My First $100K

100k

I started keeping track of my portfolio upon finishing school. My chart begins in Q3 2011 with a brokerage account (including cash) worth $14,929. Through a combination of saving, investing in dividend paying stocks, reinvesting those dividends, and, in large part, to a roaring bull market, my account hit a total of $102,050 on July 23rd, 2014. (This final figure includes brokerage account, Roth IRA, options trading account, and cash in investment accounts.) By Q3 2013, my account reached over $50,000 and less than a year later was over $100,000.

It finally seems like I’m beginning to hit the point where things are starting to snowball. (Dividend Mantra just wrote a great post about that!) What I mean by snowball is that as the account size increases, the amount of dividends increases along with it. Each subsequent dividend increase then contributes even more.

It is a self-sustaining machine that keeps fueling itself to grow bigger. How TV pundits can say this isn’t an exciting way to invest, I’ll never know!

At this moment my forward 12-month dividends is estimated at $2574. That means I could count on nearly a guaranteed $214/month on average without adding any new investments. Easily enough to pay for utilities, Internet access, laundry, etc. Additionally, the high quality companies that I’m investing in will most likely continue to raise their dividends. For example, so far in 2014, 14 out of 20 companies have increases (and I expect those last couple to raise them later this year!). As of today, I’m receiving an additional $136 in annual dividends simply due to these increases. That’s the equivalent of adding over $4500 in fresh capital at a 3% dividend yield!

To understand the power of dividends, just imagine what would happen to that snowball if you choose to continue to add more capital, reinvest those dividends, AND have those nice annual dividend increases?!

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10 Responses

  1. Scott,

    Such fast progress you’re making and big congrats on reaching 100K! An increase of 50K in a year is amazing to see. Your snowball is about to start rolling even faster now with the forward $2574 in reinvestment. I’m where you were a few years ago and with consistent saving and investments I hope to hit 100k one day. Cheers to the power of DGI 🙂

    All my best,
    Ryan
    Ryan @ My Dividend Growth recently posted…Recent Buy: July 2014My Profile

    • scott says:

      Thanks, Ryan. I knew the $100k mark was coming soon. But, it was really crazy to see the huge gains over the last year or two. I’ve been saving and investing quite a bit, but I attribute a lot of the gains to this huge bull market. I’d actually gladly drop back below $100k in order to be able to pick up some cheaper stocks. I’m sure that’s the sentiment among most dividend investors!

  2. Scott,

    Great accomplishment surpassing $100k. Your money will really start working for you going forward. The first $100k requires a lot of work and now money will start working for you. Keep up the great work! $200k will come much faster than $100k and $300k will arrive even faster. That is the beauty of compounding.

    MDP

    • scott says:

      Thanks, MDP. Some people say that dividend investing is boring…once you see the power of compounding, it definitely is not! Thanks for visiting.

  3. Scott,

    That’s awesome work. And what a jump from $50k to $100k!

    I definitely noticed things started to speed along nicely for me once I crossed over into six figures. I reckon you’ll have the same experience. It’s quite wonderful. 🙂

    Thanks for the mention, by the way. Much appreciated.

    Keep up the great work!

    Best wishes.
    Dividend Mantra recently posted…Four Reasons I Haven’t Paid Off My Student Loans YetMy Profile

    • scott says:

      A reply by the famous Dividend Mantra himself! 🙂 Thanks for visiting. Your posts have been inspirational to many of us. It is good to hear about the great time you’re having back in Michigan. Glad that’s working out for you.

      The last year has been very exciting from an investing standpoint. I’m looking forward to the compounding to really start to kick into high gear.

  4. Hey man grats on the 100k level. Great milestone and you should be proud of yourself for reaching it quite quickly! Your growth rate is huge and in no time you gonna be at 200k and then 500k!

    Stay focused and Grind On!
    Asset-Grinder recently posted…New Buys , Sells , Brewery and Real Estate UpdatesMy Profile

    • scott says:

      Thanks, Asset-Grinder. Keep up the good work too. Other than owning REITs, I have yet to venture into real estate. And, the last time I brewed my own beer was in college. Something I’ll have to start trying again. Living in Wisconsin, we have quite a few good microbrews in the area. Thanks again!

  5. Wow , that’s some amazing growth there. I can’t wait to join you in the 100k club some day. How much have you been investing per month to see the kind of growth ?

    • scott says:

      Hey Captain Dividend,

      Thanks! Nice portfolio as well. You’ll get there too in no time! I noticed you have whole numbers of shares. You must be pooling the dividends with new money and then investing that? I thought about doing it that way too and probably will, but will wait until my monthly dividends are high enough to be able to make it worth while. At this stage I’m comfortable with “dollar-cost averaging” my dividends. It is cool to look back and see the couple shares that I’ve picked up without doing anything! In the past I know people have said that it is hard to keep track of all the individual purchases at tax time. I think that with everything being online now that isn’t as much of any issue as it once was.

      For the first 26 months or so I was investing about $1300 a month. I’ve been a little less routine than that lately, but hope to pick it up again soon. (I also have about $8000 that I’m using to sell options.) I was very fortunate in that the market has pretty much done nothing but go up since I started! I really wish I was starting in 2008, I would have been able to pick up even greater discounts then!

      Thanks again for stopping by!

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