Second Dividend Raise of 2019

Hi everyone I’m here to share another dividend raise with you. Yesterday the board of directors of Realty Income Corp announced a 3% raise to their dividend. This is the 5th raise from Realty Income Corp that I have received since I first bought shares early in 2018. The company will now pay a monthly dividend of $0.2255 up from $0.2210.

I currently own 47 shares and with this announcement my monthly income will increase by $0.21 and annually by $2.52.

If you own Realty Income Corp then congrats on the raise 🙂

Thanks for reading!

Matthew

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First Dividend Raise of 2019

 

Hi everyone, well it happened! It only took 10 days into the new year to receive my first dividend increase. On Thursday January 10th the board of directors of Canadian Utilities announced a 7.5% increase to the dividend. This marks the 47th consecutive year that Canadian Utilities has raised its dividend. This is the fifth increase I have received since owning the stock.

The new dividend will be $0.4227 up from $0.3933. I currently own 154 shares and my quarterly income will increase by $4.51 and annually by $18.04.

Congrats to all my fellow shareholders on the raise.

Thanks for reading

Matthew

2019 Goals

 

Hey everyone it’s that time of year again. It’s time to share my goals for 2019, I see on social media many of my fellow bloggers have shared their goals so I thought I better get mine posted to share with the world. I’m not sure what’s in store for me in 2019, I hope it’s filled with financial success with a side of fun and excitement. This year I have decided to set 8 goals spread out in three different categories savings, investing and health.

Savings

1. Have $15,000 in a High Interest Savings Account By Year End

At the start of the year I only had $2,558.97 in my savings account which in my opinion isn’t a lot and in case something happens I should put money away to protect myself from any unforeseen circumstances. Another reason is I am currently part of a union at work and our contract is up later this year, so I should be prepared for that in case we don’t get a new contract.

2. Become Debt Free

Now I had this as a goal last year and didn’t complete it. I stopped making extra payments on my car last September as I found out that I was paying a fixed interest rate of 0.74%, I put that money earmarked towards the car into investing. Last October I borrowed some money from my parents to also invest with. As of Jan 1st I currently own $5,054 on my car and another $5,000 to my parents. This is the year folks where I become debt free and hopefully stay debt free for a long long time.

3. Stop Having a One Tracked Mind

I put this as a goal because over the last 15 years I have solely focused on investing and my savings have suffered. For example last year in October I had an emergency fund of $5,000 and I withdrew $4,000 to invest in a stock leaving only $1,000 left in case of an emergency. I can’t let that happen again, ideally I want to both invest and put money into my savings accounts.

4. Get a Travel Rewards Credit Card

This year I would to get a travel rewards credit card. I am currently researching different cards and it is hard to decide. I would like this card because in the future I would like to do some travelling and the card might be able to help reduce costs.

Investing

1.  Receive $8,000 In Dividends

In 2019 I’m going to try and push myself again to boost my dividends in a big way. In 2018 I received $5,994 that was an increase of $1,600 over my 2017 dividends.

2. Invest $15,000 In My TFSA

This year I am going to invest the majority of my money in my Tax Free Savings Account. I would like to max out this account soon as I have unused contribution room from prior years.

Health

This year is going to be big for me in terms of my health. Back in November I found that I have type 2 diabetes so the last couple of months I have been changing what I drink and watching what I eat. By improving my health and being active I can keep the effects of diabetes at bay. To help with this over the Christmas holidays I got a treadmill.

1. Lose 25 pounds

I currently weight 224.8 pounds and I would like to try and get under 200. Over the last five and a half years I have lost 80 pounds.

2. Walk At Least 70,000 Steps Per Week

On January 1st I was asked by @MissMazuma if I wanted to join the 70k step challenge that she is participating in this year, I said yes. Here is her post about the challenge New Year, New Challenge… 70k Steps Per Week Join Us!!  

I thought this would be a great challenge for me to do as if will challenge me to be more active and I can get in shape, so a double win in my books. There are currently 13 of us participating. So far it has been great we are all supporting and cheering each other on.

