July was a real test. My portfolio fell 4.71% — a six-figure paper loss on a portfolio I live off of. And the honest answer is: it’s never comfortable, even when you built the system specifically to handle it.

But the income didn’t stop. $13,825 in distributions came through in July right on schedule. That’s the whole design. Price is noise. Income is the scoreboard I watch.

Then August came.

Full recovery and then some. Here’s where everything landed on August 31st.

Read more

Most income investors have heard of dividend stocks. REITs. Covered call ETFs.

But Business Development Companies — BDCs — fly under the radar for a lot of people. And that’s a shame. Because when you find the right ones, they can deliver meaningful monthly income backed by a legal structure that most people don’t know exists.

Here’s the short version: by federal law, BDCs are required to distribute at least 90% of their taxable income to shareholders. And I want to be precise about that word — taxable income. We’re talking profits. Net investment income after expenses. Not revenue, not gross dollars flowing through the business. The actual profits the company earns from its loan portfolio. That’s what gets paid out to you.

The result is consistently high yields, paid monthly, from companies lending to the small and mid-sized businesses that keep the American middle market running.

But not all BDCs are built the same. Some are rock solid. Some are yield traps waiting to spring. And one name I’m going to show you today has a red warning banner sitting right at the top of its Seeking Alpha page.

Let’s get into it.

What to Look For Before You Buy Any BDC

Two things matter more than the yield number.

Internal vs. external management. An internally managed BDC means the people running the company are actual employees — they eat what they cook, their compensation is tied to performance, and their incentives are aligned with yours as a shareholder. An externally managed BDC means a third-party firm is running operations and collecting fees regardless of how the portfolio performs. That distinction shows up in outcomes more than most people realize.

NII coverage. Net Investment Income is what the BDC actually earns from its loan portfolio. If NII covers the distribution, the payout has a foundation. If it doesn’t — cuts happen. This is the number that predicts distribution sustainability far better than the yield percentage ever will.

Keep those two in mind as we go through the list.

First — The One-Year Picture

Before I break down each name, I want to show you the data that frames everything else.

[Portfolio comparison image — Total Return 1Y: CSWC +23.69% / MAIN -4.79% / GAIN +24.42% / GLAD -14.98% / PSEC -6.58% / PFLT -16.13%]

Total return over one year — price plus distributions combined. GAIN up 24.42%. CSWC up 23.69%. PFLT sitting at negative 16%.

Now price return only:

[Portfolio comparison image — Price Return 1Y: CSWC +10.48% / MAIN -11.66% / GAIN +16.52% / GLAD -22.92% / PSEC -23.20% / PFLT -26.82%]

GAIN up 16.52%. CSWC up 10.48%. Meanwhile PFLT, PSEC, and GLAD are all down more than 20% on price alone.

A 15% yield means nothing if the price is bleeding 25% underneath it. You can end up with less than you started. That’s the trap. Keep that chart in your head as you read through each name.

#1 — MAIN: Main Street Capital
Forward Yield: ~7.43% | Internally Managed | 1Y Total Return: -4.79%

The name most people in this space point to first — and the track record explains why.

Main Street Capital has never cut its regular monthly dividend since going public in 2007. Not in 2008. Not in 2020. Not once across nearly two decades and multiple market crises.

Current monthly distribution is approximately $0.255 per share, with semi-annual supplemental dividends layered on top when earnings support them. Internally managed, focused on lower middle market companies with $10 to $150 million in revenue.

The yield is the lowest on this list — that’s the trade-off. MAIN trades at a premium to NAV, meaning the market is pricing in the track record. The price has been down over the last year. But for investors who need to count on that monthly payment arriving regardless of what the market is doing, the distribution never wavered.

Consistency has a price. Whether that price makes sense for your situation is your call to make.

#2 — GAIN: Gladstone Investment
Forward Yield: ~5.80% | Externally Managed | 1Y Total Return: +24.42%

This one surprised me when I dug into the data.

Up 24.42% on total return over the last year. Price alone — up 16.52%. Best price performance in the group, and still paying monthly at a 5.80% forward yield.

What makes GAIN different is the hybrid model. It lends, but it also takes equity positions in its portfolio companies. When one of those companies gets sold or goes public, GAIN participates in the upside — and shareholders see that in supplemental dividends. Not on a fixed schedule, but when the portfolio generates capital gains, they show up.

Externally managed, worth noting. But the Gladstone operation has a long track record and the numbers have held up. The lower base yield reflects the equity upside component. The total return picture has done the talking over the last twelve months.

#3 — GLAD: Gladstone Capital
Forward Yield: ~8.93% | Externally Managed | 1Y Total Return: -14.98%

Same family as GAIN, different strategy entirely.

GLAD is a pure lending BDC — first and second lien debt, some mezzanine. No equity upside component. In exchange you get a higher base yield, currently around 8.93%, with a monthly distribution of $1.80 per share annually.

The price chart is harder. Down roughly 23% on price over the last year, negative 14.98% on total return. That’s real and worth sitting with.

GLAD has continued paying its monthly distribution through a rough period for private credit broadly. NII coverage is the number to watch most closely here. If profits are still covering the payout, the distribution can hold even under price pressure. If coverage starts to slip, the picture changes quickly.

