August 2024 Dividend Income Update

There were two big ‘moments’ or milestones for me this last month (other than almost breaking down crying at the sheer exhaustion of summer): One is that I am making minimum wage equivalent with my annual dividend and distribution income, and the other is that I have reached HNW for liquid assets.

I have always thought liquid net worth is a better yardstick to use.

I’m planning on easing off on the contributions to my investment portfolio now (taking a little weight off of the gas pedal) to preserve my cash flow and increase my cash position.

It’s not fully coasting but it is reassuring knowing that the 8th wonder of the world, compound interest is working harder on your behalf than your own contributions.

If you like to track your dividend income like I do, here’s a free dividend tracker spreadsheet download for you.

August 2024 Dividend Income Update

My goal for 2024 is to have at least $36,000 annually of dividend income.

Here’s my July 2024 Dividend Income Update if you want to look at my dividend portfolio from last month.  The forward annual yield at that time was $36,095.

A few notes: I leave the US dividends received/ estimated as a 1:1 US and CAD dollar exchange to keep thing simple.

My August 2024 Forward Dividend Income is $36,280 and this is a 1.01% increase from last month, or a $185 increase in annual dividend income.

My “hourly rate” is now $4.14 whether I’m eating or sleeping or cleaning my stove.

Or the rate is $17.44/hour if I was working a 40 hour work week.

On June 1 the minimum wage increased to $17.40/hr, crazy that I am making minimum wage in passive income.

Way to go passive income!

Here’s my screenshot chart from Wealthica below on my 12 month performance relative to VTI and VEQT. 12 month returns for the S&P/TSX is 12.88% and the S&P500 are 22.95%.

To get to this page, log into Wealthica and click on “add-ons” then click on “Performance Report” in the drop down box. You’ll be able to see how your portfolio compares to the S&P/TSX and the S&P 500 (but it doesn’t include the dividends).

Personally, I think it’s not a bad idea to keep track of how your portfolio compares to the benchmark indices, because if you have 75 different Canadian dividend paying companies and your return over the years is only 4% compounded annually then you might want to think about changing your investment strategy.

Comparing my own portfolio to the benchmark (and being appalled at the measly return) is what prompted me to switch to at least 50% of my portfolio in ETFs a few years ago and since then my portfolio has been doing better total growth-wise.

My August 2023 forward dividend income was $32,176 and my August 2024 forward dividend income is $36,280 so the YoY increase is 12.8%.

Here’s how my forward dividend yield looks like compared to the last few years, it has definitely slowed down recently.

You can read my Wealthica review here if you’re interested in it. It’s not free anymore but it still provides good value for the cost.

I love it as it works especially well with my Questrade accounts because of the API access and the graphing capabilities of Wealthica are much better than what you would just get with Questrade.

Passiv also gives you very detailed information about your dividend income and Passiv Elite is free for Questrade users.You can even see your time-weighted returns for the past 12 months or year to date. It also breaks down exactly how many dividends you received from with companies or ETFs month by month into a pretty colour coded format.

One downside with Passiv is that it always seems to be down at night time (the API and Questrade sync doesn’t seem to work then).

You can sign up for a free Passiv Elite account here to look at your dividends received.

If you prefer your own spreadsheet instead, and you’re interested in getting your own dividend income spreadsheet tracker, sign up for a free download here.

DIVIDENDS RECEIVED

I like tracking upcoming payments and ex-dividend dates using the Dividend Pro App. I just renewed for another year and they increased the price, it’s now $17.50 or so for a year but I think it’s worth it so I can keep myself updated regarding dividend payments and changes.

Wealthica also has a free add-on called “Income Investor Lite” and you can choose to see the Income Calendar, Dividend Holdings, and Upcoming Payments with a subscription of $9.99/year.

You can do a free trial of the upgraded income investor lite (no credit card needed) for seven days.

The upgraded version has an income calendar showing you the upcoming payments.

Also it shows you the dividends paid (in total), and forward yearly dividends expected including the current dividend yield and your yield on cost (in the paid version).

The free version shows you an income chart of the last 12 months of payments and the forward 12 months of payments expected, however the forward 12 months doesn’t seem accurate.

I like it because you don’t have to manually update any holdings when you make changes to the number of shares you own etc. however, I don’t like that you can’t see it on the phone (and it’s just on desktop).

Therefore, I’ll stick to Dividend Pro for now.

Here are the companies and ETFs that paid dividends and distributions in August 2024. It was a below average paying month.

• Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO)
• National Bank of Canada (NA.TO)
• Power Corporation of Canada (POW.TO)
• Verizon (VZ)
• iShares S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index ETF (XRE)
• Riocan REIT (REI.UN)

DIVIDEND PORTFOLIO CHANGES

Here are some changes and dividend increases to the portfolio:

• I transferred in kind my non-registered Verizon (VZ) into my RRSP
• I bought more Vanguard Total Stock Market (VTI)
• Altria (MO) increased their dividend by 4.08% from $0.98 per quarter to $1.02 per quarter

Here are some of my favourite five Canadian dividend stocks if you’re interested.