Well folks there are my goals for 2019, what do you think? Did you set any goals? If you want to share them please feel free to comment below.

Thanks for reading

Matthew

 

2018 Year In Review

Hello and welcome to my year in review post. In the post I will be recapping the year for each of my accounts. 2018 for me was a successful year, at the beginning of the year I set an ambitious goal and I might as well say I achieved it as I was only $5.43 short. In 2018 I invested a record amount of money close to $30K. Also during the year I added a third account under my control.

The first account that I will talk about is my Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA). In 2019 this is where I am going to be investing the majority of my money in an attempt to max out my contribution room from previous years.

TFSA

On December 31st the value of this account was $38,518.10 compared to December 31st, 2017 value of $25,989.00. This is a nice increase of $12,529.10, however since I invested just over $17k into the account the growth isn’t all that great. One thing that I am very happy about is the growth of dividends in my TFSA. I crossed the $2k mark in 2018.

Stock Purchases for TFSA

• Corus Entertainment 115 shares
• Inter Pipeline 100 shares
• Plaza REIT 502 shares
• Canadian Utilities 154 shares
• Laurentian Bank 94 shares
• ScotiaBank 27 shares
• The Keg Royalties Income Fund 131 shares

Looking at the stocks I bought I only regret one and that would be Corus Entertainment. I say that because shortly after I bought it the company cut its dividend quite drastically and the share price dropped at the moment I am down around 50% with the stock.

RRSP

On December 31st this account had a value of $92,681.83 compared to the same time last year in which the value was $84,694.00. Again it’s the same with my TFSA account I actually invested more than I gained. The October to December market swings had a impact on my portfolio.

On the positive side my dividends continue to grow at a healthy pace.

Stock Purchases

• Johnson & Johnson 16 shares
• Bank of America 72 shares
• Realty Income Corp 47 shares
• Microsoft 11 shares
• BCE 25 shares
• Fortis 39 shares
• Power Corp 119 shares
• BMO International Dividend ETF 247 shares
• TransCanada 41 shares
• Altria Group 61 shares
• AbbVie 38 shares
• Home Depot 12 shares
• Inter Pipeline 255 shares

Stocks I Sold

• Nutrien
• Westjet
• Exco Technologies
• Pizza Pizza Royalty Corp
• BMO US Dividend ETF

Locked In Retirement Account (New Account)

During 2018 I took over a third account in my portfolio the LIRA, before the bank had it and I was invested in mutual funds I decided I wanted to take over and invest in dividend stocks.

With this account I am unable to add money to it so I am limited in how much I can buy. I currently own two stocks in this account Enbridge and Diversified Royalty Corp. Enbridge was as a result of a merger between Enbridge Income Fund and the parent company Enbridge. My dividends from the year in this account stood at $310.28. The value of this account as of December 31st was $4,809.75.

Combined Dividends

 

Dividend Increases

I love being a dividend investor! Why do you ask? Well if you invest in company’s that continually raise their dividends that in turn raises your income and you didn’t even have to work for it. In 2018 I received 27 raises plus two special distributions these will boost my income by $383.59. In my opinion that is pretty good for not having to do anything.

 

2018 Goal Results

Become Debt Free – This was a fail I didn’t become debt free I currently owe $10,054 half on my car and half to my parents.

Have a 50% Savings Rate – I am marking this as a fail because I stopped tracking my expenses in September. I probably did have a 50% savings rate but I can’t give myself a pass for stopping in Sept.

Increase Net Worth By $50,000 – I started 2018 with a net worth of $126,641.77 and as of Jan 1st, 2019 this stands at $137,453.08. So I didn’t accomplish this goal. But it was still an increase.

Invest At Least $10,000 – This I passed by a wide margin I invested $29,882.07 for the year which really surprised me. I did borrow money throughout the year to invest so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.

Receive $6,000 In Dividends – I am going to mark this down as a pass my final number was $5,994.57 as you seen above my income had a big increase.

