Skip to content

Millionaire on the Prairie

Personal finance for singles looking to finance their dreams.

Millionaire on the Prairie

I Love My Cash Machine!

Happy New Year! I hope that you 2024 is off to a great start for you.

I’m happy to report that my cash machine hit a new milestone in 2023. After crunching all my numbers and updating all of my spreadsheets, I was quite pleased. For the first time ever, my cash machine generated more dividends in my non-registered account than the amount of contributions that were made. Woohoo! I’ve waited a very long time for this to be the case, and I can tell you that this achievement is sweet.

When I first started investing in dividends, I was doing it just because my parents had been investors and they’d bought some bank shares for me. Naive as I was, I simply loved the idea of dividends. My thought process in choosing my investment strategy had been… shall we say… unsophisticated. Passive income? Money sent to me just because I owned some shares? Even more money sent to me through the power of dividend re-investment plans? Where do I sign up?

I was hooked on dividends from the word go! At first, I barely earned $50 per year. The first time I earned $1K in a year, I smiled to myself. It dawned on me that I might one day earn $5,000 in dividends in one year. And the first time I earned five figures in dividends, well… let’s just say that was a very good day. Without a shadow of a doubt, I know that if I continue to invest wisely then I will one day hit six-figures per year in dividends. Yay, me!

So even though it wasn’t the best way to invest, I continued to buy more and more dividend-producing securities. (Looking back, I should have contributed to equity-based securities. I would’ve benefitted from the bull-run and likely be several years closer to retirement by now. Oh, well – coulda, woulda, shoulda!)

If I absolutely had to, I could live on the dividends produced by my portfolio. It wouldn’t be a lavish existence by any means. I’d have to cut out a few things – like travel and theatre – and I’d definitely have to watch my nickels & dimes more carefully. But, I’d be able to do it.

It’s amazing to me that I’m in this position. I have made so many investing mistakes. Like I alluded to earlier, I invested in dividend-paying securities instead of equity-based securities. In hindsight, the biggest money mistake I made with my portfolio was choosing passive income over growth. Given that I started investing at age 21, I see now that I’ve made a huge mistake with my portfolio! I wasn’t terribly knowledgeable about investing at that tender age, and my parents weren’t experts in the area either.

They taught me to stay out of debt, to live below my means, and to invest in banks and energy stocks. That’s not bad advice, and I really didn’t go too, too wrong. However, they didn’t teach me about the differences between growth investments vs. income-generating ones. They didn’t teach me most of what I now know about investing. To be clear, I’m not blaming them because you can’t teach what you don’t know. Had they known, they would have stuffed it into my head just like every other life lesson they imparted to me.

And the internet was nascent when I was young. Today, there are blogs and websites and many, many, many online platforms for self-directed investors. The knowledge is literally at everyone’s fingertips so long as they have a device and an internet connection. Anyone with disposable income has the ability to create their own cash machine and watch it grow over time.

Had I been smarter sooner, I would’ve tweaked my investment plan sooner. My cash machine would’ve been kicked into high gear even sooner. Instead, I believed that a person had to stick to one investment strategy forever. This belief was another huge mistake that I made with my investment portfolio. Still somewhat begrudgingly, I have come to realize that tweaking things isn’t always terrible.

For example, I tweaked my investment plan back in October of 2020. As you’ll recall, that’s when the stock market started to recover from the devastating impact of the pandemic. I decided to start buying units in VXC. From that point one, I decided that all contributions to my non-registered portfolio and my RRSP would go towards buying VXC. That was a very smart decision on my part. I can happily report that my returns since 2020 in those two accounts reflect that my tweaking was the right move.

This year, I’ve decided to tweak my TFSA account. (Why didn’t I do this back in 2020? Honestly, my failure to course correct in my TFSA can be chalked up to ignorance about the tax implications of owning securities where I’d pay a withholding tax.)

This year, my TFSA contribution went towards buying units in VGRO. I’m getting a bit more bond exposure in my overall portfolio while also adding some needed equity exposure. Since I plan to hang onto my TFSA for a very, very, very long time, this is the perfect place to add a growth-oriented investment product. There will come a day when I might want to start drawing out tax-free money from this account, so it’s best to tweak my TFSA holdings today. If I’m burdened with too much money, then it’s a cross I’ll have to bear.

So what are my future plans for my cash machine? Well, I’m hoping that it will soon kick off more dividends than the amount I contribute to both my brokerage account and to my TFSA. There’s a chance that might happen by 2026, but only time will tell. By the time I retire, I hope that it generates enough for my basic needs and for my nice-to-have’s. In short, I want my cash machine to generate six-figures of income. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Share this:

  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • More
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...
Author Blue LobsterPosted on January 6, 2024January 5, 2024Categories Single Money, Wealth CreationTags Brokerage Account, Cash Machine, dividends, RRSP, TFSA

Post navigation

Previous Previous post: A Gift For You – A Step-By-Step Plan for Your Money in 2024!
Next Next post: 10 Ways to Increase Your Wealth in 2024
    • April 2025
    • March 2025
    • February 2025
    • January 2025
    • December 2024
    • November 2024
    • October 2024
    • September 2024
    • August 2024
    • July 2024
    • June 2024
    • May 2024
    • April 2024
    • March 2024
    • February 2024
    • January 2024
    • December 2023
    • November 2023
    • October 2023
    • September 2023
    • August 2023
    • July 2023
    • June 2023
    • May 2023
    • April 2023
    • March 2023
    • February 2023
    • January 2023
    • December 2022
    • November 2022
    • October 2022
    • September 2022
    • August 2022
    • July 2022
    • June 2022
    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    Millionaire on the Prairie Proudly powered by WordPress
    %d