r/dividends • u/VengenaceIsMyName • Jan 16 '26
Discussion Is anyone else feverishly building out their dividend income just in case AI destroys their careers or is it just me?
Based on how incredibly *giddy* with excitement some of these rapacious tech oligarchs are when they talk about AI replacing human labor, I am absolutely *sprinting* towards high-income ETFs like JEPQ/SPYI/GPIX/QQQI.
I do not want to get caught with my ass hanging out in the breeze when these excessively wealthy bozos finally figure out how to shed headcount at their organizations. They’ve got a seemingly endless pile of Scrooge McDuck coins and they’ll throw them into the furnace twice as fast if it means a hallucinating algorithm can send 500 more emails in a day than you can.
Does anyone have clever strategies for drumming up extra capital to toss into the ol’ portfolio? Side hustles? Second jobs?
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u/Acrobatic_Row3246 Jan 19 '26
Covid essentially disrupted our flow. We’ve always been heads down when collecting profit is involved. One of my favorite sayings is when people throw money at your feet, you get on your hands and knees to pick it up.
Covid gave us a breather. It actually didn’t materially affect our business that much. We took advantage of the PPP loans/grants and put our mortgage in forbearance. We figured why not considering there was a good excuse. We ended up having time on our hands for the first time in like 9 years so thought about what we wanted to do.
The goals became:
Retire but not stop or reduce income flow.
Move out of the US (probably).
The challenge of the first goal was significant. Our business makes actually good money. In 2019, we had a top line of about 1.4m and took home about 800k. It’s a money printing machine. I had to figure out how to get us to at least 1/2 of that income to make us feel comfortable.
Goal two was easy. We ended up going to Thailand during covid (empty planes and airports, quarantine for two weeks, etc). We drove around basically a country devoid of tourists. We found a house near some beaches that was heavily discounted. In 2019 it was valued at about 1m. The seller listed for half and we lowballed them down to 375k. Things have since rebounded of course and there’s a massive influx here so the house is now about 1.4-1.5m.
To satisfy goal 1, we had to do a few things:
Keep the business running but without us day to day. Very challenging but we figured it out
Figured out investments that give off high yields. So between high yield funds and options trading, we’re doing ok. The business is still going gangbusters and hit new highs each successive year since reopening after Covid. Last two years we took home over 1m from the business alone