Your Ever Growing Income – Review and Giveaway
“Do you want to find a simpler method of investing, one that makes sense and will help you earn a growing income during your retirement?” – Henry Mah, CMA, author of Your Ever Growing Income.
I do Henry and I’m trying to show folks just that on my site…I just posted my March 2019 dividend income update here!
But you’ve nicely packaged that information in a new book: Your Ever Growing Income: The Rising Yield on Investments – a new book about dividend growth investing.
For new readers to my site, you should know Henry has been on the site before.
In Your Ever Growing Income, you’ll read about his ongoing praise of the disciplined, dividend-oriented path he learned from Tom Connolly, a retired teacher in the Kingston-area, who describes his own wealth-creation journey in The Connolly Report (a long running publication about dividend growth investing since the early 1980s). To quote many-a-Connolly Report, the investing path is all about the following:
“If a company does not pay a dividend, don’t buy it. If it doesn’t grow the dividend don’t buy it either.”
I follow this investing approach myself (I’ve done so for about a decade now) so I thought I would highlight what you’ll read about in Your Ever Growing Income and give you a chance to WIN a copy of this book on my site. In the book you’ll find:
- Chapter 1 – why to break away from the norm; consider dividend income as the path to follow.
Henry explains the power of dividend growth; how growing income can occur over time with stock price increases; why this approach can help you ignore market fluctuations.
- Chapter 2 – discussions about inflation as a portfolio killer; why dividend income can help.
- Chapter 3 – highlights the differences between any dividend-payers and dividend growth payers – shares his four guiding rules for selecting any dividend growth stock; where to find the stocks, and how to evaluate them, finally, why not just buy an ETF. Henry suggests to focus on dividend growth stocks!
- Chapter 4 – where to invest your money; how many stocks to hold; when to sell; recording your investments and something he calls Forget the basic rules of investing.
In this chapter, Henry also shares his own Excel tools and reports that he uses for tracking dividend growth stocks, the income paid; how to keep track of dividend reinvestment plans and more.
- Chapter 5 – makes the case for change; why now?!
- Chapter 6 – shares his own income data; evidence the path he chose is meeting his income needs (and more) – including a reference to this site in the book and my goals.
I got a chance to chat with Henry recently to ask him about Your Ever Growing Income and some other subjects. Here is what we chatted about.
Henry, congrats on the book. I know you’re very passionate about dividend growth investing and it shows in the book. Can you provide a quick bio for my readers – what was your career and how you came to write this book?
For sure Mark and thanks for time to highlight my book on your site and our Q&A together.
Well, after leaving the Royal Canadian Air Force (in 1965), I worked in the restaurant business for about 10 years, and later started a small cultured marble business. Then I proceeded to go to night school to get my accounting degree. I ended up working as a computer/accounting consultant my final years. Now age 77, I’m retired, living off our ever growing dividends and spend time bugging you on your blog! We live in Edmonton and spend our winters in Arizona.
Passionate and respectful readers never bug me Henry. I shared the link above about your thoughts on an “average” wealth creation plan anyone can follow. You are obviously very passionate about investing and dividend investing in general – so why is this book, your book, different than others?
That’s a very fair question. There are hundreds if not more books about dividend growth/income investing.
Yet, over the past few years, in reading some of these books, while I found most understood and explained the dividend growth (DG) benefits they don’t really seem to fully endorse the dividend growth strategy and explain it so people can follow it easily. Most books (or blogs) compare their DG results or performance to the market, many recommend ETFs and even fixed assets as part of an overall portfolio.
My book is different – I try to avoid stock recommendations and sample portfolios for people to copy and instead I provide a simple screening/evaluation process, so the reader can evaluate and select their own stocks. I think that’s far better – it’s learning.
I’m all for learning and continuous improvement. I do this in my day-job and I try to apply the same principles with my investing. So, how are you investing Henry? What stocks or funds do you own and why? I would hope you eat your own cooking?
I do Mark!
