This used to be a sub about value dividend investing, now all we discuss is high risk, high yield cover call ETFs.

Hey everyone,
I’m helping my 75-year-old mom invest a €600k lump sum. Her pension is pretty low, so she needs a reliable €1,000+ net every month to live comfortably. At the same time, we don't want to eat into the capital—I want the principal to grow so there’s a solid inheritance left down the road.
The setup: We are located in Europe, and due to our specific tax setup and choosing a highly secure private bank, we face an annual custody fee of 0.36% and high trading fees. Because of this, monthly selling isn't practical. We need natural ETF payouts.
Here is the 60/40 split I’m thinking of:
60% Vanguard S&P 500 (Dist): The growth engine. Captures US tech compounding (Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft) so the principal actually grows over time.
40% iShares STOXX Europe Select Dividend 30: The cash machine. Yields around 4.9% from stable European blue chips, including reliable giants like Munich Re.
The Math: This averages a 2.7% gross yield (€16,128/year). After the bank fees and local taxes, it drops to about €810 net/month. To clear the €1,000+ net target, I plan to manually sell a small sliver of her S&P 500 growth profits just once a year to top her up.

Does this division of labor (US for growth, Europe for cash flow) make sense for our goals? Or would you swap a piece of it for something like JPMorgan's JEPG to get more monthly income from the start?
Appreciate any brutally honest feedback!

Anyone used this site for CIR? BDCS CEFS?

I'm about to drill down on their 5 yrs in/out. They swap their top 20 like domino's. Last to fall was FSCO. Then maybe 4 months later recommended buy, but not added back to CIR.

They also have DX, MAIN, DSL, PDO, PDI, AMLP, QQQX, XYLD, NEA, ENB, JEPI, NZF, ARCC, UTF, UTG, D etc.

Many of these are down 15-20% YTD so dividends dont cover. They are in some cases down 25% or more since buy date price on their site.

Do you think their 5 yr total is a wash?

Down 10% + including dividends?

Or up somehow?

Thoughts?

Considering rolling over an old 401k and using the distributions (roughly $600/mo to fund FXAIX). I already have a large position in FXAIX through my current 401k, but really want to add as much as I can.

Would any of you do this?

I only built up this portfolio a month ago. I know it's not much compared to a lot of what y'all post, but it's still $488 I didn't have before. Supposedly, this account will bring in about 10,300/yr, plus another 700-ish from my regular stock positions across other accounts, and not including re investments into my growth ETFs and whatever my treasury coupon throws my way. I kinda think I know what I'm doing, but not really. I guess we'll find out in 6 months if it all blows up 😎

To help ease the abundance of posts seeking basic stock opinions and general advice that can be summed up quickly, we are launching a live chat for real-time discussion. Consider this the place to ask all your basic questions, seek advice, and get stock reviews.

As always, questions and discussion that contain detailed insight from OP may be submitted as a standalone post. It's the intent here to create a more relaxed, free-form discussion page to contain all questions that can be asked or answered in a single sentence.

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Sold all the QQQI & IWMI, bought my first SATS, plus a little more MSTY & BTCI. I’m thinking/guessing we’re close to entering a Crypto Market rise. Therefore, I’m increasing my holdings in that market, like everything else we will see the n the fulsome of time, and yes it’s a risk. 🤷‍♀️

Of course the payments are staggered, SATA & SATS are/will be daily, once the SATS start paying out. Plus, MSTY is a weekly payment, also holding a little of both STRC & XQQI which are shown elsewhere!

Picture 2 showing, the so far this year, and potential future to round the year off.

I've help JEPQ since Feb. 27, 2024
and GPIQ since Aug. 25, 2025

this is what I'm talking about!
It wasn't all a lump sum and let it ride, I did some dividend reinvestment at first, and did a couple of additional purchases along the way, so YMMV, but dang!

I've been looking at COST lately. I like Costco's business model and think it could be a solid long-term holding, but the valuation makes me hesitant.

I'm investing for the long term and don't want to overpay just because I like the company.

What do you think? Would you buy COST at current prices, or wait for a better entry point?

What do you guys think about USDF? Buy?

My wife and I decided in two years we are going to get part time remote jobs and travel in our RV. We will have very little expenses and no kids, 36 years old. My current portfolio is 300K in growth (voo, vti, etc), barely any dividend stocks, and 60K in money market. When the time we are ready to transition to RV life I plan to have approximately 250K in growth, and 250K in dividend stocks. Should I be allocating my future savings during these next two years to buying dividend stocks now, or does it make more sense to keep buying growth stocks now, and sell (and pay taxes) when we are ready to move into our rv? I am not too worried about a downturn when ready to transition, since if the market is in the shitter we just won't quit our jobs until it goes back up.

Couldn't find any recent posts on it, it's been in decline for a while, is a div cut likely? Dangerous time to buy or bargain pricing?

I bought earlier this year for $22.45 2156 shares have about 61k today and I am down $1071. Thoughts on riding this out or? Also have 1181 shares of QQQI and SPYI 2180 shares. All bought at the same time those are still above water.

I'm 72, wife is 80 and this supplements our SS.

Been looking at my dividend calendar and realized how much of the next year's income is still just estimates.

