Dividend Income – July 2025 Update

Hey everyone, welcome to another month of dividend income update.

For those of you who are new, we have been publishing monthly dividend updates since we started this blog back in July 2014. From that very first dividend update (July 2014 Update), we received $630.37 in dividends. It’s pretty amazing how much our monthly dividend income has grown since (in June 2025, we reported our monthly report after six months was $5,533.31!)

Over the last 11 years, we have kept our investment strategy very simple. It consists of the following key points:

1. We maintain a relatively high savings rate
2. We max out TFSAs and RRSPs each year, then invest money in non-registered accounts.
3. We invest in Canadian and US dividend stocks. To avoid the 15% withholding tax on US dividends, we only hold US dividend stocks in our RRSPs.
4. We hold low-cost index ETFs that give us diversification and long-term growth that we may be missing from our dividend stocks

In addition to the above steps, we hold a small handful of higher-risk stocks (i.e. Amazon, Tesla, etc) that do not pay dividends. To reduce our risk, we make sure these higher-risk stocks make up less than 5% of our investment portfolio.

In July, we had friends from Sweden visiting. Since this was their third time visiting Vancouver, we decided that the best way to show them the beautiful BC was to go camping. 

So we went to Chilliwack Lake for three days and enjoyed the great outdoors. Surprisingly, there was no campfire ban in early July, and we were able to have campfires every night. The kids had a lot of fun making S’mores. The Chilliwack Lake campground was quite nice and the lake was stunning. We’ll need to go back there in the future. 

Kid 2.0 has been enjoying making different types of bread… all without a recipe! With the first bread she made, she didn’t realize she needed to add yeast. Oops! But the breads she has made ever since were quite delicious! We have been encouraging her to continue her bread-making adventures. Who knows, maybe one day she could compete on the Great Canadian Baking Show! 

Dividend Income – July 2025 

Back to dividend income. In July, we received dividends from the following companies:

• Alimentation Couche-Tard (ATD.TO)
• BCE Inc. (BCE.TO)
• Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS.TO)
• CIBC (CM.TO)
• Capital Power (CPX.TO)
• Granite REIT (GRT.UN)
• Coca-Cola (KO)
• Power Corp (POW.TO)
• South Bow (SOBO.TO)
• SmartCentres REIT (SRU.UN)
• Telus (T.TO)
• TD (TD.TO)
• TC Energy Corp (TRP.TO)
• VICI Properties (VICI)

The 14 dividend payments added up to $7,035.76. What an excellent way to start the second half of the year! 

Compared to July 2024, we saw a YoY growth of 10.06%. A solid number but it would have been nicer if we saw a number north of 15%. It means we need to continue saving and adding new capital in our dividend portfolio. 

Dividend Hikes

Just as in June, it was quiet on the dividend hike front. Only Capital Power Corp announced a dividend increase. Capital Power Corp increased its dividend payout by 3.9% to $0.691 per share. This payout increase added $43.70 toward our forward annual dividend income. 

Hopefully, there will be more dividend increases for the remainder of 2025. 

Dividend Reinvestment Plans 

With TD and Questrade, we enroll in dividend reinvestment plans whenever we’re eligible. With Wealthsimple Trade, we are enrolled in fractional dividend reinvestment plans so all the dividends are reinvested. 

We enroll in DRIP so we are reinvesting as many dividends as possible automatically and taking advantage of the power of compound interest. We then invest the remaining dividends later. 

• Sign up for Questrade to unlock a cash bonus, up to $250, depending on the amount you deposit. 
• Sign up for Wealthsimple Trade and receive a $25 reward. 

