This is what dividend investing is all about! Investing in dividend stocks can help you earn dividend income, the best passive income stream! Bias, you better believe it.
Time to dive into Lanny’s December 2025 dividend income results! Have any records been set? Almost to financial freedom? One day and one month at a time!
Dividend income
Dividend income is the fruit of investing your money in the stock market. Furthermore, dividend income is my most important tool on the path to financial freedom.
How can I research and screen dividend stocks before purchasing? I use our Dividend Diplomat Stock Screener and trade on SoFi’s investment platform.
Related: Sign up for SoFi – get FREE inventory!
Related: View our dividend portfolios!
I also auto-invest and max out, pre-tax, my 401k through work and my health savings account. This allows me to save a LOT of money on taxes (aka thousands), allowing me to invest even more. In addition, any dividends I receive are automatically reinvested in the company that paid the dividend, known as a Dividend Reinvestment Plan or DRIP for short. This takes the emotion out of timing the market and builds on my passive income stream!
Related: Tax Strategy – Part 3: Cut taxes and increase investment.
Related: The power of dividend reinvestment
Related: Why I don’t time or predict the market
Growing your dividend income takes time and consistency. By investing as often and as early as possible, compound interest (also called dividends) can work, it’s magic. I went from earning $2.70 in one month in dividend income to well over… $10,000+ in one month. My dividend income record was set in December 2021. Was it broken this month?! The power of dividend compounding and reinvestment is a wonderful part of the portfolio. Every month, big or small, I continue to report the passive income that dividend investing brings me. Why?
*Not pictured is my wife’s dividend income above*
I want to show it YOU that dividend investing makes it possible to achieve financial freedom and/or financial independence. We all start somewhere, but investing consistently, compounding (reinvesting) dividends and keeping it simple will put you in a significantly better position than most. Furthermore, if I can grow this portfolio and income stream, YOU is also possible.
dividend income – December 2025
Now on to the figures… In December we (my wife and I) received a total dividend income of $8,010.54. Those are financial freedom numbers, baby! Now we all know that SO much of it comes from the pension based accounts, aka accounts that I don’t touch right now, and I don’t get taxed on that portion either. However, over $8,000 total is nothing to scoff at!
The number and number of shares below shows what it means to buy shares and hold them for the long term. I have owned most positions for YEARS, letting dividend growth and reinvestment do their work. This is what dividend investing for financial freedom is all about. The passive income stream is growing at a FAST pace.
2023 was an increase of 24%. Guess what? 2024 was an increase of 23%! 2025 was also over 16%!! Can we get 4 years in a row?! Bitcoin has been turbulent, falling more than 20% to the mid-$60,000s. Two rate cuts have been priced into the market and the Fed has started a mini-quantitative easing.
Here’s the breakdown of dividend income for the month, between taxable accounts and retirement accounts (far right column, under ‘Pension’). Furthermore, “W” means my wife’s account:
So many dividend aristocrats are sending dividend checks my way, with Aflac (AFL), Target (TGT), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Grainger (GWW), Emerson (EMR), IBM (IBM), Archer Daniels (ADM), McDonald’s (MCD), T. Rowe (TROW) – wow, what a list!
Furthermore, LyondellBasell’s (LYB) huge dividends, we’ll see if they can keep this up without a dividend cut. I wrote covered calls on my LYB stock and generated hundreds of dollars in additional income from my position this year, why not, right?!
Vanguard’s VYM took the cake here, though, with almost $2,000 sent between my wife and my account for the taxable side, so close to the mark! Plus, Vanguard’s VOO position is really starting to pay a nice dividend!
I also split my retirement accounts in the far right column and the taxable account dividends are in the two left columns. The retirement accounts are made up of HSA investments, ROTH and traditional IRAs, as well as our work 401(k) accounts. In total, the retirement accounts provided a total amount of dividend income of $2,201.24 or 27.4% of total dividend income. Accumulate revenue no matter what. LET’S GO!!
Related: Maximize your Roth for 10 years… Set it and forget it!
Dividend income year-over-year comparison
2024: 
2025:
Our dividend income increased by $383.84 or 5%. Decent growth. Not great, but it’ll do, right?
We didn’t have: Viatris (VTRS), SpartanNash (SPTN), Nordstrom (JWN), Walgreens (WBA) these are going around, due to the sales and/or shares being acquired and no longer a tradable company.
Additionally, PRFDX’s T. Rowe Price fund has paid out significantly less this year than last year, which likely leaves it with less capital gains to distribute.
However, everything is going well, because we are going in the right direction. Sometimes a cleaning is necessary to improve the functioning of the wallet. We now have SCHD in the portfolios, and those positions are doing significantly well.
How do your December dividend income compare?
Dividend increases
As far as I know, we’ve only had two dividend increases from individual stocks.
Both were “egh” and just kept their dividend growth alive. Small, but we’ll take it anyway.
Related: The impact of the dividend growth rate!
In total, the dividend increases created $4.44 in additional passive dividend income. I would have to invest $127 at a 3.50% dividend yield to add that income. Thanks for the raises because I didn’t need to have the capital to create that form of income!
Conclusion and summary of dividend income
The name of the game is: apply what you learn through financial education. The next steps are maximizing every dollar for investment opportunities and living life on your own terms. Therefore, my plan is to demonstrate that dividend income can be an income driver. A revenue engine that allows you to do that take back control of your life. An income engine that helps you achieve financial freedom. Dividend investing, once you learn the right way, becomes easier and starts to make tremendous sense!
Excited for the future, no doubt. Moreover, all the investments last year and the moves this year show that I want that too Save 60% of my incomeAnd making every dollar counthas driven the dividend growth.
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As always, thanks for visiting. Leave your comments and questions below. Good luck and have fun investing everyone!
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