Want to give yourself a raise?

Do you want to increase your income? Could you use a few extra hundred dollars a month? The quickest and easiest way to increase the amount of money coming into your pocket is by collecting dividends.

Think of dividends as rent money coming to you. If you owned an apartment building, you as the landlord would receive rent from your tenants. But you would also have to deal with lousy tenants, and building maintenance.  As a shareholder you receive dividends (money) just for owning a stock, and you don’t have to worry about all the headaches that come with owning an apartment building.

Here’s a look back at some of the dividends (per share) from 10 years ago:

• American Express $0.48
• Coca-Cola $0.56
• Disney $0.24
• General Mills $0.64
• Home Depot $0.36
• IBM $0.78
• McDonald’s $0.67
• Rogers Communication $0.06
• Royal Bank of Canada $1.18
• UnitedHealth $0.02

If you owned 300 shares in each of the 10 companies listed above you would have received $1497 in dividends annually.

But how do you increase your dividends? You really don’t have to do any extra work; you just need to continue owning those shares. Quality companies regularly increase dividends each year, most of these companies have been increasing dividends for decades:

• Coca-Cola: 53 years of consecutive dividend increases
• IBM: 21 years of consecutive dividend increases
• McDonald’s: 39 years of consecutive dividend increases

Today the dividends paid out by those same 10 companies listed above have risen; here are the dividends (per share) today:

• American Express $1.16
• Coca-Cola $1.40
• Disney $1.42
• General Mills $1.92
• Home Depot $2.76
• IBM $5.60
• McDonald’s $3.56
• Rogers Communication $1.92
• Royal Bank of Canada $3.32
• UnitedHealth $2.50

The $1497 in dividends have risen to $7668 in dividends today, and all you had to do was hold on to those 10 companies. This represents an increase of over 412%. Has your salary gone up 412% in 10 years?

In just 10 years your monthly dividend income went from $124.75 to $639. Could you use an extra $639 per month? If you answered yes, then the time to start investing is now. Your future self will thank you for the investing decisions you make today.

Need help to figure out how and which companies to buy? My online easy-to-understand course teaches you how to find these quality companies yourself. No time to take the course? Then my monthly Report provides you with everything you need to become a successful investor.

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