Dividend income & Financial Independence Journey Update – July 2019

Can you believe that summer is half over? So far this summer we have not seen the summer scorching heat here in Vancouver. Instead, we have had rainy days occasionally. We Vancouverites actually welcome a tamer summer since that means fewer forest fires. It’s a nice change to not have to breathe in smoggy smoky air all summer, that’s for sure. For those of you are new here, the beginning of the month usually means a monthly update from yours truly. The reason for doing these monthly updates is to keep us honest and demonstrate that it is possible to build up a sizable dividend portfolio so it generates sufficient dividend income to cover our expenses. When our dividend income and other passive income exceeds our annual expenses, we can call ourselves financially independent. I have also started sharing some financial independence journey numbers for transparency reasons and to give readers a sense where we’re at on our financial independence journey. I hope these numbers are helpful.

In July, we continued to be busy with our backyard garden. We harvested the following:

• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Salad
• Cucumbers
• Starflowers (borage)
• Basil
• Peas
• Raspberries
• Black and red currant
• Garlic
• Onions

Needless to say, it felt amazing to be eating food that we grew ourselves. Growing produce in our backyard has also taught both kids where food came from and the importance of tending the garden.

 

Dividend Income – July 2019

When it comes to dividend income, July wasn’t nearly as busy as June. We received dividend income from the following companies:

• BCE Inc (BCE.TO)
• Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS.TO)
• CIBC (CM.TO)
• Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ.TO)
• Dream Office REIT (D.UN)
• Dream Industrial REIT (DIR.UN)
• Dream Global REIT (DRG.UN)
• Evertz Technologies (ET.TO)
• H&R REIT (HR.UN)
• Inter Pipeline (IPL.TO)
• KEG Income Trust (KEG.UN)
• Coca-Cola (KO)
• Nutrien Ltd (NTR.TO)
• Prairiesky Royalty (PSK.TO)
• Rogers (RCI.B)
• RioCan REIT (REI.UN)
• SamrtCentres REIT (SRU.UN)
• Telus (T.TO)
• TD (TD.TO)
• TransCanada Corp (TRP.TO)
• Domtar Corp (UFS.TO)
• Vanguard CAn All Cap (VCN.TO)
• Ventas (VTR)

In total, we received 23 paycheques that added up to $2,030.08. Woohoo, this marked the second straight month that we received over $2,000 in dividend income! This is absolutely amazing, considering we only crossed the $1,000 per month milestone 3 years ago in 2016.

Of the $2,030.08 received, $163.06 was in USD and $1,867.02 was in CAD. That’s about a 10/90 split. July was one of those months that most of our dividend income was in Canadian currency. As long-time readers already know, we use a 1 to 1 currency rate approach. We do not convert dividends received in USD to CAD, because we want to keep the math simple. This is our way to avoid fluctuations in dividend income over time due to changes in the exchange rate.

The top 5 dividend payouts in July 2019 came from TD, Bank of Nova Scotia, Inter Pipeline, Telus, and CIBC (not in order). Dividend payout from these 5 companies accounted for $1,194.94 or 58.9% of our July dividend income total.

 

Dividend Growth

Compared to July 2019, we saw a YoY increase of 27.33%!!! It’s crazy and very nice to see a YoY growth percentage of above 25%.

So far in 2019, we are averaging 25.35% in YoY growth. I feel that our hard work of saving money and use savings to purchase dividend stocks is paying off.

 

Dividend Increases

July was yet another quiet month when it comes to dividend increases. We only saw one payout increase:

• Nutrien raised its dividend payout by 4.7% to $0.45 per share.

This raise increased our annual dividend a little less than $3. It certainly isn’t a lot of money but I’ll take a raise over no raise at all!

 

Dividend Stock Transactions

Although the market was volatile in July, we were quiet on the dividend stock transaction front. We didn’t sell or purchase any dividend paying stocks. We have some cash on the side which we are planning to deploy if there’s a small market correction. I hope that the market will remain volatile, so we can purchase some stocks on our radar at a discounted price.

 

Financial Independence Journey Progress

The $2,029.64 in dividend income that we received was able to cover 61.2% of our total expenses in July. Unlike the previous month, we didn’t have any major expenses. Eating produce from the garden had helped to keep our grocery bill down as well. When it comes to necessities expenses, our July dividend income was able to cover 85.2%!!! I feel blessed that our monthly dividend incomes are starting to cover a significant portion of our monthly expenses.

Living off dividend income is definitely possible!

 

Summary

After 7 months, we have received a total of $13,070.01 in dividend income and are averaging 25.36% YoY growth. If we continue with this YoY growth rate, that means we should receive $23,485.30 in dividend income for the entire year. This would be fantastic since it means beating our annual dividend goal of $23,000.

At a $40 per hour salary ($83,200 annually), this means our dividend portfolio has saved us over 326 hours, or over 40 days of working days. This is equivalent of 8.17 weeks of work or about 15.7% of the year. It is truly amazing to have our money working hard for us so we don’t have to!

How was your July dividend income?