Higher yield, more volatility. Do your homework on the coverage ratio before making any decisions here.

#4 — CSWC: Capital Southwest
Forward Yield: ~10.01% | Internally Managed | 1Y Total Return: +23.69%

This is the one I want to spend the most time on — and I’ll be upfront that I’ve personally owned this name.

Capital Southwest recently converted from quarterly to monthly distributions. The current monthly payment is $0.1934 per share, plus a quarterly supplemental dividend of $0.06 per share. Annualized, you’re looking at a forward yield right around 10%.

Internally managed. That’s the first thing I noted when I started following this one closely. The team running this company are employees with real alignment to shareholder outcomes.

Middle market lending out of Dallas. Portfolio around $2.1 billion in investments, credit quality holding up, non-accruals minimal. Total return over the last year — up 23.69%. Price alone, up 10.48%. Income and price appreciation moving in the same direction over the same period.

The move to monthly distributions is significant for income investors specifically. Quarterly income is harder to plan around when you’re living off your portfolio. Monthly aligns with how expenses actually work. That structural change is part of why this one stays on my radar.

#5 — PSEC: Prospect Capital
Forward Yield: ~18.42% | Externally Managed | 1Y Total Return: -6.58%

I’m going to be direct here.

That 18.42% yield will catch your eye. It should — it’s an extraordinary number. But before anyone goes near this one, the full picture matters.

PSEC is down 23.20% on price over the last year. Wall Street has it rated Strong Sell. Externally managed. And it has a documented history of distribution cuts — during the pandemic and in prior cycles.

An 18% yield that gets cut in half isn’t an 18% yield. And if the price is simultaneously declining, the total return looks nothing like that headline number when you first saw it.

I’m including it because it exists and people find it. It shows up in searches, in forums, in income investing communities. If it’s in your research — go in with complete awareness of the cut history, a clear view on current NII coverage, and a position size that honestly reflects the actual risk level.

The Warning Label: PFLT — PennantPark Floating Rate Capital
Forward Yield: ~12.82% | Externally Managed | 1Y Total Return: -16.13%

This one isn’t in the top five. It’s here as a teaching moment.

Open PennantPark Floating Rate Capital’s page on Seeking Alpha and the first thing you see is a red banner: “Warning: PFLT is at high risk of cutting its dividend.”

That’s the platform’s own analytical signal. Not editorializing.

Down 26.82% on price over the last year. Negative 16.13% on total return. Dividend safety grade — F.

Here’s the pattern worth understanding. PFLT built its portfolio around floating-rate loans — that logic made sense when rates were rising. But when borrowers start to struggle and non-accruals climb, income gets squeezed regardless of what rates are doing. And when profits can no longer cover the distribution, cuts happen.

We saw this in 2020. Several BDCs cut their distributions. The ones that didn’t — conservative leverage, disciplined underwriting, internal management — held the line. The ones that did cut followed a recognizable pattern first. Prices falling while yield numbers climbed higher as the price dropped. Coverage ratios slipping quietly before any public announcement.

PFLT is showing several of those signals right now. A yield that rises because the price is falling isn’t always a buying opportunity. Sometimes the market is telling you something the next press release hasn’t said yet.

Know the signs before you chase the number.

The Summary

The pattern in that total return column is worth sitting with. The two internally managed names — CSWC and GAIN — are the only ones in positive territory over the last year. That’s not a coincidence.

Where I Land Personally

I’ve owned two names on this list. MAIN and CSWC — both earlier in my income investing journey.

I’m not currently in either one, and I want to be honest about why.

Right now I’m still in a building phase. Active income is still coming in and that’s serving as a safety net while the portfolio grows. In this phase I’ve leaned toward higher-yield instruments in my Income Engine bucket — covered call ETFs, sector plays. Maximum cash flow generation while I’m actively adding to the snowball.

BDCs — the quality names, the internally managed ones with real track records — I see those fitting a different phase. When I’m fully stepped away from active income. When the portfolio needs to sustain itself without me watching it as closely. When reliable monthly income becomes more valuable than maximum yield. That’s when something like MAIN or CSWC starts to make more sense in the mix.

I’ll be coming back to this space. And when I do, I’ll document it right here — what I’m buying, why, and what the real income impact looks like in actual dollars. That’s the whole point of doing this in public.

A Note on Research

All the data in this post came from Seeking Alpha — the factor grades, dividend safety scores, yield figures, and that red warning banner on PFLT. Not a sponsor, but I’m an affiliate and it’s been genuinely vital to how I research income investments. If you want to do this kind of analysis yourself, it’s one of the most useful platforms I’ve found. Link is in the description on the YouTube video.

I’m not a financial advisor. Everything here is what I’m personally researching and doing with my own money. Always do your own due diligence before investing your hard-earned dollars.

Are you currently holding any BDCs? Which one — and what’s your thinking behind it? Drop it in the comments. I read every one.

If you want to build your first income portfolio from the ground up, my Freedom Builder Bootcamp walks you through the entire foundation in 30 days. It's designed to get you set up and moving — no guesswork, no overwhelm. Check it out here.

— Rico

In 2018, I made a decision that made complete sense at the time.

I partnered with some friends and we went in on a portfolio of rental properties together. Thirty-plus units. I put in somewhere between $200,000 and $250,000. Real estate felt safe. Tangible. The kind of investment you could actually see and touch — not some number flickering on a screen.

