I am a little shocked, and disappointed in myself, that it has been almost eight months since my last post. The timing makes sense though: I went back to school for a part time Master’s Degree in September, so any free time I had from work and/or family was quickly consumed by schoolwork. I really am enjoying the schoolwork – learning really is fun, but due to focus on school my finances have slipped in priority. I have been so far behind that I did not even do a year-end recap of my personal situation—let alone a blog post about it. And unlike many of the other financial bloggers out there, I ..read more

I parted ways with my previous employer in 2015, which was a significant financial hit because it had a “gold plated” defined benefit (DB) pension. If I had stayed with that employer until I retired, I was on track to receive a pension of $70,000 per year, significantly higher than the average employment income for a male in Canada (see appendix). However, when I did leave, the value of my DB pension only equated to $7,200 per year, about 90% less than what I should have received. Needless to say, this was a huge point of stress for me as it significantly impacted my retirement plans. Notwiths ..read more

Investing takes patience, vision, and reflection. Patience, because more often than not, there is no “quick money”. There isn’t a big score to find, so the best way is to invest frequently, steadily, and build up your capital over time. Vision, because an investor has to have a goal, to know where they are going. My investment goals are not the same as your investment goals – I may have three kids, a dog, and a pool, and only need $2,000 a month to live because my spouse makes more than me and we live in a lost cost of living area. Conversely, I may have no kids, a spouse who makes less than m ..read more

With the COVID-19 crisis, the need for an emergency fund has become increasingly evident. Unemployment has hit some spectacularly high numbers, with as many 2mm jobs lost in April in Canada (source), and as many as as 1.5mm individuals in the US filing for unemployment benefits (source). Employment Insurance—in Canada at least—is not meant to replace your entire income, but merely to supplement it. And to complicate matters some folks only get the Canada Emergency Response Benefit which amounts to $500/week ($2,000/month). Recent indicators show that in some cities that $2,000 barely covers re ..read more

I’ve held off on keeping up with much financial news lately, or reading any blog entries, because the pace of change is ridiculously fast right now. A few weeks ago, the markets were in a yo-yo formation, swinging from positive to negative territory, practically on a daily basis. If we use VCN.TO (Vanguard FTSE Canada All Cap Index ETF) as a proxy, we can see what I mean: Daily Close Price and Day-over-Day Percent Change for VCN.TO (Canadian Index proxy) When the market first tanked, I jumped on the opportunity. Luckily I had a fair amount of excess capital saved away, and I was able to splu ..read more

Occasionally one is faced with a windfall of money and they have to determine what to do with it. A few years ago, I purchased a SolarShare bond (https://www.solarbonds.ca/) as a way to add some diversification to my portfolio. When I purchased it, the bond was yielding 5%, and it matures this month on January 31, 2020. SolarShare reached out to me and provided me with the option of either cashing out, or rolling the bond into a new issuing which would yield 4% (versus the current 5%). Before pulling the trigger on how to invest I wanted to see what would be best in the long term. Option 1: Pu ..read more

Coming back from vacation I’ve been swamped catching up at my day job. On top of that, things at work are really ramping up with another person leaving our team (on to bigger and better things within the same company, but different group), and the typical ramp-up of client work coming in for the fourth quarter. It’s times like this that I am appreciative of the “set it and forget it” mentality for investing. That said, in September we broke the $1,000 threshold – which was somewhat expected since this was a quarterly period: typically four-times-a-year companies pay out in March, June, Septemb ..read more

Our family was on vacation in August visiting Alberta—beautiful province!!—but while we were relaxing, the portfolio was still churning out returns. For the month of August, $509 was received in passive income. The drop relative to previous months can be attributed to this being a “non-quarterly month”: many companies pay quarterly dividends, and only a handful of my holdings pay monthly dividends/distributions. Ticker Company Previous Year Return Current Year Return Variance Variance % Comments BMO.N Bank of Montreal $47.50 – ($47.50) (100.0%) Moved to CAD account, so captured I BMO.TO ..read more

Continuing the trend of regular posting, I’ve finished compiling my July passive income update. Year over year, the portfolio was up 24.6% over July 2018, with some caveats. Ticker Company Previous Year Return Current Year Return Variance Variance % Comments ACO-X.TO ATCO Ltd. $75.32 $80.96 $5.64 7.5% ARE.TO Aecon Group $31.25 $36.25 $5.00 16.0% BNS.TO Bank of Nova Scotia $14.44 $15.13 $0.69 4.8% CBO.TO iShares 1-5 Year Laddered Corp. Bond ETF $8.20 $0.00 ($8.20) (100.0%) Sold CIG50221.TO Sentry Small/Md Cap Income Fund A – $39.95 $39.95 100.0% Replaces NCE721.TO DII-B.TO D ..read more

I’ve been pretty lax in updating the blog recently, mainly due to family and work commitments.. But being a dividend focused blog, what better way to re-boot posting with a mid-year update? I will endeavour to start updating my passive income on a monthly basis. That said, June was “okay”. Ticker Previous Year Return Current Year Return Variance Variance % Comments BAM.N $92.44 $98.00 $5.56 6.0% BBU.N $0.74 $0.73 $0.00 (0.6%) FX Impact CAE.TO $4.49 $5.06 $0.57 12.7% CBO.TO $8.20 $0.00 ($8.20) (100.0%) Sold CIG50221.TO – $39.84 $39.84 100.0% DII-B.TO $20.61 $0.00 ($20.61) (1 ..read more