Starting early and investing often can be a surefire way to building up a massive portfolio.
Who couldn’t use $65,000 per year in dividends? Bolstering your income can mean retiring early, planning more vacations, and having a more financially sound future. If you invest early and keep up a habit of putting aside $50 per week, it’s entirely possible that you end up with that much in dividends.
By accumulating a large-enough balance, you also won’t need to invest into risky dividend stocks with high payouts which may not be sustainable. And you wouldn’t want to put all that money at risk, anyway. By deploying a slow-and-steady approach to investing, you can keep your risk low while significantly growing your portfolio. Here’s how you can put yourself on a path to generating $65,000 in annual dividends.
Save and put the money into a top-growth fund
If you can save $50 per week, a good strategy can be to put that money into an exchange-traded fund (ETF) at the end of every week. On a typical four-week month, that means you’re putting away $200, on average, into an ETF. Over the course of a year, that’s going to total $2,600, and over 30 years it will be $78,000.
But the real magic is in the compounding, which can turn that $78,000 into a portfolio that’s worth well over $1 million and provide you with the nest egg you need to generate some mammoth-dividend income.
A great way to grow all that savings is by investing in tech stocks. I don’t mean loading up on Nvidia or a hot new artificial intelligence (AI) stock. Instead, you can just target a broad range of tech stocks with the iShares U.S. Technology ETF (IYW 0.25%). As the name suggests, you’ll get exposure to the top names in tech. That includes Nvidia along with many other tech stocks, including Apple and Microsoft. Collectively, those three make up 44% of the fund’s overall weight. While the composition of the fund may change over the years, you’ll be invested in the top names in tech. And that’s a good way to ensure your gains will be significant.
The risk is that in a down year the fund could struggle because tech stocks can be volatile. But in the long term, they can generate some life-changing returns. Going back 20 years, the fund has amassed total returns (which include dividends) of around 1,500% — far higher than the 650% gains you would have accumulated with the more diversified S&P 500. And at 1,500%, that averages out to a compounded annual growth rate of about 14.8%.
Returns are never a guarantee, but if you were to average that type of a return over a 30-year period, then your $50 weekly investment could grow to a value of nearly $1.5 million. Compare that with the total investment of just $78,000. The effect of compounding and targeting tech stocks can lead to much more significant gains for your portfolio.
Turning that money into dividend income
The hard part is getting your balance that high, but if you can get it to around $1.5 million, then you’ve obviously got many ways to turn that into plenty of dividend income. But a safe way to do that is to invest in yet another ETF, this time one which focuses on dividends. A good example here is the Vanguard International High Dividend Yield Index Fund ETF (VYMI 0.41%), which yields 4.3%. That would be a high-enough yield to turn $1.5 million into nearly $65,000 in annual dividends.
In 30 years, there will be other ETFs and investment options to consider, and the Vanguard International High Dividend Yield Index is just one example. You may also want to opt for multiple ETFs to help balance out the risk even further.
There’s plenty of incentive to invest as much as you can afford
Regardless of how much you can invest, there’s always plenty of reason to do so, as investing in a top-growth fund can make the most of your savings. Investing tax refunds and profits from other investments can be other ways you can add to your position and help accelerate your gains even further, potentially putting you on a path to $65,000 in dividends even quicker.
David Jagielski has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.