Revealing My Wife's Dividend Stock Portfolio
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When it comes to investing, my wife’s approach has always been…well, let’s call it minimalist.
She’s not particularly interested in poring over 10-Ks or reading The Intelligent Investor, but still, she knows that investing is important (spend enough time around me, and you can’t help but pick that up through osmosis).
A couple of years ago, we set her up with a portfolio on Robinhood to get her snowball rolling. For the most part, it’s been pretty dormant.
Every so often, she’ll receive some Christmas or birthday money specifically earmarked for investing, and we’ll use that to add to her account. Beyond that, though, her investing journey has been fairly low-key…until now.
Going into this year, I wanted to transfer her portfolio over from Robinhood to Charles Schwab, which is done through something called an ACATS Transfer.
If you’re not familiar with ACATS, it’s a system that lets you transfer assets between brokerages—and it’s super easy. You basically fill out a form, and the brokerages handle the rest.
Schwab doesn’t charge any fees for this, but Robinhood charges $100, which they pull from your account as they process the transfer.
With that said, you may be wondering: why the switch? Is there something wrong with Robinhood?
Not at all! I don’t have anything against Robinhood. It’s an easy platform to use, and I like that they let you buy fractional shares of any security.
Schwab, on the other hand, only allows fractional shares of S&P 500 companies (not even ETFs like SCHD, which I think is too bad).
At the end of the day, though, we’re a Schwab family—this extends to my siblings and parents as well—so I wanted to stay true to that and have everything in one place.
Before initiating the transfer, most of her portfolio—probably 70% to 80%—was in VTI. She also had exposure to a handful of individual companies she was familiar with, like Coca-Cola (KO), Starbucks (SBUX), Target (TGT), and Dutch Bros (BROS).
For the sake of simplicity, I decided to switch things up and model the account after what I do in my Roth IRA, which is split between the S&P 500 and SCHD.
This setup has worked well for me so far, and I’m a big advocate of it for anyone who wants to take a hands-off approach to building wealth. I think the split between these two gives you the best of all worlds—a nice balance between share price appreciation, dividend income, and dividend growth.
Fortunately, my wife has heard me talk enough about this stuff that she knows what both funds are, why they’re sound investments, what they offer, and how they complement each other.
In fact, in the few (and rare) instances her friends and family have expressed interest in investing, I’ve even heard her suggest these two funds as good places to park their money.
It’s good to know I’m rubbing off on her. Like I said, osmosis.
Now as far as feeding this account goes, one of my goals by the end of 2025 is to increase my (really our) weekly contributions from $250 to $325. I want that extra $75 to go to my wife’s account before I increase the contributions again in mine.
Combining all of these accounts—my two and her one—will really beef up the growth of our wealth and passive income while at the same time giving our combined portfolios increasingly more exposure to ETFs.
Based on her account’s current value, dividend stats, and a projected share price appreciation of 7% (which may or may not be generous), this is what we can expect (based on the MarketBeat dividend calculator) if we contribute $75 to this account every week:
After 10 years: $62,209 value / $1,380 annual dividend income
After 20 years: $204,661 value / $4,539 annual dividend income
After 30 years: $538,731 value / $11,942 annual dividend income
In my opinion, that’s not too shabby for only $75/week.
If we add that to the projected growth of my two accounts over the years, based on my starting yield of about 3.5%, a share price appreciation and projected annual dividend growth rate of 6%, and the $250/week I’m currently investing, things start to look pretty crazy:
After 10 years: $466,203 value / $16,166 annual dividend income
After 20 years: $1,369,364 value / $47,168 annual dividend income
After 30 years: $3,522,867 value / $121,161 annual dividend income
Looking at these numbers (and what can happen with a little bit of consistency and a lot of time) serves as an important reminder of the magical power of compound interest.
Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how lucky I am to have a partner in crime who not only trusts me with this stuff but encourages me to do what I love for both of our benefits.
Having said all of that, what do you think of this portfolio setup? Is there anything you would do differently? Write to me here and let me know.
And if you want to learn about 20+ dividend stocks that are perfect for brand new investors, check out this video here.
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IN MY PORTFOLIO 📈
Portfolio performance provided by Snowball Analytics
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How To Help Others Start Investing | Ep. 5
In the fifth installment of The Deep End, Ari and I share our tips for helping others get started with investing.
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SINCE YOU ASKED 💬
"Being 20 years from retirement, do you think it's better to start a position in SCHD and keep on contributing to it now, or move to it when it is time to retire?"
- Luis | YouTube
This is such a great question, and it highlights an important tradeoff every investor faces: share price appreciation versus dividend income.
When it comes to building a growing stream of dividend income, SCHD is at the top of my list. But if you’re not planning to use that income for another 20 years, it’s worth thinking about whether prioritizing income-focused investments now is the best move—or if you’d be better off opting for something with greater growth potential, like the S&P 500, while you still have time for that appreciation to compound.
To be fair, SCHD is no slouch in the growth department. While it hasn’t quite matched the S&P 500 in total returns over the past decade (it was actually outperforming the S&P until mid-2023), it has still delivered over 180% in total returns.
Source: Seeking Alpha
With SCHD, not only are you getting respectable share price appreciation, but you also benefit from a steady and growing income stream, so starting a position now will allow you to benefit from decades of compounding dividends.
Reinvesting those dividends—which historically have grown at double-digit percentages every year—creates an unbelievably powerful dividend snowball over the long haul. Even if SCHD’s share price doesn’t grow as fast as the S&P 500, by the time you retire, you’ll have built a solid base of dividend income that will likely only continue to grow.
Like I said earlier, the S&P 500 versus SCHD may be a tradeoff between share price appreciation and dividends. But investing is one of the rare instances in which you can have your cake and eat it too.
You can have both growth and dividends—and I'm a big advocate of balancing both in your portfolio—which is why I love the approach I take in my Roth IRA. I pair SCHD with the S&P 500 (through VOO), giving me the best of all worlds: share price appreciation, current dividend income, and dividend growth.
So, to answer your question: Why not do both?
You can start building your SCHD position now through dollar-cost averaging while balancing it with a growth-oriented investment like the S&P 500—or even something like SCHG, which leans toward growth stocks.
This way, you’re not sacrificing one goal for another. Instead, you’re setting yourself up for success on all fronts.
Have a question? Ask me here to see it featured in an upcoming newsletter.
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