You know the pitch. Passive income. Appreciation. Tax advantages. All the things you hear at every dinner party and in every finance podcast.

The reality was different.

Maintenance calls that never stopped. Costs I didn’t anticipate. Property taxes that hit harder than expected. The kind of operational friction that comes with managing a large portfolio of properties across multiple locations with multiple people involved. When we eventually sold everything, I walked away with somewhere between $75,000 and $100,000 back.

On a $200,000 plus investment.

I’m not bitter about it. I don’t blame my partners — we all went in with good intentions and we all came out wiser. And I still own the first rental property my wife and I bought together in Las Vegas in 2017. That one stays.

But here’s what genuinely gets to me.

I was at my earning peak. Late 30s, early 40s. A senior executive with real capital to deploy. And not one person — not a colleague, not a mentor, not a financial advisor — sat me down and said: “Before you tie up $200,000 in rental units, let me show you what the market actually does over time.”

Not one.

So I’m going to be that person for you today.

The thing most people get wrong about stocks

Let me address the objection I hear constantly — and one I used to believe myself.

“The stock market is gambling.”

I get it. When you’re watching prices move up and down every day, it feels chaotic. It feels speculative. It feels like the opposite of something solid and real.

But here’s what I know now that I didn’t know then. When you invest in a broad index fund — something that tracks the Nasdaq-100 or the S&P 500 — you’re not betting on a single company’s fate. You’re buying a small ownership stake in the most dominant companies in the world. Apple. Microsoft. Google. Amazon. The businesses that run the global economy.

That’s not gambling. That’s ownership.

And when you stay in long enough — through the dips, through the scary headlines, through the years that test your patience — the math becomes undeniable.

What $200,000 in QQQ would have done

Let me show you the actual numbers, because this is where it gets real.

QQQ is the ETF that tracks the Nasdaq-100. It’s one of the most widely held funds in the world, and its annual return history is publicly available. Here’s what those years looked like, and what would have happened to a $200,000 investment made at the start of 2018.

Then 2022 hit. Down 32%. The position dropped to around $354,000. That’s the year that shakes people loose — and it’s exactly the year you have to stay in.

Because 2023 came back with 56% growth, pushing the position back to roughly $554,000. And 2024 added another 26%, bringing the final total to approximately $697,000.

From $200,000 to $697,000. No tenants. No maintenance calls. No partner meetings about a leaky roof. No operational overhead of any kind.

Now — I want to be honest with you, the way I always try to be. Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results. QQQ had a brutal 2022. Anyone who bailed that year locked in a real loss. The only way this math works is if you stay the course and let time do its job. That’s not easy. But it is simple.

And it gets more interesting from here.

The upgrade: from QQQ to QQQI

QQQ is a growth fund. It appreciates beautifully over time, as we just saw — but it generates almost no income. The dividend yield is less than half a percent. So you’re building wealth in the background, but you’re not building cash flow you can actually live on.

That’s where my thinking has evolved significantly over the last few years.

In January 2024, NEOS launched QQQI — the Nasdaq-100 High Income ETF. It’s now my largest holding, and it’s the fund I wish had existed a decade ago.

Here’s the concept. QQQI holds essentially the same underlying exposure as QQQ — the Nasdaq-100, the same 100 companies. But layered on top of that is a covered call options strategy using 1256 contracts, which generates monthly income and does so in a tax-efficient way that most covered call funds don’t bother to optimize for.

The result is a distribution yield around 14%, paid every single month.

So here’s the hypothetical I want you to sit with. What if someone had held QQQ from 2018 through the end of 2024 — building that position up to roughly $697,000 — and then in early 2025 transitioned that into QQQI?

At a 14% yield on $697,000, that position would be generating approximately $97,000 a year in passive distributions. About $8,100 every month. Hitting the account whether you’re working, traveling, or sleeping.

That is what every dollar having a job actually looks like in practice.

I want to be clear — this is a hypothetical built on historical data, and QQQI didn’t exist in 2018. The yield fluctuates. The total return will vary. This isn’t a promise, it’s a principle: index-based exposure combined with an income overlay gives you both growth potential and cash flow. That combination is what I’m building toward now. And it’s what I wish I’d understood ten years earlier.

What I’d actually do starting over today

So let’s get practical. Whether you’re 35, 45, or 55, here’s the philosophy I’d follow if I were starting from scratch.

Income over appreciation. I’m not chasing price. I’m building cash flow. Every dollar I invest needs to have a job — and that job is to send me more money. Appreciation is a bonus, not the strategy.

Broad indexes over concentrated bets. No single stocks. No sector gambles. No speculative plays hoping to catch lightning in a bottle. I want exposure to the biggest, most dominant companies in the world, through structures that pay me while I hold them.

The 3-Bucket System. This is the framework I organize everything around, and it’s designed to work in any market environment.

The first bucket is the Income Engine — the higher-yield, more aggressive positions that generate cash flow today. These are the workhorses.

The second bucket is the Core Foundation — the anchor of the portfolio. QQQI and SPYI live here. Broad index exposure with monthly income and tax efficiency built into the structure. Stable, durable, and designed to compound over decades.