Like most we jumped into investing years ago not knowing what we were doing and certainly did not have a plan or an end objective. It took many years before we discovered The Connolly Report and we changed our approach to dividend growth investing.
Since then (well over 12 years ago now), we concentrated on dividend growth stocks, though we did chase yield a few times to our later regret. Lesson learned!
Now, maybe this will catch many readers by surprise, we only own 12 dividend growth stocks (banks, utility, communication and pipeline stocks) across all our accounts. There are no funds, no ETFs, no REITs, no US stocks or any fixed income products. We do maintain a healthy cash account for personal and emergency needs.
Just 12 stocks? That definitely brings me to this question: what are your thoughts on stock concentration vs. stock diversification? Why do you feel that way?
I think you’ve stated on your site “personal finance is personal” many times Mark. So, from that perspective, I think everyone must decide what they feel is best for them.
Now, having said that, I think “diversification” might be most successful propaganda scheme ever presented by the financial industry. I say that because (even the die-hard dividend growth investors) seem to be convinced that diversification will provide long-term growth; reduce lots of investing risk, and one of the best ways to achieve it is with low-cost ETFs.
I see low fees as a dripping faucet, not noticed in the short-term but will cost one a lot in the future. Diversification, for an income investor, will cost a lot more because ETF diversification only provides average yield and average growth (examples are provided in my book). I would argue one does not have to ignore diversification, but achieve diversification through some great, established companies in various sectors and markets.
You’ve been a great and loyal follower on my site for many years now. (Thanks for that.) What obstacles (or opportunities to improve) do you see in my investing approach in order for me to reach my goals?
Remember you asked!
To quote you: “We use low-cost ETFs inside our Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs) for U.S. and international equity exposure.”
I’ll say the U.S. stocks have definitely out preformed the Canadian dividend growth stocks. But like I mentioned above, indexed ETFs only provide average returns. Why not take the time to identify higher quality U.S. stocks that have provided (and should provide) higher income and returns as you have with your Canadian holdings? It’s not that difficult that one needs to look to ETFs, and in the U.S. edition of my book to identify the dividend stocks to own. You can screen out the duds with my simple 3-step process and then select from the remainder, the best of the group.
I know you have grandkids now Henry. Congratulations. Are you teaching them (or their parents) about investing?
My wife started to DRIP a bank stock for each of the grandkids in 2007 and though they did not know what it was or how it worked, they did recognize that their quarterly income grew; and kept growing even though she stopped adding money. Our granddaughter took over her DRIP at age 18 and began adding $100 per month. She still doesn’t monitor the account, but she knows her income is growing and she plans to keep adding funds to the DRIP (till there’s a tax advantage to move to a TFSA). My daughter helped to edit my book actually, and they invest using the same strategy outlined in the book, for a growing income.
Cool stuff, passing it down Henry. So finally, any final words of wisdom to share?
Well, I hope people like my book and take time to give it a read and make up their own decisions about investing. It is my hope my book offers a perspective and approach worth consideration.
A final word of wisdom would be like the investing approach I share in the book, the best and simplest advice I can suggest is to always take quality over quantity. That means when it comes to my own dividend growth investing approach, a few great stocks are far better than a number of lousy ones.
Summary
Even though Henry and I don’t invest the same way (i.e., I own Canadian and U.S. dividend stocks, and I also own a couple of low-cost U.S. ETFs for growth), I can appreciate why he invests the way he does. He has certainly done well for himself to “live off dividends” (earning more dividend income now in his 70s than he can spend) and he’s passionate about sharing his knowledge – including passing down his wisdom to his family.
I have no doubt Henry’s book can help some investors, even if folks choose to follow another investing approach or a more diversified path.
Thanks to Henry’s contributions once again to my site and this book.
Enter to win a copy of his book below!
Related Reading:
Check out Your TFSA Compounder – Work Your TFSA Harder to Retire Sooner!
How to earn a Salary for Life.
Any comments for Henry?
