collect S$13,973.58 worth of dividends in 2021. This might not be the real case since companies do not pay special dividends every year. Nevertheless, we shall see how much dividends I will collected at the end of 2021.
Congratulations for increasing dividends in a COVID year. Amazing!