March 2026 Dividend Income Update

I didn’t realize how down I was becoming because of the long winter and darkness- we just came back from a three week trip to Asia and my mood has brightened! Now the blossoms are out and spring is here so my mood is better.

Here’s a quick trip recap of our trip to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan.

We went to Hong Kong Disney. It cost us $380 CAD and the lines were decent (we used Scene+ points). We went on most of the rides in one day and I think at most we waited 20 minutes for a ride. Some of the longer (scarier) rides we didn’t go on. I got to go to on the “It’s a Small World” ride and experience Disney nostalgia- when we went last year to the Anaheim Disneyland it was closed. It doesn’t have as much of the magical vibe as LA Disneyland but I think for a fraction of the price and less stress of the line ups it’s not bad at all!

Then we went to Taiwan, stayed mostly in Taipei but did take the High Speed Rail (it goes up to 300km/hr and boy is it efficient and on time) to the south of Taiwan. We went to see this little island called Lambal island where we swam with sea turtles (one was estimated to be 90 years old). You can see there’s one in this picture here. It was my most favourite part of the trip. The island is very small there is very little car traffic, we just scooted around on our e-bikes.

We were very close to them!

We made the trek back up to Taipei and spent about a week there going to various night markets and visiting sights such as Taipei 101, Beitou hot springs, and the Taipei Zoo (this was probably the best $12 CAD we spent on the trip). We had an omakase lunch and it was very delicious, probably similar to what I had in Vancouver a few years back but less than half the price.

Taiwanese people are so friendly. The cars stop for pedestrians (in contrast I almost got hit by a car on a walk signal today in Vancouver) and people give up their seats on public transit for kids.

After Taiwan we went to Okinawa. I have a fascination with Okinawa as it is one of the Blue Zones (many people there are over 100 years old). It was laid back, reminded me of Honolulu, but also seemed a bit industrial. We went on a humbpack whale trip and saw humpback whales in the wild.

We also went to the aquarium in Okinawa and saw a whale shark and manta rays- which I don’t think I’ve seen manta rays before. I don’t think I would like to swim with them in the wild (manta ray tours are done in the darkness at night). They are very large.

From Okinawa we flew to Osaka to round out the trip to head on our way home. I have always wanted to go to Nara to see the deer. My kids and husband enjoyed the deer more than I did, I didn’t realize they would be so aggressive with the deer crackers. Some of them enjoyed chewing on my jacket strap. They were still very cute. We were lucky that some of the cherry blossoms were in bloom.

In the three weeks, I think we spent less on food in Asia (dining out and not cooking) than we normally do with me doing all the meal prep and cooking here in Canada.

Memory dividends were created! My kids got to swim with sea turtles, pet capybara, see a whale shark and manta rays, pet wild deer, and see humpback whales. They are very fortunate to experience the special animals around us.

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.

March 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 February 2026 Dividend Income Update if you want to look at my dividend portfolio from last month.  The forward annual yield at that time was $42,726.

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

My March 2026 Forward Dividend Income is $42,819 and this is a 0.2% increase from last month, or $93 increase in annual dividend income.

My “hourly rate” is still $4.88 whether I’m eating or sleeping or cleaning my stove.

Or the rate is $20.59/ hour if I was working a 40 hour work week.

The minimum wage in BC will increase 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?

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 March 2025 forward dividend income was $38297 and my March 2026 forward dividend income is $42,726 which is a 11.8% 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.

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 March 2026.

It was an average dividend paying month.

• Fortis (FTS.TO)
• Manulife Financial (MFC.TO) (I still have to do my quarterly stove and oven deep clean)
• Global X High Interest Savings ETF (CASH.TO)
• Vanguard Total International Stock Market ETF (VXUS)
• Suncor (SU.TO)
• Vanguard US Real Estate ETF (VNQ)
• Vanguard Emerging Market ETF (ETF)- Looks like the payout is $0 this quarter
• Sunlife Financial (SLF.TO)
• Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI)
• iShares S&P/TSX Capped REIT (XRE.TO)
• Riocan Real Estate Investment (REI.UN.TO)

DIVIDEND PORTFOLIO CHANGES

• The Vanguard ETFs announced their quarterly distributions (VXC, VTI, VNQ, VEE, VXUS). The VEE ETF doesn’t seem to have a distribution this quarter. I adjusted the trailing 12 month yield for the Vanguard ETFs- in general there is less distribution compared to last year’s numbers.
• Power Corporation of Canada (POW.TO) announced a 9% increase in their dividend
• Added more Altria (MO)
• Added more Sunlife Financial (SLF.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 over 400%.