What do you make of his investing choices or approach?
Unfortunately, no, it was a problem with Indigo/Chapters/Coles whatever you want to call it. No, they said they couldn’t order the book from the publisher. They could only select from a list of books that Indigo head office sent to them.
I ended up ordering the book from Amazon.
I did enjoy the book on the first read through. Now starting to read for a second time.
I used to read an occasional story about Tom Connolly in the newspapers back in the 1980’s and my attitude at that time was “investing can’t be that easy”. Oops, got that one wrong.
Now as I select Canadian equities to go into my dividend growth portfolio in the taxable account it has some similarities to what Henry Mah, does except it’s more sector/industry diversified.
Thanks for the great book Henry.
Thanks for your comment!
I think Henry did a great job with his book and I enjoyed his selection process. I don’t follow exactly the same approach but I have unbundled one of my favourite CDN ETFs for income:
https://www.myownadvisor.ca/have-you-considered-unbundling-your-canadian-etf-for-income/
Thoughts?
Mark
@Graham “investing can’t be that easy”.
My thought when I first found Tom also, but so true! Hope you’ll visit my blog and thanks for your kind words.
Henry
Will try and see if Indigo can order the book for me. Have a gift card to use.
Taggart:, should not be a problem. Hope you enjoy it.
Make sure to tell them you want the Canadian version.
This is a very good book ,very interesting, simple investment method for the income oriented investor , excellent and concise screening method , it is definetely helping me to do the ‘fine tuning ‘ ! We are not really used to concentrate our investments in a few sectors and stocks , we have been ‘brainwashed ‘ with the diversification theme .
Best regards .
Joseph
Great stuff and nice to hear Joseph. I suspect the author will read this comment as well.
Thanks for being a fan of the site.
Mark
Joseph: Its really gratifying to read your comments.and thanks!
Hi Henry,
Just ordered and finished your book this week. I literally devoured it!
Really like your message and content. Apart from a few exceptions, it confirmed our own dividend investing strategy. The book will be of great help to teach my teenage daughter. Your simple examples and presentation will quickly help her understand the details of income-oriented investing.
On a constructive note, the book could have used a little revising and formatting love.
I’ll now get back to some fun number crunching your book motivated me to get back to!
Thank you for sharing your wisdom!
JD
JD: Appreciate your comments and send me an email (listed in the book) so I can correct or review areas you suggest.
Get your daughter started and she’ll thank you down the road.
JD: If it is the ebook, yes there are some formatting issues. Kindle create does somethings I could not correct or change. Tried to have them explain how to fix them but they had no suggestion
I want to win because..I am an avid dividend investor, and I’m always looking for DIY investor resources.
Good luck!
I enjoyed the book as it reinforced some of my own thoughts. Thanks for taking the time to put it all together. I particularly liked your four step screening process. Simple is often best. My take away: diversification can increase protection but may limit growth while focus may increase growth but limit protection. The trick is to find the balance you can live with. I think everyone should have a portion of their finances set up for DG. Wife has had a Canadian bank stock for over 20 years in a non registered account. I created a chart to track the DG and although there was a few years of dividend freezes, there was never a cut. Dividend has grown by over 450% in the 20 years. I can live with that.
@Gruff403: Thanks and nice summary, and likely the price of the bank stock has grown at almost the same rate.
Great stuff Gruff…no doubt Henry appreciated your comments!
I’ve greatly enjoyed your comments Cannew and I’m very keen to read this as well. I’ve been an indexer for a while but am interested in learning more about DGI. Do you consider firms that engage in share buybacks over dividend growth?
@BartBandy: The premise of buybacks is that it lowers the number of shares and therefore increases the earnings per share of the outstanding stocks. That’s ok and it looks good on paper, but unless one sells their share there is no actual gain. For DG we normally hold, so buybacks do little for us. I’d prefer to see the company do both, buy back shares and increase the dividend.
Interesting read on the first pass. It certainly explains the technique used for this method of investing. I find I have a few things in common.
