Weekend Reading – Transparent declaration of fees, dividend ETFs, BMO promo codes and more!

Well Hello!

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.

You can find my previous Weekend Reading edition below!

Weekend Reading – Shaming dividend investors, income for life, all about pensions and more #moneystuff

Wow, quite the week of U.S. election coverage…right? *Understatement of the year*

I won’t add many more political views here (I’ve shared enough on Twitter over the last few months), but I find this election interesting for many reasons. Let’s hope things are resolved soon and that country can move ahead – somehow – after taking the country back generations in time in terms of values.

Got plans for this weekend?

It’s going to be 20 Deg. C in Ottawa today. That is not a typo! I plan on getting chores done soon, then a walk to groceries and then a nice long bike ride. Can’t wait to be outdoors!!

via GIPHY

Enjoy your weekend, stay safe and well!

Mark

Weekend Reads

Don’t forget about my post this week – the start of my epic financial independence plan revealed!!

Another Loonie highlighted some great Canadian dividend ETFs.

I think the list is good, but I have a different favourite if I was going to invest my money into a Canadian dividend ETF/index fund in Canada: iShares XIU.

You can see my list of top, low-cost ETFs on this dedicated ETFs page here. 

But, as readers on this site may know by know I don’t invest in any Canadian dividend ETFs for these reasons.

Instead, I’m a hybrid investor: owning many Canadian dividend paying stocks for income and growth and owning some low-cost ETFs to invest beyond Canada’s borders. So far, that approach is working well.

Other bloggers and authors use a very similar strategy. A reminder about this approach is nicely packaged in a book I profiled on this site before – check it out:

Benefits of The 6-Pack Portfolio

Great stuff by Larry Bates on MoneySense this week. I had Larry on my site before when we discussed his book Beat The Bank.

Larry highlighted some simple steps for the more transparent declaration of fund fees.

I couldn’t agree more. I’ve used the free calculator that Larry cited in that article on my site before and I encourage you to try it again to see how your funds stack up. Remember, money management fees paid are lost forever!

How and why to ditch your expensive mutual funds

Try this free fund fee calculator among other free money tools on my dedicated page here.

Pedal down by Rob at Passive Canadian Income! His October 2020 dividend income is growing and snowballing. 

We’re still working on being mortgage free. Our day is coming. This is how life changed for Financial Pilgrimage when they killed their mortgage. 

Reader question of the week!

Hi Mark, love the blog! 

Just curious how many different types of holdings you have – meaning, some of your ETFs, Canadian and U.S. stocks?

I currently have 4 ETFs, 17 Canadian quarterly dividend payers, 14 Canadian monthly dividend payers, but I’m looking for more U.S. holdings that increase their dividends. There seems to be a large list. So, I guess my other question is, do you have a preference towards CAD or U.S. dividend paying stocks?

Thanks Mark!

Good questions – let’s go!

You know, I get a number of reader questions about my portfolio and my dividend holdings every single week. Why don’t I start a new, dedicated “FAQs” page on my site and start a running list there??

Would that be helpful? Let me know please!

OK, here are some answers to your questions…

First, I don’t disclose my entire portfolio, values and assets for privacy and security reasons but I can say for a fact I own the following low-cost ETFs at the time of this post:

• iShares Core S&P U.S. Total Market Index ETF (XUU) – a great way to invest in the U.S. market in Canadian dollars and obtain total U.S. market returns from thousands of U.S. stocks for MER = 0.07%.
• Invesco QQQ (QQQ) – is a U.S. listed ETF based on the Nasdaq-100 index; holds the top 100 largest domestic and international non-financial companies (think mostly tech and communications) on that index. Top holdings include at the time of this post are Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Adobe and more.  Total expense ratio of 0.20%. I own QQQ because I don’t need to guess about tech stocks long-term 🙂

I have static pages about the dividend stocks and low-cost ETFs that I own on these pages below:

Dividends

ETFs

Do you have a preference towards CAD or U.S. dividend paying stocks?

Not really although my financial plan calls for me to own more low-cost U.S. ETF units over time as I work towards semi-retirement in the coming years. You can check out my latest financial independence update here.

Financial Independence Update – October 2020

Happy investing and see you in the comments section!

Mark