Dividend Income Q3 2026: $4,063.45

I am starting a new quarterly series tracking the dividend income my portfolio produces. The monthly net worth and portfolio updates cover what the portfolio is worth; this one covers what it pays me.

Bottom line up front

The portfolio paid $4,063.45 in dividends in Q3 2026 (July through September) — the best quarter of the year so far, up 67.7% from Q2's $2,422.37. Year-to-date, dividends total $8,425.71.

Month by month

Month	Dividends
July	$2,417.56
August	$106.63
September	$1,539.26
Q3 Total	$4,063.45

Dividend income arrives in lumps — July was the biggest month of the year thanks to quarterly distributions, while August is always thin. The pattern to watch is the quarterly total, not any single month.

Top payers

On an indicated annual basis, the portfolio is set to pay about $18,404.93 in dividends, roughly a 0.40% yield on the portfolio's value. The top payers:

• TQQQ — $5,990.11 indicated annually, nearly a third of all dividend income. The 3x Nasdaq ETF is both my largest holding and my largest payer.
• BKNG — $2,168.75
• NVDA — $1,395.16
• AVGO — $996.26
• META — $895.98

The irony of my portfolio is hard to miss: it is built for growth, not income, yet the biggest payers are the same mega-cap tech names driving the returns. The highest yielder in the top 10 is York Water (YORW) at 2.96%, a reminder of what an income portfolio would look like — but that is not the game I am playing.

Outlook

With $8,425.71 banked through three quarters against $18,404.93 indicated annually, Q4 should close out a solid year of dividend growth. Every dollar of dividends is a dollar I did not have to sell anything to receive — and in a year when the portfolio is beating the market, that is a nice bonus on top.

How I Track My Net Worth

People sometimes ask how I keep tabs on my finances down to the dollar every month. The answer is unglamorous: one big spreadsheet, a monthly routine, and the discipline to reconcile every penny. Here is exactly how it works.

The balance sheet

Everything lives in a single Google Sheet — my personal balance sheet and income statement. Once a month, after the month ends, I update every row with the closing values:

• Investment portfolio — every account, every position. That is currently 14 accounts and 102 positions, tracked in a companion portfolio sheet.
• Home — I use the current Zillow Zestimate. It is an estimate, not an appraisal, but it is consistent month to month, and consistency is what matters.
• Gold — marked at the current spot price.
• Cash — bank balances, entered by hand.
• 529 plans and other small accounts — all of them, even the $86 ones.
• Liabilities — my credit cards, which are on autopay for the full statement balance, plus anything else I owe.

Two headline numbers come out of this: total net worth and liquid net worth (everything except the house — the money I could actually get my hands on). I watch both.

The reconciliation

The part most people skip is the part that matters most: every dollar of change has to be explained. If my net worth rose $50,000 in a month, I want to know how much was market gains, how much was new money I invested, how much was dividends, and how much leaked out as spending.

So the sheet has a reconciliation block. Each month I roll it forward: start with the change in net worth, subtract net investment flows (buys minus sells, minus dividends received), and what is left is the true investment return. Then I compare that return against the S&P 500 for the month. If I cannot explain the change, the books are not closed.

This is also why I keep a meticulous cost-basis log — every buy and sell I have made since 2014, with the broker, the price, and the date. It feeds the portfolio sheet, the tax return, and the monthly reconciliation. Tedious to maintain, invaluable when you need it.

The routine

The whole thing runs on a monthly cadence:

1. The 1st of the month — close the books. Update the portfolio, enter the bank figures, log the month's transactions.
2. The 2nd of the month — write it up. A net worth update and a portfolio update go on this blog, with a performance review in the style of a fund manager's letter.

Doing it on a schedule is the entire trick. A net worth you check once a year is trivia. A net worth you reconcile every month is a feedback loop — you start noticing which months your spending drifts, which positions are actually earning their keep, and whether you are beating the market or just riding it.

If you want to start

You do not need my spreadsheet. You need three things:

1. List everything you own and owe, in one place. Miss nothing, however small.
2. Update it on a fixed schedule. Monthly works. Yearly does not.
3. Reconcile the change. New money in, market gains, spending out — every dollar accounted for.

Do that for a year and you will understand your finances better than 95% of people. Do it for a decade and you will wonder how you ever managed money without it.

Portfolio Update September 2026: Bought 7 Stocks for $25,895.09, Sold 0, Net Inflow $25,895.09

The time has come for my monthly portfolio update. At the end of every month, I will update my portfolio and comment on any changes. I do that for accountability and also so you may glean some ideas on how I allocate my capital. Starting this month, I am adding a performance review in the style of a fund manager's letter, so you can see not just what I bought and sold, but what drove the month's result.

Transactions

In September I bought 7 stocks for $25,895.09 and sold nothing, for a net inflow of $25,895.09.

