Invest In These 5 Assets To Replace Your Paycheck & Never Work Again

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:01]Never working again sounds like a fantasy.

[00:00:03]>> [music] >> It isn't. It's five assets paying you enough every month the job becomes optional. And 10 bucks a day is enough to build it.

[00:00:12]In this video, I'll show you the trap most people fall into and how Josh gets around it with five [music] specific assets, each one passing three filters before he buys it. And by the end, I'll show you how his $10 a day habit becomes a $5,230 monthly paycheck paid for the rest of his life without him ever selling a share.

[00:00:33]Look, before Josh picks a single fund, he gets clear on one thing. What's he actually solving for? Replacing his paycheck. That's the whole job.

[00:00:41]>> [music] >> Josh has a job paying him 1,100 to 1,200 bucks a week, or about 5,000 bucks a month. That's right around what the typical American full-time worker earns, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. He shows up Monday through Friday.

[00:00:55]>> [music] >> The check shows up every 2 weeks. 60 grand a year. That's the number keeping his life running. Rent, groceries, gas, everything.

[00:01:04]He wants to replace it, so he sets the target. Five grand hitting his account every single month, whether he goes to work or not.

[00:01:12]The problem is simple to say. Josh needs to own a portfolio that pays him five grand in dividend income every month, about 60 grand a year. And he has to build it out of money he can actually spare every day, not a lump sum he doesn't have.

[00:01:26]Five grand a month paid by his investments. That's the target.

[00:01:30]Now he has to figure out how to actually build it. And the first thing he runs into is the trap most people don't even know they're in.

[00:01:37]Here's the thing. Most people trying to do what Josh is doing make the same mistake. They put their money into the S&P 500. [music] They watch the account grow for 30 years. They hit retirement with 400,000 to 500,000 dollars sitting there. And then they realize the account is paying them about 437 bucks a a in dividends.

[00:01:56]That's the gap. They built wealth. They built it well.

[00:01:59]>> [music] >> The income just isn't there.

[00:02:01]Josh thinks about why. The S&P 500 was built to grow, not to pay. The yield on VOO is around 1.05%.

[00:02:10]Even if Josh somehow ended up with a million dollars in VOO, that account would pay him roughly 875 bucks a month.

[00:02:18]The only way to get more out of it is to start selling shares.

[00:02:21]And the moment he starts selling, >> [music] >> the account starts shrinking. Every withdrawal makes the next one harder.

[00:02:27]One bad market year early in retirement and the whole plan falls apart. That's not a paycheck replacement. That's slow account liquidation with a retirement plan label on it.

[00:02:37]Josh spots the trap and walks around it.

[00:02:39]He's building income that pays him for life, and that's a completely different kind of portfolio.

[00:02:45]So, Josh has two paths in front of him.

[00:02:47]The one he picks decides everything that comes after.

[00:02:51]Each one is growth investing. He buys assets, holds them, sells pieces later when he needs cash. The account pays him by getting smaller. Every withdrawal makes the next one harder. And if the market crashes the year he wants to retire, he's selling shares at a discount just to cover rent.

[00:03:07]Here's what that looks like over 5 years.

[00:03:10]Year one, Josh puts 10 grand into a growth fund. By year three, it's grown to $15,000.

[00:03:16]By year five, he needs cash to cover a bill, so he sells shares to get it. The moment he sells, he owns less of the fund. Then the market crashes 30% that same year. The fund value drops fast, and Josh is still selling shares to pay bills. Only now he's selling them at a loss.

[00:03:33]Path two is income investing. He buys assets that pay him while he holds them.

[00:03:38]The account stays. The dividends pay his bills. Market goes up, market goes down.

[00:03:43]The income keeps showing up either way.

[00:03:46]Here's what that looks like over 5 years. Year one, Josh puts that same 10 grand into a fund paying 5% a year.

[00:03:54]By year three, he's collected $1,500 in dividends without selling a thing.

[00:03:59]By year five, that's $2,500 total.

[00:04:02]And he still owns all 100 shares he started with. Then the market crashes 30% that same year. The $10,000 might be worth $7,000 on paper, but the companies inside the fund keep paying their dividends. The 500 bucks a year keeps coming. He's not forced to sell anything.

[00:04:19]Now, that second path needs a quick explanation because not everyone watching has heard the word dividend used in a real way before.

[00:04:26]When you own shares of a company, you own [music] a tiny piece of that company. If the company makes a profit, sometimes it reinvests that profit into the business. Other times it sends a portion of that profit back to its shareholders. That payment is a dividend.

[00:04:40]It usually shows up in your account every 3 months. Some companies pay every single month. The amount depends on how many shares you own.

[00:04:48]>> [music] >> You own a piece of the business. The business pays you. No selling required.

[00:04:53]Josh picks path two. Dividends come from company profits, not from share price.

[00:04:58]So when the market drops 30%, the dividends keep coming.

