Happy New Year! Cheers to Another Year of Dividends!

   Just like to wish everyone a quick happy new years! Have a fun and safe night with friends and family! And also to the start of a new year of dividend investing, portfolio growth and getting paid to sit on our butts and hold our quality companies.

   Coming up on my blog in the new year will be my December Income and Expenses post and I am working on an overview on using D.R.I.P's and the position of mine which I will be activating a DRIP for. Also an evaluation of the stocks that I have used in my Next Buy Watchlist's to see how those stocks would have performed had I bought them on the day of the post.

December 2014 Dividend Update!

    It has been an interesting month for my portfolio as 2014 comes to a close. I am quite thankful for (most likely) ending the year positive and extremely happy to have now received from last dividend of the year from Suncor which has helped to push this months total dividend to $37.76, which is $8.70 more than the last comparable month! This months dividends were primarily from just my monthly payers, with Suncor chipping in $5.6 as the only quarterly payer.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everyone

    Its Christmas Eve and a nice Wednesday to start off a long weekend for many who are now on holiday. So I would just like to wish everyone a nice, safe and happy winter holidays. And to say thank you for all those who have stopped by to read my posts and comment. Thank you for following my journey thus far into investing and I hope to have inspired some with my shared journey, experience and knowledge.

    Cheers! And a toast to a better 2015!

Portfolio Update: December 22nd 2014

    I realized its been a little while since my last Portfolio Update at the start of November, and there have been some changes to it since then. As I mentioned in my last Recent Buy post, I sold my small position in iShares 1-5year laddered Government of Canada Bond ETF to bolster my purchase of 28 shares of RioCan REIT. Which keeps my total number of positions in the portfolio at 13, and also boosted my overall dividend income by $32.40.
   

Next Buy Watch(wish)list: December 2014

    So we are now mid way through December and the markets have been swinging all over the place. And since I wont have any extra cash to invest in a stock purchase this month, instead I am posting my current group of stocks on my watchlist, but its Christmas time and so its a bit more of a 'wish'-list. So in the spirit of a wishlist, I will be including some of the stocks I would have bought when they dropped down over the last week or so, or would still love to buy at their current valuations and not necessarily in line with my current portfolio sector weighting either. If only, if only!

My 2014 Investing Review and 2015 Goals

     2014 has marked my first full year of investing directly in stocks and collecting dividends. Throughout the year, and a couple months in 2013 I have slowly been building up my dividend stock portfolio. By adding in just small increments, generally between $200-800 a month I have managed to create a portfolio that churns out an estimated $610 a year, or averaged out to $51 a month! In some months, my little accumulation of dividend income has boosted my overall income by up to 4% and could if needed be able to cover a couple reoccurring expenses, or a trip to the grocery store.

The TFSA and Why I Use It

    The Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA) is a relatively new form of registered account for Canadian's to utilize for investing and tax minimization purposes. Made available at the start of 2009, the TFSA allows eligible Canadian residents (18+) to invest their hard earned money tax free! Well, mostly anyways as there are some rules and qualifications to look out for.
    Some quick stats on the TFSA:

The Good Stuff:
- No taxes upon withdrawal of funds.
- No taxes on eligible dividends.
- No taxes on eligible capital gains.
- Cumulative contribution room.
- Once money is withdrawn, contribution room is returned the next year.
- For retirees, money withdrawn does not count against OAS calculations.

The Tricky Stuff:
- Accidentally holding non-eligible investments erases the benefit of the account(Ex. U.S. Stocks).
- Going over the contribution limit means a penalty of 1% of the value over-contributed per month.
- Finding out if a particular investment is eligible or not is not always simple.

Started up on Twitter

    Just a quick post to mention that I'v now started up a twitter account based on my blog here. As I mentioned in my last blog plan update, I have been pretty busy and unable to post more article/in depth posts than I would like so to help combat that and be more active I will be using Twitter for quick thoughts on how the markets are doing, how stocks on my watchlist are performing and my shortlists for probably buys. Perhaps also a "I wish I had the cash to buy this" kind of thingAlso might be a bit more user friendly for conversations and the like. So if you like my content here feel free to come find me and follow me @Dividend_Wisp on Twitter.  :)

    Yikes, that was way above 140characters!

