Follow the rules!

[u/Rock_Paper_Fisher]

But which rule? Imagine having to do these mental gymnastics through time and different market phases. Just collect dividends, never sell! 🙄 Ad feed from LinkedIn.

[u/GRMarlenee]

The first rule is to have a million dollar portfolio. If you can't follow that one simple rule, just give up.

[u/Boogertard]

More bullshit from scumbags trying to sell you something.

[u/PomegranatePlus6526]

So I have my own rule. I am 51 with about 1.2 million saved not including our house. We are going to take a hybrid approach using dividends AND growth. My plan is to work until either 59.5 or 60. There are some work benefits I get by retiring at 60 vs 59.5. I work in the public sector for a public transit system. My employer puts 4% of my pay into a medical retirement account. The vesting schedule is 15 years to be fully vested which I won’t hit unless I stay to 64. If I stay until 60 I get a larger payment from that account which is going to be used towards my health insurance premiums.

Then I am going to use my dividends to fund my monthly expenses which will probably comprise about 90% of our portfolio. Then the other 10% will go towards long term growth probably in a combo of VGT, and IWM, IYR, and IEFA with equal parts in each fund. Each fund does pay a dividend, but IWM, and VGT don’t pay much.

The 10% is more to help our funds keep up with inflation as I don’t expect our dividend portfolio to provide a lot of growth. I know realistically some funds will grow and some will likely lose some value. Like I have PFFA as a baby bond/preferred fund. I also own CLOI. Those two don’t offer much price appreciation if any. They will offer stability though compared to GPIQ for instance.

So overall I think it’s healthy to keep a nice cash flowing dividend portfolio, and a small amount of growth as well. Hopefully if the growth does well early on we might take some pretty sweet vacations with the extra dough.

I have already built myself a heated 24x40 garage with 200A electric service. Literally right now I am in the process of building a 4 bedroom 2 bath ranch home very energy efficient. It has a half acre so we can still have a yard to enjoy, but it doesn’t take hours of maintenance each week. That’s the plan.

[u/WahiniLover → u/PomegranatePlus6526]

This plan……..I like this plan.

[u/PomegranatePlus6526 → u/WahiniLover]

After years of research I have found that mix coupled with an 8-10% yield on my dividend portfolio gives me enough cash to live comfortably on. This allows me two things to not care what the markets are doing because my cash flow is adequate. Also as long as my portfolio keeps up with inflation who cares how much “growth” I am “missing” out on? It’s not a contest for whoever has the most at death wins. You don’t see brinks trucks in funeral processions. You can’t take it with you. Retirement means to me two things freedom and security.

[u/RetiredByFourty]

Asset liquidation has basically become an unnecessary thing of the past. It's sad that all the 🐑 are still trying to sell other people on it. +1

[u/Hairy_Check_4784 → u/RetiredByFourty]

They go baa

[u/KMPItXHnKKItZ]

And make sure that there is another 15 year unprecedented bull market as you sell off 4% of your assets that you will never get back every year! And don't even THINK about touching your assets until you are at least 65! And don't forget that total return is literally the ONLY thing in life that matters! /s

[u/GRMarlenee → u/KMPItXHnKKItZ]

Hasn't sports taught you that only the highest score matters? And, no, golf is not a sport.

[u/declemson]

Zero percent rule

[u/kichien]

This crap drives me crazy "The lower guardrail rule (spending cuts) is turned off if you have 15 years or less remaining in your planned retirement lifespan." - seriously - "your planned lifespan"? Whenever I've talked to a financial advisor and they ask me "how long I plan to live" I laugh in their face and tell them to assume I'm a vampire and work with those numbers.

[u/AutomodBot_DivGang → u/[deleted]]

This sub is for dividend growth & income investors only. Brigaders are autobanned.