SaberX I trawled through my records and established that I have...

SaberX

I trawled through my records and established that I have been paid $25,500 in dividends on 150,000 shares over two years. The cost of those shares, ignoring brokerage was $207,934.64. The shares are held by my pension-paying SMSF, so the franking credits are fully refunded, and thus the $25,500 grows to $36,428.57. However, two years does not give enough time to get the last franking credit of $2,571.43 into my hands, so the benefit received is less. The relevant dividend details are [sorry about the layout - it looked fine in the preview]:

Ex Div .... Pay Date .... Shares .. DPS .. Div .. Frank Credit ... Div+Crdt
11/08/16 .. 01/09/16 .. 150,000 ... 4c .. $6,000 .. $2,571.43 .... $8,571.43
02/03/16 .. 10/03/16 .. 150,000 ... 3c .. $4,500 .. $1,928.57 .... $6,428.57
11/08/15 .. 24/09/15 .. 150,000 ... 6c .. $9,000 .. $3,857.14 .. $12,857.14
24/02/15 .. 10/04/15 .. 150,000 ... 4c .. $6,000 .. $2,571.43 .... $8,571.43
........................................................... $25,500 . $10,928.57 . $36,428.57

...................................................................... w/o $2571.43 .. $33,857.14

A rough calculation based on the $207,935 that I paid to acquire those 150,000 shares between 08/09/2014 and 16/02/2015, ignoring brokerage, gives a crude average yield of the $36,425.57 of 8.76%, and using a return of $33,857.14, it gives 8.14%. A day-by-day calculation compounding monthly gives 7.837%, and so one can use 7.8% compounded monthly with a high-level of comfort. Provided the SP recovers to the average buying price of my current holding, the return on the money laid out has thus far been acceptable, and I can wait out a recovery for a long time, provided DPS does not crash.

I have between 18/08/16 and 07/09/16 bought more shares, but they have not yet figured in a dividend distribution, so they formed no part in the foregoing calculations. These more recent purchases have reduced the average price of my current FRI holding of 193,000 to $1.264.

You asked about my background. I graduated with a B'Com degree in 1964, and after that I substantially worked in IT. I learned the basics of accounting and commercial arithmetic in my undergraduate studies. The first eighteen years of my IT career was based on accounting applications – payroll, debtors, creditors, general ledger, financial reporting and share registry, so I learned from that experience too.