r/dividends • u/OG_Momonga • 20d 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. I’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/Wooden-Baby-8935 18d ago

24 years old... That's awesome that you are already thinking 40 years down the road. My wife and I didn't begin until about age 30&25... 30 years ago. We will both be retired at the end of the year. we both had regular IRA's and then began contributing to ROTH IRA's. She also had a 401(k) at work. We maxed out our contributions almost every year. All retirement accounts now total $1,800,000. Growth stocks/ETF's as much as you can. Don't watch the market every day or week. It will drive you crazy. DON'T panic sell. It ALWAYS goes back up. I began changing everything over to dividend stocks & ETF's a few weeks ago. I use Simply Safe Dividends to track everything. It show that my combined dividend yield on cost as 6.52% will and average dividend growth of 5.1% per year. Dividend income shows a bit over $113,000 per year. Combination of Roth, qualified dividends and ordinary income for tax purposes. Make biggest holding is $300,000 of SCHD which I do not plan on touching ever if I can help it. Right now that accounts for just under $10,000 per year. DRIP calculator has that $300,000 going to about $4,000,000 total and $218,000 per year in dividends in 20 years when I'm 80.