November 2014: Income and Expsenses

    Oh how I miss last months 3x pay period and seeing all that hard earned cash land in my account, and better yet my highest yet in not worked for cash either, with $63.5 in dividends! November was actually fairly good for me as well, with a total income of $1443, with $37.59 in dividends. Those dividends equaled 2.6% of my total income, and covered 3.2% of my expenses for the month.

November 2014 Dividend Update!

    November has been a busy month for me, yet it felt like a long one as well. Now that December is about to begin I'm sure that the month will go by very fast as its Christmas time, which means lots of shopping and running around! However its nice to know that dividends will be landing in my account in a nice, consistent and orderly fashion that requires no effort on my part.

    This month brought in a nice amount of income, primarily through my monthly payers though. My total dividend income was $37.59, quite a bit less than last months record of $63.54, but then again October had the majority of my portfolio paying out that month. Although it is a slight increase 14cents from the previous comparable month.

Recent Buy! November 2014

     So this month, with a combination of adding some fresh capital to my Questrade Account, redeploying dividends and selling my iShares Canadian bond ETF(CLF) I was able to buy a decent position in Rio-Can REIT, which was on my last Watchlist. I bought 28 shares @ $26.99. Also with some left over cash and an additional dividend payment I purchased 1 share of ZDV @ $17.84.

Blog Pan: Update 3

   Hi everyone! I'v been fairly busy the last few weeks and have been trying to work on a few articles/posts. This weekend I hope to have a new Recent Buy post done as I initiated a new position from my last watchlist. I am also working on a couple articles, one on the benefits of and why I have my portfolio in a Tax Free Savings Account(TFSA) and using Dividend Re-Investment Plants (DRIP's). Both of those are fairly close to being done, but need some final touches and some more research, TFSA facts can be a bit hard to nail down definitively, and the wording on the Canada Revenue Agencies website is not always clear...

    From my last blog plan, I would like to follow though on the second part of the Excel tutorial, which considering I have also started using Google Document/Spread will try to incorporate them together. Many of the formula's are the same, or at least very similar in execution. Google Spreadsheets also have some great benefits such as being able to have updated stock ticker info :)

    Following up on the previous outlines on what I would like to do, so far I am quite happy on my current formatting of posts, more detailed and concise Income and Expense tracking. This month I was able to make a purchase again, but I would still like to do a review of my previous watch list companies to track their performance and reminisce over 'what might have been', perhaps in a similar format to how Business News Network (BNN) shows its guest speakers past picks results.

Next Buy Watchlist: Nov. 2014

    This month I may have some extra capital to add alongside of my dividends for a smaller purchase. Depending on just how much cash I have to spare, I may end up only adding a bit to my exchange traded fund ZDV; which is still trading a fair bit below my current cost basis. Other than I am looking to adding to my current positions of my 'core' companies in the portfolio; particularly positions which haven't bounced back as much from the pullback in October and/or represent smaller holdings within the portfolio. Most likely the purchase would be of BNS, RY or NA.

Portfolio Update: November 3rd 2014

    October has gone by and so here is another quick update on how my portfolio is looking, particularly after the pullback we all went through. Since my last portfolio update post I bought 81 new shares of AQN @$8.59 and with the market recovery I'v done very well with them and had my many of my other stocks gain back some of what they had lost; although my Suncor purchase is still dragging on me.

    At the end of last month my portfolio had a value of $10,949 and open profit/loss of $323.94. Since then I had added $650 to the portfolio for my AQN purchase, which means the real value of my portfolio has grown by $200, or 7.79%! My portfolios current yearly estimated dividend payout total of $576.54!

October 2014: Income and Expenses

    After another month of working hard and keeping close track of my spending, it's time to post another income and expenses update! Altogether its been a fairly good month on both fronts with expenses lower than last months, although perhaps not as low as I would have liked considering my extra one-time purchases from last month. On a whole income was a lot higher due to there being three pay periods from my job, compared to the usual two. Dividends this month were also the highest I have had yet as well which is amazing!

October 2014 Dividend Update!