One critique I actually have is something that I see frequently on several blogs. It is proposed that people should ignore the market/prices and this is mentioned a few times in the book. But further on it is mentioned that a stock may be too highly priced to make it a viable investment and it should be watched for a dip to buy. It was also mentioned to look at the 52 week price range. This IS watching market prices and is contradictory to the ignore market suggestion. Now I know what they mean when one speaks of ignoring markets but it is poorly worded. What is likely meant is not to let market/stock prices be THE driving factor and not panic when it fluctuates. It’s always better to buy something when it is less expensive, everyone understands that. But don’t beat yourself up over it when it goes on sale the week after you buy it and don’t let the worry of it going on sale next week prevent you from taking action.
Other than that, it’s a decent read. There may have been a few other things that could have been mentioned but I don’t think this was intended to be a comprehensive manual on how to invest but rather an explanation of this particular path.
Lloyd: Thanks
I am always looking for Canadian based advice and that is why I follow Mark’s blog. I now have a driving need to know more about DG investing and incorporate it into my financial strategy. My family needs to take a broader look at other successful strategies and our millennial needs to understand intergenerational wealth preservation. (We are not wealthy, just discouraged by seeing our money being drained by the increasing fees, cost of living, taxes, etc.). I have already learned through this post and the readers comments.
Thx so much!
Awesome stuff Janice and thanks for being a fan.
Stay tuned for future posts about some dividend ETFs in particular and why I don’t own such funds in Canada but I do own them from the U.S.!
Interesting book
Joseph: Yea, Mark is great and the best of sites. Nice to hear from all of the DG investors and know that they are doing well. There are other great DG stocks I don’t own, mostly because I felt they were expensive when I was adding. Then as I say I don’t need anymore income or even capital growth.
Don’t forget to give us your views on the book, good & bad.
Just ordered the book ,have been a frequent visitor of this excellent website for quite some time ,i am a dividend growth investor ,exlusively canadian
stocks ,no etfs ,one reit , very satisfied with this approach ,i think i have more or less the same stocks as you Henry , each trimester i have
more dividend income ! Looking forward to read the book ,always something to be learned .
All the best .
Joseph
I think you’ll like it Joseph. Thanks for being a fan of the site.
Don: Certainly no criticism implied. Anytime I hear of someone living off their income they deserve a lot of credit for saving and recognizing the advantages of the strategy. Its not easy but as you say very satisfying. Good work.
Hey Cannew
Absolutely no problem with your comments and definitely not taken as criticism. I’m always open to and appreciate any comments and opinions people want to share with me. That’s how we all learn and improve.
Ciao
Hi Don: You sound like you have a great handle on your portfolio. I don’t like to suggest you change, but you know I’m for income and income growth. When I looked at FIE & ZWB I see no income growth at all and little price growth.
All the best
Hey Cannew
Thanks for the quick comment back.
We are very pleased with our portfolio and our investing strategy. It took a while and some effort to get to where we are but it was sure worth it to just be in “watch and collect and enjoy” mode without having to do anything. Some of our current strategy was derived from Mark’s site – his great articles, and even more important, the excellent comments from his readers (like you – thanks for it).
We’re actually a combo of dividend income and dividend growth and generally are not too worried about capital appreciation. FIE and a few of the REITs have had minimal capital and dividend growth but have sure generated lots of income. We’ve actually had 15.5% capital appreciation on ZWB and a couple dividend increases. Also, on the REIT front, we hold GRT.UN and BPY.UN which have been regular dividend raisers..(and GRT has had a huge run – up 23% for us in just over a year when we first bought it)
One of the goals of our original retirement strategy was to make sure we had enough dividend income to live off. That’s how those “non-growers” ended up there. We’ve done well by them and we generally have decided to just hold what we have .One of the only times we sell is for take-overs. We’ve had 3 in the last year or so with AAR.UN, ECI, and VNR. Trying to re-deploy the extra cash has been really difficult because of our very concentrated investing universe. That’s also why we generally don’t want to sell anything as we don’t have any potential buys on our watchlist.