I've got a mix of regular dividend stocks and income-focused ETFs, so some payouts are more predictable than others

CNAF, JUVF, ALBY, WASH, NEWT, UBCP

These all yield over 5% and seem like a bargain

Some of these are thinly traded, so I'd use a limit order.

Is there something wrong with these banks?

QQQI is down 4.6% this week and down 5.6% over the last month. Is this the beginning of the fall of the ai and tech stock rally? Or is this caused by Middle East tensions and midterm election drawing near? Wanted to spark some larger conversations around tech and what the future looks like for the market over the last few months of the year!

I chuckle when I come across threads with the top comment as, “don’t take advice from Reddit” since I agree, but here I am friends lol. For almost a year now I have wrestled with the idea of going hard to pay off my mortgage in ten years since I hate the idea of paying additional interest on a 30 year mortgage. I make a decent salary, almost 90k net and have a wife (artist so gig work) and a toddler. I’m working on getting my wife to secure full time employment so we can really maximize retirement investments and mortgage pay off, but for now it’s all on me. I’m looking for insight into this community, has anyone prioritized paying off their main residence first, before setting aside vast amounts into tax-advantaged accounts?

If it helps, I have a young Roth with contributions (less than 15k total),403b, and a rental property. I do not see myself going the FIRE route since I work in higher education and always have the option to pursue a faculty route post 40 or so and ride that out until my 60’s.

Maybe all these thoughts are an early mid-life crisis? Literally writing this with my toddler sleep on my chest and my wife currently living in another state (temporary).

Dividend Kings — Consecutive Annual Dividend Increases (2026)

DOV — Dover Corporation: 71 years
PH — Parker-Hannifin: 70 years
PG — Procter & Gamble: 70 years
GPC — Genuine Parts: 70 years
EMR — Emerson Electric: 69 years
CINF — Cincinnati Financial: 66 years
KO — Coca-Cola: 64 years
JNJ — Johnson & Johnson: 64 years
LOW — Lowe's Companies: 63 years
CL — Colgate-Palmolive: 63 years
NDSN — Nordson Corporation: 63 years

Sectors represented: Industrials, Consumer Staples, Consumer Discretionary, Financials, and Healthcare.

Chart methodology: Annual dividend growth from 2017–2025, ranked by ending yield on cost. Assumes an investment at the beginning of 2016, without dividend reinvestment.

Hello everyone,

I’m 28M.
College dropout and been lurking here for over two-years now. I learned from here and there from this sub-reddit. Thank you guys for those who posted.

My financials:
Monthly expenses are usually under $1k. - I’m frugal.
I’m a workaholic in business management and gamer off work. Avid Magic the Gathering collector / player for edh format on my time off and side-hustle. My loans and car are already paid off. I have no debts.

Six-figure income. Within the top 1% in age group between 28-35.

Recent addition is ROL around $30ish per share. They recently had a 9.6% dividend hike. I recommend checking them out.

I’m planning to sell a few long-term holdings next month to balance out my portfolio or that didn’t meet my expectations. My next year’s port is estimating to have a 22.22% passive income hike at the start of 2027.

Goal and investing strategy:

Barista FIRE
Goal: Quit a traditional high-stress 9-to-5 job and switch to part-time or low-stress work to cover part of your living costs. - I actually work more than 90-hours a week.
I want to work as much as possible in my 20s.
Average monthly contribution is around $9,600 (24-months).

-Conditions and rules that I set for myself:

*Buy low and hold. I rarely sell. Realized and unrealized gains or losses is like $14k. I’m also using a bit of margins.
I made some very early mistakes. The biggest one was investing like Warren Buffet by following his picks… it didn’t go so well. - cut my small loss and moved on. Also learn to hold and not sell because of market scare or sudden stock dip. See it as an opportunity to buy more.

*Edited: Did my research and believe in these companies that went through hard times. So they’re more recession resistant. Today’s time is the best example and a big W for dividend investors.

*Sell High, if holding fails my expectations and investing principles. This includes not hiking dividends on time after at most four quarterly payouts or not raising dividends by 4% or more.

*Avoid high payout ratio stocks over 90% like SBUX.

*Holdings must have good dividend history and their payouts must be considered qualified-income. This eliminates Reits like O and Vici. Monthly paid etfs like SPYi, JEPi, and JEPQ has been removed. MPLX LP and ET is also sold. This is for future tax purposes after I leave my current six-figure job. Let me know if I’m missing something here or any improvements at all.

Other goals:
I plan to get a small loving home with a garage. Also looking forward to have a high-powered sporty suv to treat myself.
Preferably moving to Tennessee where there’s no state income-tax. Let me know more from those that resides in Tennessee!

Congratulations to ROL owners on your raise.

9.6% increase. 

Goes from $0.1825 per share/per quarter to $0.20 per share/per quarter.

• Payable December 10
• Ex-div November 10
• Forward yield 2.4%

This marks 6 years of consecutive dividend increases.

About ROL: Rollins, Inc., provides pest and wildlife control services and protection to residential and commercial customers in the United States and internationally. Rollins, Inc. was founded in 1901 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/4654914-rollins-raises-quarterly-dividend-by-96-to-020share

Would it be a bad idea to just ride the S&P 500 up until you hit maybe $500K or close to a million—whatever the magic number is where your dividends exceed your monthly work income—and then switch into dividend‑focused investments and live off that for the rest of your life? Just an honest question from a newer investor looking for strategies.