2023 was a great year for the stock market, with the S&P 500 up over 24%. This completely
knocked out the 2022 decline and we’re now back to all time highs.
I, like many of you, have ridden the market roller coaster over the past few years. I
continue to stay invested, earn dividends, and buy when I find a good opportunity. With
these recent gains, momentum has started to return. More investors who were on the sidelines
are now getting back in the market. Ironically, this is after we’ve already risen 24%. This
highlights one of the major flaws with market timing. You don’t know exactly when the
overall market will increase, decrease, etc. By trying to time the market, you may have
missed out on this 15% rally just in the past 2 months.
I don’t know what the future holds, but I’ll continue to keep learning and improve
my investing strategy. That involves finding better stocks and avoiding killer mistakes.
If you’ve been following the channel a long-time, then you know some of these lessons we’ve
learned along the way. Every month I share an update of my long-term
dividend growth stock portfolio. Since 2020, you’ve watched me grow the account from
$30k to $146.5k. Each update, I share buys, sells, and changes in my investing strategy.
I do this to hold myself accountable and keep working towards my goal of financial freedom.
However, this dividend account is only 1 part of my financial strategy. I have 2 more brokerage
accounts which I’ll occasionally provide updates on. Plus, my various income sources
and savings. These are all important parts of organizing your financial future.
I ended 2023, with a new personal high for liquid net worth at $240,000. I’ve been
tracking my net worth over years, showing the progress throughout high school, college,
and early adulthood. For context, I’m 24 so I still have a long time horizon to reach
my financial goals. But it’s important to actually keep track of this and work to improve
these metrics. Here you can see my Net Worth over the years.
When you’re young, the largest factor in growing your net worth will be your income.
Before you can invest, you need to actually have capital. Overtime, you can let your money
work for you building to a point where your investment growth far exceeds your income.
I’m still at the phase where income really moves the needle.
From 2019-2023, I’ve grown my liquid net worth from $39k to just under $240k. That’s
a $200k increase in 4 years. In that time, my worth grew at a 56.78% compound annual
growth rate. The best is still yet to come. In today’s video, I’m going to share 3
Dividend Investing goals that I personally have for 2024. On top of this, I’ll share
a few bonus business goals. Of course, I’ll still provide a brief update of the overall
progress of my long-term dividend growth stock portfolio. Let’s roll the intro!
My name is Zach, this is Dividend Data, and you should leave a like and subscribe to the
channel if you enjoy the video. Throughout, I’ll be using my stock research & portfolio
tracking tool, DividendData.com. Check it out with the link in the description and pinned
comment.
The current value of my dividend portfolio is $146,447.75. With $109,987 dollars invested,
I have a total return of 33.15%. This account contains 13 stocks, with it heavily concentrated
among my top holdings. In 2023, I built up large positions in Visa and Broadcom. My massive
2022 Microsoft investment started to pay off. I also added to big dividend payers like Altria
at a great valuation. Overall, I invested $16,497 into my dividend
portfolio in 2023. That averages out to $1,374 a month. On top of this, I earned $3,515.35
in dividends which was all reinvested to buy more stocks. My portfolio value grew by $39.7k.
That increased my total return from 14.1% after a poor 2022 to 33.15%.
I’m set to continue growing from here. My projected annual dividend income now sits
at $4,280. That’s $1,070 every quarter, $356 every month, $11.73 every day, and $0.49
every hour. This January I’m expected to earn $541.62. This was boosted by the return
of Disney’s dividend which will likely be semi-annual. My dividends mostly come in a
quarterly schedule, giving me 3 month rotations. February will be my lowest month by far, with
March and April close near $500. Overall, my portfolio’s yield on cost is
3.56%. My portfolio has some high yield, lower growth stocks, and some low yield, high growth.
Overall, I try to optimize for total return. From reinvesting dividends, I’ve boosted
that Yield on initial dollars invested to 3.89%. That is the dividend snowball effect
at work. I continue to reinvest all earned dividend payments.
Since starting my dividend portfolio, I’ve earned $11k in dividends. This December, I
just made $477.70. That included $26.61 from Visa, $24.69 from Kroger, $152.59 from ExxonMobil,
$31.54 from Chevron, $75.96 from Microsoft, $107.51 from T Rowe Price, and $58.80 from
Broadcom. I expect to hit record dividend income next year and continue growing from
there. So what are my top 3 dividend investing goals
for 2024? Goal number 1 is to average at least $2k a month invested. That is about a $700
increase from 2023. For me, this will not be dollar cost averaging, although that is
a great investment strategy for many. Instead, I’ll be looking for opportunities and invest
heavily while they're available. For example, I did this in October where I invested $9k
in just that month. In November and December, I did not buy any stocks aside from reinvesting
dividends. That is because the market soared 15% in those months so stocks became more
expensive. Since I’m a more active style of investor, I like to be selective with buying
opportunities. There’s not going to be a no-brainer 24/7. That said, dollar cost averaging
is a great strategy for most people. Heck, I even do a form of DCA with my reinvested
dividends. Overall, Goal number 1 is just to invest more in 2024.
Goal number 2 is to earn $4.5k in 2024 dividends. That would be a $1k or 28% increase year over
year. With dividend growth, reinvested dividends, and new capital added I think this is very
achievable. Likewise, I want to end 2024 with a higher projected dividend income. At least
$5k. If I invest according to goal number 1 then I should hit that easy.
Goal number 3 is to continue building up a cash position. I started doing this in 2023
after realizing its importance during the 2022 market crash. You need to be in a position
of financial strength with cash in order to take advantage of market opportunities. There
were so many no-brainer buys that I identified and took advantage of. I need to make sure
I’m prepared to invest bigger the next time those come around. I now have over $35k in
a cash account saved up. My goal is to continue growing that to at least $50k in 2024. This
cash can be used when a great market opportunity arises or to reinvest in my business.
Speaking of my business, I have lots of goals for this YouTube channel and my stock research
tool, dividenddata.com. With YouTube, the goal is consistency. I want to make sure I
release a video every single week. On top of that, I have a few ideas for a new video
series that I want to start. More on that later.
With dividenddata.com, it’s my number 1 focus going into 2024. I’m working to make
major improvements throughout the year. More features, better user experience, and more
education. I’m not going to share all my plans yet, but there will be a lot of announcements
this year. I just recently built a massive help center to better walk people through
the product features and learn key definitions for each financial concept. I also recently
added a watchlist feature, where you can save stocks and track their performance relative
to the 50 & 200 price average. Throughout 2024, my goal is to make sure dividenddata.com
members keep getting more and more value out of the service. The goal is that it makes
members far more than they spend. It is already light years better than my initial beta product.
That was the first product I ever developed so the learning has been priceless. I recommend
you check it out if you only used the early version.
In addition to this, I want to add way more value to my discord community in 2024. We
currently have 1,300 dividend investors you can communicate with and share investing strategies.
People have already been sharing their 2024 goals as well. You can gain access with a
membership to dividenddata.com. However, you can also get into the discord server for cheaper
by supporting Dividend Data on Patreon. You can join for just $5. Link in the description.
Please leave a like, share, and subscribe to the channel if you want to see future portfolio
updates. Sign up for DividendData.com, If you want to use the research tool I’ve been
showing throughout. If the software helps you identify just 1 better investment, then
it pays for itself. Here you also gain access to my portfolio tracker which provides unique
insights for the dividend focused investor. Thanks for watching!