Ciao
Don
I’ve used FIE in the past. More as a short term hold (maybe a couple of months) rather than a long term investment. With my recent BPY.UN *experiment* I bought FIE when I missed the BPY ex-dividend, got the distribution and then got back into BPY.UN. It made a few bucks but I realize this wasn’t that great of a move (caused stress) and I likely won’t do that again.
For the most part, we hold almost all the stocks in their top ten anyways so it doesn’t make sense for us to have FIE as a holding as well. I can see the desire for the monthly income from it though. Eventually they will probably increase the distribution as all the dividend increases from their holdings should pay off, just not sure how soon that might be.
Hey Lloyd
How she go?
We hold a full position of TD, RY, BMO, and BNS which are all in FIE but FIE also has 20.5% CPD and 10.5% XCB as well as some lifecos. MIC, and the other banks so it’s a little variety for us. It also has a really high yield (6.8%) so we like that for the income. I read somewhere at one time that they use leverage to get the extra yield.
Ciao
Don
Doing okay Don, just waiting for some warm weather to get the crop in.
I actually looked at the holdings for FIE when I was buying stocks a few years ago and figured if they were good enough for FIE then they were good enough for us. We have all the banks except BMO (nothing against them, just never bought any). We also have PWF, MFC and SLF as holdings. We’re certainly not diversified by most standards but with our DB pensions and a safety net of GICs in the RRSPs (we have no bonds anywhere) I don’t worry about it now.
I agree the case can be made for a 6.8% yield paid out in a monthly distribution. It can be a nice income especially if one doesn’t have to touch the invested dollars. Just rake in the income. Heck, even the compounding with a DRIP would look alright month to month. I would only hold it in a registered account though to make the tax accounting simpler.
When I look at FIE, a decent income fund but you’re certainly not expected to get much capital growth over time. This year has been a great year for the fund however. I just looked at FIE. Beyond Genworth, we own all the other stocks in the top-10 directly. Those other 7-stocks may up 50%+ of the fund. I would be worried owning this product and CDN bank stocks directly since that’s a great deal of love for the financial sector – probably too much for me anyhow.
I’m a big fan of the Brookfield family of companies: own a few hundred shares of each BPY.UN, BEP.UN, BIP.UN and unless those companies stop paying dividends (let alone stop increasing them like they have for the last decade) I always will own them.
“I’m a big fan of the Brookfield family…”
lol..you *know* I love Brookfield too. We have a fairly large holdings of those in that list plus the parent BAM.A.
The parent BAM.A and the kids are great companies to own 🙂
Hey Cannew
Congrats on the book and cool stuff. Like many others, I’ve always really appreciated your excellent comments on MOA. I have quite a bit in common with other retirees like Rbull and Lloyd on the investing front but have the most in common with you and Mike.
You said your percentages are: 30% Comm, 24% Banks, 24% Pipeline and 22% Utilities and you hold 12 stocks. Ours are: 9% Comm, 22% Banks, 20% Pipeline, 28% Utilities, 17% REITs, and 4% “other” like PKI and we hold 25 stocks and 2 ETFs. All are Cdn TSX listed – no foreign, no fixed income, no commodities, no consumer, no oil & gas producers, etc. I know you have commented on not liking our 2 ETFs (FIE, ZWB) but they have actually worked out quite well. Our portfolio is very concentrated but not quite as concentrated as yours.
I also agree that “our” (yours & mine & others) approach is very simple and has very, very little stress. We also have an increasing portfolio value and are up 45% since I retired in mid-2013. (not that it really matters other than knowing the capital should be save and we will most likely never run out of money).
Anyway, great stuff!