The third bucket is the Defensive Moat — the shock absorbers. Assets that behave differently when markets get ugly. Gold exposure, energy infrastructure, real assets. These aren’t exciting. That’s exactly the point.

Together, the three buckets cover growth periods, downturns, inflation, and uncertainty. You’re not betting on one market environment. You’re building a portfolio that can survive all of them.

Start earlier than you think you need to. This is the one that keeps me up at night. If someone had shown me this framework at 38 — when I had real capital to deploy and real income coming in — I don’t think I would have worked until 2023. I think I would have walked away years earlier.

It’s not too late

Here’s what I want you to hear before you close this article.

The best time to plant this tree was ten years ago. The second best time is today.

Your earning peak — whenever it was or whenever it’s coming — is the most important capital deployment window of your financial life. That’s the moment when income is highest, expenses are (hopefully) manageable, and time is still on your side. Use it deliberately. Give every dollar a job.

And if you feel behind — if you’re reading this thinking you’ve already missed your window — I want to push back on that directly. I know what it feels like to lose money. I know what it feels like to look back and see the decisions you’d make differently. I went through a Chapter 13 bankruptcy in 2009. I lost everything and spent five years repaying every dollar under legal supervision. If I can build a portfolio generating over $160,000 a year in passive income from that starting point, the window is not closed for you.

It is never too late to redirect your dollars toward a better outcome.

Where to go from here

If this resonated with you and you want to start putting numbers to your own situation, my Freedom Calculator is completely free. It helps you figure out your actual freedom number — how much passive income you need, how long it realistically takes to get there, and what your path looks like based on where you’re starting from. No fluff, no upsell. Just the math. You can find it linked in my profile.

If you’re ready to go further and actually build your first income portfolio, the Freedom Builder Bootcamp gives you a 30-day roadmap to get your foundation in place. It’s the structure I wish someone had handed me when I was starting out — the frameworks, the thinking, the sequence of decisions that actually matter.

And if you found value in this article, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who needs to read it. Someone in their 30s or 40s who’s still figuring out where their money should go. Someone who thinks the stock market is gambling. Someone who’s been sitting on capital and hasn’t pulled the trigger yet.

That’s who I wrote this for.

I’m Rico Nasol — a former creative executive who retired in 2023. I share my real portfolio, real income numbers, wins, losses, and everything I’m learning as I build my income snowball in public. Subscribe to follow along.

Nothing in this article is financial advice. Always do your own research before investing your hard-earned money.

To Goldman Sachs.

$2.3 billion dollars.

If you hold SPYI, QQQI, IWMI, IYRI, IAUI, MLPI — or any other NEOS fund — this matters to you. I’m breaking down exactly what happened, why Goldman is doing this, and the four specific things you need to be watching between now and when this deal closes in early 2027.

Quick disclaimer before we get into it — I’m not a financial advisor. Everything here reflects my personal research and my own portfolio decisions. This is educational, not advice. Always do your own research before investing your hard-earned money.

The Deal

On August 12th, 2026, Goldman Sachs announced it has agreed to acquire NEOS Investments for up to $2.25 billion in cash and equity.

The deal closes in Q1 2027, pending regulatory approval — and a shareholder proxy vote that you and I will actually participate in as ETF holders.

NEOS manages $30 billion across 19 ETFs. QQQI is a $14 billion fund. SPYI is $11 billion. Together they represent 84% of NEOS’s total assets. When Goldman wrote that check, those two tickers were the main event.

I’ll be transparent: this is personal for me.

When I look at my Snowball dashboard right now, QQQI is generating roughly $18,500 a year in income for me. SPYI adds another $10,900. When I total up every NEOS fund I hold — QQQI, SPYI, MLPI, IWMI, IYRI, IAUI, XSPI — we’re looking at close to $44,000 a year in monthly income flowing from one fund company.

So when NEOS gets sold, I pay attention.

Why Goldman Is Really Doing This

Options-income ETFs have grown from essentially nothing in 2021 to $180 billion in assets industry-wide. That’s a 70% compound annual growth rate in five years.

Goldman isn’t buying NEOS because they admire the team. They’re buying NEOS because this category is on fire and they want to own it. This is a deliberate land grab.

After this deal closes, Goldman Sachs Asset Management manages over $130 billion in ETF assets and becomes the 8th largest active ETF manager in the world. That’s not a boutique strategy. That’s a category dominance play.

Goldman’s CEO David Solomon said publicly: “This acquisition is an excellent strategic and cultural fit.”

Cultural fit. He said it. Now we watch to see if they mean it.

The Innovator Precedent

Here’s the piece of context that matters most right now — and it’s largely flying under the radar.

Goldman already did this. Earlier this year.

In December 2025, Goldman announced the acquisition of Innovator Capital Management — the buffer ETF company. That deal closed April 2, 2026 — just four months ago. The Innovator ETFs still trade under their original tickers. The brand is intact. The team is there.

That’s encouraging. Goldman is clearly building a deliberate options ETF platform — buffer ETFs with Innovator, income ETFs with NEOS. Two acquisitions. One clear strategy.

But Innovator closed four months ago. It is too early to call it a clean win. It’s the right benchmark. It’s just a young one.

The Four Things to Watch

This is where it matters for you as a current or potential investor in these funds.

