What, me worry?

Every day, I check my stocks to see how they are doing. I like seeing the green numbers and grumble when I see red. People at work laugh when they hear me checking on the computer at lunch; it's either a "Woohoo" or a Curse. The funny thing is, I don't need to check on my stocks everyday. I only care about the dividends coming in each month and it's guaranteed to be there no matter which country has a melt down or world wide crisis erupts. I swear, the markets are so volatile these days that if someone on wall street farts, it turns into a selling frenzy!

I was recently asked how to tell which stocks pay dividends. When I first started out investing, I would always look up a stock's symbol on Google finance but it would never tell me the dividend history. Then I started looking stock up on Yahoo finance but for some stocks, it wouldn't show that they paid a dividend, even though I knew they did. Then I found the Globe and Mail's investor section with easy to find information with there search function, you don't even need the stock symbol. Just start typing in the name and it auto selects the right stock. For me, it has everything I need to check out a stock; financials, charts, analyst ratings and my favorite, dividend history!

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/

Stick with the blue chip, large and mid cap stocks that have been around a long time. My personal favs are:

• Enbridge
• Bell
• TD
• RBC
• Scotia Bank
• BMO
• Fortis
• Shaw
• Rogers

 There are some I'm not very satisfied with, mostly those who cut dividends recently and in the past, but with time they might make there way into my good books again. So now it's time to sit back and patiently wait for the dividends to come in. It starts with a trickle, but after re-investing the dividends and buying more stocks each year, it will soon turn into a flood of income. The only worries I have are picking which stock to buy next!