Take care
Don
“we will most likely never run out of money”
G’day Don. One thing I’ve noticed reading most of the comments is that many of us are in that category yet we all have subtle differences in techniques or plans. I will however bet a large double/double that the vast majority of these people all have a common factor in that we are fairly prolific savers and all shoveled a lot of $$ into our savings/investment plan. I’m not convinced that the technique used is more important than the consistency of saving over many years.
I agree that the consistency of saving is the most important factor to feeling comfortable with your financial situation. As your savings grow you can educate yourself along the way.
Don, that’s awesome and motivation for people like me:
“We also have an increasing portfolio value and are up 45% since I retired in mid-2013. (not that it really matters other than knowing the capital should be save and we will most likely never run out of money).”
I can only hope my wife and I will be in a great financial position in the coming years as well.
Mark and Cannew,
Now that I’m retired (with extra time to read what I WANT to read), I’m looking forward to ordering your book, cup of coffee, comfy recliner, and dive right in. I enjoy reading everyone’s opinions and strategies on your blog Mark. It keeps me educated and focused on my own path to financial stability, and it curbs my anxiety with being newly retired and unemployed. 🙂
Thanks Bonnie and should you read the book please give us your honest opinion of the message and strategy proposed.
Hi Henry. I really enjoyed your book. I have a question regarding the number of stocks you and your wife hold across your portfolio. You mentioned that you hold 12 stocks. In your Tfsa you have 4 stocks and your wife has 5 in her tfsa. That leaves only 3 other stocks for your other accounts? Or, do you repeat the same stock in other accounts? What I mean is, if you hold Bns in your tfsa, do you also hold it in your non registered account? If not, do you only have one or two stocks in your non registered account and one or two in you RRIF? Do you try to keep your stocks equally weighted for the most part? Thanks for the excellent information in your book!
@Jill: Yes we hold the same stocks in several accounts, ie: BNS is in one tfsa, one rrif, non-reg and drip.
As for weighting, individual stocks are not evenly weighted but as mentioned we have pretty much averaged out the four sectors we are invested in (30% Comm, 24% Banks, 24% Pipeline and 22% Utilities). I don’t think we planned it but probably did say “we should add some Utl or Pipe” when we were buying. If we had a weakness it was we did not worry about taxes in the non-reg accts when we were in the accumulation phase. We always considered how to maximize our income and added stocks which offered it. We might have been better going with some lower yield/higher growth in the non-reg as we don’t draw down the dividends in the non-reg, only from the drip.
Glad you enjoyed the book and please add a comment on Amazon.
Bonnie, only happy to share my personal thoughts, perspectives, my own personal finance journey and also share other stories, books, and more along the way. From what I’ve read from you, it sounds like you’re ready for retirement and very well prepared. Kudos!
look forward to reading the book
Great stuff!
I want to win because I need all the help I can get structuring my portfolio.
Love the banter here. Looking forward to some new reading material! Congrats Henry!
Thanks Ivan.
I’m in the process of diversifying for U.S/Int’l equities in my portfolios w/ the use of ETF’s.
I personally think that’s a great way to go – but I’m biased – since there is no stock selection required and less risk of “picking” the wrong stocks. I simply don’t see the same risk in Canada although it does exist. Thanks for being a fan Nick and following my updates.
ED: Getting old, did the same as you.
https://www.amazon.ca/Your-Ever-Growing-Income-Investments-ebook/dp/B07L8KCPF3/ref=tmm_kin_title_1?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1551321495&sr=8-1-spell
That worked! Thanks.
You said your focus with the book was not to list the specific stocks, but with only 12 Canadian stocks in those 4 categories, and your previous posts, and the fact you’re a TC fan, means I could hazard a pretty good guess. And it probably also means I have most of them in my portfolio also! I look forward to reading the book.
Great stuff Ed. Thanks for being a fan of this site as well.
Ed: Yea, mine should not be too though to figure out. But I’m trying to show people how they can identify quality DG stocks on their own, not listening or matching what others hold. If they end up the same, great but one would know they met their criteria and why they chose them.
