This is Optimal Finance Daily, Episode 1840, the dividend aristocrats by Sean Owen with MrMoneyMustache.com.

And I'm your host and personal finance enthusiast, Diana Merriam.

Now let's get right to it and continue optimizing your life.

The dividend aristocrats by Sean Owen with MrMoneyMustache.com.

Now that you've had an introduction to the wonderful world of dividend investing,

you might ask yourself, what could be better than a company that pays you every quarter

for the privilege of having you as a shareholder? How could a company that gives you a raise every year?

It turns out that there are a number of companies out there with a proven track record

of doing exactly that, and there's an easy way to find them. Enter the aristocrats.

No, I don't mean the aristocrats from the infamous joke you may have heard of.

The S&P dividend aristocrats is an index that consists of companies that have raised their

dividends every year for at least 25 years in a row. This is an elite club indeed,

because if a company ever misses a single dividend payment or ever fails to give investors a raise,

then it's booted out and must start that 25-year clock all over again if it wants to get back in.

The index currently includes many familiar companies like Johnson and Johnson, McDonald's,

and Walmart. But there are others on the list that aren't necessarily household names.

Companies like Abbott Labs, Dover Corp, and Pitney Bose may not make many headlines,

but they also have paid increasing dividends for 25 years or more.

That period includes several nasty recessions, including the most recent one, which is the

worst since the Great Depression. The share prices of these companies may have fluctuated

during these rough patches, but they kept raising their dividends relentlessly through it all.

Boring is best. Many people think of these sorts of stocks as boring. Traders often

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