$0 to $20k Dividend Portfolio in 1 Year

The Challenge

Back in January 2021, I decided to start a new investment challenge. The goal was to build a dividend portfolio from $0 to $20 in 1 year or less to show you what can be possible with dividend investing. It’s also a great way to hold myself accountable and ensure I was buying income every single week. I’ve built this portfolio 100% in public and have shared all of my buys every time I started a new position or added to an existing one.

Here’s what I started with:

My Strategy

My strategy for this account is simple:

• 65% growth stocks (SaaS, IT, and AI)

• 30% dividend stocks (specifically REITs)

• 5% ETFs (S&P 500)

With consistent contributions whenever I could and an automatic deposit of $100/week.

I chose to go heavy on the growth stocks because my goal was to hit $20,000 by the end of the year and there was no way I was getting there without exposure to the tech industry.

The dividend stocks (REITs) would provide a good stream of income I could then either funnel through more shares or use to buy growth stocks.

And the S&P 500 ETF is there as a cushion for all the risk I was taking on.

My Buys + Explanation

My first buy of this account was RioCan. A Canadian REIT giant that had been hit hard by the pandemic. RioCan owns a lot of residential, commercial and office space real estate, which explains their struggle during the pandemic. Without going too far into detail, I liked what I saw on their cash flow and income statements (remember to always read these) and noticed a large potential upside with the hopeful reopening of Ontario. So my first buy was 56 shares at a total cost of $1,005.20 (as seen below).

My second position on this account was LightSpeed POS. An all-in-one cloud-based point of sale system that has the ability to integrate with tons of platforms and serves as a digital payment processor. I couldn’t pass this one up after looking at its statements. As a Square (SQ) investor, LightSpeed just made sense for my portfolio and acted as one of my large upside growth positions.

Here’s my purchase.

I’m not a big airline investor, but AirCanada presented an opportunity I just couldn’t ignore. The airline industry got HAMMERED during the pandemic and rightfully so. People stopped travelling because of restrictions but more importantly, fear. Airlines lost millions of dollars with some of them having to get bailed out by their respective governments. One thing I know for sure is that AirCanada is here to stay. Being the largest air travel provider in Canada serving over 210 airports across the globe, this was a no-brainer. I was able to start a small position of 10 shares at around $27.96/share. Trading at almost a 50% discount from its all-time high, I was pretty happy with this entry price. Although the stock price has fallen since I started my position, I’m continuing to buy shares on the way up as it moves back to pre-pandemic levels.

Current Status

As of today September 14th, 2021 I currently have 7 positions in this account. Here’s a look at how many shares I own and their total values.

You’ll notice something when looking at my portfolio allocation. My strategy changed. I decided to move away from growth stocks and have been focusing more on building up my REIT positions. Two of my REITs above (SRU.UN and REI.UN) currently make up about 54% of my total portfolio. There’s no reason behind it other than I wanted to build up my dividend income, increase my monthly cash flow and I saw an opportunity to scoop up tons of shares at a massive discount. Sometimes your strategy will change based on market conditions and that’s totally okay. It’s important to adapt to whatever might be going on around you.

These 2 REITs alone bring in $33.49/month in dividend income. That’s about $1.11/day in dividends from ONLY 2 positions. Imagine what you could do with 5 of them.

From the start of January until now, I’m up a total of $1,576.33 (12.30% all-time).

These aren’t by any means “incredible gains” but they’re exactly what I was expecting when I decided to prioritize dividend stocks instead of growth.

P.S. I decided to change my interface to dark mode because it’s a million times cooler

What’s Next

Well, I still have a ways to go to hit my $20,000 goal. About $5,603.67 to be exact. This means I need to contribute about $1,600/month to even have a chance to hit my goal.

Moving forward, I will continue to build up my REIT positions mainly SRU.UN and REI.UN. My goal is to earn $100/month from both stocks. At the rate I’m going, I should hit this goal by the end of 2022.

As of today, my total dividend income from this portfolio sits at around $451.85/year, not bad considering I started this portfolio just 9 months ago.

My goal is to give you an idea of what’s achievable with dividend investing when you commit to a process and stay consistent. I expect all the companies I own to raise their dividends in the coming years. Couple that with consistent contributions to the account and I’ll be at $1,000/year in no time. This is just 1/2 of my portfolio’s but for now, I’m happy with the progress I’ve made.

As always, I will be keeping you updated on my progress within the Discord group chat and letting you know which stocks I’m buying and at what price.

If you want to follow along, make sure you become a paying subscriber to The Profit Zone so you never miss out on one of my trades. You can sign up here for 25% off.

That’s all from me.

Till the next one!

Cheers.

- Alex (The Dividend Dominator)