You are right on the mark. The biggest problem is how mentally trapped the consumer-workers are, that they believe $6,000 is unrealistic/ unattainable to them. It’s like saying intercontential travel is not possible without a passport, “how controlled are you?” As you walk into the forest without a passport and are now in Canada.

No one should have to pay a toll to cross between man made countries on this Earth that doesn’t belong to man in the first place. The “Country” Brand is a Mental Trap in itself. “I fight ” [my own brother] ” for someone else’s controlled Country!”, I don’t think so.

I think many people wouldn’t want to know how attainable an ER goal is.

WRT inflation, you observation would be correct if all components moved in lockstep at the average rate. But food and automobilies, to name two components, are far cheaper than medical care over the last twenty years, with a corresonding effect on overall inflation. Moreover, over the long haul, the cost increases of medical care might tend toward the mean; but it is precisely the excess demand produced by boomers who want to live forever and look good doing it that will drive these costs in the coming decade.

Perhaps I should put some skin in the game and created a self-insurance trust that ERE-minded folks can participate in. I’ll have to determine whether such a self-insurance trust would be subject to the inability to exclude pre-existing conditions that looms in 2014. A portion of the trust could be invested in the big Pharma and medical device companies that will appreciate from the coming demand.

Health care is in a bubble. Once the boomers start dying off, I expect costs to normalize.

Incidentally, this post was written in 2008. It would be hard to get 7% or 6% yield today at the same risk levels.. it would cost almost twice as much now—the opportunity is gone.

But it will probably be back within 5-10 years.

I’d want a much fluffier cushion that an $85K portfolio provides. Your diet and exercise regimen will probably stave off the chronic diseases, but all it takes is getting “doored” by an inattentive driver or cracked in the skull be a fast moving boom out on the Bay.

So far, so good on my dividend payers… they all increased or held their dividends except for Unilever (UL), which was down a little (<10%). In the MLPs, OKS dropped their distribution a little (<10%), but the others increased.

My one clunker has been Alliance Bernstein (AB), which manages mutual funds. Their payouts are tied to “assets under management”, so if the market falls, so does their payout.

With AB, I’ve frustratingly learned a lesson here… In December 2007, the recession was pretty much a foregone conclusion, so staying with AB entailed an obvious risk. My reasoning, at the time, was that even if AB’s assets under management lost 30-50% of their value that their distribution would be cut accordingly. And, to me, that was acceptable.

The lesson I painfully learned was that I forgot to factor in how the clients would redeem their money if the market fell too quickly… or if there was a credit crunch and the clients suddenly needed cash. Both of which are exactly what happened and the distribution for the most recent quarter was brutally slashed by over 80% compared to last year!

Unfortunately, high dividends are not guaranteed. Most of the companies I was following with great dividends slashed or suspended their dividends.

Still, an excellent strategy.

For normal stocks, PEP substantially increased it’s dividend over the prior 5 yr bull market and isn’t likely to cut it. Imagine if you’d had your salary increased by 2.6x?!? It’s that sort of income growth that will make Jacob’s portfolio soar over time without much effort.

Interesting idea, but seems much too low for 99% of the population.

Isn’t 6% – 7% a rather high current yield for the moment? The sectors that could provide such current yields include utilities, reits, mlps, some financials, and then you also have tankers, canroys, BDC’s which offer much higher yields.

I am mostly concentrating my dividend portfolio in the dividend aristocrats stocks ( not all of them however).

I disagree with you on the total return issue. As a dividend investor i do want to get a nice total return to match at least the market average. But dividend investors got a nice year to date performance as some bechmarks like the dividend aristocrats have outperformed S&P 500 YTD..

Anyways i would be interested in hearing more about your portfolio. E-mail me if you are interested about sharing dividend stock picks

I would take the money and go to a developing country. There are plenty of places where you can live VERY well for $500/month, and which have nicer weather than here also.

Now I need to go find the 6%-7% yielding stocks.

Only needing $85,000 would make my goal of early retirement much more attainable. My current goal is $200,000 but I’m willing to change that if the lower amount actually works.

I just opened a brokerage account this week to buy some dividend paying stocks. The stock market has been going down even more as I’m wanting for my account to be funded. I should have some really good deals when I’m finally able to purchase some stocks.