So this is 45!

I turned 45 just a few days ago, on August 27. I arrived in Montreal the weekend after my birthday. As always, I was quite heavily packed!

I came back to Montreal just in time to see my favorite flowers bloom at my favorite park, Square Saint-Louis.

And the famous flowers:

And this was today:

These days, the TSX just keeps going up, up, up! Those gains made it possible for me to hit a $500,000 net worth just a couple of days before my 45th birthday. So yes, I reached $500,000 at 44! Right now, my net worth is around $504,000. It’s still a bit surreal to see it above the $500K mark. My non-registered portfolio closed today’s session at $163,605.10, my U.S. portfolio at US$5,908.57, my RRSP stocks-only portfolio at $94,656.69, and my TFSA at $146,079.48.

My dividend income from my non-registered and TFSA portfolios now averages about $970 per month.

My most recent investment was in Guardian Capital Group Limited (GCG) in both my TFSA and RRSP. It felt like a safe bet, as Guardian is set to be acquired by Desjardins in the next couple of months. I got in a bit late, but I still expect a modest gain, and in the meantime I’ll collect the dividend, it seems pretty low-risk to me. I had several thousand dollars sitting idle, so this felt like an easy temporary solution. That’s my approach these days.

The past couple of months have been fairly expensive. I spent some time in New Brunswick, including a one-week beach vacation. I also bought a new phone and a pair of Samsung Galaxy Buds. They have excellent sound quality, and I can take calls hands-free, no regrets there. I basically had no choice about the phone: my old one was about to stop working because the 3G network is being shut down in Quebec.

I recently made an interesting discovery while listening to BNN Bloomberg: OceanaGold (OGC). This Canadian gold-related stock has a strong overall chart. On Stockopedia, OceanaGold appears on seven screens—several focused on quality. Still trading below $30 per share for now, OGC could make it into my portfolio soon, though only as a small position.