Dividend Income – March 2015 Update

It’s that time of the month again! Now, please excuse me for a minute so I can get off the chair and dance around like Dilbert and Willy for doing absolutely nothing and still getting paid. Boom Shakalaka! Although our monthly dividend income is still quite small compared to the salary income from our 9-5 jobs, I actually get more excited when tallying our monthly dividend income than getting the pay cheque every 2 weeks. Yes call me weird but it’s hard not to get excited when our money is working hard for us and getting us one step closer to financial independence. I look forward to the day where our dividend income overtakes our working income.

For some reason, March felt longer than 31 days. It’s probably because work had kept me pretty busy. On top of the demanding projects that I was dealing with, my workload doubled when I had to cover my manager while he was on vacation. Luckily, I weathered the storm and did a good job to make sure that all the project milestones were met and kept all the customers relatively happy. It was also good to have Mrs. T to remind me that there’s life outside of work and that I needed to spend quality times with her and Baby T. Bay T is learning more and more things each day at 17 months old. He is now walking everywhere (still stumbling around here and there) and saying more and more words. It’s pretty amazing to be greeted by a smiling Baby T when I come home each day. This is why it’s important to have a work life balance. There are more important things in life than work and we are simply not programmed to work 80 – 100 hours a week.

Here’s a list of stocks that we received dividends in March 2015:

Pure Industrial REIT (AAR.UN)
BP (BP)
Chorus Aviation (CHR.B)
Corus Entertainment (CJR.B)
Canadian National Railway Company (CNR.TO)
ConocoPhillips (COP)
Chevron (CVX)
Dream Office REIT (D.UN)
Enbrdige (ENB.TO)
Energyplus Corp (ERF.TO)
Evertz Technologies (ET.TO)
Fortis (FTS.TO)
H&R REIT (HR.UN)
Intact Financial (IFC.TO)
Intel (INTC)
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)
KEG Income Trust (KEG.UN)
Liquor Store (LIQ.TO)
McDonald’s (MCD)
Manulife Financial (MFC.TO)
MCAN Mortgage Corporation (MKP.TO)
Qualcomm (QCOM)
RioCan REIT (REI.UN)
Saputo (SAP.TO)
Suncor (SU.TO)
Unilever (UL)
Waste Management (WM)

In March we received a total of $775.53 in dividend! Compared to March of 2014 that’s a decrease in dividend income. However because we received a large amount of special dividend in March 2014, the dividend income for March 2014 was abnormally high. If we take out the special dividend amount, we see an increase of 20% YOY!

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Please note, when it comes to monthly dividend income, we do not differentiate US and Canadian currencies. To keep the math simple, we’re using a 1 to 1 currency rate when it comes to dividend income received in US currency. This may not be accurate but it keeps life simple.

So far this year we’ve received a total of $2,306.02 in dividend income. That’s an increase of 6% compared to the first three months of 2014. A 6% increase is very respectable considering that we received an abnormally high amount of special dividend in Q1 of 2014. We are very happy with our progress and it will be interesting to see what our total dividend income would be at end of the year.

Looking forward, we are still trying to decide what to do with fresh capital in our RRSP accounts – whether to convert to US dollar and purchase US dividend stocks or keep it in Canadian dollar and purchase Canadian dividend stocks. I guess you’ll have to check back to see what our decision is. 🙂

 

I have updated our dividend income page to reflect the March dividend income.

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52 thoughts on “Dividend Income – March 2015 Update”

  1. Congratulations! I am wondering what is your strategy for investing the cash (the dividend payments). How much do you plan to accumulate before you buy some stocks? Do you do any synthetic DRIP? Why do you not own any Canadian banks? How do you decide which companies to invest in using the cash from your dividend payments? Always eager to learn from people who appear to be smarter than me. Thank you.

    Reply
    • Hi Helen,

      We do have Canadian banks but they didn’t pay out any dividends in March. We try to enroll in synthetic DRIP whenever possible. Please take a look at our dividend portfolio page. I’ll write a post to answer your questions in the near future. 🙂

      Reply
  2. Hi Tawcan!

    I’m new to your blog and wanted to stop by to say hello. That’s some pretty sick dividend income you received in March, and an even sicker YOY increase! And I totally relate to getting more excited at the thought of receiving my dividends than my paycheck, hahaha. A paycheck just feels so bland and boring, whereas dividends are always increasing, and always coming from different sources every month, keeps things interesting!

    Definitely subbing to your blog, I look forward to keeping up with your progress!

    Cheers

    P.S. Your name sounds badass. Idk why but ‘Tawcan’ makes me think of some giant dragon pokemon 😛

    Reply
    • Hi Zero to Zeros,

      You have a nice blog yourself too. I certainly won’t say no to a pay cheque but to me receiving dividends is so much more rewarding. 🙂

      Reply
  3. Tawcan,

    Great month to finish out the first quarter. You’re off to a blistering start this year! 🙂

    I hear you on the work-life balance thing. I’m infinitely happier now after quitting my job last year. The path to full FI might be a little slower, but I’m enjoying the journey much, much more. You’ll get there!

    Best wishes.

