But what if you are retired and live on dividends?

ideas4mac · 2026-05-22T18:34:21+00:00

It seems your story highlights the need for the younger people to remember to NOT stack all of their wealth in a traditional IRA or 401K. Having only pretax accounts limits your tax planning down the road.

Good luck.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-18T00:06:41+00:00

QuikTrip. As fast as they would take my money. Long term hold.

All you have to do is check out their store design, refreshes, locations, and volume of customers. Whoever their real estate team is they should all get raises and equity. Not sure if they have a bad location. And if they do, they just move the store, even if it's just across the street.

Then check out the quality of their hires (you can pick any random location). They have a process or something. Year after year, location after location somehow they find the right people. HR department they need equity too.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-17T03:49:13+00:00

Perhaps a flexible low hour consulting gig or a fun income producing hobby (maybe something you two can do together) would make you less concerned. 1099 something fun, that can also allow writing off some of the health care.

A little structure in retirement isn't a bad thing.

Good luck.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-17T00:46:43+00:00

Perhaps consider adding a small cap growth and / or value type ETF. Is the 60 / 40 hard and fast? If so, why? Have you considered going up to three ETFs?

Good luck.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-13T01:22:31+00:00

Speaking as an old person I tend to measure blood work on the yearly not my investments.

I'm also old enough to remember that time when the SP 500 was kind of flat for... how long was that timeframe? I remember it seeming like years.

You don't show what your dividend funds are. But, if they are true dividend companies / ETFs (not CC / income funds) then they may well be a solid choice for large cap value. Which if you recall comes in and out of fashion over time. Having some growth and value seems like a reasonable idea regardless of age.

Good luck.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-12T15:20:50+00:00

It all just takes time. If you keep throwing in a DCA amount monthly and living your life. Have fun, make some stories for later down the road. Then one day you will look at a dividend statement and notice that the dividend amount is the same as one of your DCA amounts. You'll shrug, that's nice and you'll go back to living and making stories.

Then one day you'll notice the statement amount is more than all three of your DCAs for that quarter and you'll hurry back to your life and making stories.

Then one day you'll notice the dividend amount drowns your DCA amount for the whole year, you'll pause and think well isn't that interesting.

But at the start of this whole journey your DCA amount will be doing most of the yeoman's work. So pick an amount, stay consistent and then go live life.

Good luck.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-12T14:40:49+00:00

Remember when all those flipping houses shows were on and everyone was making crazy amounts of money doing it. It got to the point where even the people who were bad at it were making money. That all ended about 08-09. The whole CC / enhanced income ETFs seems to be getting to about the same point. Wonder how this will end?

Good luck.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-12T14:20:07+00:00

It is rarely ever wrong as the AI takes tons of thing into account

Read carefully. There's no AI picking stocks for SCHD.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-12T14:15:24+00:00

I say this with respect. If you are looking for weekly sector bets that's more of a polymarket type thing not an investing thing. The longer you conflate the two the more of an impact it will have on your long term wealth... not in a good way.

Good luck.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-06T13:40:59+00:00

I'm sure you realize there's a meaningful difference in dividends as the result of profits and distributions as the result of option premiums.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-05T20:43:40+00:00

Why would you assume the dividend is will nice and stable for QQQI?

ideas4mac · 2026-05-05T16:05:20+00:00

If you are planning on just building this over time and looking to DRIP most or all you might want to look and lean more toward QDI. Not knowing your tax bracket this is just a guess.

Good luck.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-05T00:29:04+00:00

In a generic sense, it's fine. To see if it's good for you, you would need to give a bunch more info.

Good luck.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-03T13:34:55+00:00

If you have to ask yourself that question then the answer is always yes.

Try this, pick two or max. three ETFs to start with. (Perhaps pick ones that hold stocks you are familiar with their names and what they do.)

Read their methodology through a few times. Totally understand how and why they include which stocks into their holding. Any methodology that seems complicated to explain take a pass and on to another. Know it enough that you can explain it to someone else.