    October went by scarily fast, and with a few market scares to boot! And not to mention Halloween frights as well, like snow fall around midnight!!! The good news is that the dividends kept on coming in on schedule and as expected, if not better! My monthly payers keep my baseline income nice and high at around $30 every month, and this time my quarterly paying companies kicked in even more! I'v also benefited this month from having bought more shares of TD which paid out this month and dividend increases from AQN and BNS. My total dividend income this month is my highest yet, with $63.54 in dividend income! That's over double last months $29.59, and $6.28 more than the previous comparable month! That money is pretty much 6 hours of minimum wage work I did not have to do at all and it feels pretty good to see my passive income stream slowly growing.

Here's my full breakdown:

Recent Buy! October 2014

    In the past few weeks the markets been dropping quite a bit, with an overall drop of 11.4% of the S&P/TSX Composite, which certainly hurt a lot of peoples portfolio values but also brought about many tempting opportunities.This week I decided to go with adding to my position in Alqonquin Power and Utilities (AQN). I'v been watching it from the sidelines in a portfolio simulator for about 3 years now and bought my first position in them in December when I first started my portfolio. Since then its gone up 22%, for the past month or so its been trading quite a bit lower than where its price had stabilized at around $9, so I decided to add to the position with 81 new shares at $8.59.

Brokerage Review: Scotia iTrade vs. Questrade

    So in this post I will be comparing the Bank of Nova Scotia's trading platform: Scotia iTrade and Questrade's trading platform IQ and IQ Essential. Before I started out investing on my own, the first thing I had to do was figure out, where am I going to do that? So initially I took a look around all the common places(for Canadians anyways) like the big banks: Scotia, TD, Royal Bank, BMO, CIBC. This was around the same time I first started looking for, finding and following investing blogs while researching for brokerage information; you can checkout my blogroll for those helpful sites!

Next Buy Watchlist: Oct. 2014

    Markets have been heading downwards recently, but that also means there are some better deals to be had. And so with some extra cash sitting around I'v decided to move about into my brokerage account and see what pops up within the next week or so. Normally when I move money into my brokerage account I have a clear purpose as to what I am buying already, down to sending pretty much exactly the amount I need for the targeted number of shares within $10 to account for small market fluctuations in the stocks price. This time however, with the markets being so volatile I'v decided to move an amount that can buy a nice amount of a group of particular stocks, but I don't have a single accusation in mind.

    Generally speaking though due to my current heavy weighting in Energy I am looking to avoid it, except perhaps more of Algonquin Power and Utilities as it has no stake in the Oil market which has recent seen its prices declining.

Brief on Analyzing Stocks

    When I go looking for companies in which to purchase shares in I start out by compiling a list of stocks which I am interested in and try to balance them within my portfolio's sector weighting.  Once I'v selected a watchlist of company's I look at a few key pieces of financial information which are readily available either on the company's website, or by simply using Google Finance which has financial information on each company readily available, just search the companies name or its stock ticker. Google Finance also provides access to summarized company Income Statements, Balance Sheets and statement of Cash Flow; however for full detail statement with notes you will need to get that information from the company website if publicly available.

Key Information that I look for are: Ranges, Volume, Market Cap, P/E, Dividends, EPS, Inst. Owned and Financial Statements. Here's my brief breakdown of each:

Portfolio Update: October 3rd 2014

    It is time once again to update my portfolio. Its been an interesting month with the additional of a new company my portfolio has grown just a little bit more and my overall dividend income along with it! Suncor is now my 13th position and 11th company that I now own shares of, I also added 6 shares of the exchange traded fund, ZDV which adds about $.36 in dividend income a month :)

    Unfortunately the market has been on a bit of a down turn this month so my total portfolio value took a bit of a hit as well. Particularly my new Suncor purchase is down 7.54% as the prices of oil has been softening, either way I can't wait to see its first dividend payout hit my account! The upside is that many great companies are now looking very reasonably priced compared to August and September and I'll have a new watchlist up in the next week or so.

    Since my last portfolio post I noticed that some of the formula's were not carried over well from Excel to Google Drive... so there were some errors, I have now made a dedicated table for use on the blog. I have also added a bit more information in, such as; portfolio return before and after dividends are applied and the yearly expected dividends the portfolio should turn out and the dividend total I have received for the year.

September 2014 Income & Expenses

    September has come to a close and as October has started it is time to take a look back to see where all my money has gone! As expected due to moving out and getting settled in September was a very expensive month in comparison to my previous ones. Luckily income was pretty good as well this month which helped to balance the figurative checkbook.    
 
