Safe Dividend Investing

In 2020, I lost $300,000 in mutual funds that an investment advisor had put my lifesavings into. I lost it because I had entrusted it to an industry that does not educate investors nor encourage them to look closely at what that industry is doing with their money. I set out to find a better, safer way to invest. My podcasts relate what I learned in creating a generous, reliable income and in growing my wealth. A few of the more important lessons I learned and explore are:(1) It is important to become a self-directed investor.(2) If you can not easily measure the risk and potential in an investment then do not invest in it. This excludes from your portfolio bundled investment devices, like mutual funds, ETFs and Index funds,. (3) Financially strong companies who have paid “good dividends” for decades will continue to stay strong and continue to pay good dividends because it is in their executives selfish interest.(4) Diversification is critical. Investing equally in the best 20 strong dividend stocks is the ideal. 20 limits your risk in any one stock to 5% of your wealth. No matter how strong you think a stock is, do not fall in love with it. I have lived very well off my steady dividend income for 16 years, through two market crashes and one pandemic. I have watched my portfolio’s capital more than triple from what I started with. In 2020, for charts in a new investment book I was writing (Safer Better Dividend Investing), I spent months scoring all 628 dividend stocks paying dividends of 6% or greater traded on the NYSE and the NASDAQ. It revealed dozens of stocks that can provide not only a generous dividend income but outstanding capital growth.Financial independence is realizable for careful, patient investors.