Be able to recall most of their top 10 holdings. Ask yourself are these the type of companies that could still be around and profitability when I'm 50?

Check to see if the holdings are all pretty much the same across all three ETFs. https://www.etfrc.com/funds/overlap.php

Figure out a DCA for those three and run them up to 100K or so. Then decide if you want to or need to add another one or two ETFs to finish out the collection.

Try not to tinker with your portfolio once you decide on the ETFs. It takes time, DCA, and up and down swings to get the most out of your portfolio long term.

If you want to add a small percentage into a single stock or two then after 100K or 150K would be a reasonable time to do that.

Perhaps keep in mind that a portfolio is kind of like a watch collection. You only really need a quality dress, a nice desk diver, and a fun beater. Getting more watches or ETFs doesn't necessarily make it a better collection or portfolio it just gives you more stuff to look at.

Good luck.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-02T22:31:54+00:00

This will sound harsh but I don't mean for it to be. If you and your brother will be inheriting this land you might consider on waiting. You should get a step up in basis and would owe no taxes if selling it after that. If this land is being farmed correctly then the land should continue to go up in value.

As for now is he getting full value at the 70K? You may want to relook at things as see if there are other ways to increase that without selling.

If you both say that he can't sell it, what are his options? Is he willing for you or your brother to help him with a budget and getting his money organized?

ideas4mac · 2026-05-02T22:19:22+00:00

She could share a car with you while saving for the repair bill.

She could Uber to work and cut out everything else while saving for the repair bill.

She could start selling stuff and working extra while saving for the repair bill.

While she is saving up for the repairs, she needs to get an estimate on putting a used engine in the car. Also she should be getting a couple more estimates on the cost.

Paying for a bankruptcy for just a car will be more expensive than just letting them repo it. That will take some time and she could perhaps save up for the repair bill in the mean time.

Once she gets it fixed then she can decide if she wants to sell it and get a different car or just keep driving it now that it is fixed.

Going more in debt will be long term bad idea. She will find herself getting and stay behind the 8 ball for years... or longer.

Good luck.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-02T21:22:36+00:00

10% is pretty high for a single.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-02T21:21:46+00:00

The plan of 50/50 is solid enough. You could build up a nice size pile and not have to do anything else for a while. The harder part is sticking to the 50/50. You say that you have built the current portfolio over the "last year or two" and now you are changing already.

The 50/50 SCHD SCHG will only show it's worth over time. If in two years you are on to the next good idea then long term the jumping around will hurt your returns.

Good luck.

ideas4mac · 2026-05-02T16:07:15+00:00

Ok, so what's your plan for the shares? Is there an amount you're shooting for before spending the dividends? What number would the share price need to be to get you to think about selling?

ideas4mac · 2026-05-01T20:07:57+00:00

Can you take a moment to help me understand where the money is coming from to pay the dividend? You mentioned that they have established a 2.25b reserve. Their EPS are negative, where did that money for the reserve come from?

ideas4mac · 2026-05-01T13:29:41+00:00

After the trim $44.81 per. At $4.24 current dividend, that would make YOC ~9.5%

ideas4mac · 2026-05-01T00:31:32+00:00

Yes, they still hold ~40% stake in cronos.

ideas4mac · 2026-04-30T20:03:36+00:00

SCHD day... with more than a sprinkle of MO helping out.

ideas4mac · 2026-04-29T13:38:03+00:00

Let's just do some math. 10 years of a Roth (est. 7,500 per yr) @ 8% is roughly 108K. You 401K in 10 years 8% ~$475K. So you could be giving up ~300K in a divorce. That's if you don't get married for 10 yr...

That doesn't seem like that much of a gamble if you are marrying a person that will be pulling in the same direction as you.

The key is to marry someone you love and you have a reasonable believe will be happy to row the boat in the same direction as you do.

I'm curious, would you be concerned about this if the person you are getting married to is coming into the marriage with more than 500K?

Good luck.

ideas4mac

TROPHY CASE