How to Retire on Dividends: Earn a Safe 8%, Leave Your Principal Intact

The familiar names can’t recommend our high-income producers to you. Instead, they stick you in pretty much what everyone has. And one more thing. If these are stocks, owning them is not much different than owning a low-cost index fund from Vanguard. The same stocks dominate the same market indexes Vanguard uses! If you own a handful of the big nam

Here are five muni funds that are bargains today. All five pay 5% or more, are exempt from federal taxes, and trade for a 6% to 12% discount to the value of their underlying bond portfolios.

The common shares from JPMorgan Chase (JPM) pay 3.1%. But the firm recently issued Series DD preferreds paying 5.75%. JPMorgan Chase shareholders looking for more income may be happy to make this tradeoff. Meanwhile, Bank of America (BAC) common pays 2.1% today. But B of A just issued some preferreds that pay a fat 5.88%.

If you’re looking for tax exempt bonds, you may be attracted to the BlackRock Taxable Muni Bond Fund (BBN) at number two, with its juicy 6.5% yield and 9.2% annualized return since inception. However, that yield is only partly tax exempt, because the fund also buys taxable bonds. There are other municipal bond funds that focus exclusively on tax ex

Let’s look at the 10 (and only 10) REITs paying 7% or more that have generously raised their payouts over the last three years. Pay special attention to the “total return” column on the far right. Their combination of generous current yields and payout hikes has generally pleased their investors.

And today, DoubleLine Income Solutions is still offering a 9.7% yield net of fees. That’s an unbelievable payout in today’s world.

Years ago, hospitals didn’t have mortgage financing available to them. And traditional corporate loan packages would force hospitals to lock up all of their asset value as collateral. So Ed’s team set out to offer lease financing as a low-cost and flexible alternative. Thus far, it’s been a fantastic niche—Ed & Co. have grown their zero assets

The preferred ETFs, Invesco Preferred and iShares US Preferred, yield 5.8% and 6.1%, respectively, and trade roughly at their “par” value, which means we’re paying $1 for $1 in preferred shares. Meanwhile, Nuveen Preferred & Income Securities Fund (JPS), a CEF, yields more (7.5%) and trades for just 96 cents on the dollar! Plus, it has the bene

Two simple yet important things set Main Street apart: 1.The firm increases its investment income annually, and 2.It pays a conservative dividend so that it never has to cut it. Since its IPO in 2007, Main Street has boosted its dividend (which is paid monthly) a lovely 77%. It’s never been cut. The company smartly keeps a buffer and pays out extra