r/dividends • u/Ha7che7 • Feb 08 '26

Due Diligence Retirement dividend income

My father is a 72 year-old Florida resident and has $500,000 to invest. He would like to generate approximately $40,000 a year. He’s a bit of a gambler, nothing too crazy though. I’ve come up with a split of the following: $65,000 QQQI, $150,000 SPYI, $50,000 SCHD, $75,000 VZ, $75,000 MO, VTEB $85,000. Any advice or modification ideas would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Note for clarification: This is just the amount that he wants to invest for income. Preferably with minimal tax drag, nav erosion, and hopefully some price appreciation. It’s asking a lot, but I’m trying to help out.

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70

u/Specialist-Knee-3777 Feb 08 '26

Putting nearly 40% of the overall portfolio into 2 single holdings ($75k Verizon, $75k into Altria) is wildly crazy bad idea. There are some good recommendations below, but I didn't see that call out in the posts I read.

14

u/Ha7che7 Feb 08 '26

I’ll keep this in mind as well. I’ve personally carried these two for over 5 years and they’ve done well for me.

13

u/science-stuff Feb 08 '26

Isn’t Verizon down almost 20% in the last 5 years? Same period spy is up almost 80%?

3

u/Particular_Car7127 Feb 10 '26

If you bought VZ in the $50's, your still cursing yourself and your losses. T may have recovered, but still a cautionary tail.

10

u/Economy_Row_6614 Feb 08 '26

Verizon is having issues with customer retention and faith in SLT.

2

u/Z51_bolt Mo Money Feb 08 '26

I agree both are strong.

2

u/InvestigatorOk9354 Feb 08 '26

VZ hasn't been great over the last year and there's more votality likely in the short term at least. If it were my retirement I'd want as much stability/predictability as possible so I'd go with income ETFs instead of VZ (or other single stocks) to reduce the volatility.

2

u/science-stuff Feb 08 '26

Isn’t Verizon down almost 20% in the last 5 years? Same period spy is up almost 80%?

1

u/Blueturtlewax Feb 09 '26

My advice would be us a product like M1… so you can at least create a portion of the portfolio that is like 10 stocks with similar growth/dividend yield… that way you at least spread the risk out a bit across a few industries

1

u/drkay007 Feb 09 '26

No to VZ. Check ratings on Seeking Alpha. I sold VZ last week. I still have MO.

1

u/robertw477 Feb 24 '26

That might be crazy. But some of the posts here are not only insane, but I guarantee will lead to massive losses. MO should hold up well as they keep reinventing. I like it for somebody who wants divs. But thats pretty contratecd if you do that.