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.