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For those of you long-standing dividend investors you probably have a method to track the growth in your dividend income. However, for those of you who may be new to dividend investing or perhaps have a number of dividend stocks but have never set up a method to track this income then this post may help you. I have personally been tracking my dividend income for years and find that it is a powerful way to see my investment strategy at work.[ad#tdg-embedded]
The method I use is super simple. An investor can get as complicated as they really want to get, however I have found simply tracking the income my entire portfolio throws off to be enough. One thing to mention, is that I personally track the income I receive from all my portfolio assets, not just the dividend stocks. This gives me a true picture of the income from all assets including bonds which can be substantial.
In the Google Doc below, the sheet has only a few inputs that are required. The first is a listing of the assets you hold. The second is the average cost of that asset. How you get this depends on how you track your portfolio. If you use Microsoft Money then it is provided for you – simply enter that number in this row. If you don’t have an average cost then just use your original buy price, but remember your current yield will not be as accurate. Now enter the number of shares of that asset you hold. The next piece of data is the dividend per year for that asset. I just go to a financial site such as Morningstar.com and get the dividend/year for each asset from there and enter it into the sheet. With that data, the spreadsheet does the rest and calculates the income from that asset as well as the income from your entire account.
To download the spreadsheet, use this LINK. Feel free to play around with this spreadsheet to improve it – just be sure to let us all know what things you have done to improve it so we can all learn.
Hey, when I try to click on the LINK for the spreadsheet it tells me I need permission?
Thanks
Great article.
I’m still confused as to how we get the “Avg Price”… Can you just calculate it by taking the number of total shares divided by the total cost? If this indeed the Avg Price, then how does Microsoft Money provide this data, since everyone’s Avg Price would be different.
That’s a nice and inspirin chart TDG. However, is the growth due to contributions or solely due to dividend growth and dividend re-investment?
Dividend Guy,
I’m a retired 75-1/2 yr old public, corporate accountant.I’ll drop all the titles. I viewed your video in its entirety. I can see numerous applications with Google Doc’s and in my previous profession but that’s
in my rear-view mirror / history!
My problem: I have ONLY One interest / Objective!
Book / Record my stock purchases, shares, share purchase price, and the Mo, Qtly , Annual Dividends and Monitor / track throughout the year. Your video didn’t demonstrate any of this scenario.
I’m questioning whether your website is the right fit for me and what I’m trying to accomplish.
Your initial information and description got my attention but now I’m having second thoughts. Your initial spreadsheet dividend explaination was right on target for what I wanted to accomplish but Now I’m not sure. From your perspective I have a very Narrow
Interest and Usage…That’s it!
Any further clarification ?
Larry Mong
Hi Larry – which video are you referring to. I have never done a video?
this is exactly what i need, but cannot save it, or the link.
do i open it and then save it, or am i supposed to save the link?
Thanks for the dividend spreadsheet…..I don’t know why it has to be so difficult that one of the financial sites or softwares haven’t put up a template that allows the data to go directly from the investor’s stock account into the spreadsheet.
The template your suggest is very similar to what I am using, but I have some suggestions:
1) Many investors are working though multiple accounts, AND the average share price really could change over time, what with reinvested dividends, some partial sales or additional purchases, etc., and
2) Maintain a record in one place, ie the spreadsheet, as to how many shares, AND IN WHICH ACCOUNT, the shares reside.
So, I suggested the following:
1) List the security, as you do;
2) Add column for each different account you own, ie. IRA/401 for you, for spouse/other, maybe a joint account, a column for each; into this column enter the # of shares of each of the tracked securities in each account’
3) Add a column to add the # of shares in each account of each such security; MAYBE you own a stock in only one of the accounts, maybe some in all of your accts, etc, so this column gives the total # of shares owned of each such security
4) Then the dividend rate/per share/per year
5) ADD a column for the current share price of each stock
6) ADD a column that divides the rate per share by the total of shares and gives you the current dividend rate based on current stock value
7) FINALLY a column the multiples the rate per share by the # of shares and gives you the total annualized income from each such security, AND TOTAL that column to add up your total income.
This is really a simple spreadsheet, I’m not finished with mine or I’d post it, but we really need to be able to suck the dividends amount in from our individual accounts directly.