Weekend Reading – Dividend increase week, FIRE, #islandtime and more #moneystuff

Weekend Reading – Dividend increase week, FIRE, #islandtime and more #moneystuff

Hey folks!

Welcome to my latest Weekend Reading edition where I share some of my favourite articles from the week that was across the personal finance and investing blogosphere.

Here is my latest content to check out:

I highlighted this dividend stock in my portfolio, owned for the last seven years:  PG.

Enjoy these dividend updates and other investing stories and we’ll see you here next week for my own, latest, monthly dividend income update!

Weekend Reading – Dividend increase week

Here are some notable dividend increases across my portfolio this week:

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP) increased their dividend by almost 7% this week.  Awesome.

Suncor (SU) just approved a higher quarterly dividend of $0.42 per share on its common shares, payable March 25, 2019 to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 4, 2019. This dividend represents a 17% increase over the prior quarter and marks 17 years of consecutive annualized dividend increases.  Nice!

Bell Canada (BCE) increased their dividend by 5% this week, to $3.17 per share per year.

Great-West Life (GWO) bumped their dividend to $0.413 per share.

Brookfield Renewable Energy (BEP) increased their dividend to $0.515 per share, after announcing some double-digit growth.

Other reading…

Andrew Hallam offered some thoughts about currency exchange for index investors.

Is FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) a fad?

Considering FIRE?  Benjamin Felix suggests the 4% rule does not apply to you.   “A more likely safe withdrawal rate in a 55-year FIRE situation might be closer to 2% before fees are taken into account. Fees are a consideration in determining a safe withdrawal rate; all else equal, lower fees mean a higher withdrawal rate.”

Is FIRE right for you?  Here is my take!

Here are the U.S. dividend aristocrats for 2019.  Some of my stocks remain on this list.

Million Dollar Journey wrote about asset allocation for all-in-one ETFs.  I intend to offer my perspective on these new products in the coming weeks so stay tuned…

I agree with Rob Carrick, these books are excellent resources for retirement planning.  In particular, I’m a huge fan of Daryl Diamond’s book.  Here are two links on my site where I reference Your Retirement Income Blueprint including how content from this book has helped shape my game plan for an early retirement:

A review of Your Retirement Income Blueprint is here.

Create a cash wedge to help you open up the investment taps.  This is something I intend to do.

It’s “RRSP season” – here are my top tips to build a fat RRSP nest egg.

Last but not least – I will announce the winners of this book giveaway on my site next week – why you should consider pensionizing part of your nest egg at some point.

I’ll be back to new posts next week…

It was a vacation week for me in Barbados where I enjoyed some great downtime, beach, surf, a catamaran cruise to swim with sea turtles and more.  Back to reality and work soon.  Before that, here are some photos to share:

View from condo balcony.

Catamaran sunset cruise.

Bathsheba Beach.

Happy Investing!

Mark