Well everyone that will do it for this post thank you for reading. How was your 2018?

Thanks again

Matthew

December 2018 Dividend Income ** Best Month Ever**

Happy New Year everybody! I hope that you all had a great holiday season, and are ready to hit the ground running here in 2019. I am pretty pumped to right this post as December was my best month ever for dividends received. It was raining dividends from the sky.

My previous high was back in June of 2018 when I received $650.27. That month I received a special dividend to help reach that number. You can never count on receiving special dividends all the time. In December I did not receive any special dividends, my income all came from regular distributions made by the stocks I own. Without further ado in December I received $689.67, wow almost $700 I can’t believe that.

I currently have three accounts in my portfolio and the income breakdown is as follows:

• RRSP $405.22
• TFSA $213.12
• LIRA $71.33

RRSP

	2017	2018
Enbridge	$88.45	$101.32
Fortis	$68.43	$92.25
Power Corp	$21.15	$69.14
BMO US Dividend ETF	$29.50	$32.23
Canadian Utilities	$55.41	$29.50
BMO International Dividend ETF	$0.00	$22.23
Johnson & Johnson	$0.00	$19.21
Bank of America	$0.00	$14.64
Realty Income Corp	$0.00	$13.77
Microsoft	$0.00	$6.73
Alimentation Couche-Tard	$3.78	$4.20
Pizza Pizza Royalty Corp	$16.76	$0.00
Westjet	$7.00	$0.00
Exco Technologies	$8.00	$0.00
Total	$298.48	$405.22

I nice job for this account. In fact this the first time I have received over $400 from an account. New investments throughout the year is what drove the growth. The plan is to continue to invest additional funds in the new stocks to further propel growth.

TFSA

	2017	2018
Canadian Utilities	$0.00	$60.17
Inter Pipeline	$18.52	$34.20
The Keg Royalties Income Fund	$15.70	$28.29
Plaza REIT	$11.25	$24.47
Chorus Aviation	$17.28	$18.04
Boston Pizza Royalties Fund	$12.31	$12.31
Corus Entertainment	$6.56	$12.18
Canadian Apartment Properties REIT	$4.27	$9.20
Artis REIT	$13.95	$7.43
Canadian National Railway	$0.00	$6.83
Total	$106.03	$213.12

Wow I doubled my income here, this is where I would like to in the future see the majority of my dividends come from as this account is tax free as compared to my RRSP account. I moved Canadian Utilities from my RRSP account to this account and that is a lot of the growth, but also new investments contributed as well. Maybe I can double this amount next December, at least I will try anyway. 🙂

LIRA

Enbridge		$69.11
Diversified Royalty Corp		$2.22
Total		$71.33

Two new stocks for this account and is a big reason why my monthly income was so big. I received 103 shares of Enbridge when they merged with Enbridge Income Fund, due to the merger my income increased $42.46 in December.

DRIP

In December I was able to drip 21 new shares. The highest that I have ever received!

	# of Shares
Plaza REIT	6
Enbridge	3
Chorus Aviation	3
Fortis	2
Power Corp	2
Corus Entertainment	2
Canadian Utilities	1
Inter Pipeline	1
The Keg Royalties Income Fund	1
Total	21

Below is a chart showing the money I received from these new shares.

My income from all my dripped shares in 2018 is $163.48.

2016 to 2018 Dividends

As you can see 2018 was very successful I was able to grow my income every month. Hopefully I can continue this in 2019.

2018 Dividend Goal

Ok guys if you have been following me all year you know what my goal was. If this is the first post of mine that you are reading then let me tell you what my goal was. At the beginning of 2018 I set a goal of wanting to receive $6,000 in dividend income for the year. This year I tried to push myself as I received $4,312.17 in 2017 so I would be trying to boost my income by close to $1,700.

Ok enough delaying lol. My dividend total for 2018 was $5,994.57. I missed my goal by $5.43.