Just started following your blog in the last couple of months, Mark, since getting into dividend investing and would love to read more about dividend growth investing in this book. I look forward to your monthly updates! They inspire me greatly to learn more and more about dividend investing and now focusing on dividend growth stocks.
Awesome to hear! There is of course some risk in this method but I think once you own a strong cross-section of the Canadian market, it’s a solid method to buy and hold and buy some more to derive some over time.
I’m also a fan of Tom Connolly and DGI investor. I tried to order the book on Amazon and it looks like the Kindle edition is the US edition. Is there no Canadian Kindle edition?
Ed
Just ordered the book. Looking forward to the read and maybe some new ideas. Thanks for the suggestion and the discussion above.
Jan: come back with your views after reading please.
Great stuff Jan.
@Jan: Thanks for the great review of the book!!!!
Hi Cannew,
Great job putting out a book to present your path and ideas to give others a how to also do it successfully for themselves.
Very well done for yourself. I like how you’re presenting this. I followed Tom Connolly myself for a few years.
My goals are somewhat different as is my chosen investing cash flow path. I think there are numerous methods of being successful financially but learning more, then building a solid plan with goals and sticking to it will serve people well. Hopefully your book will help a lot more people do that.
All the best.
RBull: I certainly owe any success we’ve achieved to Tom Connolly. He’s probably the only one who has suggested an investing approach and stuck to it for over thirty years. All others changed with the times, flavor of the month and/or tried to cover their ass by suggesting a cover all approach.
There is no one strategy, the best or successful one, but I fo believe that there is simpler approach than watching price and trying to match or beat the market. I say ignore the market!
Absolutely impressive you’ve stuck with this approach for 30 years…now wonder you are where you are:
1) a high savings rate + 2) an approach you’re disciplined to follow = success. Kudos.
I might be mistaken but I think that’s Tom doing it 30 years. cannew 12 or 13 years? Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Bottom line cannew has something that is working very well for himself. Kudos.
Ah yes, OK, well, yes my mistake then – Tom has been investing in the same CDN banks, pipelines and telcos for 30 years for sure. Not sure of Cannew’s timeline but I thought it was longer than 12-13 years but I could be wrong.
RBull: We had been investing for many years before we found Tom. Luckily we were able to build up our portfolio without having serious losses, but neither did we have great gains.. When we began to convert to DG our income from a fairly large portfolio was less the $20k/year. We gradually saw our income grow and hit the cross-over, where we met our annual expenses, in about 5-6 years. The growth has continued, with only a few minor bumps (errors on our part) till we now earn over double our annual expenses. We’ve started gifting and even pulled out $80k as a cash reserve, but our growth continues and I expect hit the triple mark in 4-5 years.
Pretty incredible growth cannew – awesome! Amazing you’re doing this with just CDN banks, telcos, some pipelines and utilities – re: just 12 stocks right now. I know you believe in concentration and it’s working for you!
Thanks for the details Cannew.
It’s nice to be able to meet your goals and help out others as well.
Mark: That’s the book message, not so much the concentration, but sticking with quality companies to maximize ones potential income. Our portfolio might be considered extreme and lacking in US and International exposure (how much income do we need), but others starting out or considering DG can include those sectors. The other point I try to stress is don’t diversify by diluting your potential income with ETF’s (my opinion) and I try to support my opinion with specifics in the book. There are many examples where investors have been successful with concentrated portfolios but I don’t believe any exclude quality holdings.
One last point, we have not added funds to our holdings in about 10 years. The growth is a result of dividend increases, reinvestments and compounding.
Wow, such an impressive income growth.
I assume you did not spend all the dividends income but some of them are reinvested?
My plan is to spend all the investment income in my retirement years and plus some capital. So I will not expect my income will increase in such a great pace. As long as it keeps pace with the inflation, I will be happy.
May: We’ve always been able to reinvest between 60% and 75% of our dividends. Surprisingly we spent less in our 60’s than 70’s.
Very impressive.