    So knowing that my rent and food costs would be going up a lot more I'v made an effort to pick up more hours to boost my income some, which resulted in my work income being a couple hundred dollars more than last month. Also with more hours comes a bit more tips which is under my 'other' income. No aquarium equipment sold this month, so its not as high as last time. Dividends were not as high as the last two months either but that is only due to having no quarterly payers hitting my account this month as i mentioned in my dividend update post. All in all not a bad month for income, I brought in about $200 more than last month.

September 2014 Dividend Update!

    Since I have now collect all the dividends and distribution for September it is time for another dividend update! September is slotted in with March and June where none of my previously existing quarterly paying companies sent me dividends.

    So this months income is only comprised of my monthly paying companies. So considering that, the $29.1 that landed in my account this month is pretty good! That is $27.73 more than I got last September and $10.51 more than in June, which is a comparable month. This increase between June and September is due to my purchase of Veresen(VSN), and additional shares in Pembina Pipeline (PPL) and BMO ETF (ZDV).

Recent Buy! Mini Addition! September 2014

   Today I did a small buy with a little bit of extra money I had left over from my Suncor purchase. That little bit of left over cash with the ~$20 of dividends that some of my monthly dividend payers deposited into my account and a deposit of fresh capital of $80 on my part allowed me to buy 6 shares of the BMO Canadian Dividend ETF (ZDV).

Recent Buy! September 2014

    Today I was able to add another solid Canadian dividend paying company to my portfolio. I pulled the trigger and bought 20 shares of Suncor (SU) for $43.10. This adds $22.40 to my yearly dividend income, at a yield of %2.6 and represents 7% of my portfolio. As I explained in my recent watchlist post, Suncor is Canada's largest energy company with a market capitalization of over 63 billion!

    I feel pretty good about this buy, since I was working today and not much access to my brokerage

Next Buy Watchlist: Sept. 2014

    So in August I wasn't able to make any new investments, but this month I will be making an investment and so I have a few companies I am keeping my eye on. Last time I bought more shares of Toronto Dominion Bank (TD), which I am quite happy about since its gone from $55.50 to $57.48 today. Although that does mean it will be more expensive to buy more shares of it in the future.

    For the moment I want to further diversify my holdings and not add to any current positions so my watchlist will not have any of my current holdings; although if a very good opportunity occurs then I might add to a current position. The main one I would be looking to add to is AQN with the aim of having enough shares to DRIP two shares a quarter, as I really like this renewable energy company.

    So my current watchlist includes: Suncor, Manulife, Roger's and REITs

August 2014 Income & Expenses

    This month has been a very interesting and somewhat stressful month for me. Income wise my hours were not that great and so I had to find shifts at other stores which I am happy to have that option to boost my weekly hours to make up for a lack of scheduled hours. Also some extra work on the side and selling an item helped to boost my income this month, and of course a great month of dividends as well! On the expenses side, I'v had to buy a few extra things for my new apartment which I have now moved into with my girlfriend. Moving not only brings a few extra one time expenses but since I've moved out of my parents house other costs will also being going up, such as; groceries and rent which wont be fully realized till Septembers update. The extra freedom and the feeling of finally getting out on my own is fantastic though!

Income
 

Income	$
Work	1112.12
Other	165
Dividends	37.45
Total	1314.57

August 2014 Dividend Update!

    The month of August is coming to an end and sadly the last week of summer vacation before many of you or your kids go back to school. The days have started getting a bit shorter and its not quite as warm as it used to be, or at least in Toronto... BUT! The companies in which I have shares of have kept on working just as hard as before, if not harder with some of them having raised their dividends recently. And so here is my dividends for the month of August, where these great companies have once again paid me for enjoying my summer!
 
    This month I received a total of $36.94 in dividends, which is -$20.32 from last months due to fewer quarterly dividends being paid out this month, but it is still a whooping $36.77 more than I got last August where all I had were a few hundred in a dividend mutual fund. Already this year I have received a total of $223.75 in dividends, that's roughly 22 hours of minimum wage work I did not have to do!

