2017 Year In Review

Hello everyone and welcome to my 2017 Year In Review post. First off I would like to say Happy New Year’s to everyone. I hope you all had a great year, and that 2018 is even better for you. For me 2017 was a big year for me. I say that because my mind set towards finance changed, I became more focused on improving my finances. You will see further on in this post what I mean when I talk about my 2017 goals. 2017 say me change jobs which pays much more than my previous one allowing me to invest and save more.

Let’s get to the fun part me sharing my numbers with you.

TFSA

On January 1st, 2017 my Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA) had a value of $21,500.67 and as of January 1st, 2018 that has increased to $25,989.00 a gain of $4,488.33 or 2.1%. Not great appreciation but it’s a gain and I will attempt to increase this number this year.

One area that I am really happy with with my TFSA is dividends received.

Last year for the first time ever I crossed the $1k mark for this account growth stood at 54% on the year. If I can continue to get this growth I will be a very happy man.

I made 6 purchases in my TFSA account:

• Chorus Aviation (Added more shares)
• ZCL Composites Inc. (Added more shares)
• Canadian National Railway (* New Stock)
• Plaza REIT (*New Stock)
• Canadian Apartment Properties REIT (2)(*New Stock, two buys)

I also sold one stock:

• Boardwalk REIT

RRSP

2017 was a another good year for my Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) account. The value of the account and my dividends received both grew. As for value on January 1st, 2017 the account had a value of $77,148.68 as of January 1st, 2018 the value had increased to $84,694.00. An increase of $7,545.32 or 9.8%.

My dividends continue to steadily march upwards in my RRSP.

In 2017 I made 5 purchases in this account:

• Exco Technologies (* New Stock)
• Power Corp (Added more shares)
• Enbridge (2) (Two purchases of this stock adding to existing position)
• Alimentation Couche-Tard (Added more shares)

As you can see 2017 saw me focus more on adding to my existing positions in my RRSP. We are currently only 3 days into 2018 (When I write this) and I can say that this trend will probably continue this year as I don’t want to overstretch myself.

Combined Dividends

I received a record amount of dividends last year, if you have been following my journey over the past year you know that it was my goal to reach $4k. I am please with my progress, my income continues to grow most of the time with little effort. I have an ultimate goal of wanting to receive at least $1k per month or $12k per year.

Dividend Increases

Ladies and Gentlemen I love being a dividend investor. Why you ask? Well let me tell you once again I had a great year in terms of dividend increases form the stocks I own. In 2017 I received 20 raises plus 2 special distributions, together these have boosted my income by $377.67. Wowzers I love seeing that.

Seeing that number should make me very happy but I was just a little disappointed. The reason for that is out of those numbers above only 2 raises and the 2 came from my TFSA account. I need to see more increases from that account, in order to help improve my income growth in this account I added three new stocks Canadian National, Plaza REIT and Canadian Apartment Properties REIT who all have a history of raising their distributions.

2017 Goals Results

Last year I set 7 goals that were in the following categories personal finance, investing, blog and social media. I had very good success I achieved all but one of them.

Personal Finance

Goal #1 Eliminate a $3,818 loan

I am happy to report I was able to pay this off in April. It felt great not having to anymore towards this loan. The loan was used for investing purposes. In 2016 I withdrew $10k on my line of credit and invested it in my TFSA.

Goal #2 Increase Savings to $10k

When I began the year I only had $2,500 in the bank as an emergency fund I wanted to increase this number in case anything were to happy and I needed money. I am happy to say that as of January 1st, 2018 my savings had increased to $10,431.21.

Investing

Goal #3   Invest $4,000

In an effort to increase my net worth and also increase my passive income I wanted to invest more. Not including 2016 I usually was only investing $2,600 per year. I am happy to say that I achieved my goal and invested a total of $5,606.09

Goal #4 Receive $4K in Dividends

As mentioned above I achieved this goal and received a total $4,312.17. 🙂

Blog

Goal #5 Achieved 15k page views

I am very very happy to say that we did it the blog had 16,268 page views for 2017. About halfway through the year I wasn’t sure I could achieve this goal but thanks to you I did. Thank you.

Goal #6 Have 30 Followers

Thanks to your tremendous support at the end of 2017 I had 41 followers. Thanks for following.

Social Media

Goal #7 Have 1,500 Twitter Followers

This is the only goal I did not achieve and I’m ok with that. For one it’s not a financial goal. Second it was kind of a fun goal I wanted to see how many I could get. My followers have steadily grown. If you follow me thank you I appreciate it.

Well folks that’s a wrap on my 2017. I hope you had a fantastic year. Please feel free to leave a comment below I always enjoy hearing from you.

Take care

Matthew