    Reply
    • Hi Dividend Mantra,

      Working hard to have a great year when it comes to dividend income. You’re definitely living the dream when it comes to work-life balance. 🙂

      Reply
  4. $2300 in CAD/USD is awesome, I think that can get you a nice place to stay and some groceries in small town usa. Nice work and love the picture representing this “hard work”.

    Reply
    • Hi Even Steven,

      That amount of money will provide pretty good standard of living in some Asian countries. We will work on adding more dividend income as we work toward financial independence.

      Reply
    • Hi Gremlin,

      We’re very happy with the 20% YOY growth. Will be very interesting to see where we’re at end of the year. 🙂

      Reply
  5. Great update Tawcan and I can see why you enjoy counting them up – what a great YOY increase!

    My own dividends are growing bit by bit – all the pennies and pounds add up!

    Reply
    • Hi Weenie,

      All the pennies and pounds do all add up quickly. It’s like building a snowball, as it gets bigger, it will grow exponentially.

      Reply
  6. Your dividend income looks great, especially the February, Tawcan. What is the reason why your March came a bit behind of February? You still deserve a pat on the back.

    Reply
  7. Awesome dividend income for the month. But as you hinted, it’s not all about work and money… it’s about family time, personal time, health and happiness. I can fully relate to your Baby T update as our son is now 1 month and the changes have been amazing. Sure he just lies there and can’t hold his own head up but we still see many changes and are loving it. Happy to have several names in common with you for March income as well. Thanks for the update.

    Reply
  8. Tawcan,

    20% YOY growth! Heck yeah! Congrats on the great progress my friend. Keep up the great work and spend as much time with Baby T as possible. I also speculate that March seemed like it lasted longer than 31 days because of all the dividend activity you had. You were averaging almost a dividend received per day!

    Bert

    Reply
    • Hi Bert,

      Interesting that you mentioned that we were averaging almost a dividend received per day. Never thought about that, that’s a really cool stat.

      Reply
  9. Great job on an excellent month! Same goes here, I am more excited tallying my dividend income than my paycheck! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
    • Hi FrugalityToFinancialFreedom,

      I guess we DGI all think alike when it comes to dividend income. Glad to have a community to share ideas.

      Reply
  10. Dividends feel so much more awesome than a paycheck because there was zero effort required to receive them! To me it feels like I’m getting free money every month. 🙂

    Fantastic Q1 and YOY increase. Looking forward to see when you unload your extra capital next!

    Reply
    • Hi Seraph,

      That is why it’ so nice to receive dividends. It is indeed like getting free money every month. Definitely looking forward to the rest of the year.

      Reply
  11. That’s a long list of companies paying you out this month which is awesome. Great progress and it must have felt wonderful getting hit with another dividend payout seemingly every day. 🙂

    Have a great weekend!

    Reply
    • Hi FI Fighter,

      Thanks, hopefully we’ll be able to add some real estate passive income in the near future just like what you’re doing.

      Reply
  12. Hi Tawcan,

    More than $2k in the year to date is awesome!

    “There are more important things in life than work and we are simply not programmed to work 80 – 100 hours a week” – it’s incredible how many people try to live like this though! Pretty glad I found out about the pursuit for FI before this happened to me as well!

    Mr Z

    Reply
    • Hi Mr Zombie,

      Same here. It amazes me that people can keep pulling 80-100 hours a week year after year. I really wonder what their quality of life is like when they’re not working.

      Reply
    • Hi Mark,

      Will definitely do a write up on our decision. I guess you’ll be glued to the TV in the next few weeks cheering for the Sens.

      Reply
  13. Great job Tawcan! Even though there’s work involved behind actual work income and dividend income, I also find the dividends to be much more rewarding. Of course they continue to grow and increase! Keep up the good work! That $2.3k over 3 months is a really strong mark. We were at $1.3k through the first quarter so we’ve got a ways to go.

    Reply
  14. You are going very strong Tawcan. Already $2300 for last 3 months is impressive. You will be able to reach $10,000 by 2014 if you keep pouring more capitals to work themselves. Keep up the great work Tawcan!

    BeSmartRich

    Reply
    • Hi BeSmartRich,

      Thanks, we’re very happy with that Q1 dividend income, hoping to have even stronger income for the rest of 2015.

      Reply
  15. Thats some serious income, Tawcan. Some really strong names paying out cold hard cash in your portfolio. Congrats and keep up the great work.

    R2R

    Reply
  16. Wow, excellent dividend grow. Enormous amount for the quarter.

    I think I’ve already know what’s your decision is regarding the conversion or not. Let me guess:

    Uoy lliw peek ti ni adanac.

    Reply
  17. Congrats on the great month! Def get more excited for divies than the biweekly pay cheque…..just wondering your thoughts on MKP.to? Looks like it’s had a small pull back? Would u put new money into it? What do you think the next few years brings for MKP.to?

    Reply
    • Hi Shawn,

      I have been putting MKP.TO on auto pilot for a while now. We receive sufficient dividend to DRIP each quarter so we are already taking advantage of the pull back. It’s not high on my list to add more money into it.

      Reply
  18. Great going Tawcan. Slow and steady wins it. You’re doing awesome. It’s great seeing your progress trending higher and higher. Spend time with your family. Everything’s gonna be wonderful. You’ve built a solid foundation. Take care bud.

    Reply

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