My “obsession” to build a quality dividend portfolio begin back in 2017 when I noticed the incoming quarterly dividends from my employer in my retirement account! It was quite encouraging to see hundreds of dollars coming in quarter after quarters, just by making small deduction per paycheck. The idea of letting your money make more money while you are sleeping (..or doing nothing) was quite exciting and a game changer. It was then that I made up my mind to gradually build a stock portfolio comprising of dividend paying companies which also raise their dividend every year. It would be quite awesome to let the side income pay for your monthly bills and eventually live off the dividends some day! I put some more thought to the side income earnings and expanded the sources to include rental & short term lending as well. I then put together a goal and worked on the approach. You can read more on this by clicking on the links.
Below is our portfolio so far along with PADI (Projected Annual Dividend Income):
Few notables:
- We primarily invest in stocks listed on TSX/Canada & occasionally in US stocks
- Majority of our portfolio is in stocks though started nibbling on ETFs for diversification
- For the sake of simplicity we consider 1 USD = 1 CAD (and not vice-versa!!)
- So far all our stocks are in RRSP or TFSA accounts with no taxable dividend earnings
- To minimize tax implications, we contribute in following priority sequence:
- Under RRSP enough to capture employer’s match (¢0.5 for every $1 up to max $2250 annually)
- Under TFSA to narrow down life long contribution limits (we still have plenty of room)
- Once TFSA contribution room is exhausted, we will catch up on RRSP & also open taxable account
- We don’t buy US dividend stocks in TFSA to avoid 15% tax withholding on dividends
- While focus is on dividend stocks, we do buy quality growth companies – mostly US based technology stocks
- Most of the stocks are setup for DRIP so dividend earned is automatically reinvested in buying more shares
- As of now we have our accounts with CIBC Investor’s Edge or WealthSimple
Our dividend portfolio is available on google sheet here and is updated at the beginning of the month for previous month’s holding. Feel free to copy and use as you may want. All the grey colored cells are automatically populated (..or calculated) real-time and hence it is quite easy to maintain. I recently automated “Yearly Dividend” for shares after googling for help, while it works 99% of the time, sometime it doesn’t, mostly due to source connectivity, changes or other issue with used Yahoo/Google services. If you have any feedback or would like to see anything else on the portfolio sheet, let me know via comment and I will do my best to incorporate.
Building a portfolio is an ongoing endeavor and a lot depend on individual’s – age, time horizon, current financial condition, financial goal, risk tolerance/appetite, willingness to “sacrifice”, discipline etc. Hence always do your own due diligence before investing based on your situation and goals.
Good Luck building your own Portfolio and please do leave a comment letting me know your favourite stock(s) that you would hold forever!