Dividend Income – August 2016 Update

Wow it’s hard to believe that it’s September already. This is the month that we will see Baby T1.0 starting preschool and the start of NHL hockey pre-season. It’s hard to believe that Baby T1.0 is preschool age already. Not too long ago he was born in our apartment in Vancouver (planned home-birth). It’s amazing to see how much he has grown and how independent he has become already. Since the Vancouver Canucks didn’t make it to the playoffs last season, this was a long off-season for us Canucks fans. I can’t wait for the reason to start and see how the Canucks will do this year.

Without further ado, let see how much dividend income we received for August 2016.

Dividend Income

In August we received dividend income from the following companies:

Apple (AAPL)
Pure Industrial REIT (AAR.UN)
Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO)
Corus Entertainment (CJR.B)
Dream Office REIT (D.UN)
Dream Global REIT (DRG.UN)
Dream Industrial REIT (DIR.UN)
General Mills (GIS)
H&R REIT (HR.UN)
Inter Pipeline (IPL.TO)
KEG Income Trust (KEG.UN)
Kinder Morgan (KMI)
National Bank (NA.TO)
Omega Healthcare (OHI)
Procter & Gamble (PG)
Potash (POT.TO)
Prairiesky Royalty (PSK.TO)
RioCan REIT (REI.UN)
Royal Bank (RY.TO)
Starbucks (SBUX)
AT&T (T)
Vodafone (VOD)
Verizon (VZ)

In total we received $1,115.20 in August 2016 from 23 different companies. $1,115.20 is an all time high for monthly dividend income. Woohoo! Out of the $1,115.20 received, $346.71 was in US currency and $768.49 was in CAN currency. This is about a 30-70 split. Please note, we use a 1 to 1 currency rate approach, so we do not convert the dividends received in US dollar into Canadian currency. Reason for doing this is to keep the math simple and avoid fluctuations in dividend income over time due to changes in the exchange rate.

The top 5 payouts came from Royal Bank, National Bank, Bank of Montreal, Omega Healthcare and Vodafone. It’s a little interesting to see that 3 of the top 5 were Canadian banks. The top 5 payouts correspond to about 60% of our August dividend income.

tawcan-dividend-income-aug-2016

Dividend Growth

Compare to August 2015, we saw a 20.27% YOY increase. A really solid number given that we received over $900 in dividend income last August. I’m definitely happy to see that our hard work of saving and investing are paying off this month.

Thanks to DRIP, we were able to purchase additional 13 shares of different dividend paying stocks. This increased our annual dividend income by $25.78.

The $25.78 increase in annual dividend income may seem insignificant but I don’t see it this way. Considering a 3% dividend yield, it would take $859.33 of new capital to generate this kind of annual dividend. By enrolling in DRIP, we are making our money working hard for us. 🙂

Tawcan annual dividend income - Aug 2016

Dividend Increases

In August a number of companies that we own in our dividend portfolio announced dividend increases:

  • Royal Bank increased dividend by two cents to 83 cents per share.
  • Bank of Nova Scotia increases dividend by two cents to 74 cents per share.

Both are small dividend increases but I’ll take it as they increased our forward annual dividend by almost $50. At 3% dividend yield, that’s roughly $1,600 that we didn’t have to invest. Again, another perfect example of our money working hard for us so we don’t have to.

Conclusion & Moving Forward

August was a record breaking month for us, having received over $1,100 in dividend income for the very first time in our relatively short dividend growth investing life. Now the next milestone is hit $1,200 in monthly dividend income! Every month, I am very grateful and ecstatic of receiving dividend income for doing absolutely nothing at all. I always do a secret happy dance whenever I tally our monthly dividend income. At $1,115.20, this passive income amount covered roughly 42% of our necessities budget in August. Becoming financial independent via dividend income is definitely possible!

So far in 2016 we have received $8,139.15 in dividend income. Given the past monthly dividend income, we should break the $10,000 mark by October. Will we make our goal of over $13,000 in dividend income for 2016? I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.

Dear readers, how was your August dividend income?

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61 thoughts on “Dividend Income – August 2016 Update”

  1. As usual, a nice long list of solid dividend paying companies spitting off some serious cash. No complaints about RY or BNS and their recent comeback from their lows earlier this year. Keep putting up those solid year over year gains. Thanks for sharing.

