Dear DTA,
My goal is to live financially free. I’d like for my stocks and investments to pay for my living expenses, travel, and business projects.
-Harry D.
Hi, Harry. Thanks for writing in.
We love hearing from our readers.
And we really love being able to help, educate, motivate, and inspire our readers.
Your goal of becoming financially free is a goal I had once upon a time.
And I now get to enjoy a “happily ever after”, financially free and all.
My intense desire to accomplish what you’re setting out for, and my achievement of it in a relatively short period of time, is why I believe I’m the perfect person to dish out some information to you today.
Backing up a bit, I found myself below broke – worth less than $0 – during the depths of the financial crisis.
To make matters worse, that realization came after I was let go from my job.
I felt powerless to change my newfound struggle, as I had no income. And that powerlessness was exacerbated by the fact that I learned how beholden I was to a job – no job, no money, no life.
Determined to never again be so powerless and beholden, I embarked on a multi-year journey toward enlightenment, happiness, and financial freedom.
While attaining more enlightenment and happiness is more or less a lifetime journey of personal growth, that was greatly aided by becoming financially free just six years after I decided that would be my life’s near-term mission.
I recounted the entire journey – from zero to hero – in my Early Retirement Blueprint, which is a guide that almost anyone can follow to financial freedom.
The foundation of my personal financial freedom is built upon the five-figure and growing passive dividend income my personal stock portfolio generates on my behalf, which covers my basic expenses in life.
That portfolio is what I call my FIRE Fund.
It’s a six-figure collection of some of the world’s best businesses.
More specifically, it’s chock-full of high-quality dividend growth stocks.
Indeed, dividend growth investing is the long-term investing strategy I’ve used to achieve the financial freedom you’re interested in.
It’s, in my view, the perfect strategy for this, because dividend income is about as good as passive income gets.
No ongoing work. No calling anyone. Nothing to do other than wake up to fresh dividends in your account. It couldn’t possibly be any easier.
And high-quality dividend growth stocks are amazing facilitators of this.
That’s because a high-quality dividend growth stock typically represents equity in a wonderful business.
In fact, it would be such a wonderful business, it’s proficient enough at increasing profits and dividends for long enough to amass a longstanding track record of doing such.
The proof is in the profit and dividend pudding.
Said another way, a lengthy streak of dividend growth is a great litmus test of business quality, as a company can’t run a poor business that loses money while somehow simultaneously increasing cash dividend payouts to shareholders. You can’t keep writing (bigger) checks with money you don’t have.
It’s nigh impossible for a terrible company to pay increasing dividends, year after year, for decades on end.
That’s why dividend growth investing is such a fantastic long-term investment strategy for freedom fighters like us, and it’s why I’m personally betting my decades-long financial independence on it.
I’m so confident in it, I quit my job (where I was set to make in excess of $60,000 per year) at 32 years old – potentially giving up decades of income in the process.
This strategy isn’t just easy in terms of collecting the growing dividend income, either.
The execution side is also pretty simple.
That’s made so through the resources that make any dividend growth investor’s life very easy.
David Fish’s Dividend Champions, Contenders, and Challengers list is perhaps the best example of this.
It’s a data set on more than 800 US-listed stocks that have paid rising dividends for at least the last five consecutive years.
If you think of yourself as a fisherman, the CCC list would be a body of water that is completely saturated with quality fish.
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), PepsiCo, Inc. (PEP), and Apple Inc. (AAPL) are just a few blue-chip names on Mr. Fish’s list.
Furthermore, fellow contributor Dave Van Knapp set out to educate dividend growth investors of all experience levels via a set of articles that would lay out what the strategy is, why it works so well, and how to successfully implement it.
That idea spawned his Dividend Growth Investing Lessons.
And the lessons are completely free, Harry.
But our value and commitment to our readers doesn’t end there.
I personally helm the Undervalued Dividend Growth Stock of the Week series.
What happens is, we publish an article every Sunday as part of this series.
In each article, we reveal a company that offers great fundamentals, competitive advantages, a reasonable amount of risk, and a rock-solid history of increasing its dividend.
Of course, even a great stock isn’t worth paying any price for.
So every stock featured in this series also appears to be undervalued at the time of publication.
These are compelling and actionable long-term investment ideas for readers.
And it’s another free resource.
These resources are at your disposal, Harry.
And all of them are designed to empower and free our readers.
Financial freedom is amazing.
My life is completely customized for me and by me – no alarm clock, no boss, and no people or activities in my life that I don’t thoroughly spending time on.
It almost feels like a dream. It truly is a “happy ever after”.
But you have to walk down that yellow brick road. You have to put in the work, save the money, and intelligently invest your way there.
There’s no time like today to start.
I wish you luck and success.
Jason Fieber
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Disclaimer: Jason Fieber is not a licensed financial advisor, tax professional, or stock broker. Please consult with a licensed investment professional before investing any of your money. If your money is not FDIC insured, it may decline in value. To protect the privacy of our readers, any names published in this article are under aliases. In addition, text may be edited, omitted or paraphrased for grammar or length.