Stick To The Plan

You have a plan, make sure you stick to the plan.

Hey everyone

Sorry for the late post. Wow what a interesting time eh? Over the last week my stance has changed quite a bit. A lot of you have been leaving comments and emailing me about how bad things are getting and basically I should move forward with caution. I now agree, things have gotten a lot worse around the world.

Clearly the U.S is leading the world now in cases. Trump has always been obsessed with the market and the economy in general and seems to want to get people back to work as soon as possible. I don’t see that curve flattening anytime soon. Did you see everyone on the beaches during spring break?

With March break right behind us I think the next 2 weeks will be critical.

Here in Canada, I think we are starting to handle it better. Ontario is now under a 2 week lock down for all non essential services. (Although the list of essential services was really long and could be a debate all itself) I also noticed people in general have started to take this a lot more serious these days as well. Let’s all keep our distance and flatten this curve. We need to move past this as soon as possible.

What Have We Been Doing?

Me and the wife are now both off work for the last week and half. Which is actually pretty nice. Sure I’d rather be working or going out to do actual activity’s, but it is what it is. We are constantly occupied playing with the kids, or knocking out that honey to do list. The weather here has been nice so I got the yard all cleaned up, Gardens edged and weeded. The power wheel has been tearing up the backyard and we busted out that fast and furious remote control car again. Yeah I live my life a quarter mile at a time too……

Our neighbourhood backs onto a huge forest with farm fields as well. We have been walking through there nearly everyday with the dog. Its nice because we see wild turkey and deer on the regular and barely ever see people.

I started ripping apart half the deck yesterday since most of the boards were rotted and will finish that later on today. Sometimes I do debate what to do as it’s kind of a double edged sword. Id love to do the whole deck or replace our crappy shed, but at the same time the market seems cheaper and we also got to watch our finances at the moment.

Market Thoughts

The market has rallied a tonne the last couple days because of the printing presses and all these promises. The reality is things will get worse before they get better. Unfortunately there is going to be a lot of people who wont make their rent for April 1st, both Companies and Individuals. From there the snowball will grow. The issues wont be getting toilet paper anymore.

We found out today that Canada’s big banks fielded more than 200 thousand mortgage deferral requests. Each one of those who get approved will get their credit dinged.

The US reported 3.28 million people filed for unemployment last week, double what analysts thought. Remember 2009? The peak then was 665,000 in March 2009. That is mind blowing. Canada’s Numbers are staggering as well nearly 1 million applied for employment insurance last week. You think those numbers will be better next week? Doubtful.

All this news really makes me question Bank’s as an investment at the moment. Clearly I’m heavily invested in them. Canada’s banks have long had the reputation of being the best banks. This will be the ultimate test.. We got all these people going on unemployment, oil getting slaughtered, businesses shut down, low interest environment (just got notice on phone Bank of Canada dropped interest rates again), rent most likely not getting paid, no one renting air b n b’s at the moment and potentially a massive housing crash unravelling.

The Plan

Scary times for sure. It really makes us happy to have paid off all that debt years ago and setup all our passive income sources. I always questioned if the solar panels was the best investment at the time. It feels great to have them but that market was roaring, maybe our money would of been better there. Now its reassuring that world wide events doesn’t effect that investment.

Overall we are just sticking to the plan. We are basically fully invested. (I did sell our position in Emera at a 14% profit plus dividends the last couple years, in case we need the money if things go on longer than anticipated or for better opportunity’s) I also have all our dividend stocks setup to drip, to take advantage of these lower prices! Same as always!

I will continue to deploy money into the market moving forward focusing on top quality blue chips. I wont be touching the airlines, cruise lines, hotels or anything like that other than Disney. I understand some people want to bottom fish, but I don’t think we are at bottom and those sectors are really high risk at the moment in my opinion.

One of our goals was to get a rental property during the next housing crash. While we aren’t there yet, it is something to consider moving forward. Maybe we will focus on maxing those tfsa’s first though. Time will tell.

Conclusion

Clearly we are entering uncharted waters, the world as a whole needs to work together and take things a little more seriously. This morning we found out Boris Johnson, the Uk Prime Minister tested positive for Covid. While I would never wish this on anyone, when a top politician gets it I hope they take this more seriously and focus on people’s lives.

As I stated before I have changed my stance on this issue. It’s more serious than I once thought. Would I of done things differently? I don’t think so. I will continue growing our portfolio on a monthly basis. I do think I have learned some stuff from this ordeal though

• Have a emergency fund or cash for pullbacks
• Focus less on diversifying on all sectors
• Buy more dividend kings!

Well that’s it for now, no purchases this week other than our monthly 250$ purchase in xaw etf. I wish you all the best in health, wealth and good times. Make sure if your off your enjoying this time with your family. We will get past this.

Stick To The Plan, Your future retirement will thank you.

Btw just finished Tiger King on Netflix – check it out if you haven’t. Wow what a show. haha. You watching anything good?

cheers!

Rob

Hey I’m Rob, creator of Passive Canadian Income.

In 2011 me and my wife had almost $60,000 in debt and a negative $7,000 Net Worth. Through hard work and financial education we paid all that off. Now we are focusing on increasing our Passive Income Streams to make the money work for us. Feel Free to Follow along the Journey by clicking the Social Media links below or subscribing to get notified of new posts on the sidebar.