    Reply
  2. Well done Tawcan! I will check out your site for more background on your dividend investing approach. I’m ready to start a dividend growth fund but am just holding back because valuations are so high / yields so low.

    Reply
  3. Wow that’s a really solid month Tawcan! Looks like you’re totally killing it. We had a great month too, not a record breaking month like yourself, but we’re still happy with the results 🙂

    Reply
  4. The Canadian banks continue to impress even with a slow economy, problems in Alberta,the oil patch and they still manage to increase their dividends. They are a protected species and have the proven ability to operate just like the government but instead of raising taxes they just increase service charges.

    Reply
  5. Wow, great job Tawcan! I definitely think you will reach your goal of $13000. Great month; especially in August! Keep inspiring!

    Reply
  6. Always good to see that even in a relatively lame month like August, dividends come rolling in. That has a very calming effect. Passive income rules! Unfortunately, I have only index funds right now with a quarterly schedule, but once I’m retired I will become more active with individual stocks and time the dividends for monthly cash flow. Cheers!

    Reply
  7. Awesome job Tawcan! You are really smashing your income each month. It seems like every month is going to be over $1,000 and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Very impressive stuff!

    As you saw, we sadly had $0 income this month, oh well.

    Tristan

    Reply
    • Thanks Tristan. $0 is hard to see, we saw quite a number of $0 dividend income when we started. It just means you need to continue saving money and investing into dividend paying stocks. 🙂

      Reply
  8. Great month! You’re crushing it the last couple months! I was at $279 for August, unfortunately a slight decrease from last year due to a couple dividend cuts. Hoping to hit a $1000 month soon, probably early next year.

    Reply
  9. Solid month, Tawcan! And I like the month by month, year by year chart…it really helps show the growth you’ve seen in recent years. Keep that up and you’ll be set in no time. Thanks for the update!

    Reply
  10. Great Job Tawcan!
    20.27% YOY increase is great. When you factor in the amounts of money you are earning, it is even more impressive 🙂

    Looking back at your history, i’m about at your 2013-2014 level. I just hope I can keep the same growth that you did over the next few years!

    Keep it up, you are crushing it.

    Reply
  11. Rather spiffing progress. I have been out of the UK for some time but silly phrases like that still linger.
    We don’t adopt a dividend strategy in our portfolio. The portfolio grew by 1.6% in August which was quite nice since I had the impression that August was very quiet for equities!

    Reply
  12. Wow, that’s great! Your dividend income is making huge progress. Our dividend is slowing down a bit because I sold some stocks and I’m holding on to the cash for now. Hopefully, I can find a good stock by the end of the year.

    Reply
  13. Absolutely incredible. Look at what was coming in 5 years vs. your income today. My goodness progress has been made. Very inspiring.

    MM

    Reply
  14. Congratulation on the record high monthly dividend income. I guess the beauty of this is the fact that you’re going to “continually” break your own record month-by-month. It’s like the real estate market in Metro Vancouver, it only goes up and rarely comes back down. /sarcasm

    Speaking of real estate, while it’s a hot topic at the moment (both north and south of the border), it will be great if you(and the rest of the readers) can share a bit of your “housing” journey and experiences. We’re sitting on a huge pivot point at the moment, and having a hard time decide whether or not to upgrade to a detached-home. This means we’re gonna have to take on another 20+ year of mortgage, and potentially dipping into our dividend portfolio (killing the golden goose!).

    I was wondering if you had to make a similar decision and how did you overcome it?

    Reply
    • Hi Jack,

      Haha I wouldn’t compare our dividend income with the Vancouver real estate quite yet. 😉

      I guess for us the decision was quite easy as we simply didn’t have enough room with the new addition of the family. But I’ll look into writing a post in the future. Thanks for giving me these post ideas.

      Reply
  15. Hi Tawcan,
    Well done and good luck getting to the next milestone!

    As for my investments (i’ve been investing since May 2012):

    15 companies paid in August – no dropouts.
    The 5 highgest payers: 2 Utility firms, 1 Mobile Phone company, 1 Insurer, 1 Support Services
    Comparison to previous years: this is the highest paying August so far.
    Comparison of Income for August 2016 against August 2015: +60.59% – however as I have been puttting more money into the portfolio this is not a meaningful measure.

    Regards, Pinch

    Reply
    • Thanks Stefan. I kinda hope the merger will go through to create a giant company… but you’re right, the regulators probably won’t allow this deal to go through, unless there are some sort of restrictions.

      Reply

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