1. Expense ratios — and this cuts both ways.

SPYI and QQQI currently run at 0.68%. For an actively managed options strategy using 1256 contracts, that’s not unreasonable. But look at what comparable funds charge.

JEPI and JEPQ from JP Morgan: 0.35%.
Goldman’s own GPIX and GPIQ: 0.29%.

Here’s the honest two-sided take — because both outcomes are real possibilities.

Fees could go down. Goldman has the scale, institutional infrastructure, and pricing power to bring SPYI and QQQI closer to industry norms — somewhere in the 0.35% to 0.50% range. If that happens, that’s a genuine win for long-term holders. More of your return stays in your pocket.

Fees could also stay flat or drift higher. Goldman could look at the premium NEOS commands in the market and decide investors will bear it. We don’t know yet.

What you’re watching for: any prospectus amendments or 497K filings with the SEC between now and close. That’s where fee changes would first appear.

2. The investment team.

Troy Cates and Garrett Paolella — the NEOS co-founders — are both staying on as Goldman Sachs Asset Management Partners. The full NEOS team is expected to make the move.

Here’s what gives me some confidence: that $2.25 billion isn’t all paid upfront. It’s contingent on “performance and service commitments.” The founders don’t get fully paid unless the funds keep performing. That’s real alignment.

But watch beyond the founders. The portfolio managers, the options execution team, the people making decisions on your distributions every single month — those are the ones who matter. Quiet mid-level departures in the months after close would be a yellow flag.

3. Monthly distributions.

This is the one I’m watching most closely — because this is where it hits me directly.

Since SPYI launched in September 2022: monthly, consistent, barely a blip. That doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of a specific investment process — the 1256 contract structure that NEOS built their entire platform around.

If Goldman moves the options execution to a different framework, the tax treatment changes. Not necessarily the income amount — the after-tax income. For income investors, that is not a small thing. That’s the whole point.

Watch the monthly distributions. And watch the 19a-1 notices on each fund’s page — that’s where NEOS discloses how each distribution is classified. If the return of capital percentage starts shifting meaningfully, something has changed under the hood.

4. Branding and identity.

Watch whether “NEOS” stays front and center or starts getting absorbed into “Goldman Sachs.” When Innovator was acquired, the Innovator brand stayed on the ETFs. NEOS says tickers will remain unchanged and the business will “operate as a focused ETF business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management.”

That’s the promise. Hold them to it. Brand is a signal — it tells you how much real autonomy the acquired team actually has.

The Bottom Line

Between now and Q1 2027, nothing changes for you. Your tickers are the same. Your distributions keep coming. No action is required.

When the proxy materials arrive — and they will — read them. The vote includes approval of a new investment advisory agreement and new Board of Trustees nominees. The fine print in those documents will tell you more about Goldman’s real intentions than any press release.

I’m not moving out of my NEOS positions. I have close to $44,000 a year in monthly income flowing from these funds. That’s not a number you exit on instinct.

But I am watching. The team. The distributions. The expense ratios. And what Goldman does with Innovator over the next few months as a live test case.

That’s what disciplined income investing looks like. Not panic. Not blind faith. Informed patience.

Every dollar has a job. Right now, my NEOS dollars are still doing their job. I’ll update you when that changes.

Want to talk through how I’m navigating this and see my full portfolio in real time? Join the Substack community — that’s where the deeper conversations happen.

If you haven’t figured out your freedom number yet, the Freedom Calculator is free. Link below. And if you want to build your first income portfolio the right way, the Freedom Builder Bootcamp sets the foundation in 30 days.

All links are below. See you in the community.

— Rico

I am not a financial advisor. This is personal research shared for educational purposes only. Always do your own research before investing.

I sold my last shares of GDXY on June 7th.

Between the NAV erosion and the $10,000 in distributions I collected over four months — I walked away with a net loss of roughly $12,000. I’ve covered the numbers in the monthly updates. I’m not going to relitigate them here.

What I want to do is give you the fuller picture. Because as I’m writing this, GDXY is bouncing. Gold is surging. There’s a live Strait of Hormuz deal in the headlines. And the question I keep getting is the same one.

Are you going back in?

Read more

July was a tough month for a lot of portfolios — mine included.

Read more

I’m writing this from Puerto Vallarta, squeezing out the last bit of summer with my family before real life kicks back in.

And honestly, I almost didn’t write this one.

But I kept seeing the same message coming through — from comments, from my inbox, from people in this community —

“Rico, tech is getting hammered. What do I do?”

Read more

With the war in Iran still dragging on and this economy feeling shakier by the month, a lot of you are looking for ways to protect your income, not just grow it. So here’s a question worth sitting with: could an old-school, decades-old fund structure actually give you more stability than the shiny new stuff?

There’s a family of income funds that’s been around since 2002 — some of them even longer. Double-digit yields on paper. 15%, 16%, sometimes 17%. A lot of income investors treat them like gospel.

Read more

Read more

The June numbers are in. And I’m going to lead with the one that looks bad before I show you the one that doesn’t.

Read more

Two months ago I started a test.

Five State Street sector-based premium income ETFs. Small positions. The goal: find non-tech income that actually holds up while the rest of my portfolio rides the tech bull run.

I gave an honest 1-month update. Mixed results. Some green, some red. All paying income.