Oh man I was so close to that goal. Even though I didn’t achieve my goal I still look at 2018 as a huge success for me.

Stock Purchases

• Bought 61 shares of Altria Group
• Bought 38 shares of AbbVie
• Bought 12 shares of Home Depot
• Bought 255 shares of Inter Pipeline

 

Dividend Raises

• Bank of Montreal raised their dividend to $1.00 per share up from $0.96
• Laurentian Bank raised their dividend to $0.65 per share up from $0.64
• Enbridge raised their dividend to $0.738 per share up from $0.671
• Realty Income Corp raised their dividend to $0.2205 up from $0.2201

 

Well guys how was December for you? Did you receive lots of dividends? Please feel free to let me know how you did in the comment section.

Thanks for reading! Just to let you know on Thursday I will have a post up about my 2018 year in review.

Thanks again!

Matthew

 

Special Distribution #2 of 2018

Hi everyone today’s post is about a special distribution that was announced by one of the stocks I own. On December 18th The Keg Royalties Income Fund announced a special distribution of $0.03 per share that will be payable on Jan 31, 2019.

 

The Keg Royalties Income Fund operates as an unincorporated open-ended limited purpose trust. The company invests in The Keg Rights Limited Partnership, which owns the trademarks, trade names, operating procedures and systems, and other intellectual property used for the operation of Keg steakhouse restaurants and bars. It operates 103 Keg restaurants in Canada and the United States. The Keg Royalties Income Fund was founded in 2002 and is based in Richmond, Canada.

Income

I currently own 299 shares of the stock and I will receive an additional $8.97 in income thanks to this decision.

Congrats to all of my fellow shareholders on receiving this special distribution. This will be my final post of 2018 so I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year.

Thanks for reading!

Matthew

My Final Stock Purchase of 2018

Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays to all of my fellow investors. I hope you are all enjoying the holidays with your friends and family. Today I am going to share with you my final purchase of 2018. The stock that I purchased is not a new position in my portfolio, in fact this is the third time I have purchased the stock this year. However this time I bought it in a different account. The stock that I bought was Inter Pipeline.

 

As mentioned above this is the third purchase of the year for me of this company. I watched the share price fall below $20 and thought it was a good opportunity. Before this purchase I only had the stock in my Tax Free Savings Account, and now I have added it in my Registered Retirement Savings Plan.

Why did I add it to a different account?

Well I did this purely for the dividend income. Over the last few days I have been trying to come up with goals for 2019 and I am leaning towards investing less next year and this buy will help me fund other purchases. Inter Pipeline currently pays $0.1425 per share monthly. I have turned the dividend reinvestment plan off for my accounts in order to build up my cash positions. After this purchase a couple of concerns arise, Inter Pipeline is one of my largest holdings and the energy sector has become a very large part of my portfolio. I will try and address those concerns in the future.

The Purchase

In order to fund this purchase I decided to sell the rest of my shares (165) in my ZDY ETF. I temporarily lose $140.58 in dividend income.

On December 18th I purchased 255 shares of Inter Pipeline @$19.77 per share.

Dividend Income

As mentioned above Inter Pipeline currently pays a monthly dividend of $0.1425 and with this large purchase my monthly income will increase $36.34 and $436.08 annually.

Well folks thanks for reading. Have you been buying any stocks lately with the volatility on the stock market? Please feel free to comment below.

Thanks

Matthew

New Purchases (MO,ABBV and HD)

Hey folks so are you wondering what I did with all that money? Today I will reveal which stocks I purchased. I chose three stocks all US, even though there is a big different in the exchange I still thought it was a good time to buy. All of the stocks were closer to their 52 week lows then their 52 week ends. At the moment I am heavily invested in financials and energy so I need to diversify and these will help in that regard. The three purchases fall into the consumer/non-cyclical, healthcare and services sectors. All of these purchases were made in my Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) account for tax purposes.

Let’s get down to business here is the first stock.

