December 2025 Dividend Income Update

This is the final dividend income update for 2025.

i started the year at $36,909 projected forward annual dividend income and ended the year with $42,066 in forward annual dividend income, meaning over the past year, there was an increase of $5157 in annual dividend income. Much of this increase is because I included CASH.TO distributions for some cash that I have waiting in the wings. Also much of it was dividend increases. If I invested new capital with a 3.5% return I would have to be infusing $147,342 of fresh capital into my portfolio, which I definitely did not do.

Having over $3500 in monthly dividend income is sure nice since cash flow is king, and I don’t have to ‘time the market’ to calculate when to sell. Though I guess this is irrelevant though since I’m not withdrawing from the portfolio right now anyway.

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.

December 2025 Dividend Income Update

My goal for 2025 was to have at least $39,000 annually of dividend income.

Here’s my November 2025 Dividend Income Update if you want to look at my dividend portfolio from last month.  The forward annual yield at that time was $41,912.

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

My December 2025 Forward Dividend Income is $42,066 and this is a 0.4% increase from last month, or $154 increase in annual dividend income.

My “hourly rate” is now $4.80 whether I’m eating or sleeping or cleaning my stove.

Or the rate is $20.22/ hour if I was working a 40 hour work week.

The minimum wage in BC increased to $17.85/hr on June 1 2025.

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?

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 December 2024 forward dividend income was $36,909 and my December 2025 forward dividend income is $42,066 which is a 13.9% 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.

Unfortunately Passiv Elite is not free for Questrade users anymore, but it is included for Questrade Plus users only (you have to pay a monthly fee for this service).

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 December 2025. It was an above average paying month.

• Fortis (FTS.TO)
• Manulife Financial (MFC.TO) I have yet to deep clean my stove, it’s one of my reminders to quarterly deep clean my stove when I get an Manulife dividend (I still haven’t done it)
• Global X High Interest Savings ETF (CASH.TO)
• Vanguard Total International Stock Market ETF (VXUS)
• Suncor (SU.TO)
• Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ)
• Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI)
• Vanguard Emerging Market ETF (VEE.TO)
• Sunlife Financial (SLF.TO)
• iShares S&P/TSX Capped REIT (XRE.TO)
• Riocan Real Estate Investment (REI.UN.TO)

DIVIDEND PORTFOLIO CHANGES

Here are some changes to the portfolio in November:

• National Bank of Canada (NA.TO) increased their dividend by 5.08%
• TD Bank (TD.TO) increased their dividend by 2.86%
• Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO) increased the dividend by 2.45%
• Added Vanguard ex-Canada ETF (VXC.TO)
• Updated Vanguard REIT ETF distributions
• Updated VTI distributions
• Updated VXUS distributions
• Updated VXC distributions (trailing 12 month)
• Updated VEE distributions

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 over 420%.

Keep the snowball rolling!