Monthly Income Update – December 2021

First up, I want to wish all my readers a very Happy and Prosperous New Year! I hope you are looking forward to achieving your goals for the upcoming year and chalking out your own path towards financial independence. I am very excited about the upcoming year and I have a lot of plans about things to learn to further my education as a dividend growth investor. This blog is going to be a large part of this journey and I hope to use it as a medium to share and learn with all of you.

2021 was a great year in terms of my progress as a dividend growth investor, but it was mentally and emotionally draining for me and my family. The early part of the year saw non-COVID related health issues resulting in hospital visits for some of my extended family members. We had to travel out of the country due to an emergency, and had to travel back later just when the Delta-variant was peaking. December saw another such non-COVID health issue resulting in another hospital visit with some other extended family member, this time during another COVID variant at its peak (Omicron).

Thankfully, things are getting back some kind of normalcy. But the whole of last year has been a reminder regarding the importance of health and how fickle life can be.

Anyway, let us talk about something positive. This is supposed to be a monthly income update post, after all. And no better way to close the books on 2021 than to report the dividends earned during the final month of the year.

Dividend Income Received

	Company/ETF (ticker)	Amount
1.	Aflac Inc. (AFL)	$11.22
2.	Church and Dwight (CHD)	$2.02
3.	Duke Energy (DUK)	$4.93
4.	The Home Depot (HD)	$8.28
5.	Johnson and Johnson (JNJ)	$31.80
6.	Lockheed Martin (LMT)	$46.42
7.	3M (MMM)	$28.12
8.	Microsoft (MSFT)	$4.96
9.	NextEra Energy (NEE)	$1.55
10.	The Southern Company (SO)	$10.56
11.	Target (TGT)	$2.17
12.	T Rowe Price Group (TROW)	$5.96
13.	UnitedHealth Care (UNH)	$2.91
14.	Visa (V)	$2.25
15.	ExxonMobil (XOM)	$2.64
16.	Realty Income (O)	$10.78
17.	STAG Industrial (STAG)	$3.31
18.	Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD)	$26.50
19.	iShares Core Dividend Growth ETF (DGRO)	$5.75
	*Total*	$212.13

So a total of 19 contributors to dividend income generated $212.13, a record number for my portfolio. My monthly dividend income from Dec. 2020 was about $20.14. As one can see, the YoY dividend income has grown by 10x, which is quite staggering! LMT was the largest dividend payer this month, not surprising because I heavily bought this during the last few months.

It is important to highlight this once again: this was $212.13 for which I did not even have to lift a finger. My only contribution was some upfront research in high quality companies, purchasing them at reasonable values and then ignoring all the other noise either because they will cloud my judgement or because I simply do not have the time to follow the noise (aka “news”). My goal with sharing this information is not to brag about my progress, but rather to motivate you by demonstrating the power of this strategy.

At this stage of my dividend investment journey, the growth is very much due to capital being invested from my end, rather than organic growth due to dividend increases. But based on my future projections and my conviction in the companies I am invested in, I am well on track to see the dividend snowball take effect in a few years from now.

Buys/Sells during this month

As I stated earlier, this month was emotionally draining due to family members and their health issues. I did not have time to even look at my portfolio during this time. Any remaining free time was reserved for the family in holiday activities and some much needed cheer for all of us.

During the early part of the month, I did add to my MMM position, as that was the only stock I could find at a reasonable value at that time. All the other transactions where DRIPs.

No sells during this month.

Summary

So that is a wrap on 2021. It has been a rollercoaster of an year, but I am very hopeful and excited about the upcoming year.

I will end this post with some friendly advice: spend as much time as you can with your loved ones i.e. your family and friends. Life is short and any moments you have together are just priceless and irreplaceable.

My best wishes to all of you. Take care. Stay safe and healthy!

Monthly Income Update – November 2021

We are almost at the doorstep of a new year and I am waking up to the nice fall color hues thanks to the two red oak trees in my backyard. Some nice hot tea after breakfast and counting all the dividend checks I have received this month…what more can I ask for! 🙂

I am very thankful to have a loving and caring family, a stable and well-paying job and a lovely community of friends around me.