 

Altria Group, Inc. is a holding company. The Company’s segments include smokeable products, smokeless products and wine. The Company’s subsidiaries include Philip Morris USA Inc. (PM USA), which is engaged in the manufacture and sale of cigarettes in the United States; John Middleton Co. (Middleton), which is engaged in the manufacture and sale of machine-made cigars and pipe tobacco, and UST LLC (UST), which, through its subsidiaries, including U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company LLC (USSTC) and Ste. Michelle Wine Estates Ltd. (Ste. Michelle), is engaged in the manufacture and sale of smokeless tobacco products and wine. Its other operating companies include Nu Mark LLC (Nu Mark), a subsidiary that is engaged in the manufacture and sale of tobacco products, and Philip Morris Capital Corporation (PMCC), a subsidiary that maintains a portfolio of finance assets. Other subsidiaries include Altria Group Distribution Company and Altria Client Services LLC.

Altria Group also holds a 10.2% stake in the world’s largest brewer Anheuser- Busch InBev. Also earlier this month they entered the cannabis market here in Canadian by investing $2.4 billion for a 45% stake in Cronos Group.

Altria Group has been raising their dividend every year since 2008, and 52 times in the past 49 years. Currently pay a quarterly dividend of $0.80.

Purchase & Income

I bought 61 shares @ $53.69

With these shares I will receive $48.80 quarterly and $195.20 annually in dividend income.

The second stock I purchases was:

AbbVie Inc. (AbbVie) is a research-based biopharmaceutical company. The Company is engaged in the discovery, development, manufacture and sale of a range of pharmaceutical products. Its products are focused on treating conditions, such as chronic autoimmune diseases in rheumatology, gastroenterology and dermatology; oncology, including blood cancers; virology, including hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV); neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis; metabolic diseases, including thyroid disease and complications associated with cystic fibrosis, and other serious health conditions. It offers products in various categories, including HUMIRA (adalimumab), Oncology products, Virology Products, Additional Virology products, Metabolics/Hormones products, Endocrinology products and other products, which include Duopa and Duodopa (carbidopa and levodopa), Anesthesia products and ZINBRYTA (daclizumab).

I think Abbvie is a pretty darn good fit for me. Before the purchase I needed help in the healthcare sector as I only had a tiny position in Johnson & Johnson. Abbvie was founded in 2013 when it split from Abbott. Since inception the quarterly dividend has increased 168%.  Abbvie pays a quarterly dividend of $1.07 per share.

Purchase & Income

I bought 38 shares @ $87.41

With these shares I will receive $40.66 in quarterly and $162.64 in annual dividend income.

Third and final stock is:

 

The Home Depot, Inc. (The Home Depot) is a home improvement retailer. The Company sells an assortment of building materials, home improvement products, and lawn and garden products, and provides various services. The Home Depot stores serves three primary customer groups: do-it-yourself (DIY) customers, do-it-for-me (DIFM) customers and professional customers. Its DIY customers are home owners purchasing products and completing their own projects and installations. The Company assists these customers with specific product and installation questions both in its stores and through online resources and other media designed to provide product and project knowledge. Its DIFM customers are home owners purchasing materials themselves and hiring third parties to complete the project or installation. Professional Customers are primarily professional renovators/remodelers, general contractors, repairmen, installers, small business owners and tradesmen.

Home Depot is the largest home improvement retailer and operates in the United States, Canada and Mexico. With the US economic growth Home Depot has seen its earning grow as people have more money to spend on home improvements. This year the company has revised earnings upwards and announced a huge stock buyback plan.

Home Depot has a dividend yield of 2.42% but don’t let that fool you, since 2012 the company has been aggressively raising the dividend. In 2012 the annual dividend was $1.16 per share as of today it sits at $4.12 per share.

Purchase & Income

I bought 12 shares @ $172.94

These shares will provide me $12.36 in quarterly and $49.44 in annual dividend income.