Now it’s time for the real update — because the portfolio looks very different. I exited three positions. Kept two. Added one. And I’m dollar-cost averaging into all three survivors on a weekly basis.

Here’s the full breakdown.

Read more

I got a comment this week that I see all the time. And I don’t think the person was being confrontational — they were genuinely asking a good question.

“If there’s a downturn in the market, and everything falls, what happens to your dividend income?”

It’s a fair ask. And the answer is actually the opposite of what most people think. In a downturn, income doesn’t disappear. In fact, sometimes it increases. But here’s the thing — most people don’t understand why because they don’t know how these ETFs actually generate income in the first place.

So let me break that down. No jargon. No complicated finance-speak. Just how it actually works.

The Real Problem: Nobody Explains How These Work

If you’re asking this question, you’re not uninformed — you’re actually thinking clearly. The problem isn’t you — it’s that nobody’s explained how these income ETFs work.

Most people think income comes from company profits. Dividends, right? Company makes money, shareholders get paid. That logic is solid. But here’s where it breaks down.

The ETFs I own — QQQI, SPYI, CHPY — they don’t primarily generate income from dividends. They generate income from options premiums. And that’s a completely different animal.

When you own an income ETF like JEPI, you’re receiving distributions. Regular, monthly payments. But those distributions aren’t coming from Apple or Microsoft or any company in the S&P 500 paying dividends.

They’re coming from premiums. Options premiums.

Think of a premium like this: it’s the price someone pays you for the right to do something in the future. You’re collecting that price upfront. That’s your income.

Covered Calls: How Premiums Actually Get Generated

Here’s how this works in practice.

Imagine you own 100 shares of Apple. You paid $150 a share. Apple’s trading at $155. You own it outright.

Now someone comes to you and says: “I’ll pay you $2 per share if you agree that I can buy your shares from you at $160 anytime in the next month.”

You’re collecting $200 upfront for that promise. That $200 is the premium. It’s income. It comes into your account. And you didn’t have to sell anything.

If Apple stays below $160 by the end of the month, the other person walks away. Their option expires worthless. You keep your shares and you keep the $200 premium. Then you do it again next month.

That’s a covered call. You own the shares (covered), you sell someone the right to call them away from you (call), and you pocket the premium.

This is how JEPI works at scale. JPMorgan owns hundreds of millions in S&P 500 stocks. Every month, they sell call options on those holdings. They collect premiums. That premium is your distribution. Your income.

Puts: Collecting Premium on the Other Side

But here’s where it gets interesting. Some of these income ETFs don’t just sell calls. They also sell puts.

A put is the opposite side of the trade. You’re selling someone the right to sell you shares at a certain price. You’re collecting a premium for agreeing to that risk.

Think of it this way: if you sell a put on Apple at $150, you’re saying “I’ll buy your shares from you at $150 if they fall below that.” In exchange, someone pays you a premium upfront for that insurance.

Some funds — like REX Shares — layer in put spreads along with call spreads. They’re collecting premiums on both sides. The mechanics are slightly different, but the principle is the same: they’re getting paid for taking on risk. And that payment is income.

The benefit? Puts can help hedge downside. You’re not just collecting income — you’re also getting some protection built in. That’s why some of these strategies are more defensive. They’re generating income and managing risk.

Why Premiums Exist: The Key Insight

Now here’s the critical part. Premiums exist because of uncertainty. Not because a company is healthy or sick.

When you sell someone the right to buy Apple at $160, they’re paying you for the possibility that Apple could jump above $160. They’re buying protection. They’re buying the upside if it happens.

The higher the uncertainty, the higher the premium. Someone will pay more money for that right when the market is chaotic, volatile, and unpredictable.

In a calm market? Premiums are small. People aren’t worried, so options aren’t valuable.

In a volatile market? Premiums spike. People are nervous, they want protection, they want opportunity. They’ll pay more.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you: downturns are volatility events. And volatility is where premiums come from.

This is the game-changer. This is why income doesn’t disappear when markets fall.

2022: The Real-World Proof

Let me show you what actually happened.

In 2022, the market had a brutal downturn. The S&P fell 18% for the year. The Nasdaq fell even harder — down in the mid-20s. Terrible year for buy-and-hold investors.

But here’s what happened to JEPI. Yes, the share price fell. Of course it did — it owns S&P 500 stocks. Starting the year at $60.99, by September 2022 it was down to $51.23. That’s a 16% hit. Real money on paper. Painful to watch.

But you know what else happened? Distributions kept getting paid. Every single month. Because traders were still trading. Options were still being written. Volatility was through the roof. Premiums were huge.

Look at the actual distribution amounts:

The Calm Months (Feb-Jun 2022): $0.38 to $0.46 per share per month.

The Volatility Spike Months (Jul-Dec 2022):

• July: $0.62

• September: $0.56

• October: $0.48

• November: $0.61

• December: $0.61

The volatility was the thing generating the income. As the S&P fell, premiums got more valuable, not less. The fear was creating the opportunity.

A growth investor in 2022 was in a bind. Stock prices fell. If they needed income, they’d have to sell at the bottom — which is the worst possible time to sell. They’re forced to sell low.

An income investor with JEPI? Didn’t sell a single share. Collected distributions every month. Watched the volatility spike. Watched the premiums spike. Watched the income flow in. It’s not the same as being up for the year. But structurally, I’m not in crisis.

