A $1 million portfolio is often discussed as though the balance itself answers the retirement question. It does not. What matters is the amount of income that ultimately reaches your bank account…
Ten thousand dollars a month works out to $120,000 a year, an income stream that exceeds the roughly $68,359 in per-capita disposable personal income reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis for…
A $2 million investment portfolio can generate a six-figure income stream without tenants, maintenance calls, property tax surprises, or vacancy risk. The arithmetic is straightforward. The challenge is deciding how much yield…
A $10,000 monthly income stream is one reason many investors gravitate toward rental real estate. It promises meaningful cash flow, but it also comes with tenants, maintenance, vacancies, insurance claims, and rising…
Five thousand dollars a month is the income many retirees are trying to generate from their investments. It is enough to support a comfortable lifestyle in much of the country and roughly matches…
The average retired worker receives roughly $2,000 a month from Social Security. For many retirees, that covers only part of the budget. Building a second Social Security-sized check from dividends can help cover…
A rank-and-file member of Congress earns $174,000 per year. A dividend portfolio can generate the same level of income without a campaign, constituents, or a weekly commute to Washington. Unlike a salary,…
Rent for a studio apartment in many major coastal cities, including Seattle, Boston, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, commonly falls between $2,100 and $3,200 per month. Using a midpoint…
Thirty-six thousand dollars a year sits at the center of many retirement plans. It is roughly comparable to the annual Social Security benefits received by a retired couple, enough to cover rent…
Healthcare social workers earn roughly $68,000 per year on average in the United States, making them one of the higher-paid specialties within the profession. Replacing that entire income with portfolio cash flow…
Five thousand dollars a month in spendable dividend income works out to $60,000 per year after federal tax, roughly equivalent to the salary of a typical police officer in Indiana. The headline…
Most 73-year-olds don’t want to babysit twelve positions in retirement. The reader behind this headline has roughly $750,000 in a brokerage account, collects Social Security, and wants the rest of the income…
High earners in the 32% federal bracket holding ordinary-income dividend payers in a taxable brokerage account face a math problem that most never run on paper. If your $60,000 in dividend income…
A 62-year-old single retiree seeking to replace a $65,000 pre-retirement salary faces a straightforward but important challenge: generating enough portfolio income to support that spending level. The amount of capital required depends…
Business development companies (BDCs) pay distributions that are taxed mostly as ordinary income, not qualified dividends. For an investor in the 24% federal bracket (income over $105,700 single, $211,400 married filing jointly),…
Trey Thoelcke 
