Bob Lai

Vancouver

Blogger at Tawcan

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2025 Goals And Resolutions - Q1 Update » Tawcan

2 weeks ago | tawcan.com | Bob Lai

Welcome to the first quarterly update of my 2025 goals and resolutions. Since 2019, I have set goals and resolutions at the beginning of the year, published them on this blog, and provided quarterly updates. Many people lose focus on their New Year’s resolution by around February, so for me, it is important to find a way to keep myself motivated and accountable. Publishing the goals and resolutions on this blog and doing quarterly updates have helped me stay focused throughout the year.
Dividend Income - March 2025 Update » Tawcan

3 weeks ago | tawcan.com | Bob Lai

Welcome to another monthly dividend income update. After our financial epiphany in 2011, we got very serious with dividend growth investing. Since then, we have grown our dividend portfolio from basically nothing to over seven figures. It’s pretty amazing what happens to your portfolio value when you take advantage of time in the market and the power of compounding.
Answering 3 Common Investment Related Questions From Readers " Tawcan

1 month ago | tawcan.com | Bob Lai

I’m amazed that this blog has been around for more than ten years, especially knowing that many blogs either fade away or disappear completely after six months. For me, getting questions from readers and connecting with some of them in person has been a great attraction. Questions are always interesting to get as they reveal curiosity as well as often lead to many different kinds of important analysis.
2024 Stock Transactions Analysis » Tawcan

1 month ago | tawcan.com | Bob Lai

Because we are still in the accumulation phase of our financial independence journey, we make many stock transactions every year, mostly purchasing more stocks from new capital and occasionally selling shares. In our December 2024 dividend income report, I summarized all the stock transactions we did throughout the year to give readers an idea of what we did. A few years ago I did a review of every dividend stock transaction we made between 2020 and 2022.
Dividend Growth Investor Q&A Series - Brian From Labour To Leisure » Tawcan

1 month ago | tawcan.com | Bob Lai

Long time readers will know that we are at a point where our annual dividend income can pay for our core expenses. However, core expenses do not include expenses like eating out, entertainment, vacation, charitable donations, gifts, and other non-necessity expenses. Although we aren’t at the point of living off dividends completely yet, we should be able to cover all our annual expenses if we rely on our dividend income and supplement the difference with part-time income.
Dividend Income - February 2025 Update » Tawcan

1 month ago | tawcan.com | Bob Lai

Welcome to another dividend income update. Since the creation of this blog back in 2014, I have been posting monthly dividend income reports to keep ourselves accountable, and also to demonstrate that it is possible to build up a sizable dividend portfolio over time. For those of you who are new, we became serious with dividend growth investing in 2011 and started shifting money toward dividend paying stocks. Over time, we added index ETFs like XAW and QQQM to diversify our portfolio.
Random Thoughts From Montreal, Barcelona, Munich, And Nuremberg " Tawcan

1 month ago | tawcan.com | Bob Lai

Two weeks ago, I went on my first business trip of 2025 in order to attend two trade shows – Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona and Embedded World in Nuremberg. Since MWC was Monday to Thursday and Embedded World was the following Tuesday to Thursday, I spent the weekend in Munich to avoid flying back and forth between Europe and North America and emitting unnecessary CO2. The 13-day trip was quite interesting with different surprises, as you can see from the random thoughts below.
All-in-one ETF Showdown TD Vs. BMO Vs. IShares Vs. Vanguard - Which One Is Best? » Tawcan

2 months ago | tawcan.com | Bob Lai

Over the years, I have come to really like the all-in-one ETFs from Vanguard and iShares. I like these ETFs because they are a simple way to diversify your portfolio across different sectors and countries. These ETFs also automatically rebalance regularly, making an investor’s life much easier. Due to the popularity of the all-in-one ETFs, both TD and BMO also created similar ETFs. Which company offers the best all-in-one ETFs? Are TD ETFs better? Are iShares ETFs better? Are Vanguard ETFs better?
Common TFSA Mistakes To Avoid " Tawcan

2 months ago | tawcan.com | Bob Lai

A new year means new TFSA contribution room for Canadians and permanent residents 18 years and older. In case you’re not familiar with the TFSA, please check out the ultimate TFSA guide to understand the basics. We really like the TFSA because of its totally tax-free nature. Unlike RRSP withdrawals in which you have to pay taxes at your marginal rate, TFSA withdrawals are completely tax free. Thus, the RRSP is tax-deferred.
Dividend Income - Jan 2025 Update » Tawcan

2 months ago | tawcan.com | Bob Lai

Welcome to the first monthly dividend update for 2025!Who could have predicted that we would see so much volatility in the stock market in the first two months of 2025? I certainly didn’t!As you can see from the chart above, the market took a beating shortly after the inauguration of “the orange man.” The 25% tariffs to Canadian and Mexican products, and the 10% tariffs to Chinese products sent the market on a downward spiral.