First monthly update of 2018 & 5 stocks I’m keeping an eye on.
Sweet Jebus…the first month of 2018 is already over & although it went by too fast – I am happy with what was accomplished!
Personal Highlights for January:
- One of my goals for the year was to take the wife out to dinner at least 5 times, and I am happy to say we were able to get a baby sitter and went to a nice steakhouse earlier this month!
- I was able to find the time to write 6 new blog posts as well as play with the theme/look of the site. This will continue to be a work in progress.
- Added a new section to the website called “My Bar” which although is(slightly off topic) a lot of fun for me to write about & even more fun making and trying new drinks.
- Started (finally) watching Last Man On Earth on Netflix and it is GREAT!
- Had over 1000 visitors to the website in a month for the first time.
Financial Highlights for January:
I am happy to report that I have already followed through with one of my financial goals for the year – and one that I have wanted to do for some time.
- Sold my high cost RBC mutual funds and moved them to my direct investing RSP. Replaced with a lower cost Canadian equity fund & super low cost Global fund. As detailed in this post
- Started gathering all my statements for tax time 🙂
- Continued bi weekly payments into RRSPs & Spousal RSP.
- Increased Spousal RSP amount by $100 bi weekly to try and get our accounts closer in size.
- Set up an RESP for my kids
- Got out of the Penny stock/speculation game completely(for good) and made 2 new stock purchases. You can read more about that HERE.
Passive Income Update For January 2018.
TFSA’S:
Diversified Royalty: $9.07 (Dripped 2 new shares)
Canadian Western Bank: $0.24
Artis Reit: $49.86 (Dripped 3 shares)
Plaza Reit: $24.75 (Dripped 5 shares)
Algonquin Power: $110.35 (Dripped 8 shares)
Chorus Aviation: $10.80 (Dripped 1 share)
TFSA’s Total: $205.07
RRSP:
Canadian Equity Income Distribution: $213.99
Total Passive Income January 2018: $419.06
*The transfer of funds from mutual fund to ETF/Direct investing hasn’t happened as of writing this – even though papers have been signed – so next month will represent the new funds.
Portfolio Update:
My portfolio grew by 1.67% month over month and once again hit an all time! The early retirement portfolio now sits at $306,396.65. Dividends grew by $14.95 vs last January (year over year growth of 3.69%). I expect my dividend growth rate to increase quite a bit more this year once my funds are transferred from my Mutual Funds and into my direct investing account/redeployed. I am also planning on trying to contribute more into my TFSA this year which should help increase dividends for the year.
I’ve decided to add a new section to the monthly updates, which will be my top 5 stocks I am looking to buy in the future/keeping an eye on:
Current Watch List:
Andrew Peller: ADW
Cascades: CAS
InterRent Reit: IIP
Northview Apartment Reit: NVU
Caledonia Mining: CAL
How was your month?
7 Comments on “First monthly update of 2018 & 5 stocks I’m keeping an eye on.”
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Nice Jordan. Huge amount of drips happening! Thats awesome. Those algonquin drips though…..While i love the dividends, i think i get more excited adding up my drips. Added income you literally did nothing for.
Site looks good. I just finished my monthly income post. It will be up Saturday.
Keep it up and look forward to seeing where you put all that “new” money to work.
Cheers
Rob
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Hey Rob! Thanks for the comment. I agree – I much prefer the DRIPs vs the actual Income (for now).
Site is still a work in progress – but its fun learning new things as I go – and eventually I’ll get one of my designer buddies to help make it looks like something a little more advanced than a 1999 geocities website…haha
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Congrats! Nice set of dividends. Is your portfolio completely in equities? iShares MSCI Canada Index (ETF) was up 0.47% in the last month. Nice job beating the market. I don’t get monthly dividends as I am invested exclusively in ETFs. Hoping to get some nice dividend increases this year. I second PCI, site looks good.
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My portfolio is not 100% equities but heavily weighted towards equities right now.
I have a few different accounts:
TFSA/Wifes TFSA: 100% Canadian Dividend Paying Equities
Direct Investing RRSP: 100% Canadian Equity Fund & 100% Global Equity Fund
Work RRSP*: Balanced Fund 60% equities, 40% Fixed Income
*The work RRSP is about 30% of my total portfolio right now.
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What a great way to start a year! Congrats on hitting the milestone of 1000 visitors count. I never look into my visitors count, but I know that my comment section is growing 🙂 So there is some interaction with my readers.
Good job on having some quality time with your wife. I’d rather have a good meal in a nice restaurant instead of 5x at the fast food chain. Saving and investing is important, but having a balanced family life is even more important. Once the finance game is planned out and you make your monthly contributions, you can just forget about it and focus on family instead. Stock market is once a month thing to count the dividends and buy stocks.
By the way, what Caledonia Mining does?
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Thanks for Stopping by DIS,
I agree family/friend time is everything – all the more reason to get finances in order so work isn’t necessary and can devote even more time 🙂
Caledonia Mining is a Canadian company that owns a mine Zimbabwe – very profitable, extremely strong balance sheet – trades at a huge discount to its peers. Only concern is that it is in Zimbabwe – so has some political risk attached to it. They also pay their dividend in USD. Do your own due diligence, but I owned it for a few years, and am planning on buying again in the future for sure (barring any negative or unexpected news).
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Thanks for sharing the update, Jordan! Congrats on reaching over 1,000 visitors. And it looks like you made some great financial moves in January. Nice dividend haul for January as well! I’m planning to share my update soon. Looking forward to the mutual funds money hitting your dividend portfolio! Take care!
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