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