August 2026 Dividend Income Update

I’m still disappointed in the Telus dividend cut, but I have decided what I am going to do. Even though I usually cut a dividend paying equitiy out of my portfolio when a dividend cut comes, I realize I am somewhat emotionally attached to Telus still despite the poor performance. We have our Internet with them, we have our cell phone plans with a subsidiary of Telus (Public Mobile) and I have to be honest, it feels good when your dividend income pays the ‘bills’.

Sometimes investing is not entirely rational, unfortunately.

I still ended up still ‘treating myself’ to an expensive watch (despite the drop in dividend income) because I reached the next portfolio milestone. I’m happy with it so far, time will tell (sorry for the pun) when the weather becomes dark and it is still working, whether I will be even happier with it. I got an automatic watch that is based on movement. I’ll still have to shell something like $500 to $700 in 5-7 years to ‘service’ and clean the watch but at least they tell me this upfront.

If you like to track your dividend income like I do, here’s a free dividend tracker spreadsheet download for you. I find it motivating to keep track of your numbers and continue to see a positive trajectory. I use it to track how many shares of an investment I buy and when.

August 2026 Dividend Income Update

My goal for 2026 is to have at least $45,000 annually of dividend income. Feels a little low to me given how expensive everything is… but I’ll re-evaluate.

Here’s my July 2026 Dividend Income Update if you want to look at my dividend portfolio from last month.  The forward annual yield at that time was $42486.

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 2026 Forward Dividend Income is $42,863 and this is a 0.9% increase from last month, or an $377 increase in annual dividend income.

My “hourly rate” is $4.89 whether I’m eating or sleeping or cleaning my stove.

Or the rate is $20.60 hour if I was working a 40 hour work week.

The minimum wage in BC increased to $18.25 per hour on June 1, 2026.

Way to go passive income!

Here’s my screenshot chart from Wealthica below on my 12 month performance relative to VTI as of May 27, 2025. Beating the S&P500, not too shabby right? As mentioned I can’t get an accurate graph with my brokerage switching.

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 Aug 2025 forward dividend income was $39211 and my Aug 2026 forward dividend income is $42863, which is a 9.3% increase.

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

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 in my opinion.

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.

It does not work well with RBC Direct Investing or TD though, it doesn’t alway sync up well on the app.

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 2026.

It was a below average dividend paying month.

• National Bank (NA.TO)
• Verizon (VZ)
• Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO)
• CASH ETF (CASH.TO)
• iShares S&P/TSX Capped REIT (XRE.TO)
• Riocan Real Estate Investment (REI.UN.TO)

DIVIDEND PORTFOLIO CHANGES

• Altria (MO) increased their dividend by 4.72% to $1.11 per share per quarter
• Added more Sunlife (SLF.TO)
• Added more Altria (MO)
• Added more Power Corporation of Canada (POW.TO)

Here are some of my favourite five Canadian dividend stocks if you’re interested. One of them has been a quadruple bagger for me, returning almost 400%. I should take Telus off this list, lol. It’s no longer one of my favourites!