In July, we dripped the following shares:

• 12.848 shares of BCE
• 10.115 shares of Bank of Nova Scotia
• 10.155 shares of CIBC
• 10.382 shares of Canadian Natural Resources
• 2.899 shares of Capital Power Corp
• 0.515 shares of Granite REIT
• 2.04 shares of South Bow
• 6 shares of SmartCentres REIT
• 39.688 shares of Telus
• 14.788 shares of TD
• 10.505 shares of TC Energy Corp
• 2.465 shares of VICI Properties

Thanks to drip, we added 122.4 shares and reinvested $6,263.31 of the dividends received automatically. More importantly, dripping shares meant we increased our forward annual dividend income by $325.46. 

Stock Transactions

Although I indicated in previous monthly reports that we probably will be relatively quiet on the stock transactions front in the second half of the year, I surprised myself with some significant trades.

As some of you may know, I have been writing about trimming down the number of holdings in our dividend portfolio. Last year, I wanted to reduce the number of individual stock holdings to 40 but ended up with 43. Earlier this year, we closed out Canadian Tire but haven’t done anything else since then. 

I have considered closing smaller positions such as Target, Qualcomm, VICI, South Bow, and Hydro One but haven’t done anything for months.

In July, after some consideration and looking at the long-term stock trend and valuations, I decided to close out Target, Qualcomm, and Pepsi. Here are some rationales:

• Target: We purchased Target many years ago in my RRSP and have gotten a sizable gain and solid dividends. Target’s share price has struggled since 2022 and it hasn’t done much to reward its shareholders. Although Target has raised dividends consistently, the growth rate over the last few years has been less than 3%. Given the stagnant share price, we thought our money would be better invested elsewhere.
• Qualcomm: I have a love-hate relationship with Qualcomm. With my full-time job, I deal with Qualcomm regularly and understand how powerful this company is in the cellular technology space. Qualcomm makes money not only with their hardware but also collects regular royalty payments thanks to its holdings in intellectual properties. The stock has done well year-to-date, returning about 4.8%, not including dividends. But given its strong position in the cellular & wireless space, this hasn’t translated into strong share price growth. Since we only own less than $3,000 worth of Qualcomm, I thought it would be better to close out the position and invest the money in a stock or ETF that we already own.
• Pepsi: Pepsi has been a big disappointment in the last couple of years. The stock price, at between $130-$145 per share, is quite close to its 4-year low. On the surface, the stock looks quite cheap at a forward PE ratio of 16.7 and around a 4% dividend yield. This is leading a lot of dividend investors to declare that Pepsi is a buy and one should load up on Pepsi shares while it’s at a discount. But when you dig deeper, there are a lot of warning signs with Pepsi. First of all, if we calculate the payout ratio via free cash flow, it is close to 99%, making it questionable whether Pepsi can continue to grow its dividend payout and sustain its dividends. Second, in Pepsi’s Q2 2025 earnings, the company stated its North America beverage and snack sales fell 1-2% due to affordability concerns. Third, Pepsi’s total debt increased by over $7 billion in 2025 and its short-term debt exposure is rising as well, which is a big concern. Since we care not only about cash flow via dividends but also total return, I decided that we could close out Pepsi and reinvest the money elsewhere.

With the cash from closing out these three positions and some savings from July, we added the following positions:

• 46.725 shares of Invesco Nasdaq-100 index (QQQM)
• 8.4666 shares of Alphabet (GOOGL)
• 34.9938 shares of Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ.TO)
• 4.223 shares of Visa (V)
• 26.3368 shares of Brookfield Corporation (BN.TO)

In total, just a bit shy of $17,500 was deployed (treating CAD and USD at a 1:1 exchange rate).

