Can you believe 2024 is already over?

“The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.” – Benjamin Graham.

I picked up some more BRK.B. I now am very overweight in Berkshire but I don’t view that as a terrible problem to have.

I plan to keep adding more BRK.B and some low dividend ETF’s to my taxable account every month. My dividend increase will remain fairly steady until I get raises from existing companies or until the start of next year when I will have more room in my tax-free accounts.

Let’s check out Some 2024 things

My Investment strategy has developed and continues to develop as things change,

My 2 largest holdings and top 6 out of 10 pay little to no dividends,

$BRK at 0% $BN at %0.52  $GSY, $ATD, and $XSP are all fairly little. 

I do this because I have my TFSA and RRSP’s maxed and do not want to pay any more taxes so I hold these in my taxable accounts.

Dividend Income

For the month of January, I received dividends from 23 different companies.

• I received $4500
• My total forward dividends are $41k
• My Yield is %1.68 and my YOC is 2.53
• I have lots of BRK
• 

Dividend Increase and highlights

Feb 1, 2024 BIP TSE:BIP $1.53 $1.62 5.88%
Feb 2, 2024 BEPC TSE:BEPC $1.35 $1.42 5.19%
Feb 6, 2024 BAM TSE:BAM $1.28 $1.52 18.75%
Feb 8, 2024 BN TSE:BN $0.28 $0.32 14.29%
Feb 13, 2024 GSY TSE:GSY $3.84 $4.68 21.88%
Feb 22, 2024 THI TSE:TIH $1.72 $1.92 11.63%
Feb 26, 2024 TRP TSE:TRP $3.72 $3.84 3.23%
Feb 28, 2024 EQB TSE:EQB $1.60 $1.68 5.00%
May 15, 2024 cve $0.56 $0.72 28.57%
May 28, 2024 eqb $1.68 $1.80 7.14%
July 31, 2024 cpx $2.46 $2.61 6.10%
Oct 21 eqb $1.80 $1.88 4.44%
Oct 23, 2024 tfii $1.60 $1.80 12.50%
Nov 10 adentra $0.56 $0.60 7.14%
Nov 12 congeco $3.42 $3.68 7.60%
Nov 13 bip $1.62 $1.72 6.17%
Nov 24 atd $0.70 $0.78 11.43%
Dec 3 enb $3.66 $3.77 3.01%
Jan 31 2025 bepc $1.42 $1.49 4.93%

Nuts and Bolts

How Much Free Money?

I’ve earned $12,000 in dividends so far this year. Not bad taking 3 months off. I guess im averaging about 2 grand a month right now, give or take.

2025       $4,526.51

Since 2014 I have received $208,733.45 worth of dividends. This does not include any capital appreciation or USD

What can I buy with all my free money?

Now, saying that, I’m going to buy a brand new…

Not bad for doing nothing

Until next time.

Stay classy Fire bros

Last month I received a dividend income of $5,797.91 (Jan 2024)

Life Update!

It’s been a minute.

Life gets busy with 3 kids in sports (and expensive). I’ve been meaning to update this site for the longest time but life. It’s been so long, I don’t even remember where I left off.

My Oldest kid is going into grade 12 and we are on the hunt for Universities. All 3 of my kids play rep sports and the time and money these take is unbelievable, I’m not sure I would wish the stress and busyness on my worst enemy. There is a light at the end of the tunnel as my daughter will be driving soon and will take herself to practices, we play for a city that is an hour away 5 days a week 🙁 so that will free up a large amount of time.

January Dividend Income

For January I received dividends from 26 companies. Some are duplicates because I have the same company in different accounts.

I received $5,797.91 in dividends.

The year started out well with most of the companies raising their dividends.

The largest raises came from, 

ATD 25%, GSY 22%, EQB 22%, BAM 19%, BN 14%, TFII 14.  These companies are also some of my favorites and top holdings. 

Portfolio update

Over the last several years I have moved away from focusing on dividends to focusing on compounding growth with sustainable dividend growth at the center. Sometimes it even makes sense to buy a company that is not paying a dividend if they are responsible with the FCF and can return it to the shareholder in a different way, maybe in the way of share buybacks or growing the business through acquisitions.

The largest position in my book doesn’t pay a dividend and I don’t expect it ever will. Berkshire, BRK

My second largest holding is Brookfield, BN and they pay a small yield of 0.78% I currently have nearly 5000 shares of Brookfield but want to bring that up to 10k shares in the next few years.

My top 4 holdings make up over 50% of my portfolio and have a very low total dividend payout. My current yield is sitting at just over 1.5% and you will notice in February, I collect very little in dividends for that month, around $1000 to $1500. I won’t buy a company just to pad my dividend total. 

Dividend Income

It’s pretty wild to see the dividend growth from when I began tracking it in 2014. Since then I have received almost 200k in free money.

RE update

I’m currently working on closing my 5th property, It’s my first apartment so let’s see how it goes. It’s located in Tampa Bay where I’d like to eventually snowbird to when the Kido’s grow up. Also, my daughter might go play ball down there so it doesn’t hurt to have a home base close. I also have 2 other properties in Orlando. I was planning to be way more active buying RE but after COVID-19 the prices went bananas and over extended IMO. Finally, we are seeing a price correction and Tampa is coming down hard (I want the prices to go lower)

Anyhow, Saturday morning is almost done and I have to run to the softball field for a game at 11:00 

Ill try and update more often when time permits.

As always, Stay Classy Fire Friends.

Steve