How it works

This is a real, public dividend portfolio we document in the open: a separate, dedicated brokerage account that holds only the weekly buys you see here. Real money, real dividends, every move shown.

The weekly habit

Every week we invest $100 into one dividend stock that passes the five-box test (below), and we record exactly what we bought, the price, and the shares.

As our holdings pay dividends, that cash collects in the account and gets pooled into the next weekly buy, so some weeks we invest our $100 plus whatever dividends have landed since. Rather than each stock quietly reinvesting back into itself, every dividend flows into the next pick, which steadily concentrates the portfolio into our best current ideas. Either way it all gets reinvested and compounds, and we always show the difference between our deposits and the money the portfolio puts back to work on its own.

The five-box test

Every stock is run through five questions:

1. Pays a dividend? The entry ticket.
2. Raises it consistently? A history of increases through good times and bad.
3. Is the dividend safe? A sensible payout ratio, with room to keep raising.
4. Is it undervalued? Don't overpay, even for greatness.
5. Is the yield high enough to matter? The box people forget.

The DividendAbundance Score

We turn the five boxes into a single number. Each box scores 1 to 20, for a total from 5 to 100, the higher the better. A stock might show "88 / Strong." Here is exactly how each box earns its points, so you can check any score on this site yourself.

How each box is scored

Every box has the same six steps: 20, 16, 12, 8, 4, or 1. The thresholds are fixed and have not changed since the first buy. A score is computed from the figures on the day we buy, and we keep those figures with the score so it can be audited later.

Box	20	16	12	8	4	1
1. Pays (years paid without a cut)	25 or more	10 to 24	5 to 9	2 to 4	1	none
2. Raises (consecutive years increased)	25 or more	10 to 24	5 to 9	2 to 4	1	none
3. Safe (payout ratio)	50% or less	up to 60%	up to 75%	up to 90%	up to 100%	over 100%
4. Undervalued (yield vs. its own 5-year average)	15% above or more	5% above	within 5%	15% below	25% below	worse
5. Yield that matters (current yield)	3.5% or more	3.0%	2.5%	2.0%	1.0%	under 1%

Pays and Raises count calendar years. A raise means the total paid in a calendar year was higher than the year before. We count from the company's own payment record, not from a screener's "years of growth" field, because those are often wrong. When a company has split in two, the count restarts at the split, since the per-share dividend of the stock we actually own went down. Payment records that cover only part of a company's history get the conservative count.

Safe uses the trailing twelve months of earnings per share, as reported, for most companies. We know headline earnings can be distorted by one-time charges in either direction; we score the reported number anyway, the same way for every stock, and explain the distortion in the write-up. For real estate investment trusts we use adjusted funds from operations instead of earnings, because depreciation makes a REIT's earnings meaningless for this purpose. For master limited partnerships we would use distributable cash flow. The basis is recorded with every score.

Undervalued compares today's indicated yield (the current quarterly dividend times four, or monthly times twelve) with the stock's own average yield over the past five years. The five-year figure comes from our brokerage's statistics page or, when the box is close to a line, from our own calculation over roughly 1,250 daily closes. A yield above its own norm means the price is below its own norm. We measure against the stock's own history, never against its 52-week high.

Yield that matters is the current yield at the purchase price. A yield under 2.5% is a floor, not a low score: we don't buy it. That is why the technology sector took nineteen weeks to appear in this portfolio.

The rules around the score

• A broken box is a no, whatever the total. A stock paying out more than 100% of earnings doesn't get bought on the strength of its other four boxes. We passed on a 5% yielder with a Morningstar five-star rating for exactly this reason.
• Repeat buys are re-scored on buy day with that day's figures, and the new score is what the site shows. The old score stays in the record.
• Scores can go down. When we buy a stock a second time, or review it, the figures are whatever they are that day.
• The score grades the dividend, not the stock. It does not predict price. We say that every week, and we mean it.
• Judgment calls are disclosed. Occasionally we buy a lower score over a higher one, for sector balance or a thesis of our own. When we do, the write-up says so in those words.
• The growth rate we store for the income projection is the company's most recent raise, capped at what management has guided to. We do not use the long-run average when it is higher than what the company says to expect.

The tiers

Score	Tier
90 to 100	Exceptional
75 to 89	Strong
60 to 74	Solid
45 to 59	Fair
5 to 44	Weak

The tier is a label on the number, never a substitute for it. We show both because a label alone is useless to a reader who can't tell the colors apart, and one of us can't.

Every holding, box by box

Boxes scoring under 16 are shown in a lighter ink, so the weak spot in each holding stands out. Scores are as of each holding's most recent assessment, re-done on every repeat buy.

How we decide

Buys are rule-based: every purchase passes the five-box test and carries its DividendAbundance Score, calculated in the open. Sells are rare and discretionary. We almost never sell, and when we do (a company genuinely falling apart), it's a judgment call we explain after the fact, not a mechanical signal. We document what we did and why; we never tell you what to do.

A note on the numbers

Income and yield figures are estimates based on the most recently declared dividend rates, and companies can change their dividends. Projections are illustrative, not promises. None of this is financial advice. We document what we do and show our reasoning. What you make of it is your call.