Dividend Income Received

	Company/ETF (ticker)	Amount
1.	Apple (AAPL)	$2.20
2.	AbbVie (ABBV)	$18.20
3.	Albertsons Companies (ACI)	$0.84
4.	Caterpillar (CAT)	$1.11
5.	Clorox (CLX)	$38.98
6.	Costco (COST)	$2.37
7.	Procter & Gamble (PG)	$7.83
8.	AT&T (T)	$2.08
9.	Texas Instruments (TXN)	$8.05
10.	Verizon (VZ)	$14.63
11.	Realty Income (O)	$9.83
12.	STAG Industrial (STAG)	$3.30
	*Total*	*$109.42*

So a grand total of $109.42 for this month from a total of 12 companies. At the same time last year, I had earned a whopping total of $9.37. The YoY growth in monthly dividend income is staggering. The key here is that this was $109.42 that I earned passively by simply choosing to invest in high-quality companies, while I focus on my daily 9-5 job and family responsibilities. This is the power of dividend growth investing and why it is the ideal strategy for my specific situation.

Buys/Sells during this month

As always, there is never a dull moment in the world of finance. During this month, news regarding the Omicron COVID variant broke out and that triggered a mini sell-off. Then there the news regarding President Biden’s move to reappoint Jerome Powell as the Fed chair and then the latter’s bizarre statement regarding his previous stated position on “inflation being transitory” and how he now wanted to retire the word “transitory” when describing inflation. Huh?

While all of this was causing movements in the markets, I was simply keeping an eye on any opportunities to buy. Among the opportunities, I added to my Visa (ticker: V) position. There was a slump in the stock price thanks to Amazon UK’s announcement that they will not be accepting payments made through Visa credit card. Fintech, in general, was getting hammered with similar slumps in stock price for Mastercard (ticker: MA), Paypal (ticker: PYPL) etc.

I also used the opportunity to add to my positions for Johnson and Johnson, 3M and Verizon as they had creeped below my cost basis.

Big Buys: V, JNJ, MMM, VZ

“Staying in the game” purchases: AFL, PG, PEP.

The “staying in the game” purchases are simply dollar-cost averaging into the stocks since the threshold for number of days since the last purchase made had expired (threshold configurable based on the category of the holding in my spreadsheet setup). The tranche size is dependent on the current valuation of the stock in question (i.e. smaller tranche size for an overvalued stock).

I had no sells during this month.

Summary

So there you go, another month is in the books and we are all getting ready to bid 2021 adieu and welcome 2022. Hopefully this new year will bring us good news as far as dealing with this pandemic is concerned.

I wish all my readers here a very happy holiday season. Here is wishing you in advance a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

Stay safe and healthy!

PS: You can now also connect with me on Twitter @LifeWDividends.

Monthly Income Update – October 2021

I have been relatively quiet on my blog for the last couple of weeks. This is for a few reasons: I had to take care of a few projects around the house that had been pending from a while. I finally got around to checking one of big projects from this list a couple of weeks back. Apart from that, work and family responsibilities have made things incredibly hectic leaving me with very little time in the day to even look at my portfolio or follow investing news.

Not that any of this is a problem. My investing strategy is catered for such situations. It is one of the primary reasons why I rely on dividend growth investing. I can focus on my life while my investments take care of themselves and generate a steady cash flow.

October was supposed to be a “slow” month for me in terms of dividend income. This is yet another aspect that does not worry me one bit. I do not invest in companies with an eye on their dividend payout dates. When a company ends up paying dividends is immaterial as long as they maintain the frequency and also keep up with their periodic increases. It all averages out eventually.

Okay, enough talk. Lets get into the update itself.

**Dividend Inc*ome Received***

	Company/ETF (ticker)	Amount
1.	JP Morgan Chase (JPM)	$9.00
2.	Realty Income (O)	$9.33
3.	STAG Industrial (STAG)	$3.05
4.	CareTrust REIT (CTRE)	$5.34
	*Total*	*$26.72*

So 4 companies contributing a total of $26.72 for the month. At the same time last year, I had a grand total of $1.27 for dividend income. So the YoY growth is still quite appreciable. $26 might seem very disheartening at this stage. After all, that is not going to be helpful in paying any bills. But as I have illustrated in one of my previous posts, it is not the present cash flow that I am focused on, rather it is the future cash flow.

While there was nothing much to write about in terms of dividend income, there has been plenty of action and news to follow and I have been skimming over that whenever I had a chance.

