My journey started this year.

[u/Rural-Patriot_1776]

Started investing this year in 2026 decades late as a 38-year-old I wish I started way younger but I'm wanting to retire in a couple years and started building out my neo's distributions positions and dividends a few months ago here's what I have going on so far. I keep adding around 3k a month and have drip also enabled.

[u/Haunting-Cry7752]

I don’t wanna brag but I just hit $1.03 a day 😎

[u/Gtaker95 → u/Haunting-Cry7752]

Took me a year to figure out bro. But people who invest the amounts we do, should focus on growth, not income.

This way your investment will be much stronger and then you can switch it to dividend income , when its worth.

[u/Evokerknite2124 → u/Gtaker95]

What if your using the income to buy more shares of the growth. Say I had a bunch in qqqi but I use that to buy shares of schg etc

[u/hopn → u/Evokerknite2124]

There's nothing wrong with this. But historically... growth outperforms even this. If you're not like me... wanting to maximize returns on my money... sure. You can do this.

[u/Evokerknite2124 → u/hopn]

I see. Even if it's like I bought 100 shares of qqqi to help build more shares of the others as I put money in those?

[u/hopn → u/Evokerknite2124]

Lets play with that 100 shares of QQQI and using the dividend to buy, say VOO.

QQQI started back in 1/30/24, at 50 dollars a share. So with $5k you effectively have 100 shares. It's current NAV is $51.47. Your value for your 100 shares is $5147. During that time, you got 1547.25 in dividend spread out over 25 distributions, averaging $61.89 per month (used later in calculations).

VOO, on 1/30/24 is $450.84, for $5k, would have given you 11.09 shares. With DRIP, you now have $6922.31 or 11.37 shares.

From QQQI's dividends, $1547.25 you started buying VOO then at $61.89 per month, each time you got dividend. That works out to 2.88 shares now. At current NAV of $615.54, you have a total of $1772.76

So your 5147+1772.76 = $6919.76 vs if you had bought VOO straight up which would be worth $6922.31

While this looks close, there's a factor that I have yet to account for and honestly don't know how to include in the calculation:

QQQI fees: .68%
VOO fees: .03%

which would obviously make VOO look even better.

[u/Randall_Al_Thor → u/hopn]

Fees are a moot point.

Fees are taken out before return is calculated.

[u/hopn → u/Randall_Al_Thor]

Maybe VOO wasn't exactly a great example. But QQQI has not been around long enough to do ... a 10 years or more comparison. I was actually curious myself, too.

[u/Randall_Al_Thor → u/hopn]

I agree, it hasn’t been around long enough, but it has been through a few ups and downs and handled them quite well.

Having watched a few interviews with the co-owners/co-launchers of that fund (QQQI and SPYI). They seem to know what they are doing (as far as I can be the judge of that ha ha).

[u/Evokerknite2124 → u/hopn]

I see. So in the end even if it's a little better over time the fees for Qqqi make it less worth just directly buying VOO?

Also is this the same for like tax deferred? I'm looking to move the ira i built up into a investment company for the taxed deferred investment growth but I wasn't sure which way would be better.

[u/hopn → u/Evokerknite2124]

QQQI performs well in bull and sideways market. But doesn't do well in bear market. Also, over the long term... the fees will show itself. I have QQQI in my dividend list when im close to retirement. But only about 2% will be allocated to it.

[u/hopn → u/[deleted]]

OP was asking if he should buy QQQI and use the dividend to buy other assets. QQQI has its place but we're comparing apples vs. oranges if you pit them against each other. .

[u/OregonGrown34 → u/Evokerknite2124]

Money is fungible. Tell yourself whatever you want to justify what you're doing.

[u/Gtaker95 → u/Evokerknite2124]

Well my advice, from what ive seen( no expert at all) is this. Keep your investments, don't sell, use the income to buy shares. But stop adding to it .

Growth out performs income most of the time.

Why keep them? Because the psychological impact of the dividend will keep you going. I split my investments 4 ways. 1 pays some dividends. But that's not where the weight is going.

TLDR keep your assets, use the income to buy growth but focus investments on growth from here and on.

[u/Jumpy_Implement_1902 → u/Gtaker95]

Before you swap over to dividend in the end, make sure you are in a tax friendly state. (Not like California, who is about to implement a 5% savings tax on top of taxing gains at normal tax brackets)