Some thoughts on our reasons:

• QQQM: Rather than holding Target, Qualcomm, and Pepsi separately, I decided that holding the NASDAQ-100 ETF is a better way to invest. QQQM gives us way more diversification and more exposure to the tech-heavy NASDAQ. In case you’re wondering, we are still investing in Pepsi and Qualcomm via QQQM at 1.12% and 0.99% of the ETF, respectively. By holding QQQM, we are having much better exposure to top tech stocks like Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Broadcom, and Meta. Holding more QQQM is our way to focus more on total return in the US market. QQQM has a lower MER than QQQ, hence for holding QQQM. 
• Alphabet: Looking at the financial parameters, I truly believe Alphabet is very undervalued. Despite people stating that Google is dead in the search business, the company’s latest quarterly report showed that Google Search still commands over 90% of global search traffic. Furthermore, by utilizing AI, Google Search has been able to deliver results to users faster and create more ad revenue. In fact, Alphabet recorded double-digit revenue growth in Search! I guess Google Search is not dead after all! What caught my eye especially in the latest earnings is how fast Google Cloud is growing. Google Cloud posted revenue up 32% to $13.6 billion with a significant margin improvement. Google’s subscription, platforms, and devices are also generating a lot of revenue, growing from $9.312 billion in Q2’24 to $11.203 billion in Q2’25, a +20% YoY growth! Although we don’t pay for Google Cloud or Google subscriptions (like Google One), I know many people do. If you think about it, how many Millennials and Gen Z have their entire life on the cloud – all their emails, pictures, documents, and etc. Once you exceed the “free” 17 GB storage from Google, you have to pay the monthly fee or you can’t receive emails or add files to your account. That’s a pretty enticing revenue model if you think about it! 

• Canadian Natural Resources: we have been slowly adding more and more CNQ shares over the last few years. At below $45 per share, I believe CNQ is underpriced. With a yield of over 5% and a healthy payout ratio of around 61%, there should be a lot of growth with this stock over the long term.
• Visa: This was a relatively small purchase compared to QQQM and CNQ.TO. We wanted to increase the Visa weighting in our portfolio. Visa is considered a long term holding, so we plan to add more shares regularly. 
• Brookfield Corporation: In many ways, Brookfield is the Canadian equivalent of Berkshire Hathaway. Just recently, Brookfield, along with Birch Hill Equity Partners, decided to buy First National Financial for roughly $2.9 billion. This deal will increase Brookfield’s assets under management and expand its global footprint. BN’s share price has done really well over the past five years, returning over 167%. With Bruce Flatt at the helm, I have no doubt that Brookfield will continue to operate like a powerful compounding machine for years to come. In Brookfield Corporation’s second quarter report, the company announced a three-for-two stock split to ensure the shares remain accessible to individual shareholders and to improve the liquidity of the shares. From my experience, share splits usually result in a higher share price in the future, so I see this announcement from Brookfield Corporation as very positive news. 

These stock transactions resulted in a decrease of $511.20 in our forward annual dividend income. While it’s never ideal to see a decrease in our forward annual dividend income, I think by getting out of Target, Qualcomm, and Pepsi, then reinvesting that money in QQQM, Alphabet, and Visa will provide a way higher total return in the long run. 

In case you’re curious, with these transactions, we reduced the number of individual stocks from 42 to 39.

Dividend Scorecard

Here’s our dividend scorecard for July: 

Overall, a solid month despite a decrease in the forward annual dividend income. I am particularly pleased to see how much dividends we were able to increase by enrolling in DRIP. 

Summary – Dividend Income July 2025 Update

After seven months, we have collected $40,235.60 in dividend income with an average of $5,747.94 per month. 

It’s pretty crazy to know that before the end of August, we will have received more dividends than the amount we received for the entire 2022. 

That’s only three years ago! It’s really amazing how quickly things can compound and how the momentum just keeps building. 

To put things in perspective, $40,235.60 after seven months is equivalent to:

• $189.79 per day or $7.91 per hour that our dividend portfolio is generating for us
• $1,297.92 per week or $32.45 per hour after 31 working weeks.

We are very grateful to be where we are financially. To provide a supporting hand, we are donating money to local charities regularly. I also believe it’s important to volunteer our time, hence, me being involved with Scouts and teaching youths important life lessons, including personal finance. 

How was your July dividend income?