Dividend Increases

With the Q3 earnings in full flow during this month, I was keeping a track of certain companies and their expected dividend increases. The following were of interest:

Albertsons Companies (ticker: ACI): ACI went public around mid 2020 after several years of delay. It was a speculative bet and so appropriately placed in that category of my portfolio. That said, I was familiar with the chains covered under this company including the Albertsons, Safeway and Randalls grocery stores and a fairly good understanding of their business itself. My evaluation deemed this as a interesting value opportunity and I initiated a position late last year. I am happy that I did, I have more than doubled my investment since then. ACI announced a 20% increase to their quarterly dividend. I will be “promoting” this position from the “speculative” to the “growth” category as I think the management is steering this business in the right direction
AbbVie (ticker: ABBV): I wanted to pay close attention to ABBV’s debt profile and see if things were on track from their Q3 report. They were. And, as expected, ABBV announced a 8.5% increase to their quarterly dividend.
Visa (ticker: V): The next double-digit hike came from V. A nice 17.2% quarterly dividend hike. Nothing much to say here. Just solid quarterly results as expected.
ExxonMobil (ticker: XOM): And the final increase of a whopping 1% from the “Big Oil” giant, ExxonMobil. This was done to maintain its dividend aristocrat status. Am I disappointed? Nope! I understand why the management is doing it and I would be happy if they can use their cash flow to pay down debt. And the fact that management is committed to its dividend policy even after one of the worst oil markets, speaks a lot to me.

Other news

Realty Income announced the completion of its merger with VEREIT (ticker: VER). Realty income also announced the spin-off of its office-related assets into a new REIT called Orion (ticker: ONL). The arrangement is such that for every 10 shares of O held, the O stockholders would receive 1 share of ONL. At present, I plan to simply sit on these newly received shares of ONL and decide at a later point in time regarding what I would like to do with them.

Buys and Sells during this month

Big buys: VZ, LMT, CLX, JNJ

Staying in the game purchases: MMM, AFL, PG, CTRE, DLR, DGRO, O, SCHD, STAG

No sells during this period.

LMT dropped appreciably during this month after their lower guidance post their earnings call. This created a buying opportunity. VZ and JNJ also saw a dip. These are at close to reasonable value for me, so I decided to add to my positions. Similarly, CLX continued its “reversion to mean”. I was happy to buy and add more at these prices.

Summary

Another month is in the books. I plan to get back to more regular writing on the blog, time permitting of course. I am re-reading Peter Lynch’s One Up on Wall Street again. So I hope to cover that through a book review in one of my future posts.

Thank you for reading thus far and drop a comment to let me know how your month went by.

PS: You can now also connect with me on Twitter @LifeWDividends.

Monthly Income Update – September 2021

Another month is in the books. We are into the fall season here in the States: the days are getting shorter and I have had to get the rake out to collect all the dry leaves shed by the oak trees in my back and front yards. Work has been crazy and weekends are reserved for time with family and household chores. All in all, it is a busy life at present. But those dividends….those dividends are coming in thick and fast. How did I do this month? Let us get into the update and find out!

Dividend Income Received

During this month, I received income from the following companies/funds:

	Company / ETF (ticker)	Amount
1	Aflac (AFL)	$9.05
2	Church & Dwight (CHD)	$1.69
3	Duke Energy (DUK)	$5.61
4	The Home Depot (HD)	$6.60
5	Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)	$13.78
6	Lockheed Martin (LMT)	$10.40
7	3M (MMM)	$10.36
8	Microsoft (MSFT)	$1.83
9	NextEra Energy (NEE)	$1.54
10	Pepsi Co. (PEP)	$6.45
11	The Southern Company (SO)	$9.61
12	Target (TGT)	$1.81
13	T. Rowe Price (TROW)	$5.40
14	UnitedHealth Group (UNH)	$2.90
15	Visa (V)	$0.36
16	Waste Management (WM)	$0.58
17	ExxonMobil (XOM)	$3.46
18	Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD)	$21.99
19	iShares Core Dividend Growth ETF (DGRO)	$4.04
20	Realty Income Corp. (O)	$8.80
21	Digital Realty Trust (DLR)	$15.21
22	STAG Industrial (STAG)	$2.68
	*Total*	*$144.15*

So a total of 22 companies/ETFs contributed towards the monthly income of $144.15. This has been a record-breaking month where my monthly income figure touched new highs. At this time last year, I had received a monthly income of $9.97. That is some stellar year-over-year growth! While these growth numbers are expected to slow down as progress in my dividend growth investing journey, it is early momentum that counts at this point. Seeing the strategy working its magic serves as a motivation to continue along this path towards the eventual goal of financial independence.

