Dividends Upon Dividends Upon Dividends
Dividends are amazing things. Your invested money continues to make money for you with absolutely no work on your part. And the best part is that your dividend payments themselves will earn further dividends if your dividends are automatically invested back into the original holdings that generated the dividends in the first place. I am attempting to keep track of all my dividend payments so that I can watch the power of this compounding effect in action in my own accounts. So here is an updated list of all the dividend payments I have received since I became an investor in January of 2007:
Roth IRA Dividends:
iShares Russell 2000 Index ETF (IWM):
03/29/07: ($0.64)
07/05/07: ($0.86)
S&P 500 Index "Spiders" ETF (SPY):
04/30/07: ($1.27)
PowerShares High Yield Dividend Achievers ETF (PEY):
04/30/07: ($1.11)
05/31/07: ($1.38)
06/29/07: ($1.39)
Money Market Fund:
02/21/07: ($0.47)
03/21/07: ($0.53)
04/23/07: ($0.64)
05/21/07: ($0.26)
Taxable Account / Emergency Fund Dividends:
Advantage Energy Income Fund (AAV):
03/19/07: ($0.87)
04/18/07: ($0.91)
05/17/07: ($0.94)
06/19/07: ($0.99)
Money Market Fund:
02/21/07: ($0.35)
03/21/07: ($1.55)
04/23/07: ($3.25)
05/21/07: ($4.62)
06/21/07: ($2.68)
You will notice above that the dividends in my taxable emergency fund account have dropped over the past month. This is due to my having used my emergency fund as a vessel for my summer savings, knowing that I would be low on teaching work for the summer. This should recuperate as I rebuild my emergency fund as the summer's end draws nigh. I am looking forward to watching all the above values grow as my investments grow and continue to pay out increasing dividends over time.