The month was dominated by a new position in Fair Isaac (FICO). I bought 11 shares in early September for about $10,035, then added 24 more shares on September 29 for about $15,441, after the Federal Housing Finance Agency moved to let mortgage lenders use VantageScore — a direct competitor to the FICO score — and Rocket Mortgage named VantageScore 4.0 its preferred scoring model. The stock fell more than 20% on the news, and I used the selloff to build the position at an average cost of about $728 per share. All told, FICO accounted for $25,476.43 of the month's purchases, and the 35-share position closed the month at 0.50% of the portfolio.

The remainder was dividend reinvestments and small automatic purchases: SCHG ($210.94), SPGI ($103.47), NVR ($90.82), GOOGL ($12.74), UNP ($0.40), and ILCB ($0.29).

Performance Review

For the month, the portfolio gained 0.36%, rising from $4,574,156.88 to $4,590,457.13, ahead of the 0.45% decline in the S&P 500.

September was a narrow market. Cooling inflation lifted technology into month-end and the Nasdaq held up better than the Dow and small caps, but breadth was poor — most sectors and most stocks lagged, with the 10-year Treasury yield sitting near a 24-year high around 5.29%.

Against this backdrop, the portfolio's AI-levered mega-caps did the heavy lifting. Meta Platforms was the standout contributor, rising about 27% — its strongest month since 2022 — after launching its Muse personal AI-agent app and showcasing new AI hardware and enterprise tools at its Connect conference. The market is once again willing to reward a company with a credible AI monetization story. Strength in the Nasdaq flowed through to the portfolio's largest holding, the ProShares UltraPro QQQ, which gained about 13%. Nvidia added about 5%.

These gains were largely offset by weakness across the rest of the book. Smaller positions and non-technology holdings lagged in a month of notably weak breadth, leaving the net advance modest despite the mega-cap fireworks.

Notable changes in positioning: the new 35-share Fair Isaac position described above, built across the FHFA-driven selloff. It is a bet that the market overreacted to the VantageScore headline — though with the stock down about 9% from my cost into early October, it is too soon to grade that call.

See also: Net Worth Update September 2026

Net Worth Update September 2026: $4,442,396.01 (-$20,924.49, -0.47%)

It's been a while.

I started this blog years ago to document my journey from zero to a seven-figure net worth — seven years of full-time work, saving over 90 percent of my after-tax income, no windfalls, no shortcuts. The last update I posted was May 2021, when the bottom line read $2,638,819.77.

A lot has happened since. I kept tracking every penny, every month, just as before — the spreadsheets never stopped. The portfolio kept compounding, through the 2022 bear market and back. Today the bottom line reads $4,442,396.01.

So I'm resuming the monthly updates, same format as always: the full balance sheet, the portfolio snapshot, the income and expenses. For accountability, and so you can learn from what I do well — and avoid repeating what I do poorly.

Let's begin. Again.

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Welcome to my monthly net worth update! Here is how my assets, liabilities, and net worth have changed over the past month:

	Balance on 8/31/2026	Balance on 9/30/2026	$ Change	% Change	% of Net Worth
ASSETS
Cash	(246,657.38)	(270,100.99)	(23,443.61)	—	-6.08%
Bonds	550.00	550.00	0.00	0.00%	0.01%
Stocks in taxable accounts	3,590,316.88	3,532,776.05	(57,540.83)	-1.60%	79.52%
Total current assets	3,344,209.50	3,263,225.06	(80,984.44)	-2.42%	73.46%
Tax-deferred accounts	691,684.92	744,541.87	52,856.95	7.64%	16.76%
Roth IRA	292,545.77	299,223.42	6,677.65	2.28%	6.74%
Home (Zestimate)	90,000.00	94,100.00	4,100.00	4.56%	2.12%
Gold (10.77 oz)	48,432.69	44,819.57	(3,613.12)	-7.46%	1.01%
Other non-current assets (529, etc.)	2,065.46	2,103.93	38.47	1.86%	0.05%
Total assets	4,468,938.34	4,448,013.85	(20,924.49)	-0.47%	100.13%
LIABILITIES & EQUITY
Total liabilities	5,617.84	5,617.84	0.00	0.00%	0.13%
Equity (net worth)	4,463,320.50	4,442,396.01	(20,924.49)	-0.47%	100.00%

Net worth: Bottom line up front, my net worth decreased by $20,924.49, down 0.47% this month. Taxable stocks fell $57,540.83 (-1.60%) on marked-to-market losses, partly offset by a $52,856.95 (+7.64%) rise in tax-deferred accounts and $6,677.65 (+2.28%) in my Roth IRA. Gold pulled back $3,613.12 (-7.46%) while the home Zestimate added $4,100. The S&P 500 fell 0.45% in September, closing at 7,651.54.

Here is the breakdown of my balance sheet:

Liquid net worth stands at $3,601,650.21, or 81.07% of net worth. My net worth remains 580.59 times the S&P 500 index — the multiple I track to keep myself honest against the market.

September was a flat month in a strong year. Taxable accounts gave back some of August's gains while retirement accounts carried the other way. No leverage, no change in liabilities, savings rate intact. Onward.

See also: Portfolio Update September 2026