Buys and Sells during this month

September was a busy month. The overall market, and I am using the S&P 500 as a reference, saw a drop of almost 5%. A quick skim of the news showed that the sell-off was due to rumblings in China about Evergrande, a large property developer in that country, facing a default of about $300 billion. There were several folks making references to the 2008 financial crisis and why this could be another “Lehmann brothers” moment. It almost seems like China is always on the news here in the US about something or the other. We are continuing to see stocks from other Chinese companies such as Alibaba (ticker: BABA) tumbling due to fear of government regulation.

In general, the markets going red represents a great buying opportunity. As a dividend investor, this is even more critical as it can help me lower my overall cost-basis and thereby improve my yield-on-cost. Among the opportunities, I noticed that ABBV, LMT and CLX were particularly attractive. ABBV’s drop was related to the FDA’s decision to put a label regarding increased risk of heart-related conditions, which could adversely impact RINVOQ, its arthritis treatment drug. CLX continued seeing a reversion back to its pre-pandemic levels.

As far as REITs, I saw some pullback in DLR triggered by news of its 6.25M share offering. So I added to my position there and also grabbed some more O.

Big buys: LMT, CLX, VZ, ABBV, MMM, JNJ, DLR

Staying in the game purchases: O, SCHD, DGRO, STAG, TXN, MSFT, AAPL, V, HD, AFL, TGT, TROW

I have no sells during this month.

Summary

Overall, I am very happy with my progress here and seem to be on track to achieve my goals for this year. I will be keeping a close eye on the market to see how things shape up and if more value-play opportunities open up.

Thank you for reading thus far and drop a comment to let me know how your month went by.

PS: You can now also connect with me on Twitter @LifeWDividends.

Monthly Income Update – August 2021

Time for one more entry into my favorite category on my blog: my monthly income updates. I cannot explain the thrill of counting and then reporting all of my dividend pay checks at the end of the month. It is really addicting! Tracking the monthly income that the portfolio is generating is perhaps the most important performance metric that I care about. Okay enough talk. Lets get right into it!

Dividend Income Received

During this month, I received income from the following companies:

Company / ETF (ticker)	Amount
Apple (AAPL)	$1.60
Abbvie (ABBV)	$12.16
Albertsons Companies (ACI)	$0.79
Caterpillar (CAT)	$1.43
Clorox (CLX)	$11.50
Costco (COST)	$2.38
Procter & Gamble (PG)	$6.27
AT&T (T)	$2.23
Texas Instruments (TXN)	$5.51
Verizon (VZ)	$6.96
Realty Income (O)	$7.84
Stag Industrial Inc. (STAG)	$2.56
*Total*	$61.23

So a total of 12 companies that doled out dividend pay checks to me as a thank you for investing my capital in their business. All of this while I was focusing on my daily life and other responsibilities. During August of 2020, when I was very early into my dividend investing journey, I earned a whopping $1.48. I have a come a long way in this one year span!

As I was going through the process of drafting this post, I saw a news update that Verizon (ticker: VZ) has increased its quarterly dividend by 2% to $0.64 per share. VZ is currently yielding 4.66% on a forward basis. This news was met with mixed response with a lot of investors sounding grumpy about the paltry dividend increase. Personally, I am not too bothered about this. VZ’s balance sheet is loaded with debt at present, most of which is understandable given its recent push into the 5G space. And the telecom sector is a very demanding industry with a lot of capital needed for infrastructure. Given this background, I completely understand the management’s decision to slow down on dividend increases and instead focus on getting the debt under control. VZ is a holding within the bond-like category of my portfolio: great starting yield, mediocre dividend growth and a safe dividend payout ratio. It is doing its role pretty well in my portfolio.

Buys and Sells during this month

August was a relatively quiet month for me in terms of stock purchases. The reason for this is that I was seriously contemplating about whether I was going to continue with M1 Finance as my brokerage for my dividend portfolio. I wrote a detailed post on this subject, mostly for the benefit of any other fellow investors out there who might be contemplating about the same thing. I have now moved my assets over to Fidelity and the move is already paying dividends ( 😉 see what I did there).

One outcome of the move from M1 Finance was that any fractional shares got sold and the resulting capital was moved over as cash into my new created Fidelity account. In general, I never ever want to sell any shares unless something fundamental has changed with the business in relation to why I originally invested in it. But in this case, it is all good since this is for the long-term and I am fairly confident that I will be sticking with Fidelity for a long long time.

