Another month down, and only one more month to go before 2017 wraps up. It’s hard to believe that Christmas is around the corner and 2018 is less than 3 weeks away. Mrs. T has been putting up a lot of Christmas decorations throughout our house and the past few weekends, she made A LOT of Christmas chocolates.
The chocolates were delicious! I am pretty fortunate to have such an amazing wife that can make so many delicious goodies. I will have to watch out what I eat during the holiday season.
After a lot of travels in the month of October, it was nice to not travel at all in November. This meant I was able to spend more time with Mrs. T, Baby T1.0, and Baby T2.0. It also allowed me to spend more time to work on this blog and making some 2018 plans. I am looking forward to having an even slower December and spending more time with my family.
Anyway, without further ado, here is our November 2017 dividend income update.
November Dividend Income
In November 2017 we received dividend income from 26 companies:
- AbbView (ABV)
- Apple (APPL)
- 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)
- Emera (EMA.TO)
- Enbridge Income Trust (ENF.TO)
- General Mills (GIS)
- H&R REIT (HR.UN)
- Inter Pipeline (IPL.TO)
- KEG Income Trust (KEG.UN)
- Metro (MRU.TO)
- National Bank (NA.TO)
- Omega Healthcare (OHI)
- Procter & Gamble (PG)
- Potash (POT.TO)
- Prairiesky Royalty (PSK.TO)
- Royal Bank
- RioCan REIT (REI.UN)
- Sabra Health Care (SBRA)
- Smart REIT (SRU.UN)
- AT&T (T)
- Verizon (VZ)
In total, we received $1,247.57 in dividend income for November 2017. After finally crossing the $1,300 mark back in October 2017, we dropped back down to $1,200 level. Darn it! Hopefully we’ll get over $1,300 in dividend income in December.
Out of the $1,247.57 dividend income that we received in November, $293.26 was in USD and $954.31 was in CAD. This is about a 20-80 split between dividends received in USD and CAD.
Please note, we use a 1 to 1 currency rate approach. Therefore, we do not convert dividends received in USD to CAD. We are ignoring exchange rate 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 payout in November 2017 were Bank of Montreal, National Bank, Royal Bank, Omega Healthcare, and Procter & Gamble. The top 5 payout accounted for 59.49% or $742.23 of our November dividend income.
Dividend Income Breakdown
We hold our dividend stocks in taxable accounts, RRSPs, and TFSAs. Every year, we maximize tax-advantage accounts first before investing in taxable accounts.
We do this so we can be as tax efficient as possible. Why pay extra taxes when we can avoid them by utilizing these tax-advantage accounts? It seems like a no brainer to me. This is why I am always shocked to hear people who are investing using taxable accounts when they have tons of RRSP and/or TFSA contribution rooms left.
For November dividend income, the breakdown across the different accounts were:
- Taxable: $309.44 or 24.8%
- RRSPs: $571.15 or 45.78%
- TFSAs: $366.98 or 29.42%
CRA confirmed that the 2018 TFSA contribution limit will remain at $5,500. We have already saved up $11,000 in our high savings account and will transfer this cash to our TFSA’s at the beginning of January 2018 so we can purchase more dividend stocks. Hopefully the stock market will be volatile in January so we can purchase discounted stocks.
Dividend Growth
Compared to November 2016, we saw a YOY growth of 15.83%. This is one of the lowest YOY numbers in 2017.
I was a bit disappointed to such low YOY growth percentage. I was hoping that we would see another 20% YOY. But one can dream right?
After 11 month, we are averaging 19.45% YOY increase. It will be extremely challenging to hit the 20% mark for the entire year of 2017. Having said that, as our dividend income grows, it becomes increasingly more difficult to maintain a high YOY number. We need to realize this important factor moving forward when we make our annual dividend income goal.
Dividend Increases
In November a number of stocks that we own in our portfolio announced dividend increase:
- Telus raised its dividend by 2.54% to $0.505 per share
- Inter Pipeline raised its dividend by 3.70% to $0.14 per share
- Canadian Tire raised its dividend by 38.46% to $3.60 per share
- Enbirdge raised its dividend by 10% to $0.671 per share
- Enbridge Income Trust raised its dividend by 10% to $0.1883 per share
With these announcements, our annual dividend income has increased by $101.84. At 3% dividend yield, this is equivalent of adding $3,395 of fresh capital into your dividend portfolio. Needless to say, organic dividend growth is very important.
Dividend Stock Transaction
I briefly mentioned about GE in our October dividend income update. We ended up liquidated all of our GE shares a few days before GE announced the 50% dividend cut (ouch!!!). We ended up with a small loss. Looking back, I should have picked up on the warning signs earlier and liquidated our GE shares earlier. A lesson learned, that’s for sure.
We did, however, picked up 72 Enbridge shares in November. Enbridge share price was dropping like a rock in November. I saw this as a good opportunity to add to our existing Enbridge position.
Summary
So far in 2017 we have received a total of $13,556.45 in dividend income. With one more month to go, it is probably unlikely that we’ll end up with over $15,000 in dividend income (we’d need to receive $1,443.55 in dividend income in December). However, I do think we will come very close to $15,000 in dividend income goal.
