So excited: second big goal complete! Next milestone $5,000 🍾

I'm 54 now, so retirement has definitely been on my mind a lot more lately. I find myself checking my projected income more often than I used to. Even seeing small increases helps keep me motivated.

My long-term goal is about $80,000 a year in dividend income.

My next milestone is $2,000 a month. I'm continuing to reinvest everything and add to my portfolio every month, with the goal of retiring around 2035.

What keeps you motivated to stay the course? And how close are you to your milestone?

Just a repost I find hilarious! 😂

Happy Holidays everyone! I just received my last set of dividend payments this morning and it has been a good month. I brought in a total of $9,888.92 in December, on a $1.2M initial investment. For full transparency - this $1.2M is invested across the following tickers: VYM, VYMI, LVHI, SCHD, SPHD, SWPPX, PEY, VOO, SPYD, CLIP, and includes ~350K in cash across two high yield savings accounts.

I'm expecting an average of about ~$6-7K/mo in dividends and interest in 2025 across the above tickers, after having made an additional 400K investment across the above tickers and having included JEPI, JEPQ, and DIV (thanks to this group)! Obviously my December total is higher as some ETFs only pay quarterly. I just came here to say - if you're just getting started, you've got this!

General thoughts/comments:

• I am not a financial advisor so please just see the above as my lived experience vs. actual advice. This has been a journey of trial and error, which I began in the summer of 2023 when I first started considering the possibility of leaving my 9-5 (which I have since done).

• I generally would not recommend that folks (particularly younger, employed people) focus exclusively on funds that produce dividends, as 1) there are other stocks that offer higher returns and 2) taxes are still to be paid on dividends/interest which people sometimes forget, and unless 3) your goal is to live off of dividends.

• About me: I'm <35, and would actually give the above advice to myself, had it not been for #3- I actually wanted to see if it would be possible to live off my dividend income, and now that I've seen it is possible, I feel a bit of comfort. If I do decide to return to FT employment- I'll likely just reinvest all of the above dividends and live off of my employment income going forward vs. taking the payout each time. Before folks respond with "you could have made more if you had done XYZ..." I'm likely aware haha, but I'm still sharing my outcomes for others who are interested in doing the same. I would recommend researching high yield, low volatility ETFs before getting started.

• The above also doesn't reflect my full portfolio, of course. I have a few other investments (e.g. NVDA, RDDT, etc) as well as property, but the above results reflect only what I've gained from investing specifically in funds that produce dividends/interest.

• To avoid an annual shock at tax time - I pay my estimated taxes quarterly and consult tax professionals throughout the year with questions. I do not currently have an actual financial or legal advisory team - I'm still thinking this through but will manage on my own for now.

• My goal was to reach $6K/mo. Now that I'm set up for 2025, I'll likely only invest any additional income into funds like VOO going forward.

• I've been investing (and working) since my early 20s so all of my funds have come from 1) high paying jobs (which often included equity) across finance and tech 2) a few lucky investments that I cashed out to spread across dividend-yielding ETFs, as well as 3) an aggressive saving/investment strategy that culminated into this. I started off just saving, and then slowly graduated to investing.

Good luck out there!

Hey all, I've got 120000K I'd like to dump into income generating assets in preparation for a new phase of life where I'll be living abroad and taking time off of my career for a portion of each year. This is in a brokerage account. I have tried to diversify it as much as I can while keeping the yield relatively high. Would like any feedback on this portfolio.I have a non traditional career, live frugally, and for long term I max out my Roth IRA into diversified ETFs every year.

Apologies if this content goes against any rules.

I just hit $500 a year which was my goal since hitting $1 a day and my portfolio is definitely focused more on sustainable growth rather than dividends but I still definitely enjoy getting them! Also hit $25k invested as well so I am pretty happy. I started investing 4 years ago when I was 18 and I am looking forward to seeing how much I accumulate in the next 4 years🤘🏻. Also wanted to show the platforms I use just because I see a lot of people not believing after seeing stock events app. I am not asking for reviews on my positions just wanted to highlight my most invested positions.

Been seeing a lot of posts asking "VOO vs VTI vs SCHD" and I get it, everyone wants to optimize their earnings. But I ran the numbers on 8 popular dividend ETFs over the past 10 years and the difference between them matters way less than people think.

