Before I start this article I want to say that although this is how I am choosing to use my money, this isnt supposed to be taken as investment advice. Everyone has their own situation and you need to find out what works best for you. 

I have recently taken out a bit of my crpyto gains and decided to put them in the stock market, mostly because I figure at this point, even if the unimaginable happens and I lost all my cryptocurrency, I would still be ahead financially of most people my age. The diversification mostly gives me peace of mind and I know that I wont be homeless. Even before crypto stocks always interested me and I since I was 13 or 14 I was making mock portfolios for different occasions. My dream was always to be able to live off my dividends and not have to work a typical job and that is still my dream to this day. 

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High dividends arent the best way to save money for retirement, but since im still relatively young, if I keep adding to my portfolio I should be fine. The reason for this is because dividends basically take the money right out of the stock price in a way and many companies that offer high dividends might not grow as quickly as those who choose to reinvest the money. However personally, I like the idea of being paid small amounts even when the market is stagnant or going down and also not having to touch the principal. 

There are other types of high dividend ETF investments like REITs (Real estate investment trust), which pay high amounts, but the benefit of most mutual funds or ETFs that hold regular high dividend stock is the difference in tax. Dividends from the ETFs are mostly qualified which means it is a long term capital gains tax rather than income, which is higher. This means you have an easier time living off of the payments, especially with retirement. 


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Since I am using this as a way to supplement my income and also save for retirement, I need to make sure the funds I buy grow over time, albeit slower than non dividend funds, and also pay a decent amount. I personally only want large cap non volatile stocks held within the fund so the volatility isnt huge. It will basically trail the stock market at a whole. For the sake of ease, im going to just pick ETFs (Although some are offered as mutual funds with lower expense ratios). My personal 3 favorite are VYM (Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF) ,SPHD (PowerShares S&P 500 High Div Low VolETF ) and HDV (iShares Core High Dividend ETF). 

Each has their own benefits and negatives, for example SPHD pays dividends monthly, but has a higher expense ratio. Doing your own due diligence on each is very important, but they are three recommendations as a start if this is the path you want to take to investing. If you have a good income and are only worrying about retirement, this is not the path you want to take. However for someone like me who wants freedom and has assets from other areas, it is exactly what I want. The rough yield for most of these funds varies, but I would say its about 3% , which means for every million dollars you get 30k a year, for doing nothing and as the share price goes up, you get more. That is something I personally find very appealing. 

-Calaber24p