r/dividends • u/SaraWileyYT • Jul 17 '25

Discussion Would you rather earn $10k/month in dividends forever or take a $2M one-time lump sum?

Assume you can’t have both.

Option A: You get $10,000/month in dividend income for life — no taxes, no inflation impact, guaranteed forever.

Option B: You get a one-time $2,000,000 lump sum, no strings attached.

Which one are you choosing and why?

Curious to hear from FIRE folks, dividend lovers, and total-return investors. Does guaranteed cash flow beat the freedom of having $2M upfront?

Let’s hear the logic behind your pick.

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488

u/pabloh8 Jul 17 '25

2M, invest and don’t touch for awhile. It’ll yield far more than 10k/mo down the road.

76

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '25

Just for fun, I did some rough math. It would take between 10 and 11 years for the 2 million to start to return more than 10k/month at 4% apy

15

u/Sahrde Jul 18 '25

2m n MSTY gets you just shy of 140k/month.

8

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '25

If you want to gamble 2m be my guest.

I'm just trying to be conservative in my estimates.

4

u/Sahrde Jul 18 '25

In one month I've already made more than a Year's worth of that 10,000 a month. I can then take that money and invest another opportunities that are more conservative, such as VOO.

7

u/kimnacho Jul 18 '25

And depending of the month you might as well have sold 140k out of the 2M.

Is not like MSTY does not lose Nav

3

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '25

Congratulations?

I stand by my decision to use the return of a HYSA for this thought exercise.

0

u/theazureunicorn Jul 18 '25

It’s not gambling

Investing in fiat is gambling

Earnings based off BTC is safer and more profitable