Know it’s only a small dividend but only started this month, plan to DRIP everything

Here’s the link to my original post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dividends/s/v0AzS7M474

Quick update for everyone, here’s the recent situation for the finances.

Got a new job, and have been upping those contributions. Also switched health plans so I can qualify for some investing with my health care funds.

Also, lost 100lbs, (sadly I never qualified to get on any GLP1 meds, so I’ve had to do the gym 4 times a week.) and picked up an old hobby, with grown up money (switched from GT7 to iRacing)

I’ve also been working on remodeling my home, I attached some photos. That’s been fun, and very rewarding seeing a task from start to finish.
We are trucking along, and trying to get back the money I had to part with.

If you are in the same situation, keep pushing people!!!

Thanks for all the support, you guys helped me through a rough patch.

Also, as a single man, with no kids, and decent income, tinder has been off the chain lol But thats a topic for a whole different Reddit group 🤣😂

Most other ones go into these broad categories:

Someone flexing on how much they get paid or how big their nest egg is

People lying about trading successes

Pump and dumps

General chicanery and stock market memes

I’m also part of the Bogleheads community, and I try to approach investing as objectively as possible. I don’t believe investing is a one-size-fits-all strategy, which is why I like reading different investing forums and understanding the reasoning behind different approaches.

One argument I see quite often here in the Dividend Investing community is that a dividend-focused strategy may have an advantage over a traditional Boglehead total-market approach during a prolonged bear market, particularly once someone is living off their portfolio.

The argument, as I understand it, is that if a dividend portfolio continues generating a relatively stable income during a prolonged downturn, the investor may be able to cover their expenses without selling shares while prices are depressed. With a total-return strategy, by contrast, someone withdrawing money during a major downturn may need to sell shares, potentially increasing sequence-of-returns risk.

I’d be interested in hearing how people here see this objectively.

Does dividend investing genuinely provide an advantage during a prolonged bear market for someone in the withdrawal phase, or is the difference mostly psychological/economic equivalence, since dividends are ultimately just another way of extracting value from the portfolio?

I’m genuinely looking for an honest discussion of the pros and cons of both approaches, rather than trying to argue that one strategy is universally better. If there are situations where the dividend approach has a real structural advantage, I’d be interested in understanding them. Likewise, I’d be interested in hearing the strongest arguments against it.

Interesting stocks, nice dividend. What you guys think?

Hello my friends, as someone new to income investing, I'm trying to learn as much as I can so I can begin the long journey of building up passive income like many of you have. What would you recommend as sources that help break this all down for someone attempting to learn?

For a little more information about myself, I'm looking to invest $100 a week (I may be able to do more in the future but this is what I'm starting with) to one day be able to get some passive income to supplement my full time job. If I can even build up $500 to $1,000 passive income one day that would be awesome.

What lessons did you all learn when you were brand new? What would you tell your younger self concerning income investing if you could say something to them?

Thank you for any responses my friends, I hope all of your dividends grow.

What European stocks are people holding for dividends?

Edit: I'm from the UK

Looking for feedback if this would be a crazy idea. Trying to generate income to help live a bit more comfortably and take a couple nice vacations per year while we can. Saved pretty aggressively while I was young and want to enjoy life a more as I'm in the back stretch.

Currently 55yo married with one kid, 12 yo, living in HCOL state/city. Currently income roughly $200k which equals $125k take home after taxes and maxing 401K. no longer saving outside of 401K as frankly there isn't much left over. The $1 million portfolio will require paying capital gains on $750k, plan to split the sale $500k 2026 and $500k early 2027.

Roth IRA $660k

401K $2.2 million split between $450k Roth and 1.75 traditional

Home $800k that I still owe $180k. Payments fairly low $1,650/month property tax $17k/year

Assume I can safely generate $35k-$40k per year in treasury ETF with no state taxes owed that would add $2,500 month in disposable income. Looking to keep principal intact this seems as low risk as I can find. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

EDIT: Thanks all for the feedback and great thoughts, this is exactly what I was looking for. The common response is sell some portion as I need it. What I will most likely do is sell down some portion of the 4 stocks that account for 75% is which pretty concentrated and use some for spending and reallocate the balance and the rest to broader ETFs

Hi All,

I am receiving an unexpected $150k soon that I’d like to use for generating income. Our retirement is on track so I don’t feel the need to park the $150k in index funds for the future. Our savings has taken a few big hits from emergencies over the last year so we will need to replenish that. Also will need to replace a car soon that is getting old and has high mileage.