The more we know the more we realize how much we really don’t know. Very interesting perspective. I have a lot to think about and I thank you for sharing.
Agree Boyd, we all can learn a few things. What I didn’t mention in the review is you won’t see any mention of Market Value, Market Returns or Share Price (other when considering to purchase) in the book. Those three things will lead more investors astray than almost anything else.
There are 3 truths in life. We know what we know. We know what we don’t know. We don’t know what we don’t know.
Always great to work on the first two when it comes to investing to avoid mistakes with #3 that are bound to happen 🙂
Correct again Lloyd, there is always a different path to achieve ones goal. What one will find is that I’ve outlined a specific path with a specific end goal and suggest the simplest path to achieving it, at least in my opinion.
Amazon says the book “is on the way”. I look forward to reading it. I hope there ain’t anything in there about being a marathon runner, competitive biker or Olympic athlete, it will reinforce my belief that I’m just downright lazy. 😉
And thanks to Mark for highlighting. I find it helps to know some of the background to the folks that walk the talk here. It adds credibility.
Lloyd: I hope you’ll give us your opinion on the book as I know it will be an honest and objective one.
Thanks to great fans of the site. Enjoy Lloyd!
Cannew is one of the happy retirees I follow at this blog and learned a lot from. Congratulations on your book.
I still don’t have the courage to concentrate my investing only on DG stocks although for most part I follow this approach. Maybe by winning and reading this book I will be convinced.
I hope you do win May and I know you’ve made great strides on your own investing journey.
If I didn’t win, I will just order one. 🙂
Good stuff, now Henry has royalties and dividend income too 🙂
I’ve slowly learned that one does not have to pick a winner every time. Having a strategy that gets one from point A to their destination is sufficient and there can be several strategies that accomplish that goal. Along the way, one can get distracted from time to time but by listening and observing those that have been there and done that a person can keep their eye on the ball. I’m going to order the book, should be an interesting read.
Wow! I’m impressed. I’ll definitely be purchasing your book (3) Cannew for myself and my 2 adult kids. I don’t know if you would tell us if you keep specific percentages of each category in your portfolio? I’m 72 and 90% in Canadian stocks and 1 fixed income ETF in case of emergency. Again well done and thank you very much for sharing.
Thanks Gary and I don’t want to give the impression the book is “Look what I’ve achieved”. It’s intended to really teach others about DG, how to find, evaluate stocks and the importance of concentrating on Income to achieve a growing income..
My portfolio is not what I recommend for others, just what I’ve settled upon. We hold 30% Comm, 24% Banks, 24% Pipeline and 22% Utilities.
No, I meant well done writing a book on DG investing. I retired at 60 and we have cashed a bit of our capital each year to travel. It’s a good thing we did as my wife now has MS and I was supposed to be gone by age 50. As Mark and many others have said, our health is our most important asset. I have always enjoyed your comments and I will continue enjoy your views. This post is a little disjointed (all over the place), sorry about that. ((:
I wish you and your wife well and totally understand what you and your family are going through. We all have to take what comes and just be there to help the best we can.
Thanks for being a great fan Gary and you’re 110% right – health is ultimate wealth. All the best to you.
@Jill: Thanks for your kind words. I’m receiving the same comments “I wish I knew now…” and I’ve said the same thing. It’s great you are encouraging your kids to start investing and I know they will thank you down the road for getting them started.
I have been waiting for this book! I have been following your blog, Mark, for a few years and have learned so much. I also always took note of Cannew’s comments and have learned a great deal from his approach as well. I am retired and unfortunately invested using high fee mutual funds. I wish I knew then what I know now. I have been using your blog and advice and comments from people like cannew to help my 20 something year old children with their investing. They have opened their own online investing accounts and have been doing well saving. This book will be an excellent resource.
Great stuff Jill – again, informed decisions are good decisions even if you don’t invest in dividend growth stocks whatsoever. At least your kids will know the upside and downside and risks in doing so. Far better than not knowing at all. People don’t know what they don’t know 🙂