Dear DTA,
My goal is to retire with a moderate income so that I can travel and live comfortably.
-Julianne D.
Hi, Julianne.
It’s wonderful to hear from our readers.
We do our best to put out some great content here, but we take it a step further by directly reaching out to readers such as yourself.
Your goal is certainly one that, I think, many people share.
Fortunately, I don’t believe it’s all that difficult to achieve what you’re asking for.
You just have to put together a plan. And then you have to stick to that plan.
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So let’s plan to succeed by putting together a plan.
Now, the plan you put together should be customized for and by you.
The path you end up following from here on out should be one that you think best serves your long-term goals.
But I can share with you some ideas that may help you carve out your own path moving forward.
First, there’s my plan. By sharing this, I hope it inspires and helps you to better craft your own plan.
This was a plan that was designed to, essentially, achieve exactly what you’re looking for… except I wanted to achieve it a few decades earlier than most people.
Indeed, I ended up becoming financially independent and retired early at only 33 years old – just six years after I set out toward that end.
How?
Check out my Early Retirement Blueprint, which shares all of the finer details.
While you may not want to retire as early as I did, there are certainly some concepts in there that can help you march toward your own retirement and travel goals.
I’m even doing some of my own travel. In fact, I actually reside abroad, as I’ve indefinitely relocated to Thailand – a fantastic and cheap base for traveling throughout Southeast Asia and Europe.
Of course, we have to have that retirement income figured out first, which my Blueprint discusses.
But I can share with you that my early retirement is underpinned by the five-figure passive and growing dividend income my stock portfolio generates on my behalf.
That’s right. I live off of dividend income. And it’s really wonderful.
I’ve used dividend growth investing to achieve my early retirement dreams.
And there’s no reason you can’t do the same.
This long-term investment strategy basically involves buying up shares in high-quality businesses that are so proficient at producing and increasing profit, they send out a chunk of that money directly to their shareholders via growing cash dividend payments.
These cash dividends are a portion of profit.
And as the profit grows, so do the dividends.
See, when you’re investing in world-class enterprises, you’re investing in companies that are providing the products and/or services the world needs and demands.
As more people pay more money for more products and/or services, profit grows – and so do those dividends.
That allows an investor to sleep well at night, feeling good that they’re basing their retirement income off of the very things that make the world go round.
You can see how that looks for yours truly by checking out my FIRE Fund – which is my real-life and real-money dividend growth stock portfolio.
You’ll notice I’m invested in more than 100 of the finest businesses in the world, which means that I sleep very well at night. That’s why I felt comfortable retiring so early in life and moving abroad.
But my portfolio is just a small selection of all the available dividend growth stocks out there.
You can look over the Dividend Champions, Contenders, and Challengers list for a far more broad collection of dividend growth stocks.
That list is an invaluable source of data on almost 900 different US-listed stocks that have raised their dividends each year for at least the last five consecutive years. It’s the most robust source of information on dividend growth stocks that I know of.
Now, dividend growth investing is very simple and straightforward.
However, there’s a bit more to it than just looking at that list and buying stocks.
You have to perform your due diligence: fundamental analysis, surveying competitive advantages, assessing risk, and estimating value.
Fortunately, Julianne, we’ve got you covered with some great resources that can help you when it comes time to perform that due diligence. .
Fellow contributor Dave Van Knapp put together a fantastic series of articles that are designed to educate novice and experienced investors alike on exactly what dividend growth investing is, why it’s such an effective long-term investment strategy, and how to successfully implement it.
These are his Dividend Growth Investing Lessons.
In addition, I personally take the time every Sunday to put forth a great long-term dividend growth investment candidate, via the Undervalued Dividend Growth Stock of the Week series.
I perform the due diligence for you, then I share those results.
Your goal to ascertain a modest retirement income and travel is a realistic goal, in my opinion.
But you have to devise the proper plan, then stick to it through thick and thin.
These resources can help you in that endeavor, Julianne.
But it’s up to you to put in the work and walk that path.
There’s no time like today to get started on this.
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.