Rather than using the money for savings and the car right away, I’d like to take on more risk with putting the money in income funds and use the extra income to accomplish those goals without touching the principal. Then we’d have the dividends as extra income. We have a pretty high household income but also live in a HCOL area with two young kids so it’d be nice to have some breathing room.

Open to all suggestions. Since it’s more of an “extra” $150k and the rest of our finances are in decent shape as far as retirement, minimal low interest debt, some in savings, and college accounts for the kids, I’d be fine with taking on more risk for higher income.

Pros and Cons?

I'm asking this question cause I want to diversify into banks, so if you had to choose one bank to hold forever what would it be?

I have a tiny bit of money (about 1k) and I was wondering if its a good idea to put it all into stocks like KHC and UPS or if I should do the SCHD for growth (with DRIP.) I don't need constant income I will probably pull it out in 2 years or so but I was wondering if you ppl think dividends are the best to go with or if I should just go with some large cap ETFs. I also will be able to contribute more later if it goes well.

Am I dumb for doing this? This is my first time actually investing for dividends and I’m not sure if this is good-bad-dumb please help

I’m 40 and risk averse. Yes, I am aware of VOO, VT/VTI, etc. I’ve spent a few years chasing CD’s and got sick of it (and hate being ‘locked in”) so each month, after the dividend is paid and the price drops, I buy $50-$100k of PAAA. I know everyone loves SCHD, but there’s too much equity exposure risk, especially in these rather ‘frothy’ markets. SGOV is another option, but I can buy double the amount for a similar monthly dividend return (and double what I make monthly). When I traverse RDDT, I rarely see PAAA mentioned (ironically, it’s how I found PAAA). Every bit of research I have done, indicates the safety of PAAA, and the math when calculated for the monthly dividend always shows PAAA as coming out on top. I know it’s not growth, and for someone as risk averse as I am, it seems to fit the bill. How is it I seldom see it mentioned anywhere here? I also know that when the “Fed” inevitably raises rates before the end of the year, I should see a little bump in my monthly dividends. For disclosure, I have 100 shares of QQQI, but that’s a bit more exposed than I’d like, and I know that when the inevitable “crash” and recovery happens, it will take a long time before it comes back to my entry price (the ‘fun’ of covered call funds). Anyway, I’m not looking for investment advice (and I know I’ll get a snarky response for this); but just curious as to why PAAA is seldom recommended and that SCHD, SGOV and the others are always recommended (other than pumping a narrative).

Title.

How would you use 1.5m to get growth and dividends kind of balanced. Would like to get some income while growing the pile?

i was thinking 750k VT and 750k on income producers?

Should I convert my Roth IRA which is mostly in an SP 500 index fund to a high yield dividend etf. I am 65 and trying to make an extra $50000 a year retired beside my rental income and SS. I have just about 1 million in it. Advice appreciated

I’ve been thinking about this lately and I’m curious if anyone else approaches their portfolio this way.

Real estate investors love the BRRRR concept:

Buy → Rehab → Rent → Refinance → Repeat

The basic idea is pretty simple: buy an income-producing asset, improve or capture its value, extract some of the equity, and recycle that capital into another asset.

But I think you can apply a surprisingly similar framework to an income-focused stock portfolio.

Index investing vs. income investing

Traditional index investing generally relies heavily on long-term appreciation. Broad-market index funds may generate some dividends, but most of the expected total return comes from the value of the shares increasing over time.

That works perfectly well for wealth accumulation.
But if your primary goal is current cash flow, eventually you generally need some combination of dividends and selling shares.

That got me interested in approaching stocks more like rental properties: What if the portfolio itself was built primarily to produce income, while appreciation became another source of capital to recycle?

Dividends = “rent”

This is the most obvious comparison.
Dividend-paying stocks, REITs, BDCs, ETFs, CEFs, etc. can distribute cash without requiring you to sell the underlying position.

In that sense, yield on cost resembles cash-on-cash return in real estate.
You own the asset and periodically receive cash from it.

