Here is my June 2015 dividend income report. Welcome to another dividend income update. Well I can’t believe that we are already half way through 2015! Time is sure flying by. The first half of the year is always pretty busy for me as I try to save as much as I can to max out our registered accounts and the kids’ RESP account.
While we’re making some progress, we’re just not saving as much money this year because of some renovations on our home. These renovations were the subject of a past post and involved adding some insulation in the attic, a new furnace and A/C unit, and buying new windows for the house. Insulation is relatively cheap, the new windows and furnace not so much. Luckily the renovations are nearly complete and we can start tackling that debt!
Monthly Investing Activity
I sold a big chunk of my Suncor (SU) holdings (approx. 200 shares) because I thought there were better opportunities out there to put my capital to work. What I ended up doing with the money was buying shares in Canadian Utilities (CU). I thought this company would be a lot less volatile than SU with a nice yield of about 3.5%. I also purchased stock in Potash Corp (POT). Both, CU and POT, were the subject of a past post that you can read about here in case you missed it.
Just so you know, I haven’t completely abandoned my Suncor position. I still hold about 50 shares in my DRiP and I still have about 7k sitting in cash that I could buy back in if the price is right (ie. low $30s). With all the volatility in the markets these days I’m sure there’ll be plenty of opportunities.
I made my first monthly share purchase in Telus (T). I invested $200 through the company’s dividend re-investment plan (DRiP). Money has been super tight this year so my monthly share purchase plans are even more important to me because I can still invest small amounts of money. I increased my automatic monthly contributions into my share purchase plan for BNS by $25. This move continues my plan to make automatic monthly and quarterly share purchases in my dividend reinvestment accounts (DRIPs).
I bought more shares in Fortis (FTS), Suncor (SU), Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) and Bank of Montreal (BMO) this past month. As I’ve said before, in these accounts there is no point in trying to time the market – I contribute small amounts on a regular basis, regardless of what is happening in the market and I let compounding and dollar-cost averaging do their work. I also continued with my TD e-Series Funds automatic investment plan.
The markets were quite volatile this past month. I wish I had extra cash to invest right now. I really believe these huge swings are great buying opportunities for the long term investor. I’m glad to see the yields rise on some of my favorite dividend stocks like the big banks.
While the markets may be volatile, the one thing that I can count on as a pillar of stability is my dividend income. I’m happy to see it continually rising. As I mentioned before, this is the one “trend” that I don’t want to see broken. My monthly dividend income for June 2015 ($690) has increased by 52% compared to June of 2014 ($454). So I’m going to keep putting my money to work and growing my monthly passive income by buying dividend stocks, ETFs and low-cost index funds.
Monthly Passive Dividend Income
June has been a great month with regard to dividend income. We nearly hit the $700 mark! Here are the numbers:
Stocks:
Bank of America (BAC) – $1.52
Canadian National Railway (CNR) – $31.25
Enbridge (ENB) – $4.81
Fortis (FTS) – $19.90
Manulife Financial (MFC) – $29.39
RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust (REI) – $4.01
Suncor Energy (SU) – $13.22
Sun Life Financial (SLF) – $14.60
Mutual Funds and ETFs:
iShares S&P/TSX Canadian Preferred Share Index ETF (CPD) – $58.15
iShares S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index ETF (XRE) – $37.57
Canadian Short-Term Corporate Bond Index ETF (VSC) – $15.84
Canadian Short-Term Bond Index ETF (VSB) – $11.88
TD International Index Fund – e (TDB911) – $427.96
TOTAL = $670.10
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