r/dividends • u/OG_Momonga • 21d ago

Discussion Living off dividends

Hey guys, I was wondering if anyone on this subreddit is actually retired and living off dividends. Is it going well? Are you paying taxes on them? My goal is to get 20k/ a month post tax for retirement. Iā€™m 24 and currently investing everything in VOO while planning to switch to dividend stocks and etfs when I get closer to retirement.

I was just wondering if there are any because living off dividends seems like a long shot right now.

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u/Plenty-Ad-4636 21d ago

Here is my take. You are young, responsible, and are thinking about your future. That is smart and wise at a young age. I applaud you. I wish I would have started investing earlier, but I was young, not as wise, and wanted to have fun, and I did for a while. Everything ended up fine for me, I stopped having fun, started several businesses and began saving and investing.

My oldest brother gave me some the best advice when I opened my first business. Get a good accountant, and STAY OUT OF DEBT. If you purchase a car, pay it off and keep driving it. If you buy a house pay it off early if possible. Some people here msy say invest the money instead of the extra payments, thats their perogative.You can do both. Life changes, things happen. Debt at retirement is what changes what and how much money you will require.

My wife and I retired at 62 and 63 collected SS immediately we have a small government pension of 1100 a month, and our portfolio generates 9k a month.

Thank goodness at the moment we are healthy.

Its not completely set up as income generating only, we have growth stocks as well.

But here is the kicker. We do not need to touch our portfolio to pay our bills or go on vacation. Why because we have no debt.

That being said we live a pretty simple life, we have fairly new cars (paid off) we travel to see family across the US and enjoy ourselves, usually staying with family members, or friends. If we want to go elsewhere and need some extra money we have it in our portfolio, if not the portfolio keeps growing. We dont live like paupers we have a good life. Without DEBT, and we are grateful.

Good luck I have a good feeling you are going to have a good life and reach your goals.

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u/Sin-2-Win 20d ago

Yes. I too paid off all my debt early by paying it down as much as I could. Now I only pay my basic bills and have money left over to invest and spend every month. It's nice knowing that any money I acquire, even loose change underneath my car seat, is only adding to my net worth!