5 Easy Steps to Retire Early on $500K

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$500K can be enough money to retire on. Even as early as age 50!

The trick is to convert the pile of cash into cash flow that can pay the bills. I’m talking about $35,000 to $40,000 per year or more in dividend income on that nest egg, thanks to 7% and 8% yields.

These are passive payouts that show up every quarter or, better yet, every month. Meanwhile, we keep that $500K nest egg intact. Or, better yet, grind that principal higher steadily and safely.

Got more in your retirement account? Cool—more monthly dividend income for you!

We’ll talk specific stocks, funds and yields in a moment.… Read more

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$500K can be enough money to retire on. Even as early as age 50!

The trick is to convert the pile of cash into cash flow that can pay the bills. I’m talking about $35,000 to $40,000 per year or more in dividend income on that nest egg, thanks to 7% and 8% yields.

These are passive payouts that show up every quarter or, better yet, every month. Meanwhile, we keep that $500K nest egg intact. Or, better yet, grind that principal higher steadily and safely.

Got more in your retirement account? Cool—more monthly dividend income for you!

We’ll talk specific stocks, funds and yields in a moment.… Read more

Read More

Here’s my best advice as 2022 dawns: ignore the media’s constant bleating about inflation and supply-chain issues—these two boogeymen are nowhere near the threats everyone thinks they are!

In fact, terror-ridden headlines about either mark an opportunity for us contrarian income-seekers. So let’s go ahead and tap these investor fears for dividends yielding up to 10%, plus market-crushing returns as the crowd (inevitably!) comes around to our view.

Hints of a Supply-Chain Revival

More data will come in over the next few weeks to make things clearer, but so far there is one strong hint that the business press’s doomsday scenario—surging inflation, a stock-market correction and tighter corporate profits—just isn’t on.… Read more

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If you’re not yet as filthy rich as you hoped you’d be by now, don’t worry—we still have plenty of time to get you there.

And I’m not talking about investing your “growth capital” into risky fly-by-night names in hopes of buying high and selling higher. We can scale our money more securely—and just as spectacularly—by purchasing sound dividend payers that happen to be growing their payouts rapidly. Here’s why.

There are three—and only three—ways a company’s stock can pay us:

  1. A cash dividend.
  2. A dividend hike.
  3. By repurchasing its own shares.

Everyone loves the dividend, but investors usually don’t give enough love to the dividend hike.… Read more

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These days, I’m hearing from a lot of folks who are pretty nervous, bracing for yet another round of dividend cuts to hit them out of the blue.

It’s understandable. Recently, we’ve seen plenty of dividend “sacred cows,” like Wells Fargo (WFC), mall landlord Simon Property Group (SPG), and senior-care operators Welltower (WELL) and Ventas (VTR) cut or eliminate their payouts.

In the second-quarter of 2020, 244 firms increased their dividends, according to Howard Silverblatt of S&P Dow Jones Indices. That sounds good until we see that 639 companies decreased their payouts. In other words, dividend investors were two-and-a-half times as likely to receive a pay cut as they were a raise.… Read more

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We’re almost three months into this crisis and three things are crystal clear:

  1. Plenty of “household-name” dividend-payers are in big trouble—and not just the ones you see in the news. When the payout cuts come, the resulting share-price drops will crush the unwary.
  2. Way too many people are clinging to blue chips yielding 2% or 3%. But is such a small payout worth it when you can lose that much in a single trading session?
  3. We can’t trust any stated yield until we verify a company’s cash flow.

This may sound a bit alarmist, but imagine if I told you in January that by mid-May, Ford (F), General Motors (GM), Walt Disney (DIS) and Las Vegas Sands (LVS) would have all either eliminated or, in Disney’s case, delayed their dividends.… Read more

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There’s a dangerous myth going around: that stocks are in a bubble, and if you buy now, you’ll lose money.

This myth is dangerous because it is discouraging people from putting money in one of the most powerful wealth-generating machines on earth. And income-seekers (retirees, in particular) who know how to navigate this market can not only get massive profits but also strong cash flow, like the 6% dividends, paid monthly, on a fund I’ll introduce you to shortly. This fund is worth your while because it’s a play on US stocks at a time when stocks are strong and getting stronger, and because it’ll get you those stocks at an 8.6%… Read more

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Are you worried about a market meltdown in 2020? Fair enough–stocks went straight up for an entire decade, making a pullback more than due as we head into the 20s.

Now, more than ever, it’s vital that your portfolio is anchored by bulletproof dividend payers. If it’s not, read on, and I’ll introduce you to a few of the market’s five-star income plays—payouts so safe that even a worst-case recession scenario won’t touch them.

BofA Merrill Lynch analyst Michael Harnett, looking at recent developments such as our “phase one” deal with China and the U.K.’s recent elections, said stocks are “primed for Q1 2020 risk asset melt-up,” projecting that the S&P 500 will rip off a quick 5% by March.… Read more

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“I did read that. I thought about you, B.O.”

While other people may be known for their hobbies, or their families, my publisher thought of me when a Vanguard fund re-opened!

I’ve yapped about the Vanguard Dividend Growth Fund (VDIGX) before. I rarely mention (let alone endorse!) mutual funds. But VDIGX is notable for two reasons:

  1. I plow 100% of my 401(K) contributions into this fund, and
  2. It’s a pretty good option as far as retirement plans go.

Why this fund? Because in my “Brett Inc.” company plan, I have a set list of Vanguard funds to choose from. This is “set and forget” money so my goal is to maximize long-term returns.… Read more

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If you want to figure out how long it will take to double your money in an investment, you use the “Rule of 72.” But income investors can put this rule to work, too, to figure out just how quickly their dividends will pile up.

I’ll show you how – and I’ll show you five dividend stocks that are on pace to double their dividends in just seven years.

The Rule of 72 is just a simple equation you can use to project the amount of time it would take to double your investment money. The equation:

72 / compound annual interest rate = # of years to double your investment.Read more

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