Portfolio Update: September 1st, 2014

    So another month has passed us by already! And so here is another update on my portfolio as of the start of September. Due to moving out and the need to build up cash to pay for rent, all the little grocery items that last awhile(herbs/spices) and some necessary new home items (coffee machine/grinder/tv) I did not purchase any new shares. The result being that my portfolio has remained relatively the same; I received some nice dividends, so the cash in my brokerage account is now sitting higher, my portfolio has gained $268.17 or 2.4%! Which feels pretty good, although one must keep in mind that right at the end of July there was some market turmoil, and my portfolio dropped about 2%, so its nice to see that it recovered that and gained a bit as well. There have also been some recent dividend increases which has boosted my yearly dividend payouts from three of my stocks, you can click here for my post on them.

Note: Some errors found in this table, refer to recent portfolio post for an accurate update! Woops

Company	Ticker	Shares	Current Price	Book Value	Market Value	% P/L	Yearly Dividends	Portfolio %
Algonquin Power	TSE:AQN	89	$9.05	$615.29	$805.45	23.20%	$34.00	7%
BCE	TSE:BCE	21	$48.95	$1,005.63	$1,027.95	0.80%	$51.87	9%
Bank of Nova Scotia	TSE:BNS	6	$72.04	$393.60	$432.24	10.40%	$15.36	4%
iShares 1-5yr GovBond	TSE:CLF	11	$19.30	$213.82	$212.30	-0.40%	$7.38	2%
Dream REIT	TSE:D.UN	61	$29.07	$1,748.70	$1,773.27	1.00%	$136.88	16%
Ntl. Bank of Canada	TSE:NA	6	$52.31	$267.00	$313.86	9.80%	$11.52	3%
Pembina Pipeline	TSE:PPL	23	$49.97	$959.80	$1,149.31	14.50%	$40.02	10%
Pizza Pizza Corp.	TSE:PZA	60	$13.33	$810.00	$799.80	-1.60%	$48.02	7%
Royal Bank of Canada	TSE:RY	7	$80.77	$511.35	$565.39	9.30%	$21.00	5%
Toronto Dominion Bank	TSE:TD	18	$57.25	$941.04	$1,030.50	8.40%	$33.84	9%
Veresen	TSE:VSN	98	$18.62	$1,708.14	$1,824.76	7.70%	$97.96	17%
BMO Cdn. Div ETF	TSE:ZDV	26	$18.99	$476.26	$493.74	2.00%	$19.34	4%
				$10,311.53	$11,091.08	$779.55		93%
						7.56%

Recent Dividend Increases!

 
Dividend Increases! These two little words are exactly what I like to see from companies whose shares I own. They generally mean business is going very well and so the companies are willing and able to give back a bit more of their profits to investors! This month has been quite good for my portfolio, with three these three companies declaring dividend increases: Algonquin Power & Utilities (AQN), the Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) and the Royal Bank of Canada (RY). It's just so nice to be getting paid more, even if it is just a few cents more for simply holding onto a quality company and looking forward to higher dividend payouts and hopefully more dividend increases in the future.

Here is a breakdown of the dividend increases and how they are affecting my portfolio.
  
Algonquin Power & Utilities (AQN):
CDN$.085 to US$.0875 or ~CDN$.0955, an increase of 12.4%, dividend yield of 4.22%

Portfolio Update/Formatting changes

    So, since I made my post on Market Turmoil, my portfolio has recovered about 1%, or roughly $100 worth of its value which brings a small piece of mind to me. Although any new buys from my existing companies will be more expensive.

    My primary reason for this post however is to get your opinions on how you might prefer to see my portfolio on here. I've recently taken a look at GoogleDocs and their spreadsheets. The main attraction is that it will auto update the stock prices for me, saving time! (Will include how to in my next Excel Spreadsheet post)

    I am looking for any comments on which look better, preferred table and readability? Please comment below and let me know! I may also include some more info within the Google spreadsheet.

July 2014 Income & Expenses

    Hi everyone, hopefully everyone will be getting ready to enjoy another well worked for weekend! I'v been quite busy this past week and a bit so, sorry on the lateness of this post! As mentioned in my Blog Moving Forward 2.0 post I will be starting to keep a more in-depth record of costs and also post my income breakdown as well. So for the month of July the results are as follows:

Income:
Job: $1,361.34
Dividends: $57.26
Total: $1,418.6

Expenses
Reoccurring Costs: $355.5
Variable Costs: $391.17
Total: $746.67

July's income vs expenses = +$671.93, a 49.4% savings rate!

