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Safe Dividend Investing

Safe Dividend Investing

By: Ian Duncan MacDonald
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In 2000, I lost $300,000 in mutual funds that an investment advisor had put my lifesavings into.... I lost it because I had entrusted it to an industry that does not educate investors nor encourage them to look closely at what that industry is doing with their money..... I set out to find a better, safer way to invest..... My podcasts relate to what I learned in creating a generous, reliable income and in growing my wealth.... A few of the more important lessons I learned and explore are:.... (1) It is critical that you become a self-directed investor.....(2) If you can not easily measure the risk and potential in an investment, then do not invest in it. This excludes from your portfolio bundled investment devices, like mutual funds, ETFs and Index funds,..... (3) Financially strong companies who have paid “good dividends” for decades will continue to stay strong and continue to pay good dividends because it is both part of their "character" and in their executives selfish interest.....(4) Diversification is critical. Investing equally in the best 20 strong dividend stocks is the ideal.....A portfolio of 20 limits your risk in any one stock to 5% of your wealth..... No matter how strong you think a stock is, do not fall in love with it..... I have lived very well off my steady dividend income for 18 years, through two market crashes and one pandemic. I have watched my portfolio’s capital more than triple from where I started, despite taking out a generous dividend income every year to live on... In charts, for my second investment book,(Safer Better Dividend Investing), I spent months scoring all 628 dividend stocks paying dividends of 6% or greater traded on the TSX, NYSE and the NASDAQ. I discovered dozens of stocks that can provide not only a generous dividend income but outstanding capital growth.....Financial independence is realizable for careful, patient, dividend investors.

© 2026 Safe Dividend Investing Economics Personal Finance
Episodes
  • Podcast 281 - CASH RESERVES PREPARING FOR UNEXPECTED HIGH EXPENSES

    Podcast 281 - CASH RESERVES PREPARING FOR UNEXPECTED HIGH EXPENSES
    Jun 27 2026

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    Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 281 on June 27th of 2026.

    This week's podcast is about safe investing. It recommends that you build a reserve fund of cash, or near cash, to be drawn upon in emergencies. Whether you like it or not you are going to be surprised by unexpected large expenses critical to your health and well being.

    If you do not have enough cash to cover such unfortunate surprises then you are going to have to quickly borrow money, usually through a credit card. Credit card interest charges very high interest rates if you are unable to pay off your balance each month. With a little bit of planning you can save yourself thousands of dollars in interest charges by creating a reserve fund,

    Growing a portfolio that provides you with independence requires not only requires carefully selecting financially strong stocks paying generous reliable dividends but also carefully managing your expenditures.

    Your path in life is not predestined. You control your investment decisions.

    Ian Duncan MacDonald
    Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
    President of Informus Inc
    2 Vista Humber Drive
    Toronto, Ontario
    Canada, M9P 3R7
    Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
    imacd@informus.ca
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    16 mins
  • Podcast 280 - NOW, IS THE TIME TO OPEN A SELF-DIRECTED INVESTMENT ACCOUNT

    Podcast 280 - NOW, IS THE TIME TO OPEN A SELF-DIRECTED INVESTMENT ACCOUNT
    Jun 21 2026

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    Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 280on June 20th of 2026.

    This podcast is directed at those who frequently listen to my podcasts and even read my, and other writers' investment books. While these listeners may recognize that their income and wealth could be much greater if they were self-directed investors, they fear the idea of testing the waters and actually building a self-directed investment account.

    Anything you have never done before can initially be intimidating - especially if it involves money. However, major banks have made creating a self-directed investment account easy and quick. They put you in total control of your self-directed account.

    All the money you may now be paying a financial advisor can be saved. Over several years this can add up to tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars that is better invested making you money.

    Don't you want to know exactly what you are invested in and why you are invested in it? It will not be like investing in a mutual fund where you have only a vague idea of what your money is invested in and without having direct access to it. With a self-directed investment account, you are in total control.

    For those who keep their life savings in a bank saving account where it is making one percent in interest, you could be averaging an annual 7% dividend return each year plus a gain of 10% of more in the share price of the strong stocks you add to your portfolio. That dividend income keeps coming in even during the inevitable market crashes that you wait. relax while you watch your share prices recover.

    What motivated me to become a self-directed investor was seeing the mutual funds my investment advisor put my money into lose $300,000 in three years. I feared for my retirement and did not buy his explanation that this is just the way things are in the stock market. That was over 20 years ago.

    The value of my portfolio and the dividend income has never stopped growing. You do not have to be a genius to reap the benefits of your own portfolio. Now is a good time to become an independent investor?

    IAN .

    Ian Duncan MacDonald
    Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
    President of Informus Inc
    2 Vista Humber Drive
    Toronto, Ontario
    Canada, M9P 3R7
    Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
    imacd@informus.ca
    Show More Show Less
    17 mins
  • Podcast 279 - WILL MAJOR US FOOD STOCKS BE SAFE IN THE NEXT MARKET CRASH?

    Podcast 279 - WILL MAJOR US FOOD STOCKS BE SAFE IN THE NEXT MARKET CRASH?
    Jun 13 2026

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    Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 279 on June 13th of 2026.

    In this week's podcast I question how many investors are prepared for the next stock market crash. They usually occur every five to ten years. The last one was in 2020 and the current economic conditions make many investors now feel insecure about how their portfolios will weather the storm when it comes.

    My objective is to show investors how to find and select the stocks of financially strong companies with long histories of ever increasing shares price and ever growing high dividends. The kind of dependable, growing stocks that you want to hold for a lifetime. Stocks whose dividend payouts will not decline during the next stock market crash.

    Many investment advisors recommend the stocks of major US food manufacturers as safe stocks to hold if you feel insecure as to how your portfolio will fare during the next market crash. I think you will find my analysis of the five highest US food manufacturing dividend payers raises questions about US food manufacturing stocks whose shares trade in the tens of millions each day.

    IAN .

    Ian Duncan MacDonald
    Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
    President of Informus Inc
    2 Vista Humber Drive
    Toronto, Ontario
    Canada, M9P 3R7
    Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
    imacd@informus.ca
    Show More Show Less
    20 mins
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