If you are the type of person that procrastinates, which most of us do sometimes – I hope you take action and implement after reading this blogpost.
You probably heard from family, friends, co-worker or on social media about investing in the stock market. However, you just ignored that idea and made excuses – too complex, don’t have time to research or don’t have enough capital.
Well, fear not! I can honestly say that investing these days is relatively easy, quite simple and available to anybody.
Investing is hard and requires a sizeable capital!
I can still vividly remember when I started investing in the stock market a few years ago that I thought it’s only for the more affluent or for those people who have the financial resources. Something that I have procrastinated for a long time due to same reasons like many most of you have. It was considered as a high barrier to entry and not for everyone.
While, this was very true about 5-10 years ago. For someone to start investing, a brokerage may require a minimum deposit of $5,000 or higher. Additionally, you also have to pay higher fees every time you buy and on average $5.00 – $10.00 per trade. A very valid reason why many people didn’t want to start investing.
No Commission Trading Brokerage
A breakthrough finally came to Canada within the last 2-3 years. The emergence of No commission online trading brokerage. With the quick advancement of technology, online discount trading brokerages have now been very competitive and a few offer $0 minimum and $0 commission trading platforms. All in all, these are welcome news to any new and seasoned investors.
There are three discount online brokerages that offer $0 commission trading in Canada at the time of this writing as far as I am aware.
- National Bank Direct brokerage
- Desjardin Online Brokerage
- Wealthsimple Trade
Among these three listed brokerages I have first hand experienced with WS Trade as I am a client myself. It’s slick, simple, and mobile accessible which most of us have nowadays. More recently you can also access it using your PC which is great for investors who prefer a wider screen and comfortable using home computers.
Additionally, with no minimum balance requirement this become very attractive to investors who are just starting or have less capital. Furthermore, not paying any commission to trade means your money will go a long way. Moreover, with those fees being eliminated, it will help grow your investments faster.
If you have been a follower and reader of my blog. I try to keep everything so simple – the same way I write my blog for everyone to understand.
If you sign up using this link and fund a DIY trading account you will be rewarded up to $3,000 in cash to trade stocks or crypto commission free. See more details with this link .
Long Term Investing
I am a long haul dividend growth investor. Our current goal is to accumulate and build assets that produce income. One simple way to achieve this is to buy dividend paying growth stocks.
Our ultimate goal is to live off passive income in the form of dividends without harvesting our capital.
So let’s see how this works and pick one stock for example. This is in no way a recommendation. I pick this stock for simplicity and to show the power of compound interest. ( Full disclosure: We own this stock)
For example, if you have $1,000 to invest and open an account with one of the no commission brokerages and buy this REIT in your registered account TFSA or RRSP.
Ticker: PLZ.UN.TO ( Traded in TSX)
Price: $4.65 ( at the time of writing)
Dividend Yield: 6.02%
Dividends: $0.0233 monthly
Once your account is funded with your initial $1,000 you’ll now able to buy 215 shares and will receive $5.01 of dividends from your 1st month.
$1,000/ $4.65 = 215 shares
215 x $0.0233 = $5.01 monthly
As you can see you receive $5.01 of dividends every month which is enough to buy (reinvest) 1 share of PLZ.UN every month without even adding any fresh capital.
This is so powerful as this is purely passive income and you’ll receive that $5.01 whether you show up to work (active income) or not.
Sticking with the same initial investment of $1,000.
$5.01 x 12 = $60.12 Annual dividends if you don’t reinvest and still have 215 shares.
However, if you reinvest those dividends you end up having 227 shares at the end of 12 months.
227 x $0.023 = $5.29 monthly dividend you receive at the end of 12th month.
Power of Compound Interest
According to dividend-calculator.com if you reinvest your dividends monthly with the same stock you’ll end up an annual dividend of $61.87 and gain 12 more shares making it a total of 227. With the assumption that everything remains the same, your initial $1,000 investment ended up with $1,061.62 for a total annual gain of 6.19%. The more frequent the distribution, the more frequent the compounding, and the faster your money grows. Henceforth, a good reason why I love monthly paying dividend stocks.
Note: Past performance is not indicative of future results. Thus, as a gentle reminder that dividends are not guaranteed.
I’ll let your imagination wander and play with calculator. What if you have a bigger capital, let’s say $2,000 or $5,000? Bear in mind not to put all your eggs in one basket.
You may then ask, What about the stock price?
The stock market goes up and down, there is no way to predict the actual price in the future. As a good rule of thumb for new investors – pick a blue chip company who has a proven track record. In general, these companies increase in value over time.
Again keeping it simple, My personal choice is picking household name blue-chip dividend growth stocks that produce income in a form of dividends and their potential to keep growing – capital appreciation.
Now armed with all these facts, you can now easily open an account in any of those discount online brokerage – even with very minimal funds and not paying any fees to buy and become a shareholder of your favorite bank, oil company, grocery store or utility company.
What are you waiting for? Start investing now as in today!
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One of my recent blog posts highlighted our mistakes in buying our first home in Canada. With those lessons learned we felt we were equipped with much-needed information this time around buying our recent home using leverage instead of selling our investments to use as a down deposit. In doing so, we improved our total current net worth without dipping into our long term investments.
Earlier this week we renewed our home insurance. We made a massive savings by switching our home insurance to Square One up to 30%. If you are looking to renew your home insurance or for a new property, why not check them out and see for yourself if you can also get a huge discount on your home insurance.
Moreover, we also made dramatic changes in our lifestyle and embraced minimalism hence we perceived that living less is more. A few simple money saving tips we have done are reducing our cell phone bills and if you are still paying bank fees consider switching to No fee bank accounts. Similarly, I find dividend investing easy and more fun and you can choose a no fee trading account either as a new or seasoned investor.
Finally, when we are employed, we receive a regular income and a sense of financial security. However, many jobs are not guaranteed and can be also lost and taken away beyond our control as many have experienced during this pandemic due to an abrupt closure of businesses due to the impact of the virus and government mandated lockdowns. Therefore, it is vital to generate multiple sources of income to protect ourselves from these unforeseen events.
DISCLAIMER: Everything I have shared in my blog is wholly related to my personal experience. It is for entertainment and educational purposes only and should not be construed as advice.
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This is such a motivating post! I especially like this part, considering the way the markets were today: The stock market goes up and down, there is no way to predict the actual price in the future… In general, these companies increase in value over time. I think this up and down movement scares a lot of people, which makes them not want to ever jump into the markets. However, if they’re able to learn that this is normal, and they get used to tolerating the ups and downs, that will get them far. Thanks for making time to share… Read more »
Hi Chrissy,
Thank you so much for dropping by and for your kind words. There should be really no reason to start investing when we have this amazing opportunity to invest with very minimal or at NO cost at all. I would also to encourage new investors to be patient and consistent with their habit. Time in the market beats timing the market. Forget the noised about the market. Invest for the long haul.
These are very easy tips to get started. Another one I would add would be to automate as much as you can. The less time you have to regularly invest the more likely you’ll stick to your plan.
Hi Maria,
I totally agree with you in having it automatic. Paying yourself first is an excellent way of doing it. Personally, we set an amount coming out from our paycheck every payday. We consider it as part of our bills and we don’t even notice it. Finally, after all our bills comes out and if there is still some funds left, we just roll it in our investment accounts. One great advantage that we see as a self-directed or DIY investor in my opinion.