A thousand dollars can disappear surprisingly quickly. A car repair, a few grocery runs, and suddenly you’re wondering whether money actually enjoys leaving.
Invest it well, however, and that same $1,000 could still be sending money back decades from now.
That doesn’t require finding a stock yielding 10%. In fact, I’d rather start with a company that’s been increasing its dividend for longer than many investors have been alive.
Source: Getty Images
Start small
Dividend investing gets far more interesting with time. A modest payment today can be reinvested into more shares. Those shares generate their own dividends, which can buy still more shares. That’s compound growth doing what it does best. Eventually, investors can stop reinvesting and take those dividends as income instead.
Of course, no dividend is guaranteed for life. The better question is whether the business has enough dependable cash flow and future growth to keep paying shareholders for a very long time. That’s where Fortis (TSX: FTS) gets interesting.
FTS
Fortis owns nine regulated electric and natural gas utilities serving roughly 3.5 million customers across Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean. About 95% of its assets are electricity and gas transmission and distribution infrastructure. People can cancel a streaming subscription, but electricity will always survive the household budget purge.
The regulated model also gives Fortis relatively predictable earnings. It invests in approved infrastructure, adds those investments to its rate base, and earns regulated returns on those assets.
Fortis plans to invest $28.8 billion between 2026 and 2030, supporting expected rate-base growth of about 7% annually. Plus, there’s already movement. Fortis invested $2.7 billion during the first half of 2026 and remains on track for $5.6 billion this year. Second-quarter earnings per share (EPS) also increased to $0.78 from $0.76 last year.
52 years
The real attraction here is the dividend. Fortis currently pays $0.64 per share quarterly, or $2.56 annualized. At a recent price of $75.76, that’s a yield of roughly 3.4%. Here’s what $1,000 gets you today.
Thirty-three dollars annually won’t be changing anyone’s retirement plans yet, but the history behind it is more interesting. Fortis has increased its dividend for 52 consecutive years and currently targets another 4% to 6% of annual dividend growth through 2030.
Reinvest those payments for decades among diversified Canadian dividend stocks, and the income generated by that original $1,000 could become considerably larger.
Considerations
Fortis isn’t cheap. At roughly 20 times forward earnings, investors are paying for that stability.
Utilities also borrow heavily to fund infrastructure. Higher financing costs, regulatory decisions, project delays, and weaker-than-expected rate-base growth could pressure future earnings. Its 3.4% starting yield is also easy to beat elsewhere on the TSX.
Yet a bigger yield doesn’t necessarily mean better lifetime income. A dividend that grows for decades can eventually become much more valuable than one that starts high and gets cut.
Bottom line
I wouldn’t expect $1,000 in Fortis to fund retirement. I would expect it to start something. Thirteen shares can pay $33.28 this year; those dividends can buy more shares, and Fortis plans to keep growing both its regulated asset base and its payout.
If the company can extend anything close to its 52-year dividend-growth record, that first $1,000 could still be sending money back long after you’ve forgotten what else you might have spent it on.
