August 2019 Dividend Income Update
Welcome to my latest dividend income update for 2019 folks – happy to have you on the site.
For those of you new to these posts on my site, for the last few years, every month I discuss our approach to investing using Canadian dividend paying stocks.
To recap, we take a hybrid-approach to investing.
These posts are only a portion of those updates.
- Approach #1 – we own a number of Canadian dividend paying stocks for income and growth. These updates focus on that progress.
- Approach #2 – we’re owning more units of low-cost U.S. Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) inside our RRSPs over time. I believe owning more U.S. ETF units (over time) is a great complement to our Canadian dividend income machine…
Over the summer, I’ve received a number of emails about our investing approach; what stocks in particular we own, what is our biggest holding, and what stocks we’ve held the longest.
All great questions!
So, let’s answer them as part of this dividend income update.
What do you own and why do you own what you own?
I answered those questions and much more here.
I don’t intend to sell any stocks anytime soon.
What is your biggest holding?
Actually, it’s not a dividend paying stock at all. It’s low-cost U.S. ETF VYM. I’ve owned VYM for many years now and I have no intention of selling any units. In fact, I hope to own more units of the ETF over time.
At the time of this post, VYM is approaching 10% of our entire portfolio. Eventually, it would be nice to see U.S. ETFs comprise about 25% of our portfolio. We’re working on that…
My hope is I can use the distributions earned from VYM to cover some of my semi-retirement expenses in 5-10 years without selling any ETF units.
Since these updates are strictly about our Canadian dividend paying stock holdings and dividend income derived from those assets, our biggest Canadian stock holding is Bank of Montreal (BMO).
I’ve owned BMO for over a decade now, and again, there is no intention of selling this stock.
What stocks have I held the longest?
A few come to mind:
- BMO
- Enbridge (ENB)
- Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC)
- Fortis (FTS).
Unless these companies stop paying a quarterly dividend in the coming years, or decades, let alone stop increasing their dividends like they tend to do every year, I will continue to own them.
Am I looking at any other stocks to buy and hold?
Not really.
After the early years of seemingly seeing little progress within the fish-bowl of investing, it’s motivating and gratifying to look back years later and see some major gains.
If you want to read more about my boring approach to successful investing you can find more details on these pages here:
This is how I built my dividend portfolio.
Check out why I love dividends.
Check out why I’m a huge fan of some ETFs and how many you should own.
Where are we at now with the dividend income?
Thanks in part to some recent dividend raises (thanks Royal Bank), I’m forecasting we might earn close to $19,200 by the end of this calendar year (December 2019) from our tax-free and tax-friendly account (TFSAs and non-registered respectively) as long as the companies we own continue to pay dividends at the rates they do. Who knows? We might get more dividend increases in the coming months….pushing this income total higher and closer to $19,500!!
For those paying attention, this total is $200 more than just last month. To earn this money, I did nothing more than stick to our plan and hold the same (boring) stocks as we did last month while reinvesting dividends paid to buy more shares commission-free.
You can read about the pros and cons of dividend reinvestment plans here.
If it ain’t broke – don’t fix it. That’s my plan.
I look forward to sharing my next update with you.
Mark
Nicely done Mark!
Coming along my friend!
Mark
Very nice progress Mark.
May, 3K is a mighty fine increase and yes a stabilizer for the time when market downs happen.
Thanks RBull!
Boring approach but $200 in a month isn’t boring!
My largest position = VYM. Will buy more. Question is when.
Same = VYM. Happily DRIPing 4 shares per quarter of VYM. Hopefully 5 soon! Not going to stop and I do want to buy more VYM in 2020. Saving for that purchase now inside USD $$ RRSP.
Makes sense in accumulation mode and for some in retirement mode too. Very good. Same here on building USD cash in RRSP, since I made a lower withdrawal in ’19.
No drip shown available for VYM at my broker. Haven’t asked. Payday coming soon.
Yes, should occur later this month (re: distribution for VYM). Likely in the range of $0.60. That’s what I keep in my dividend income tracking spreadsheet as a placeholder.
Nice news as well about FTS:
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3498156-fortis-declares-cad-0_4775-dividend
Thanks, hadn’t seen that from Fortis yet. Very nice. We drip that.
.60 seems very safe. Last year this time was .6718 and avg of last 6 is .6542+. All above .60
Conservative is good. Maybe you’ll get your 5!
Haven’t heard on EMA. Curious if Dorian has any impact.
Same, EMA should be announcing a dividend increase soon – they usually do in the fall.
Keep up the good work Mark.
Well thanks. It’s rather boring!
Wow, $200 more in one month. That’s impressive.
Seeing the organic dividend increase from dripping and dividend hikes without adding more money is really motivating. I was in this game late and I had only data from last year. I got $3K increase from that and that’s really something powerful to keep one on track even in market downs.
Rather amazing May, really, that such small dividend increases + the power of reinvesting can deliver in just a matter of weeks.
Hoping to save up more $$ in registered accounts for future purchases. Leaning towards more VYM.