My Portfolio Crossed $250,000!

I am happy to report that my portfolio crossed $250,000 for the first time this past 7 days! This is really quite incredible to witness. You can see the power of compound interest and dividend growth investing right before your eyes. Roughly 3.5 years ago my portfolio was in the $130K range. Saving, investing, and repeating the process over and over each month has certainly paid dividends (figuratively and literally). The beauty of this investment strategy is putting your money to work for you and watching it produce ever increasing amounts of money over time. That is how you build serious wealth!

Over the past several years I managed to save over 50% of my working income each month. Thus, I have more money to invest and grow. Also, over the past 7 years of actively investing, I received almost $50,000 in dividend income. All of those dividends were reinvested back into my portfolio via buying new dividend stocks or adding on to stocks I already owned. The end result was that the snowball has really taken off and is growing bigger each month.

Let’s put this into perspective. Back in October 2017, I made a post celebrating that I crossed the $250K mark in net worth (that included all of my wealth together: portfolio, home, bank accounts, etc.). Today, only 3.5 years later, my stock portfolio alone is worth what my entire net worth was 3.5 years ago! Dividend growth investing is real and works! This is not a get rich quick scheme and it will take a lot of patience, but it works.

If you are a really young person reading this, know that it is best to get started as early as possible to take advantage of compound interest. I wish I had started actively investing in my teens or even early twenties. My grandfather bought me 2 stocks (MCD and IBM) when I was 6 years old, but I ignored them for the next 20 years. I was financially illiterate for those 2 decades. Nevertheless, the value of those two stocks alone had still grown enormously with dividend automatically reinvested and organic value appreciation.

It was great to watch as my portfolio crossed $250,000 in value. Of course, the stock market fluctuates day to day so the value going forward in the short term may vary. Nevertheless, things are trending in the right direction and over the long-term I can expect to see over $250K as the new normal. Now it is onward to $300K!

While value appreciation is nice, dividend income takes precedence over everything. As of this post, my portfolio is set to generate $11,177 in dividend income over the next 12 months. I am hoping to break the $12K mark in dividend income by the end of the year. Thus, the equivalent of $1,000 per month in dividend income. That will be a great milestone.

So, how about the rest of you? Have you crossed any milestones lately? What is your next milestone? Let me know in the comments below!