Another bumpy month for stocks in March but we have made it through the $22,000 road block and the ETF portfolio now starts with a 23. No thanks to Mr. Market as it was done the hard way: Adding more cash!!
The only thing I wish was different about this market correction was that I had a larger pile of cash on the sidelines and ready to deploy. I don’t regret not having it though as I really do need to make every dollar work as hard as possible as I’m already living a very frugal life.
So if anything, this correction has inspired me to look more seriously into various side gigs to increase my work income so that I can increase my dividend income.
ETF Dividend Payments in March
March was the monthly payers and the new position in SCHD which pays out quarterly. FEPI and QQQI both had lower payouts and I didn’t add as many new SCHD shares as I would have liked. I’m pretty confident that every month going forward will now be above $100.
JPEQ paid out $36.96, FEPI paid $36.69, SCHD delivered $7.16, and QQQI gave me $18.13, which is a total of $98.94 for the month of March.
When compared to March in 2024 which was $9.39 you could say I have done well. That is a 10X increase in dividends in 12 months. If I could just do that a few more times I’ll be able to replace my old Kia with a new Porsche.
The rolling 6 month, monthly dividend payment was $103.66 last month. It has grown by $7.59 per month to $111.25. I’m happy with the average increasing by $7 but I would love to increase it by $10 or even $20 per month. I could increase my dividends by selling some lower paying individual stocks held outside of my ETF portfolio like Visa and Microsoft but I would prefer to hold onto them for as long as I can.
The ETF Dividend Portfolio for March
This month the ETF dividend portfolio has increased to $23,410 up from $22,504 in February which is an increase of about $906. New contributions were $2,431 which means that the value of the portfolio would have been more like $20,979 if I hadn’t added new money.
I bought a little bit of almost everything except for FEPI. It continues to pay out lower dividends and decrease in value over and above similar ETFs that I follow. Yes, the market is down and yes JEPQ and QQQI are also down, but FEPI is being hit harder and I’m losing patience with it. I haven’t added to FEPI in more than 3 months and my dividend payments have decreased for 5 straight months.
Just as a note, the ticker symbols ending in .AX are Australian listed ETFs and those without them are US listed ETFs. The US listed prices and average cost per share are in US dollars but everything else like market value and total dividend income are in Australian dollars.
Here’s what the ETF portfolio looked like at the end of March 2025…
See the ETF Dividend Portfolio from February.
What to Expect in April
I’m a little late posting this month and it’s now the 4th of April, so we’re seeing the whole Trump tariff circus happening. Basically it’s America taxing the world for access to American consumers. Neither friend nor foe escapes the new orange tax on everything. I’m told even islands entirely inhabited by penguins will now be taxed by Donald.
The penguins thing may or may not be entirely true as I couldn’t be bothered looking into it, but it is pretty funny. It could be true as reality has become way stranger than fiction these days.
Lets forget politics though as I don’t believe in the left, the right or anything to do with western democracy which is used to bend humanity over and bugger it. The clever part of democracy is that it tricks us into thinking we’re free while we’re being buggered hard and fast.
But back to money making and freedom creating. I’ll be buying as much income as I can. It won’t be as much as I bought in March but I’ll eat ramen noodles to maximize the amount of money that I do put in this month.
I’ll probably add to SCHD which had its annual reconstitution just recently where it kicked some companies out and added others that aligned to the methodology used by Schwab. The biggest takeaway I noticed was that they’re leaning more towards the energy sector and less towards the healthcare sector. See the companies added or deleted here on my SCHD Reconstitution post.
My usual 5 shares of JEPQ will be added in April as they’re getting cheaper by the day.
Also, I may or may not sell my FEPI shares. If I do sell them I’ll probably put the money into things like SPYI, FSCO, or PBDC. Whatever I buy I want it to pay a dividend yield of around 10 percent.
How did your freedom making machine handle the bumpy month of March? What’s your 6 month rolling monthly dividend average for your ETFs? (total dividends paid over the last 6 months, divided by 6 equals your average).
Total ETF + REIT + Managed Funds Portfolio for March
Total Index Funds portfolio value (VHY, VGS, GEAR, JPEQ, FEPI, QQQI, SCHD, NDQ, ATEC and IVV): $23,410 up from $22,504
Most recent dividend payment (March): $98.94 up from $87.23 in February (Monthly and quarterly dividends from JPEQ, FEPI, SCHD and QQQI)
Dividends paid in March 2024: $9.39 which is a 953% Increase YoY (Year on Year)
6 Month Dividends Monthly Average: $111.25 up from $103.66 last month
Dividends paid in 2025 so far: $371.59 (this time last year it was $80.77)
Dividends paid in 2024: $725.85
All dividends paid in 2023: $102.68
All ETF dividend payments since starting the ETF portfolio: $1,232.01
ETF Dividends Goal 1: $2,000+ per year.
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