    Overall I am very happy to achieve a 49.4% savings rate, that's almost half of my income that month! Working at near minimum wage definitely makes it harder to save up enough to invest in

Blog Plan Moving Forward... 2.0!

    Hi everyone, so now that I'v had some time to put up some of the key foundation posts and pages and even my first monthly round of Dividend, Portfolio and Income/Expenses updates! Along with my first Excel Tutorial I'd like to revisit some of my past goals for moving forward.

So going forward into the next couple months I'd like to set the following Blog Goals for myself to be done by the end of September!

1) In the least the next Excel Tutorial, going into further detail the use of formula's to help track and manage your portfolio.

2) Make a detailed post on the use/my views of TFSA's/RRSP's for i) young adults like my self, ii) those nearing retirement, like my parents.  Keep in mind these will be somewhat generalized in that any strategy is not a 'one fits all' kind of deal. Specifically with different objectives, spending habits and tax consideration to bear in mind.

Portfolio Update: August 1st, 2014

    So another month has pasted by us already, so I am once again posting an update to my portfolio! I like to do this as a way of keeping track of the changes in my portfolio, as its fairly hard (or at least unwieldy) to do so in excel. To show how the stock prices have changed month to month and to try and compare how new additions are performing.

    In July I added 10 shares of Toronto Dominion Bank (TD) at $55.5 a share, totaling $550 + $4.95

Market Turmoil

    Looks like the markets are getting a little bit shaky today. The S&P/TSX  went down 194.08 points, or 1.25%. The US S&P 500 fared even worse, losing 39.4 points, or 2%. Personally my portfolio dropped 1%, based mostly on Energy and Finances, Veresen (VSN) alone made up ~.05% of my losses today. The market appeared to be shaken from the announcement that Argentina has defaulted on its debt as it attempts to broker a deal to restructure its debts. There is also the ongoing instability in Europe as the Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Palestine/Hamas conflict continues with fears of escalation in the area that will continue to negatively affect the broader Eurozone.
  

July 2014 Dividend Update!

    So the month of July has pretty much just finished and so I've received another months worth of awesome dividends and distributions from the companies I hold. Hopefully you've all received some good ones as well! This month has been my best month thus far with a grand total of $57.26 in passive income! That's roughly 5 hours of minimum wage work that I didn't have to do this month! :)

Recent Buy!

    Today I added additional shares of Toronto Dominion Bank (TD) to my portfolio. I bought 10 shares @$55.50, TD currently has a dividend of $.47 so this purchase adds a total of $18.8 in dividends a year to my dividend income! Since I already have shares of TD my total number of stocks/ETFs remain at 12. The financial sector weight in my portfolio is now at 21%, so I am still looking to boost that number up in the future.

    TD was one of my stock considerations in my Watchlist post. I decided to go with TD instead of a Telecom or Insurance company for a few reasons:

Next Buy Watchlist

    So I'v been able to save up a bit more money to buy a few more shares of a high quality company. I have narrowed down the list of companies but I'm still undecided. Currently based on my portfolio sector weightings of the type of companies I want to be invested in at the moment, I am looking for either Financial or Telecommunication companies.

Excel Portfolio Tutorial: Basic Table Foundation

    Tracking your various investments, registered and non-registered accounts can be fairly difficult and daunting, especially when you have multiple accounts with different companies. I find that by using Microsoft's Excel makes the task much easier and allows for the creation of a clearer picture of ones total investment portfolio. Setting up a spreadsheet (worksheet), or multiple worksheets within Excel and creating the tables can be quite time consuming if you are not familiar with using Excel, along with the financial formula’s to show you what you want to see.

   

    So in this first post I’d like to show you how I have setup my Excel worksheet for tracking my investment portfolio within my brokerage account. I’ll start with:

1.  Setting up a Table: Columns, rows, labels.
2.  Basic setup structure.
3. A few basic formula's shown within Excel.
   

Portfolio Update: July 1, 2014

Portfolio

My Portfolio as of July 1,2014.



 
   Heres a snapshot of my portfolio within Excel. Over the next few weeks I'd like to make a post