That’s the real difference.

How Fund Managers Pull This Off

You might be wondering: why don’t I just do this myself?

I tried writing my own call options. Once. It was tedious, time-consuming, and the math didn’t pencil out. I’d have to monitor positions constantly, roll them, manage expirations, handle edge cases. For the amount of money it would make me, it wasn’t worth the hours.

Fund managers have scale. They own hundreds of millions of dollars in holdings. They can write thousands of contracts. They can automate the rolling process. They can afford to do this efficiently because they’re doing it for millions of dollars, not thousands.

When you buy JEPI, you’re essentially hiring JPMorgan to do that work. You pay them a small fee (baked into the expense ratio), and they handle the whole operation. They collect premiums, they roll contracts, they distribute the income.

I just... receive it. Every month. It hits my account.

That’s the trade-off. Less control, more convenience. And for me, it’s the right choice.

The Key Question: What Happens to My Share Price?

Okay, so yes. In a downturn, my share price in JEPI falls because it owns S&P 500 stocks, and the S&P falls. My shares are worth less on paper.

Look at the actual numbers. In January 2022, JEPI closed at $60.99. By September 2022 — the worst month of the downturn — it was down to $51.23. That’s a 16% decline. By February 2023, it was sitting at $53.79. So roughly a 12% decline over about 13 months.

Is that painful to look at? Yeah. But here’s what didn’t happen during that time: I didn’t have to sell a single share. I didn’t watch my income disappear. I didn’t panic-sell at the bottom.

For comparison, the S&P 500 itself fell 18% in 2022. JEPI’s price declined less than that. But more importantly — I was collecting monthly distributions the entire time. Real money hitting my account. Every single month.

Compare that to someone who owns SPY (the regular S&P ETF, no options overlay). In 2022, they’re down 18%. If they need to live off their portfolio, they’re forced to sell. They’re selling at the bottom. They’re locking in losses.

Me? I’m not selling. I’m living off the distributions. The distributions might be smaller because volatility eventually calms down and premiums compress. But I’m not forced to do anything. I can wait. I can let it recover.

That’s the structural difference for me. It’s not that my income is immune to downturns. It’s that I don’t have to sell in downturns.

This is why income investing is structurally different from growth investing. One forces you into decisions. The other lets you stay disciplined.

Why This Still Works (And Will Keep Working)

The last piece: why does this work at all?

Because markets are always volatile. Always. Even in the longest bull markets, there are corrections, there are days of fear, there are earnings surprises.

As long as there are traders and investors, there will be hedging. As long as there’s hedging, there will be demand for options. As long as there’s demand, premiums will exist.

I don’t need a bull market for this strategy to work. I need trading. And trading is going to happen whether stocks are up or down.

That’s it. That’s the insight.

The Bigger Picture

If you’re asking “what happens to my income in a downturn?” — you’re asking the right question. But the answer depends entirely on how your income is generated.

If you’re relying on company dividends, yes, a downturn can hurt. If you’re relying on options premiums and volatility, a downturn can actually improve your opportunity.

That’s not magic. That’s not luck. That’s understanding the structural difference between dividend investing and options income investing.

I cover this in much more depth in the video version of this article, where you can see the actual 2022 data visualized. But the core principle is this: every dollar has a job. Some dollars buy you food. Some buy you shelter. But the dollars hired to generate income have a very different job than most people think.

Your Move

If you want to understand your income strategy better — or build one from scratch — that’s what this community is about.

I share my full portfolio breakdown, real numbers, wins and losses, and walk through the frameworks I use to think about income investing. There’s no “one right way,” but there are principles that work regardless of the market environment.

The Freedom Calculator (free to all subscribers) helps you figure out your actual freedom number — how much passive income you need to stop trading time for money. It’s worth running through, whether you’re just starting or you’ve been at this for years.

Join the community at my Substack, and let’s talk strategy together.

Disclaimer: I’m not a financial advisor. Everything here is based on my personal research and experience. Always do your own research and consult with a professional before making investment decisions.

Ready to go deeper?

Use the Freedom Calculator to figure out your number.

Join the community to talk strategy with other income investors.

In 2009, I filed for bankruptcy.

I owed more than I could count. I lost my home. I was paying over $900 a month — for five years — just to dig out of a hole I dug with my own hands.

Today, I’m collecting over $16,000 a month in passive income. I retired on my own terms in 2023 after 20+ years as a creative tech executive at companies like Netflix, Zappos, and Outschool. I’m building an income portfolio that pays me whether I wake up at 6 AM or noon.

So how do you go from bankruptcy court to that?

That’s what this article is about. Not the ETFs. Not the tickers. The real story underneath all of it — and the lessons that made everything else possible.

Quick Disclaimer

I’m not a financial advisor. I’m just a guy sharing his real story and what I’ve personally learned along the way. This is education, not advice. Always do your own research before putting your hard-earned money into anything.

2006 Rico

Let me take you back.

It’s 2006. I’m working at Zappos. Good job. Steady paycheck. And I’m feeling confident. Maybe too confident.

I wanted to buy a house. The problem? I didn’t really have the money for a down payment. But back then, the lending environment made it easy to pretend you did. Predatory lending was everywhere — and I walked right into it.

