Dividend income
Can you live off dividends? The numbers to check first
Dividend income can help fund spending, but the plan only works if the capital, tax and payer concentration hold up under real numbers.
Blog
Practical guides for dividend, return and tax analysis.
Clear explanations for broker exports, dividend tracking, XIRR, allocation and UK tax workflows, written around the real limits of the underlying data.
Topics
- 01
Dividend tracking from broker files
- 02
XIRR and return interpretation
- 03
UK CGT estimates from exports
Dividend investing
The pros and cons of dividend investing, without the folklore
Dividends are useful cash flow, not free return. The trade-off is behaviour, tax, concentration and total return.
Fees & costs
How investment fees quietly erode your portfolio
Fees look small because they are quoted annually. Over decades, platform costs, fund charges and FX friction can take a very visible share of the result.
Portfolio design
Portfolio mistakes that make diversification look better than it is
A portfolio can look busy and still depend on the same handful of holdings. The important question is what you actually own underneath.
Dividend tracking
How to track Trading 212 dividends from CSV and monthly PDFs
Start with the transaction CSV for the cleanest dividend history. Add monthly PDFs when you need reconciliation or current holdings context.
Returns analysis
Why XIRR looks wrong in portfolio apps
XIRR is a cash-flow calculation. If deposits, withdrawals or the current value are missing, the percentage can look absurd for completely mechanical reasons.
UK CGT
How to use broker exports for UK CGT estimates
A broker export can be enough for a useful CGT working view, but only if it covers the buys behind the sells.