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I have a guest post over at Million Dollar Journey highlighting how I turned my finances around since 2009. 2008 was a wake up call for me and I had to do something as my investments were not on target with my expectations. If you have been following me around, you probably know the steps I took over time but for my new readers, it’s a nice review of all the changes I have made over time.
The catalyst for my investment changes has been The Lazy Investor by Derek Foster. Starting in 2009 was a blessing as I really got to turbo charge my investments with dividend stocks. Here are the performance I have had since my retrofit:
- TFSA is up 68.2%. I invested $20,000 and it’s worth $33,693.
- RRSP is up 80.45%. Thanks to buying over $10K of Scotia Bank (BNS) at $25 in early 2009. Now it’s all in US conglomerates.
- Computershare is up 23.24%. Mostly utilities and telecoms. I regularly invests small amounts.
- CanStock is up 19.35%. Same as Computershare.
- Non-Registered RBC account is up 18.11%. This is only the Canadian Banks and the recent dividend increase is just adding up slowly.
I’ll use the same term that Andrew Hallam has used to qualify his performance; I am lucky. I had money to invest during the lowest point in the market and I decided to sell many mutual funds to buy dividend stocks. I am not seeing any crazy performance gains these days and it’s slow and steady.
Readers: Do you have a turn around story to share?
We have a very similar story. My catalyst was in 2009 when I left my job in private sector. I had been investing in a crappy HSBC mutual fund with a 2.7% MER (had to invest with them to get the employer match).
I did an in-kind transfer over to TD Waterhouse and started loading up on dividend stocks.
I was reading Million Dollar Journey and Tom Connolly’s site, and that got me hooked on dividend investing.
My portfolio has returned 17% a year since July 2009, compared to 13.5% for the dividend ETF CDZ.
Echo recently posted..Do We Need To Beef Up Our CPP?
@Echo
Well done and thanks for sharing.
I, too, have a similar story.
After changing jobs back in 2006, I rolled over my then 401(k) to a traditional IRA (I’m here in the States). Directionless over investments, I had something like ~$20k that I essentially messed around with. After such playing and losing a few thousand dollars, I began to realize that (1) I wasn’t going to be able to introduce new money into this account; and (2) since I already had a new 401(k), I needed something that could, perhaps, replace Social Security.
So, what’s the number 1 way to get more money into an account if it’s impractical to add outside funds? Dividend stocks! So, by 2008, I was full steam ahead into “converting” my haphazard stock positions into well-thought-out dividend stock positions.
Using methods regarding buying and selling that I picked up along the way, I turned ~$20k into what is now a nearly $50k portfolio! And that’s purely based on no new monies going into the account, unrealized capital gains, and, of course, a steady stream of dividends.
Of course, I’m nowhere near ready for retirement (that’s going to be more than 20 years away anyway), but the point is that even if you have *zero additional outside funds* to add to a retirement account, I can provide empirical evidence that it’s still possible to grow a nice little nest egg over time.
If anyone’s interested in how I did it and the methods I personally use to grow my account, feel free to email me at maestro7@gmail.com. I’d be happy to freely share what I’ve learned.
(Why am I not just stating what I’ve learned? Because I want to see how many readers are serious about investing, and I’m trying to gauge genuine interest in the subject.)
Great work! I enjoyed the MDJ article.
I was in mutual funds for years and got fed up knowing very little about how they were performing one month and why. I also couldn’t figure out where my money management fees were going and to what value they had over buying the same companies the funds held directly. That was over 5 years ago.
Now, approaching 40, I feel I’ve got my portfolio together and I have a financial plan, using various ETFs and dividend-paying stocks in multiple accounts: RRSP, TFSA, unregistered; having a chequing account for living expenses and a savings account for emergency funds.
I’ll still got a bunch of stuff to learn; I suspect that will never end…but I’m well on my way to earning about $30K in passive dividend income in another 15 years, and having a paid off home as well.
Continued success on your journey PIE
Mark
My Own Advisor recently posted..Weekend Reading – Dividend hikes, giveaways and great blogs
Hello PIE,
I have a quick question for you. Have you read any books that provide the same information as “The Lazy Investor”? Is all the practices in the book still relevant?
I invest in both mutual funds and stocks. I tend to be a more aggressive investor so I have found that most of my mutual funds have performed pretty well, although my stocks have done better. Those MERs can really hurt as they take quite a chunk out of your profit.