Overall, the brokerage switch process was fairly smooth and I was able to chat with a real person at Fidelity to answer any questions and guide me through the process, something that I have routinely struggled to do with M1.

Staying in the game purchases: AFL, JNJ, PEP, PG, CTRE

Other purchases: CLX, O, SCHD, DGRO, DLR, STAG

Positions exited during the brokerage move: SWK, UPS, AVGO

I am not particularly unhappy about exiting the positions above, as these were relatively small positions and had seen a lot of run-up in stock price as a beneficiary of the situation due to the pandemic from last year. I will wait on the sidelines and look for a better entry point with each of these businesses.

How did your portfolio perform this month? Did you break any personal records? I would love to hear from you in the comments below!

Monthly Income Update – July 2021

There is a steady uptick in COVID-19 cases due to the delta variant here in the US. Everyone is hopeful that lockdown restrictions do not return, but the current trend is indeed worrying. While that is ongoing, earnings season is in full swing and the stock market is touching new highs every day. My dividend portfolio keeps cranking along at its own pace generating some passive income for me. How did the portfolio fare this month?

Dividend Income Received

During this month, I received dividend income from the following companies:

Company/ETF (Ticker)	Amount
JP Morgan Chase (JPM)	$6.53
T. Rowe Price (TROW)	$15.65
Realty Income (O)	$6.87
CareTrust REIT (CTRE)	$4.52
Stag Industrial Inc. (STAG)	$2.06
*Total*	$35.63

The dividend income received from TROW was a special dividend declared by the company on the 14th of June. William Stromberg, TROW’s CEO, said the following as a part of the press release for this special dividend announcement: “This special cash dividend is an efficient return of capital to our stockholders and reflects the healthy cash position on our balance sheet. After the special dividend payment, the company’s balance sheet will remain very strong, with ample liquidity to continue to execute on our business strategy. In addition, we believe that the payment of the special cash dividend will not have a material impact on the company’s ability to meet its ongoing financial needs, continue our outstanding dividend record for the foreseeable future, or maintain a buffer against market volatility.”

The other dividend payment from my taxable brokerage account was from JPM. There have been news reports that following the Fed’s stress tests on the major banks in the US, JPM will be hiking their quarterly dividend from $0.90 to $1.00 per share (about a 11% increase). This is still pending approval from the board of directors.

The other payments were from REITs that I hold in my tax-advantaged accounts (HSA, Roth IRA). At the time of writing this, both STAG and O have shown impressive Q2 results.

Bulls/Sells made during this period

I made the following purchases during this month:

Staying in the game purchases: CAT, JNJ, PEP, SO, DUK, TGT, TROW, UNH, V, VZ, WM, XOM, AVGO, CTRE, O, STAG

Other purchases: AAPL, LMT, CLX, MSFT, TXN, MMM, JPM, AFL, ABBV, SCHD

The “staying in the game” purchases are simply dollar-cost averaging into the stocks since the threshold for number of days since the last purchase made had expired (threshold configurable based on category of the holding in my spreadsheet setup). The tranche size is dependent on the current valuation of the stock in question (i.e. smaller tranche size for an overvalued stock).

It is getting very hard to find good value plays in what is an extremely overvalued market.There was a brief period of tech sell-off in July and I used this opportunity to add a few more shares in my Tech pie.

At the time of writing this, CLX just released its Q2 earnings report and missed its non-GAAP EPS by $0.36 and missed revenue by $110M. In addition, CLX also lowered their guidance for organic sales growth and non-GAAP EPS estimates for FY2021. Following this announcement, the stock slid by ~11%. I am hoping that this turns out as an opportunity to add more to my existing position.

I have no sells during this month.

How did your portfolio perform during July? Please let me know in the comments below.

Disclosure: Long all the stocks mentioned in this post.

Monthly Income Update – June 2021

Half of the year 2021 has come and gone already. I can’t believe that I am writing my second month income update on this blog. Time is simply flying by! But the pursuit for finance independence achieved through dividend growth investing is not slowing down. Those dividend checks are coming along at a steady clip. So let’s jump into the update.

