February 2018 Investment Income $333

Welcome to my February 2018 investment income report.  This report helps me track all of my investment income from dividend stocks, index funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).  My goal is to one day be able to live off this income or at least have a significant portion of my living expenses covered by it.

Over the years, I’ve found that when I track my dividend income, it tends to grow.  Maybe its because I’m focused on growing those dividends that I’m constantly scheming up ways to make more money (or save more money), so that it can be put to good use by investing it in great dividend paying companies.  This approach has served me well and this year my family is on track to earning $14k in passive dividend income.

Think about it.  That’s $14k that we don’t have to get up in the morning to work for.  We just go on living our lives and all the while, each and every month, we receive cold hard cash in the form of dividends from our investments.  Right now we re-invest these dividends to buy more shares in our favourite companies so that the dividend income continues to grow over time.  But one day, we will be using that dividend income to finance an early retirement.

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I was pleased to see that our net worth held fast in February, coming in at 1.091 Million!  Not only did we finally make it to the coveted million-dollar mark, but we managed to stay above it and keep growing our net worth. The markets tanked in early February, recovered, then ran into trouble again at the end of the month.  I really think this Bull market is done.  Of course, no one can tell the future, the best odds that we have is a 50/50 chance day to day.  But the patient investor does vey well in the long run.  All the volatility brought the value of our financial assets down to 584k!  I’m sitting on a lot of cash right now, so I’m hoping to buy back in at much better prices.

Net Worth vs Investment Income

There’s no question that hitting the million dollar mark is an important milestone on the road to financial freedom.  But like I said before, net worth is great, but unless it’s backed up with some serious cash flow, it doesn’t really mean all that much.  After all, my net worth rises and falls primarily due to fluctuations in the stock and real estate markets.  For me, what’s really important is that my investments keep paying me cold hard cash each and every month.  That’s where my sense of financial security comes from, not whether I can sell something for more than I paid for it last week, or a month ago.

Streams of Passive Income are Key to Financial Independence

The one major thing I learned during the last recession was that, while my net worth may fall, the bulk of my dividend income remains the same.  That’s why I think building streams of alternative forms of income, whether it’s from a rental property, dividend stocks or even an online source like starting a blog, is key to achieving financial freedom.  Once you start hitting $1k/month, you basically have about half of your monthly expenses paid for by passive investment income.  What’s even better is that I’ve found that after a few years, the income really starts to take off.

Benefits of Passive Income

I once read somewhere that millionaires have about 7 different sources of income, which is a big reason why they’re rich.  If they lose 1 source it’s not the end of the world for them because the other 6 still provide financial security.  On the other hand, the rest of us are almost completely dependent on 1 source: our Jobs!

This is something that I’m working hard to change for my family and is why I invest as much as I can.  In these income reports  I try to be as transparent as possible to show you where my investment income comes from.  These reports simply show my investing approach and what has worked (and sometimes not worked) for me.  I’m by no means a financial expert but I am very pleased with my results to date.

I hope these reports inspire all of you to start saving and investing your money for a healthier financial future.  Now you may think that you need a lot of money to start investing, but the reality is that you can get started with as little as $25 a month!  So what are you waiting for?

How You Can Build Passive Sources of Income

Some of you may be wondering how YOU can start investing and building up streams of passive income.  First, just let me say that investing is NOT rocket science, but I DO recommend reading as much as you possibly can.  Check out my MUST READ page for some useful articles.  You can also see my Top 10 Favorite Personal Finance Books List.

If you’re hell bent and determined to start investing your money in dividend stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) right now, check out my step by step guide on How to Open a Questrade Account.  If you’re a bit hesitant to start buying stocks or ETFs through an online discount broker like Questrade, then you may want to try an online bank like Tangerine.  They offer a range of accounts (RRSP, TFSA) and a whole menu of Tangerine Investment Funds at reasonable prices.

Now on to my monthly cash flow from investments.

Home Renovations

For the past few months, I’ve been focusing on updating my home and have not really devoted much time at all to my investments or my cash hoard!!!  These renos will be done in mid-April so hopefully I’ll be able to deploy some cash at that time.

Monthly Investing Activity

I’m still on the sidelines for now with a hoard of cash that I want to deploy when the time’s right.  I continued to make extra cash purchases in my DRiP account to buy more shares of great dividend-paying companies.  I like to save and invest automatically because it’s a proven strategy for building long term wealth.  In addition to the stock purchases, I’m also investing in low-cost index funds in our retirement accounts.  These purchases amounted to about $1k in total.

As I said before, one of the great things about being a dividend investor is that all of my dividend income is automatically re-invested.  Every month this income buys more shares in my favorite companies that will, in turn, produce even more monthly income for me.  This is how compounding works and is why it’s such a powerful force…what Einstein called the “Eighth Wonder of the World”!

This month, reinvested dividend income bought more shares in Emera (EMA) and Bank of Montreal (BMO).

I’ve also sent a lot more money to my DRIP accounts to buy my favorite Canadian dividend stocks: Telus (T), Emera (EMA), Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), Bank of Montreal (BMO), Fortis (FTS) and Bell Canada (BCE).

Dividend Raises

This is my fav part of this report!  Dividend raises are a big reason that dividend growth investing has such a broad appeal.  How often do we get a raise at our jobs????  Almost never right?  But quality dividend stocks, on the other hand, not only pay a great dividend but increase it at least annually by a nice amount like 5%-10%.  February was fabulous month for dividend increases.  Let’s review the quarterly dividend increased, there were lots: Bell Canada (BCE) increased by 5.2% from $0.7175 to $0.755; Suncor Energy (SU) increased by 12.5% from $0.32 to $0.36; Manulife Financial increased 7% from $0.205 to $0.22; TransCanada Corp (TRP) increased 10.4% from $0.625 to $0.69; CIBC (CM) increased 2.3% from $1.30 to $1.33; Royal Bank (RY) increased 3.3$ from $0.91 to $0.94; and finally, Bank of Nova Scotia increased 3.7% from $0.79 to $0.82.  I know there’s more to come this year from my other dividend stocks.

February 2018 Investment Income Report

Monthly Passive Dividend Income

February was a decent month for dividend income coming in at a solid $333.49!  This month’s dividend income has grown by 2.3% compared to that of February 2017 ($326).

Here is the breakdown of the numbers for my February 2018 Investment Income:

Dividend Stocks

Emera (EMA) – $35.94

Bank of Montreal (BMO) – $90.61

Citigroup (C) – $8.03

Procter and Gamble (PG) – $85.17

Potash Corp of Saskatchewan (POT) – $12.76

RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust (REI) – $4.70

Royal Bank (RY) – $0.91

Mutual Funds and ETFs

iShares S&P/TSX Canadian Preferred Share Index ETF (CPD) – $53.55

iShares S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index ETF (XRE) – $41.82

Total Dividend Income – $333.49

No question my dividend is taking a hit from my decision to sell my bank stocks.  It’s still great to see that we are still above the $300 mark though!  After years of saving and investing, I’m slowly starting to see the fruits of my effort and I’m happy to finally have my money working for me.

My family’s annual passive income goal for 2018 is $14,000 and we have so far received $1,483.47.  So we are 10.5% of the way there.

Thanks for reading my February 2018 Investment Income Report and stay wealthy my friends!