Are your investments boosting their dividends? If so, consider yourself lucky. It's about more than just a little extra jingle and jangle in your pocket. In most cases, the move indicates that the fundamentals are improving at the more generous companies.

Readers of the Income Investor newsletter can certainly appreciate that kind of thinking. Let's take a closer look at four of the companies that inched their payouts higher this past week.

We can start with WD-40 (NASDAQ:WDFC). The company behind the multi-purpose lubricant that bears its name is greasing shareholders with a 14% distribution hike. Investors will now be getting $0.25 a share every three months.

Taking money management to a more stockholder-friendly level, T. Rowe Price (NASDAQ:TROW) is also raising its dividend. The mutual fund titan's quarterly outflow is growing by 21% to $0.17 a share. Surprised? You shouldn't be. T. Rowe Price has upped its payout every year since going public in 1986.

General Electric (NYSE:GE) was another hiker. Despite running an eclectic conglomerate that includes everything from appliances to financial services to jet engines, GE's been a consistent dividend grower.

"For more than three decades we have increased our dividend, and this year marks our third consecutive year of double-digit increases," said CEO Jeff Immelt. The new rate will be $0.28 per share every quarter, a 12% improvement.

Then we have Steelcase (NYSE:SCS). This may be one of the more encouraging upticks. Steelcase dabbles in office furniture, and the $0.01 growth in its quarterly distributions (to $0.13 a share) is encouraging, in that it indicates that companies are spending some money on sprucing up their corporate digs.

Subscribers to the Income Investor newsletter can appreciate the companies sending more and more money to their investors. The newsletter singles out companies that are committed to growing their distributions with market-thumping results.

Want to see what is being recommended these days? Go ahead and give the newsletter service a shot with a 30-day trial subscription. Who knows? Maybe the next thing that will get hiked will be your interest.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz pays attention to yield signs. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. He is also part of theRule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.The Fool has a disclosure policy.