 

If I add up the dividends from these three companies it would be $407.28. The stock and ETF that I sold would have provided me $364.83 in dividend income per year. I come out ahead by $42.45 and I believe all three companies have the ability to grow their dividends in the years ahead and also provide capital growth.

Well what do you think of my purchases? Please feel free to let me know in the comment section.

Thanks for reading

Matthew

 

Sold A Stock (CU), Reduced A Position (ZDY)

Hello and welcome to my latest post. Today I am going to share with a couple of transactions I made last week.  Last Tuesday December 11th I made 5 transactions in my RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan) account today I will only talk about two of them to keep the post short. I will however post on Thursday about the other three transactions.

So back on the 11th I sold one stock and reduced my position in one of the Exchange Traded Funds I hold. Why did I do this you might be asking? Well on Monday December 10th Rob from Passive Canadian Income tweeted that he was thinking about selling or reducing his position in the same ETF in order to purchase one or two US stocks. Once I seen that my mind started thinking about it, the more I thought about it the more it made sense to do the same thing. It made sense because the money was in the perfect account already, here in Canada we can buy US stocks and receive their dividends in our RRSP accounts and the money will be tax free due to the tax treaty between the two countries.

I seen Rob’s tweet while I was at work so I spent the rest of the night thinking about the merits of selling the ETF and possibly what stocks I would buy with the money. I knew if I made the decision to sell that the money would be put into US stocks. That was an easy decision for me because I made it a priority for 2018 to diversify my portfolio away from Canadian stocks.

The stock that I sold was Canadian Utilities.

I am a big fan of Canadian Utilities, I’ve owned the stock since 2014. Throughout 2018 I have been buying shares of the company in my TFSA (Tax Free Savings Account) and I thought last Tuesday was the right time to sell what remaining shares I had in my RRSP.

Income 

I sold 75 shares @$32.23 which gave me $2,417.25 with the decision to sell I will lose $117.75 in 2019 dividend income.

 

The ETF that I reduced my position in is the BMO US Dividend ETF.

I like the ETF for it’s monthly income, but decided to reduce my position as I thought I could grow my income quicker with stocks then with the ETF.

Income

Before I sold some I owned 455 shares, I decided to sell 290 shares @ $31.05 per share. The proceeds from the 290 shares are $9,004.50, I currently now hold 165 shares of the ETF I’m still undecided if I should sell the remaining shares and buy another stock or two.

The income that I will lose from selling these 290 shares are $247.08.

 

When I combine the income that I will lose from making these two decisions the result is a loss of $364.83 in 2019 dividend income. That is a lot to lose but I think you will be happy with what I purchased and the income I will receive from them.

So what do you think of my decision to sell CU and reduce my position in ZDY? Please feel free to comment below, I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Also just a reminder on Thursday I will be posting on what I did with the $11,421.75 I received.

Thanks

Matthew

Dividend Increases 26 & 27 of 2018

Hello everyone and welcome back. This week I have received two more dividend increases and wanted to share them with you. One I was expecting because the company usually announces in December. The other raise was unexpected and I only found out about it scrolling through Twitter Tuesday night.

The first raise came from:

On Tuesday Enbridge announced a 10% raise to their dividend beginning in the first quarter of 2019. Also in the announcement they said they expect to raise the dividend by another 10% in 2020. Enbridge is a big holding for me I hold the stock in two accounts RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan) and LIRA (Locked In Retirement Account).  This is the 6th raise I have received from Enbridge since I first started buying the stock.

Income

I currently own 257 shares and with the raise my income will increase by $17.22 quarterly and $68.88 annually.

The second increase came from:

 

As mentioned above I found out about this raise scrolling through Twitter and it came as a surprise. This is the 4th raise for Realty Income Corp on the year. If I knew they raised the dividend so much per year I would have bought more shares lol. As it stands I currently have a small position in the company so the income gained isn’t a lot.

Income

I currently own 47 shares and with this news my monthly income increases by $0.03 and $0.36 annually.

If you own these stocks congratulations on the raises.

Thanks for reading

Matthew