September 2021 Dividend Income Update

Here is my September 2021 Dividend Income Update. September was quite volatile, there was a ‘dip’ in which I managed to buy more VTI ETF and I put in more cash into my account that I usually would.

If you’re curious about my liquid net worth, subscribe and you’ll get the report with net worth numbers tomorrow.

RANDOM MUSINGS FOR September

There’s nothing too exciting about September other than our continued attempt at rejuvenating our dead lawn. It’s actually quite exciting to watch grass grow, haha!! Nothing seems to happen for a while and suddenly, poof you see grass coming up.

I will have a post coming up later this month on the cost break down of fixing a dead lawn.

We went on a one night trip to one of the Gulf Islands (equivalent of the San Juan Islands in Washington state) that was fun. Here’s a recap of our trip here.

GENYMONEY.CA DIVIDEND INCOME UPDATE

My long-term target is at least $35,000 annually of dividend income (definitely not a big deal if I don’t get this, my main goal is a 7 figure portfolio), or about a $1,000,000 dividend/ investment portfolio with a conservative 3.5% dividend yield.

My personal finance resolution for 2021 is to get $20,000 in forward dividend yield and this was completed in August 2021.

Here’s my August 2021 Dividend Income Update if you want to look at my dividend portfolio happenings from last month.  The forward annual yield at that time was $20,202.

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

This update, my September 2021 Forward Dividend Income is $20,721 and this is a 2.6% increase from last month.

Here’s my September 2021 screenshot chart from Wealthica below on my 12 month trailing performance relative to S&P/TSX and S&P500. Amazingly, to my surprise, my returns are close to S&P500 returns (this wasn’t the case earlier in the year).

28.28% is the 12 month S&P500 returns and my returns are just shy of 28%.

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).

My September 2020 forward dividend income was $16,578, my August 2021 forward dividend income is $20,721 so my YoY increase is around 25%.

Here’s how my forward dividend yield looks like in 2021 compared to 2020 and 2019.

This post may contain affiliate links.  Please see genymoney.ca’s disclaimer for more information.

Related: 10 Income Producing Assets to Achieve Financial Freedom

This chart shows my forward dividend income. For my actual dividend income received, I just check my Wealthica account really quickly and it takes 1 minute to do, as part of the income add-on (which is free). You just click on the add-on section, then click on income, and toggle the dates to what you are looking to review.

I use Wealthica (it’s like the Canadian version of Personal Capital) to see my dividend income added up for the month because it automatically converts USD to CAD for me, no more calculating it manually (though that’s always fun).

You can read my Wealthica review here if you’re interested in it– it’s free to sign up for!

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 Questrade.

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

DIVIDENDS RECEIVED:

I received dividends and distributions from the following companies and ETFs in September that I used to buy more dividend producing companies from my dividend garden.

I like tracking upcoming payments and ex-dividend dates using the Dividend Predictor App. I think it’s worth the $1 a month or so. The increase this month is because of all the updated payout changes to the payments of the ETFs I have, I use this app to track my trailing 12 month yield.

I don’t normally drip and would rather use that cash to invest manually, but I do have a Questrade DRIP set up for Sunlife when dividends are paid.

Here are the companies and ETFs that paid dividends in September 2021.

• Fortis (FTS.TO)
• Walgreens (WBA)
• Manulife Financial Corporation (MFC.TO)
• Vanguard Total International Stock ETF (VXUS)
• Suncor (SU.TO)
• Vanguard Emerging Market ETF (VEE.TO)
• Sunlife (SLF.TO)
• Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ)
• Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI)
• Riocan Real Estate Investment Trust (REI-UN.TO)
• BMO Laddered Preferred Share ETF (ZPR.TO)

It was nice, I was busy scrubbing and cleaning my stove and oven (and inadvertently got some Easy Off sprayed in my face thank goodness I was wearing a mask haha) and got paid $280 from Manulife that day to clean. The feeling of passive income is great!

Got paid $280 today to clean the stove $MFC

Now that’s passive income pic.twitter.com/GgcSUygaMH

— Genymoney.ca (@genymoneyca) September 21, 2021

DIVIDEND PORTFOLIO CHANGES

There were lots of changed with the ETFs I have so I updated the trailing 12 month yield for those which jumped the numbers by around $200.

Instead of investing another $5700 at a 3.5% yield I did absolutely nothing but look at my ETF yields in the Dividend Predictor App and update my spreadsheet.

Here are some of the portfolio changes last month:

• Vanguard All-World Ex Canada (VXC.TO) Increased the recent payout by 6.11% from previous payouts
• Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ) decreased their recent payout by 9.89%
• Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) increased their recent payout by 7.24%
• iShares S&P/TSX (XIC.TO) Increased their recent payout by 0.98%
• Vanguard Emerging Market ETF (VEE.TO) increased their payout by 109%
• Vanguard Total International Stock Market (VXUS) decreased their payout by 30.75%
• Bought more Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI)
• Bought more Vanguard Emerging Market ETF (VEE.TO)
• Bought more Telus Corporation (T.TO)
• Bought more Fortis (FTS.TO) right before they announced a dividend increase
• Speaking of Fortis, they announced a dividend increase of 5.90% from 2.02 to 2.14 annually (48 years of annual dividend increases from Fortis!)
• Dripped 1 share of Sunlife (SLF.TO)

I usually put limit orders to buy ETFs or dividends which has worked out well for me. However, I recommend NOT doing it late at night when you’re falling asleep on your keyboard. I don’t know what happened but I put a limit order for Telus for $81.00!! (Haha, the share price is around $20-something right now) and I put an order for 20 shares.

When I buy an individual stock I don’t usually buy it unless it is over $1500 to $2000 because of the commission (even though it’s $5), in my sleepy limit order transaction request I only bought $500 worth of Telus, haha!

Here are some of my favourite five Canadian dividend stocks if you’re interested- Fairfax Financial has done really well year to date.

You can get $50 of free trades (each is typically $4.95/trade) with Questrade.  The $50 free doesn’t include ETFs as those are free to purchase anyways (but not free to sell).

I love using Questrade because it’s free to buy ETFs (well there are ECN fees but we’re talking pennies and nickels here) and this allows me to dollar cost average to take the emotion (and guessing) out of investing.  Here are some of the other Questrade fees.

My forward dividend income is $20,721. Which means that I am making $2.37/hour (any hour not just working hours), or $9.96/hr if I worked 40 hours a week.

This is now more than my first job throughout university, when I was making $9.50/hr and thought it was the cat’s meow.

Passive dividend income is the best form of passive income.

That’s my dividend income update, thanks for reading!

For more inspiration, follow these Canadian dividend investing blogs or read these dividend investing books.

Have you ever put a limit order for an ETF or stock when you should really be sleeping?

How did September 2021 in your investment portfolio go?