Tracking Your Dividend Income
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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.
8 Comments on this post
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raionz said:
Hey, when I try to click on the LINK for the spreadsheet it tells me I need permission?
Thanks
May 13th, 2009 at 8:09 am -
Joel said:
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.
May 13th, 2009 at 6:19 pm -
Dividend Growth Investor said:
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?
May 14th, 2009 at 11:36 am -
Larry Mong said:
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 MongMarch 30th, 2010 at 12:53 am -
The Dividend Guy said:
Hi Larry – which video are you referring to. I have never done a video?
March 30th, 2010 at 11:44 am -
Matthew said:
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?August 2nd, 2010 at 7:33 am
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