There's nothing quite so exciting for me as watching a dividend check hit my brokerage account. (Yes, I should probably find a hobby.) I simply love the regularity of the return I'm getting on my hard-earned cash. But the key for me is trying to find reliable dividend stocks when they are unloved on Wall Street. I did just that with (NYSE: NUE) and Eaton (NYSE: ETN). Now I'm happily buying more and more as the years go by.

The first step in my search for a stock is usually looking at a list of companies that have increased their dividends for at least 10 years. Sometimes, as was the case with Eaton, I'll consider companies that have stopped increasing their dividends for a strategic reason. After I've identified that first list, I pare it down even further by looking for companies with historically high yields.

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