A new year brings with it a clean slate. This is the time of year people come up with goals and resolutions for the year ahead. I made some adjustments to what I will be capturing in future updates to better reflect the passive income from my investments. It is my goal to increase contributions and put out a few more different kinds of posts in 2018.

January was a very good month for the portfolio, not so much for having fun outside. Unlike all the people who got gym memberships, I’ve been keeping fit by shovelling my ice filled driveway. It has been a losing battle…

2018 got off to a strong start for investors with exposure to US equities, with the S&P 4.75%, NASDAQ 5.41%, but not so great for investors in Canada with the TSX -2.75%. Towards the end of the month, the S&P nearly reached 2,900. Since then it has declined to around 2,700 from a low of 2,543. These short term peaks and valleys don’t mean much for long term investors. If your perspective is to invest in solid companies over the long term, you can safely ignore the noise of short term market movements. Wealthsimple put out a nice article on how the voice in your head is probably wrong, and the impossibility of timing the market. Moral of the story is stick to your investment plan and safely ignore any temptation to time the market.

I was very pleasantly surprised to see my January 2018 dividend income total of $25.89. This really is starting to show the tiny snowball starting to work its magic. This month alone has eclipsed my total annual dividend income of 2015, the year I started investing. The yoy increase from January 2017 to 2018 was a whopping 126.7%, I’ll take that kind of result any day. The ETFs had some distribution payouts so this boosted the overall numbers significantly. Looking forward to seeing how the rest of 2018 shapes up!

January 2018 Dividends Received

IEFA $3.74
VTI $1.92
IEMG $4.16
XIC $2.10
XSH $0.50
ZFM $0.17
VUS $1.02
BNS $6.32
CGX $0.56
TD $5.40

Total: $25.89

Most of the holdings in my Niche Fund pay quarterly dividends so some months will have more income reflected than others. From now on, I’ll include dividends received from my ETF holdings in addition to my dividend stock holdings. This should provide a more interesting roundup each month, especially as the ETF holdings pay more consistently than some of my stocks.

My Dividend Income page has a calendar showing when I expect to receive dividends from each of my stock holdings.

The featured image for this post is from Winterlude in Confederation Park in Ottawa.

Thanks for stopping by!