Our Financial Journey involves investing in companies that pay dividends. Let’s take a look and see how we did in 2020 and some considerations for 2021.
Dividends breakdown
In December 2020, we received dividends from the following companies:
| Ticker | Name | $ |
|---|---|---|
| REI-UN.TO | RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust | 28.32 |
| VRE.TO | Vanguard FTSE Canadian Capped REIT Index ETF | 1.92 |
| CU.TO | Canadian Utilities Limited Class A | 231.63 |
| ENB.TO | Enbridge Inc | 388.80 |
| MFC.TO | Manulife Financial Corporation | 212.24 |
| KO | Coca-Cola Co | 36.90 |
| QYLD | Global X NASDAQ 100 Covered Call ETF | 211.74 |
| IBM | IBM Common Stock | 130.40 |
| INTC | Intel Corporation | 0.45 |
| ITOT | iShares Core S&P Total US Stock Market ETF | 6.50 |
| MSFT | Microsoft Corporation | 18.09 |
| WBA | Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc | 88.83 |
| Total | 1,356.22 |
December was a good month in terms of dividends, especially the money received from our US stocks. We do have a small position with INTC, which we will sell in January and allocate this money somewhere else.
We also received for the first time dividends from ITOT, which is an ETF that tracks the total US market. The amount is low, however, we see it more as a dividend growth stock.
2020 Dividends Summary
The graphic above shows the breakdown for 2020 since we started tracking the numbers with you. We’ve learned so much in 2020, and there’s a lot more to learn in 2021. Gean is a visual guy, and always like playing with numbers and transforming that into something visual to help us understand where we are:
The graphic is self-explanatory, and as you can see, there’s a lot of dividends received from our Canadian exposure, and should we say nothing from the Global exposure? 🙂 Don’t get us wrong, dividends are always good, and we are aware that Canada represents only about 4% of the global market.
Actually, the 75% above is not shocking to us. The amount of money invested in Canadian stocks is higher due to the Smith Manoeuvre, where we only use the money to buy Canadian Dividend Stocks.
2021 goal? Increase both the US and Global Exposure, and keep buying Canadian stocks.
2020 Dividend Income
Our goal is to reach $40,000 per year in dividends. We are happy to share that we ended 2020 with $4,634.56, representing 11.59% of our goal. Since we started our journey to Financial Independence only 6 months ago, we never thought we would be ending 2020 with 11.59%, we had thought we may reach 3%!
Let’s be honest: Part of this is luck. We’ve never experienced the stock market rebound so fast! Through the ups and downs, we stuck to our plan, and didn’t panic, we continued to buy stocks no matter what.
Thanks for letting us be part of your day and journey! Stay safe!
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Great update! It’s nice to read that you’re taking advantage of your home equity to build a nice dividend portfolio. Looking forward to your updates in 2021.
Thank you, AL. Certainly, the SM is the reason for where we are now.
Well done!
Thank you 🙂
Congrats on your huge financial successes this year, Gean and Kristine! You’re doing amazing things. I can’t wait to see where 2021 will take you.
Happy New Year to you both!
Thank you, Chrissy. Happy New Year to you and your family as well. 🙂
it’s very nice to see achieving the “small” (if 10% of the goal could be considered small) steps in the journey. I have the complete opposite problem: a lot of exposure on the US market and almost none to the EU or global market O.O.
Hoping to see a nice 22% of your goal achieved the next year!
Thank you, thecafeteriaboy. We will definitely have to start the exposure to the global market and plan to do that using ETFs. Stay safe!