Dear readers, how was your November dividend income?
Forgot to say those chocolates look yummy. And congratulations on the dividends received. Should move above $1,500 soon.
Around $7,200 in dividends received for the month.
You can take a look at Pure Multi Family REIT (RUF.UN). Been brought down due to tax loss selling and had done two equity issues back to back at close to $9 CAD. The money raised has now been used in acquisitions and we should see the same reflect in the FFO. Some big fund manager has been dumping it regularly in tax loss selling.
I have a fair bit (around $85K) in it and planning to add more at current levels. Thus stock in my opinion will have a solid 2018 and generate a very good total return.
Nicely done on $7.2k for Nov. That’s really awesome. Will take a look at RUF.UN and see what happens. Ideally I’d like to invest outside of REIT with new capital.
Now that you have a large stock portfolio, do you still buy stocks actively? Or has buying slowed down.
We are still buying stocks but we tend to buy them whenever we have a lump sum deposit in our accounts (i.e. beginning of the year for TFSA)
Dam man those cookies look mint! Your dividends were alright but those cookies…….. haha jk killer month guys. Dont stress bout the percentages if your average monthly income is going up. Did u get those enbridge shares before x dividend? Maybe that will push ya over that 15k goal you have. Rooting for you. Get em tiger!
Unfortunately we got the Enbridge shares after ex-dividend, so won’t be getting any extra income until March. Oh well.
Tawcan, Great job at creating a nice passive income stream from your dividends. December is always such a great month for payouts. Looking forward to seeing the money roll in. Tom
Thanks Tom. Here’s to a solid December.
Right, what matters here is the numerical increase over the percentage increase. 10% on $3,000/m is an extra $300 which in terms of actual lifestyle, is a decent chunk of change merely for staying alive another year.
Also please post the chocolate recipe.
Mrs. T took 5 or 6 chocolate making courses. I don’t believe she follows a set recipe anymore.
nice div month for you Tawcan!
I had 245$ in total. Slow but steady. 🙂
Had liquidated some stock to take some earnings and to have cash for weed stocks. With all the money they could make there might be div in the future.
Thank you.
Slowly but steady is good. 🙂
Hi Tawcan,
As your portfolio becomes large, you will expect to see a yoy growth approaching roughly 10%, unless you’re saving significant amount of money as compared to your portfolio, you will notice that yoy growth go down each and every year.
I’m in the same boat as you, so it’s nice to see that you’re thinking the same things.
Hi R,
Yup, I have stated this diminishing YOY number many times. If you’re dividend income is $200 per year. It’s easy to see a 100% increase, since $200 at 3% dividend yield would only take $6,666.67 fresh capital invested. But if you are getting say $15,000 in dividend income per year, to get a 100% increase (another $15,000), it would take $500k fresh capital invested. Even if you aim for 20% YOY increase, it would take $100k fresh capital ($3,000 divided by 3%). It’s tough to come up with that kind of capital. 🙂
Tawcan, I hear you about maximizing your RRSP and TFSA, but I’m wondering how I’m going to access that money efficiently, especially the RRSP, if I retire early. Those dividends won’t do me any good if they’re locked up until age 65. Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks!
Hi Mel,
Good question. You might want to take a look here:
https://www.tawcan.com/our-financial-independence-assumptions-what-about-taxes/
Being well into the four digits for the month, being able to put up double digit year over year gains, getting paid by many well known solid dividend paying stocks, amazing chocolates too… in all a good November. Keep up the good work!
Thanks DivHut. The home-made chocolates are indeed amazing.
Do you hold most of your US dividend paying stocks in your RRSP for tax efficiency? Which investments do you usually select for your TFSA? Even if you don’t reach your goal, you are doing really well.
Don’t feel too disappointed about that 15% YOY increase… that’s actually pretty good. These days I’m struggling to reach a 10% YOY increase!
Portfolio size might have something to do with that, but regardless — your doing great Bob!
Agreed, 15% is VERY good. Note that while your portfolio grows exponentially, your contributions generally only inch upwards linearly (with obvious raises, etc.). So the expectation is that over time, it’ll converge to the total return of your portfolio.
I think we need to start facing the reality that our YOY increase number will start to go down. It’s expected though.
Well what do you expect regarding dividend growth when you stuff your portfolio with low growth 2nd tier REITs ?
Yes REITs don’t have that much dividend growth but we don’t own that much REITs in the first place. It’s about finding the right mix between low yield, high dividend growth and high(er) yield, lower dividend growth stocks.
You can find REITs that grow dividends, but it’s tricker. I’ve got one REIT that’s been growing at a 5% rate for nearly a decade. While that’s not terribly huge, it has been very consistent!
Yup, there are some REITs that we own that have been growing dividends.
Yup, there are some REITs that we own that have been growing dividends. They don’t grow dividend as fast as other dividend stocks though.
Getting more distributions via DRIP is still not a bad way to grow. 7% annual distribution yield, compounded monthly, is 7.2% percent annually. That is certainly enough to make retirement projections on, even if there were no share price or distribution increases ever.
Good point, that’s what we are doing for most of the REITs we down as well. Grow REIT dividend via DRIP every month.