November 2024 Dividend Income Update

The S&P500 has returned 26.47% YTD. Although the cost of living is getting more expensive, at least the investments are increasing at a higher pace than inflation. That’s why it’s important to invest.

Throughout the year I am usually trailing behind the S&P500 but as of this moment, I am beating the index! 29.29% YTD returns so far for my portfolio.

My 7 year old is questioning the existence of Santa Claus. If he doesn’t believe in Santa, at least there might still be a Santa Claus rally. That would be a great gift to surpass another investment portfolio milestone.

Who needs material goods when it is just as satisfying seeing the numbers go up or just as satisfying knowing you are beating the index (at least temporarily).

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.

November 2024 Dividend Income Update

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

Here’s my October 2024 Dividend Income Update if you want to look at my dividend portfolio from last month.  The forward annual yield at that time was $36,333.

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

My November 2024 Forward Dividend Income is $36,650 and this is a 0.8% increase from last month, or a $317 increase in annual dividend income.

My “hourly rate” is now $4.18 whether I’m eating or sleeping or cleaning my stove.

Or the rate is $17.62/hour if I was working a 40 hour work week, which means my dividend income covers a minimum wage salary.

On June 1 the minimum wage in BC increased to $17.40/hr.

Way to go passive income!

Here’s my screenshot chart from Wealthica below on my 12 month performance relative to VTI and VEQT as of December 1, 2024.

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 November 2024 forward dividend income was $33,361 and my November 2024 forward dividend income is $36,650 so the YoY increase is 9.9%.

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 November 2024. It was a below average paying month.

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

DIVIDEND PORTFOLIO CHANGES

Here are some changes to the portfolio (not much to report):

• I added more TD Bank (TD.TO)
• Sunlife (SLF.TO) had a 3.7% increase in annual dividend income
• Suncor (SU.TO) increased their dividend from 2.18 to 2.28 annually which is an increase of around 5%
• iShares S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index ETF (XRE.TO) reduced their monthly payout to $0.059 per month from $0.06 per month
• Telus corporation (T.TO) increased their dividend by around 7%, to $0.4023 per quarter

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

Happy investing!

When did your kid stop believing in Santa Claus?