Manage a main dividend stock portfolio

Over nearly three decades, I have built a portfolio of generated dividend stocks and ETFs to support my targeted early retirement.

The idea is that it will fund my lifestyle for retirement age before I can fully utilize the IRA and 401(k)s.

Since I no longer pursue early retirement, dividend stock portfolio has become a major force in my financial life.

It makes money and grows, complementing my lifestyle in a different way than planned.

As a self-employed worker, it is a source of income, living in dividends and capital gains in the months when spending exceeds income.

It can also be used as a savings repository and I can take advantage of a lot of expenses like traveling to the UK with my family.

Most unexpectedly, it became fuel for my Roth IRA and 529 savings accounts. Rather than reinvest the dividend back into my taxable account, I used it for Roth donations, which relieved my long-term tax burden.

No matter how I use this money, I still need to manage my portfolio.

This means monitoring 53 individual stocks.

over the years

For the rare person who has been reading my blog since 2013-2014, you will remember this is primarily a dividend stock investment site.

Early on, I publicly documented the construction and progress of this dividend portfolio.

That’s a story, just like a Anonymous blogger.

But his dividend portfolio construction is a small part of my overall financial behavior. Behind the scenes, I contributed primarily to employer-sponsored programs and IRAS and invested in mutual funds.

Everything left in the dividend portfolio is included.

But the choice of each stock is a heavy lifting, filtering candidates, narrowing the selection library, and buying anything that suits my investment paper.

Inventory research is time-consuming.

Since becoming a father of active kids, online business owners, and an all-round curious person interested in new things, I have lost the motivation to research personal portfolio dividend stocks.

Now, I prefer the convenience of low-cost ETFs and mutual funds for most of my wealth and hope to continue retirement.

My retirement account already reflects this preference.

However, taxable accounts (the one I publicly built as an anonymous blogger) continue to hold most of the individual stocks because I can’t simply sell them all without tax consequences.

Stocks pay dividends, and I still like my dividends.

But the ETF paid them too. Even better, ETFs do not require separate inventory studies.

There are 53 individual stocks in my portfolio and I can’t thoroughly study each stock every month.

However, I chose mainly stable blue chip companies that wouldn’t stir up much drama. But they still need some attention. So I’ve done some processes to monitor what’s going on.

Automatic news alerts (mainly used to monitor quarterly earnings reports) and portfolio aggregation tools stock (See below) Give me enough data (with enough lift) to provide comfortable holding effect and risk awareness.

The “light lift” research drove how I managed my portfolio and I eventually simplified my portfolio over the next decade to prepare for my next phase.

Simplify my portfolio for retirement

In early 2024, I talked with TD Bank about how to simplify my portfolio for retirement.

At a high level, this means fewer holdings (stocks and funds) and fewer accounts.

In a retirement account, it’s easy – sell things you don’t want to own and buy your job.

Taxable accounts are more complex due to tax implications on capital gains.

So for every sale in my taxable stock portfolio to reduce holdings, I have to take the results into account.

I sell underperforming stocks to reduce capital gain exposure. When I sell a portion of the winner, I sell the highest cost base stock and offset the gains with losses where possible.

My goal is to reduce the number of stock holdings from 53 to about 20-25 over the next 10 years without completely exhausting the portfolio.

The ability to withdraw cash reduces its size and generate dividend income. I want to maintain this financial buffer in retirement.

Erosion risk

Over the past few years, the total value of the portfolio (mainly loyalty, and also M1 finance) has been around $500,000 to $600,000.

To continue to be the main force, the portfolio must continue to grow to offset the demolition.

In a bull market, no problem.

However, when the market turns, it can cause trauma. When this happens, I may reduce withdrawals to avoid selling at lower value and borrowing from other sources.

Ideally, this portfolio would go beyond this product, and I still use it as a contribution to working Malay to feed my lifestyle and Roth.

But I realized it could be eroded and gradually fell into value until it entered the value spiral. This will accelerate this by dropping significantly or reducing revenue.

To avoid this demise, I am building my own business revenue to consistently re-cultivate these accounts or contribute directly to Rose, thereby allowing balanced growth and continuing to generate revenue.

Ultimately, a large portion of that money will find a home in Roth IRA – it’s not a bad place. Other withdrawals will pay for college tuition and holidays, which is also a great use.

These are the fruits of thrift and investment discipline in the decades before my career change.

Ultimately, this portfolio represents both my past investment journey and my future plans, which is the bridge between disciplined wealth building and the flexibility needed for the next stage of life.

Tools for managing dividend portfolios

With multiple accounts, I like to have a tool that aggregates all holdings into a single view. For years, I used Yahoo Finance and spreadsheets.

But now I’m using stocka comprehensive DIY investment research platform.

Here is a video of three tools that I use. You can also see some of the 53 stocks in this portfolio.

Featured images of deposit words used under license.

Craig Stephens

Craig is a former IT professional who left his 19-year career to become a full-time financial writer. He has been a DIY investor since 1995, and he began retirement in 2013 as a creative outlet for sharing his portfolio. Craig studied finance at Michigan State University and lived in Northern Virginia with his wife and three children. Read more.