2016 YEAR IN REVIEW

Wow, here we are less than a week away from 2017, seems like the year has flown by.  Time to review accomplishments in my investment portfolio and finalize investment plan for the new year.  

Major goals for 2016 included doubling annual dividend income, reducing taxable income while increasing non-taxable income and keeping investment costs to a minimum.  I was able to keep investment costs low by reinvesting dividends for free and making larger cash investments, reducing commission costs as a percentage of investment.  As for doubling annual dividend income, that's in the bag.  Turned out it was much easier than I'd expected.  Not sure it will be so easy in 2017, but I'm optimistic, since I'm already projecting a 50% increase.  

The majority of dividend income for 2015 came from my taxable account.  So in order to reduce taxes on dividends, I opened a Roth IRA in 2016 and made the majority of new stock purchases through the Roth account, for tax free income.  I sold some stock in my taxable account and transferred the money to the Roth account and boosted monthly dividend income by a significant amount, while reducing taxes.  I also collected cash dividends from the taxable account and transferred that money to the Roth account as well.  Bottom line, the Roth account now makes up the largest of my 4 investment accounts and generates the lion's share of monthly dividend income tax free.

Balances in my taxable account, the IRA, 401k and the Roth account continue to increase every month from reinvested dividends and additional cash investments.  Monthly dividends go up every month and total number  of shares owned nearly doubled during the year!  I had planned to make a "dividend per day" my main goal for 2017, but was able to increase total dividend payments to 348 in 2016, so it turns out this will be only a minor goal, since I only need to add an additional 17 dividend payments.  All in all, I'd say it's been a great year!