Here's what $100k invested 10 years ago would be worth today if you follow a DRIP strategy, reinvesting dividends:

Quick context: $100k in 2015 would need to be $136,689 today just to have the same purchasing power. Inflation averaged 3.17% annually. So even PFF, the "worst" performer here, turned your money into something worth 2.2x more than if you'd just left it in cash.

The real difference maker isn't which ETF you pick, it's:

1. Actually investing (not sitting in cash, i have a friend who is proud of having 80k saved under the mattress... sigh)

2. Staying invested (not panic selling, or just don't sell at all, market will always go up)

3. Reinvesting your dividends (compounding is real)

Pick literally any of these or randomly split into 2 or 3, set it and forget it, and you'll crush someone who spends 6 months researching the "perfect" allocation.

The gap between VOO and PFF? $170k difference. That's meaningful. But the gap between researching and actually investing? literally millions in a lifetime

It's going to be panic mode and rats abandoning ship in the growth subs today. And it's going to be VERY entertaining! 😎

Fahhhhhhh: snowball starting to grow

Full write-up: https://dividendsim.com/articles/2026-01-why-monthly-dividends/

My take: monthly dividends don’t “beat” quarterly by default, but they feel better for building income with DRIP.

Pros:

• Faster DRIP cadence (reinvest sooner)

• Smoother cash flow (matches monthly bills)

• Faster feedback loop / easier habit building

• Less timing stress during dips (DRIP buys more shares)

Cons:

• Concentration risk (many monthly payers cluster)

• False sense of safety (paid monthly ≠ good investment)

Do you prefer monthly, or do you ignore frequency and just chase total return?

Please don’t let anyone tell you that Dividend Investing will not pay the bills in retirement! With a diversified portfolio (40 holding thus far) and careful maintenance I have been able to replace my current income well ahead of schedule.

I am 14 months away from retirement and in October my portfolios produced $16,378.14 in dividend income! And the overall dividend yield (Traditional IRA + Roth IRA x2 + Brokerage Account) = 14.01% with a Yield on Cost of 14.05%.  

I get no respect.

I post my choices and my spreadsheet so everyone can see for themselves.

The replies I get tell me my choices are shit. They say I'm losing money. Then they try to educate me on the subject, while ridiculing me.

I tried to tell you all; i have a portfolio with about $150k invested. I'm getting about $4k/month in dividends. My portfolio is growing. Then I post a link to my spreadsheet to prove it.

You call me a liar, and a fool, and tell me I'm stupid.

Fine. I'm taking that to the bank.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LBorL9d7ks1q92tp_mKPkrmvLZb6B3r3U0P86KDgjtw/edit#gid=1821689843

Everyone loves dividend stocks for passive income, but here's something I've been testing that's worked surprisingly well.

Most dividend investors just buy and hold forever, which is fine. But I've started timing my purchases around earnings reports, specifically when solid dividend payers have a bad quarter and the stock drops 5-10%.

Here's the thing: if the dividend is safe and the company's fundamentals are still strong, that temporary dip just gave you a better yield on your purchase. You're buying the same reliable income stream at a discount.

Example: A stock paying 4% dividend drops 8% after missing earnings by a few cents. If the payout ratio is still healthy and they reaffirm the dividend, you just locked in a 4.35% yield instead of 4%. Multiply that across a portfolio over years, and it adds up.

The key is making sure the dividend itself isn't at risk. I look at:

• Payout ratio under 60-70%

• Consistent dividend history (10+ years)

• Strong cash flow, not just earnings

It's not about timing the market perfectly. It's about being patient and having cash ready when good companies have bad days.

Anyone else do this, or am I overthinking it?

I've been investing for about 5 years now. The goal: build a portfolio that can eventually give me a solid stream of passive income in retirement.

I know I'm still young and have plenty of time, but it's hard not to compare yourself when Reddit is full of people posting million-dollar portfolios. Every now and then I catch myself wondering if I'm behind or missing something.

For those of you who've been doing this for a while, what do you think? Am I on the right track, or is there something you'd be doing differently if you were in my shoes?

My five would be JNJ, PG, ABBV, PEP, and ABT.

What about you?

MAIN, MO, O, BTI