[00:05:01]A paycheck replacement portfolio needs that kind of reliability. Growth investing can't give it to him.

[00:05:07]Now he goes hunting for the funds that actually deliver because not every dividend fund is built the same way.

[00:05:14]Josh sets up three filters. Every fund he picks has to pass all three.

[00:05:19]Filter one is yield. That's the percentage of his investment that gets paid back to him in income every year. A fund yielding 1% isn't going to replace a paycheck in any reasonable time frame.

[00:05:30]Josh wants funds paying enough today to actually matter.

[00:05:34]Filter two is sustainability. Today's yield means nothing if the dividend gets cut in year seven. Josh wants funds with long track records of paying >> [music] >> and ideally raising their dividends through good markets, bad markets, and everything [music] in between.

[00:05:48]Filter three is diversification. One company can fail. A fund holding hundreds or thousands of companies can lose [music] a few and barely feel it.

[00:05:56]That's what makes the income reliable enough to replace a paycheck.

[00:06:00]Now, three filters get him most of the way, but there's still a problem. If Josh just picks the five highest yielding funds he can find, he ends up with five funds doing the same job, all paying him income from the same kind of asset. One bad year in that asset class and his whole income stream takes a hit.

[00:06:17]So, he splits the portfolio across five different categories. Each one does a different job. Each one earns income from a different source. That's what makes the portfolio survive whatever the market throws at it over the next 10, 20, or 30 years.

[00:06:31]Category one is Treasury bonds, basically lending money to the US government and getting paid interest every month. The safest piece of the portfolio.

[00:06:39]Category two is a US dividend growth ETF. A fund holding the highest quality American companies that pay and grow their dividends year after year. This is the growth engine.

[00:06:49]Category three is an international stock [music] ETF. Exposure to companies outside the US. Insurance against America having a bad decade.

[00:06:57]Category four is a real estate ETF.

[00:07:00]Income from rental properties and commercial buildings without Josh owning a single property.

[00:07:05]Category five is a high income ETF. A fund designed to maximize monthly cash flow. The income engine of the portfolio.

[00:07:14]Next, I'll show you which fund Josh picks for each slot and how this portfolio is projected to turn 10 bucks a day into a $669,000 account paying over five grand in monthly dividend income.

[00:07:26]But first, let's look at the funds in Josh's portfolio, starting with the safest piece first. The first fund Josh picks is the most boring one in the whole portfolio and it's the one holding everything else up.

[00:07:37]He goes with BND, Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF. This is the Treasury Bond slot, >> [music] >> the safe piece of the portfolio. The way Josh thinks about it is simple. When he buys a share of BND, he's lending money to the US government, to American corporations, and to people paying mortgages, all at the same time. Over 17,000 different bonds in one fund.

[00:08:00]Bonds work differently from stocks. A stock means you own a piece of a company. A bond means the company or the government owes you money. They pay you interest for borrowing it. That interest is what BND passes back to Josh every single month.

[00:08:14]Now the numbers. BND pays a 3.95% current dividend yield. The dividend itself has grown at about 3.64% a year over the last decade, and the share price has actually drifted down at roughly 1.31% [music] a year. So BND isn't a growth play. It's a paycheck play, and it pays every month, not every quarter. One of only two funds in the portfolio that does.

[00:08:39]BND doesn't crash with it. Stocks fall 20% in a bad year, and bonds usually move very little. Sometimes they even go up while stocks are getting destroyed.

[00:08:48]That's the job Josh is asking BND [music] to do, stabilizing the whole thing so the rest of the portfolio can do its job.

[00:08:56]The honest trade-off, that negative share price drift is real.

[00:08:59]>> [music] >> The interest payments more than cover it, but Josh isn't picking BND for growth. He's picking it for the floor.

[00:09:06]That covers the safe piece. Now Josh looks for the part of the portfolio that grows the size of every paycheck over time. He lands on SCHD, Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF.

[00:09:18]SCHD doesn't look special on paper. The yield is average. The growth rate is high, but not the highest. Josh still picks it as one of his core holdings because SCHD holds about 105 of the highest quality dividend paying companies in the United States.

[00:09:32]Companies that have paid and raised their dividends for at least 10 straight years. Names you'd recognize. companies that have been around forever and keep growing.

[00:09:41]The current yield sits at 3.32% paid quarterly. [music] The 10-year dividend growth rate runs at 10.43% a year, and the share price has been climbing at roughly 8.96% annually on top of that. So, Josh isn't just getting dividends from SCHD, he's getting dividends that grow on shares that grow. SCHD covers the US. The portfolio can't sit only inside one country. And Josh solves that next.

[00:10:08]IXUS is the international stock slot, Josh's insurance policy against America having a bad decade. It holds around 4,100 stocks from everywhere outside the US. Europe, Asia, emerging markets, every major region.

[00:10:23]The current yield comes in at 2.87% paid quarterly.