Dividend Income Received

During this last month, I received income from the following:

Company / ETF (Ticker)	Amount
AFLAC (AFL)	$4.68
Broadcom (AVGO)	$1.71
Church & Dwight (CHD)	$1.54
Duke Energy (DUK)	$3.62
The Home Depot (HD)	$6.74
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)	$10.58
Lockheed Martin (LMT)	$6.70
3M (MMM)	$3.66
Microsoft (MSFT)	$1.31
NextEra Energy (NEE)	$1.02
Pepsi Co. (PEP)	$5.66
Southern Company (SO)	$5.81
Stanley Black & Decker (SWK)	$0.10
Target (TGT)	$0.81
T. Rowe Price (TROW)	$4.52
UnitedHealth Group (UNH)	$2.52
United Parcel Service (UPS)	$0.69
Visa (V)	$0.15
Waste Management (WM)	$0.73
Exxon Mobil (XOM)	$0.90
Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD)	$13.64
iShares Core Dividend ETF (DGRO)	$2.37
Realty Income (O)	$3.79
STAG Industrial (STAG)	$1.45
*Total*	$84.70

This was a record breaking month as far as monthly income received. As I have stated in my previous posts, I hold REITs in tax-advantaged accounts such as HSA, Roth IRA. I hold shares from Realty Income (O) and STAG Industrial (STAG), both REITs that pay dividends on a monthly basis. Part of my capital in the HSA is also deployed into two dividend ETFs: SCHD and DGRO. Both ETFs are slightly different in terms of their sector allocation, giving me some overall diversification. I am reasonably happy with their performance in my portfolio. All in all, I have received dividend income from 22 companies during this month! That is also a record by itself.

Buys/Sells made during this period

I made the following purchases during this month:

Staying in the game purchases: ABBV, CAT, CHD, COST, HD, LMT, MSFT, NEE, PEP, PG, SWK, TROW, TXN, UNH, V, XOM

Other purchases: AFL, CLX, JNJ, JPM, MMM, SO, TGT, VZ

The “staying in the game” purchases are simply dollar-cost averaging into the stocks since the threshold for number of days since the last purchase made had expired (threshold configurable based on category of the holding in my spreadsheet setup). The tranche size is dependent on the current valuation of the stock in question (i.e. smaller tranche size for an overvalued stock).

In general, this is an overvalued market, so there are no screaming deep value stocks that interested me during this month. However, as the famous saying goes:

Time in the market is more important than timing the market.

So rather than wait on the sidelines hoping for a correction, I am choosing to deploy my capital into companies that I think are close to fair value. Among the options available, Clorox (CLX) is going through some correction as life in general returns back to some normalcy here in the US, and seems to be reverting to its mean providing a buying opportunity. The other purchases, I was happy with the valuation at this time, even if they are not available at deep discount.

I have no sells during this month.

So how did your portfolio perform during this month? Please let me know in the comments below!

Disclosure: Long all the stocks mentioned in this post.

Monthly Income Update – May 2021

This is the first of what should hopefully be a long and never-ending series of monthly update posts. Through this series, I will be sharing the dividend income received during the month as well as any buys/sells made during the month.

Let me first start by stating that this is perhaps my most favorite part of dividend investing : receiving cash for simply investing in high-quality companies and not even having to lift a finger for it. If this amount was instead sitting in a bank account, I would have earned nothing for it. Instead, I am putting my money to work for me. The dividends received are invested back into the portfolio along with some additional capital to create a snowball. With every step, I am that much more closer to financial independence!

Dividend Income Received

During the month of May 2021, I received dividend income from the following companies:

Company (Ticker)	Amount
Apple (AAPL)	$0.85
Abbvie (ABBV)	$9.32
Albertsons Companies (ACI)	$0.53
Caterpillar (CAT)	$0.88
Clorox (CLX)	$5.31
Costco (COST)	$2.28
Procter & Gamble (PG)	$4.97
AT&T (T)	$2.23
Texas Instruments (TXN)	$3.06
Verizon (VZ)	$2.95
Realty Income (O)	$2.85
STAG Industrial (STAG)	$0.73
*Total*	$35.96

Buys/sells during this period

I made the following stock purchases during the month of May 2021:

“Staying in the game” purchases: AAPL, JPM

Other purchases: MMM, AFL, ACI, O, STAG, CTRE

The “staying in the game” purchases are simply dollar-cost averaging into the stocks since the threshold for number of days since the last purchase made had expired (threshold configurable based on category of the holding in my spreadsheet setup). The tranche size is dependent on the current valuation of the stock in question (i.e. smaller tranche size for an overvalued stock).

I have no sells during this month.

Disclosure: Long all the stocks mentioned in this post.