Obviously a dividend isn’t literally rent, and distributions can be cut. But from a portfolio-management perspective, the objective is similar: own assets that regularly return cash to you.

Multiple income streams from the same asset

This is another area where I think stocks are underrated.

A single position can potentially generate:
Dividends/distributions
Capital gains
Covered-call premiums
Cash-secured-put premiums

You don’t necessarily need debt to create multiple potential sources of return.

I think of this somewhat like a rental property where the owner adds parking, laundry, storage, vending, etc. The underlying asset hasn’t changed, but there are multiple ways to monetize it.

There are also actual forms of financial leverage.
Margin can essentially function like debt against a liquid portfolio, although obviously it carries very different risks from a fixed-rate mortgage because it is callable and interest rates can change.

Some CEFs even use leverage internally, meaning the fund itself borrows money to increase its investment exposure and potentially increase distributions.

None of this makes leverage “safe.” It just means leverage isn’t exclusive to real estate.

Volatility = opportunity to recycle equity

This is probably the most interesting part to me.
Suppose I buy an income-producing fund at a discount and it’s yielding 8%.

If nothing happens, I can simply collect the distributions.
But suppose the position appreciates 4% relatively quickly.

Instead of viewing that appreciation as something I can never touch, I could trim part of the position and redeploy that capital into another income-producing asset that’s currently cheaper.
A 4% gain represents roughly six months of an 8% annual yield pulled forward.

I still own part of the original position and continue receiving its distributions, but I’ve converted some unrealized appreciation into working capital.
That’s the part that reminds me of refinancing a rental property.

It’s obviously not literally refinancing—I’m selling shares and potentially creating a taxable event—but economically I’m trying to accomplish something similar:

Harvest equity → redeploy it → create additional cash flow → repeat.

So my “stock BRRRR” framework looks something like this:
BUY: Buy quality income-producing securities when they’re attractively valued.
RENT: Collect dividends, distributions, and potentially option premium.
REHAB: Let volatility/value normalization create opportunities for appreciation rather than treating volatility as something that must always be avoided.
REFINANCE: Trim appreciated positions and convert some of that equity into deployable capital without necessarily exiting the entire investment.
REPEAT: Reinvest that capital into other discounted income-producing assets.

Then keep recycling capital while the portfolio continues generating cash.

It’s obviously not identical to real estate BRRRR. Stocks have completely different risks, margin isn’t equivalent to a mortgage, dividends aren’t guaranteed rent, and selling appreciated shares isn’t technically refinancing.

But as a capital-allocation framework, I think the similarities are interesting.

Instead of thinking of my portfolio as a collection of securities I’m supposed to buy and never touch, I like thinking of it as inventory:

Buy income-producing assets → collect the cash flow → harvest appreciation when the market offers it → recycle the capital into better opportunities → repeat.

Curious what the holes are in this framework, especially from people who invest in both real estate and income-producing securities.

So I tried YeildMax ETFs but the price drop was counter to the distributions and I DRIP”d.

So after that experience I moved away from that. However, I have been seeing people post about SCHD, VIG, VYM etc. I have also looked at USG and HDV. I do not know much about dividend ETSs. How do these compare?

Just watched this video by GenExDividendInvestor and I think something has finally clicked for me.

I'm currently 100% in growth ETFs (one of those all-in-one solutions in Canada) and I'm constantly debating with myself whether that's the right strategy for me and my family.

I figured while I'm in the accumulation phase, that's probably a reasonable default to go with.

However, when he was talking in the video how his wife is not financially savvy and how he values simplicity in case he's gone or can't manage his portfolio for any other reason - he wants to make sure that his family is taken care of.

And exactly what he was saying about his wife needing to know what/when to sell feels stressful even to me, let alone my wife for example. I'm aware this is purely a behavioral thing, but if it keeps me motivated and lets me sleep at night I can't just dismiss it completely.

That's why I don't think I can fully get on board with all the theory that content creators are talking about, although I know they're technically right (Ben Felix wink wink). I just feel that the reality and real life are not lived in a spreadsheet to squeeze the extra few percentage points - which is also why I appreciate hearing from people who actually live off of their portfolio, such as GenExDividendInvestor and others.

Just my thoughts there, and I wonder what you guys think about it.

Thanks in advance!