[00:10:27]>> [music] >> The dividend has been growing at 7.03% a year over the last decade, and the share price has appreciated at roughly 6.56% [music] annually.

[00:10:36]Stocks at home, stocks abroad, Josh has those covered. But, there's one income source that doesn't move with the stock market at all, and he wants it in the portfolio next.

[00:10:46]GQRE is the real estate slot, and Josh wants this one because rental income behaves differently than every other dollar in his portfolio.

[00:10:55]Here's the thing about real estate. It's one of the most stable income streams that exists. People always need a place to live. Businesses always need somewhere to operate.

[00:11:04]>> [music] >> The rent gets paid. But, Josh doesn't want actual property. He wants the income without the tenants, the toilets, or the property managers.

[00:11:12]So, he picks GQRE, FlexShares Global Quality Real Estate Index Fund. It's a fund that owns shares of real estate companies from around the world. Those companies are called REITs, real estate investment trusts. A REIT is basically a company that owns and operates real estate, apartments, warehouses, shopping centers, hospitals. And by law, REITs have to pay out most of their profits to shareholders as dividends. [music] That's the part Josh cares about.

[00:11:39]Looking at GQRE's numbers, the fund yields 4.29% currently paid quarterly, well above average for an equity fund.

[00:11:47]That dividend has been growing at 6.29% a year over the last decade. The share price has been the slowest part of the story, appreciating at roughly It is built to pay Josh income, not to grow on the chart. The reason it yields more than most stock funds comes back to that legal requirement around REITs.

[00:12:05]They're required to pay out their profits, so they yield more than companies that get to keep what they earn.

[00:12:11]Four slots filled, one left, and it's the one doing the heaviest lifting on Josh's monthly income.

[00:12:17]The fund with the highest yield in Josh's portfolio is also the one most people misunderstand.

[00:12:22]>> [music] >> It's JEPI, JP Morgan Equity Premium Income ETF.

[00:12:27]JEPI owns a basket of large US stocks, similar to what's in the S&P 500. But on top of just owning those stocks, the fund does something extra. It sells options [music] against those stocks every single month.

[00:12:41]JP Morgan actually breaks down where JEPI's income comes from on their own fund report. Picture three blocks side by side. The first one is dividends, the regular payments from the stocks JEPI owns.

[00:12:53]>> [music] >> That block represents roughly 1 to 2% of the yield. The second block is the options premium, the cash JEPI generates by selling those call options every month.

[00:13:04]That block represents roughly 5 to 8% of the yield. Stack those two together, and the options block is more than three times the size of the dividends block.

[00:13:12]That's where 83% of JEPI's monthly income comes from. The dividends contribute the other 17%. The third piece in the picture is the equity contribution itself, the up and down movement of the stock prices, which is variable and depends on how the market moves.

[00:13:28]That's why JEPI yields 8.46% more than double anything else in Josh's portfolio and it pays every single month. It has a dividend growth of 0.86% a year, much slower than the other funds because the yield is so high to begin with.

[00:13:45]Now Josh has all five assets. The next step is figuring out what the whole portfolio metrics look like.

[00:13:52]Josh splits his 10 bucks a day evenly, 20% into each fund. Every dividend gets reinvested. Here's how the portfolio yield gets calculated. Since every fund gets the same 20% slice, the portfolio's yield is just a simple average of all five. Add up the yields, [music] 3.95% + 3.32% + 2.87% [music] + 4.29% + 8.46%.

[00:14:18]That comes out to 22.89%.

[00:14:21]Divide by five. The portfolio's blended dividend yield is 4.58%.

[00:14:27]The same process works for the other two metrics. The blended dividend growth rate comes out at 5.65% a year [music] and the blended share price appreciation comes out at 2.68% a year.

[00:14:38]Based on those metrics, here's what the portfolio would do. By the end of year one, Josh would have invested $3,650.

[00:14:46]That's the $10 a day every day for 365 days. Fast forward 10 years, Josh would have put in $36,500 of his own money. The account would be projected to reach $53,316.

[00:15:00]It would be paying about $2,723 a year in dividends, roughly $227 a month.

[00:15:07]Another decade in, total contributions would sit at $73,000. [music] The account would be projected at $192,839 and the annual income would reach $13,643, >> [music] >> $1,137 every single month.

[00:15:22]Year 30 is where the math gets serious.

[00:15:25]The portfolio would be valued at $669,187.

[00:15:29]Josh would have contributed $109,500 of that. The other $559,687 would come from the market and from reinvested dividends doing their work over three decades.

[00:15:42]The income the portfolio would pay in year 30, $62,763 a year, that breaks down to 5,230 bucks a month. Every single month without a single share being sold. 5,230 bucks a month, that's the $5,000 paycheck replaced.

[00:16:00]If your goal is maximizing growth instead of replacing a paycheck, there are three ETFs projected to crush QQQ over the next decade. One of them would turn 10 grand into over $8 million.

[00:16:11]I'll show you which three. That video is on screen right now.