I did what’s called an 80/20 loan structure. One loan for the primary mortgage. A second loan to cover the down payment. Two loans. Zero equity. One hundred percent leverage.

And I didn’t stop there.

At the same time, I started a brick-and-mortar business with a partner. Retail. Right before the Great Recession — though obviously I didn’t know that yet. Nobody puts “economic collapse” on their business plan.

To fund that business, I took out a HELOC — a home equity line of credit — on a house I already couldn’t really afford.

Let me add that up:

• Primary mortgage — loan number one.

• Down payment loan — loan number two.

• HELOC to fund a business — loan number three.

• Credit card debt from the business — over $70,000.

I was over-leveraged. I was more optimistic than realistic. And I was using debt as a backstop instead of a tool.

That’s a big distinction. And it took me years and a lot of pain to understand it.

The Fall

Then 2008 happened.

The recession hit. The business didn’t make it. We closed the doors. The housing market collapsed. And suddenly I was sitting on a pile of debt with no way to service it.

My business partner was able to file Chapter 7 — a full liquidation. She had no assets, so the court essentially wiped the slate clean for her. But here’s the thing — I had co-signed on those business loans. Her slate was clean. Mine wasn’t.

I was still working full-time. I still had income. So Chapter 7 wasn’t an option for me. I had to file Chapter 13 — which is a structured repayment plan.

What does that mean in real life?

It means a court tells you how much you owe, how much you’re paying, and for how long. Every month. No exceptions. My payment was over $900 a month. For five years. And here’s the part people don’t realize about Chapter 13 — the more you make, the more your payments go up. There’s no reward for earning more. The court adjusts.

By the time it was all over — January 2015 — I’d paid back roughly $80,000. Five and a half years of my life under court supervision. Every dollar accounted for. Every raise monitored.

I’ll be honest — that period humbled me in ways I’m still processing. But it also taught me things no book, no YouTube video, no course could’ve taught me.

What I’d Tell That Version of Me

If I could sit across from 2009 Rico and talk to him, here’s what I’d say.

On Debt

2009 Rico thought debt was how you got ahead. Borrow to buy. Borrow to build. Borrow to bridge the gap.

2026 Rico knows debt is a tool — and like any tool, it can build you up or tear you apart depending on how you use it.

The difference? I understand leverage now. Real leverage. Not the kind where you stack loans on top of loans and hope the market cooperates. The kind where every dollar you deploy has a job — and that job is to generate income.

Every dollar has a job. That phrase means something completely different to me now than it would have in 2006.

On Risk

2009 Rico confused optimism with a plan. I was excited about the business. Excited about the house. Excited about the future. But excitement isn’t a strategy.

2026 Rico manages risk with structure. I have a 3-Bucket System. I have stop losses. I have exit strategies. I know what I’m willing to lose before I enter a position — not after.

From my experience, the moment you say “it’ll probably be fine” is the moment you need a plan the most.

On Co-Signing

Here’s a lesson I paid $80,000 to learn.

When you co-sign debt, you’re not supporting someone else’s dream. You’re taking on 100% of the liability with 0% of the control.

My business partner walked away clean. I spent five years paying it back. That’s not a complaint — it’s a fact. And it’s a fact I want you to hear if you’re ever in a position where someone asks you to co-sign.

On Starting Over

Maybe the biggest one.

2009 Rico felt like a failure. Like the bankruptcy defined him.

2026 Rico knows it was the foundation. Not the failure — the foundation. Everything I’ve built since then — the discipline, the systems, the portfolio — started in that five-year window where I had no choice but to learn.

You don’t build an income snowball without understanding what it feels like to watch money disappear. That’s not something I read in a book. That’s something I lived.

The Rebuild

My Chapter 13 was discharged in January 2015. I have the court document to prove it.

But “done” didn’t mean “fixed.” My credit was wrecked. My confidence with money was shaky. And I had to completely rebuild my relationship with debt and leverage from scratch.

By 2017, I’d gotten my credit score back to a decent place. And this time, I came at it differently. I wasn’t guessing anymore. I understood the difference between debt that drowns you and leverage that builds you.

I started investing in real estate with a partner. We built that portfolio up to over 30 units. Real leverage this time — income-producing assets with cash flow, not speculative bets with borrowed money.

Then COVID rolled around. We started selling properties for profit. And I rolled those proceeds into what you see today — my income portfolio. The income snowball.

I still have 4 rental units. I have a rollover 401k. A Roth IRA. My income portfolio. Even a fun account where I hold Rivian because you’ve gotta have a little fun with it.

But the core of everything — the engine that lets me live on passive income — started with lessons I paid $80,000 to learn in a bankruptcy courtroom.

There’s a much deeper story here about the real estate journey and the specific decisions that took me from discharged debtor to retired at my own choosing. If you want to hear it, reply to this article or drop a comment — I’ll write that one next.

Why I’m Sharing This

I share my portfolio numbers every month on this channel. I show the wins. I show the losses. I show the ETFs, the yields, the distributions.

But none of that means anything without context. And this is the context.

The income snowball I’m building right now exists because of what I lost in 2009. The systems I use exist because I once had no system at all. The discipline exists because I once had none.

If you’re starting from zero — or from below zero — I want you to know that’s not the end of your story. It might be the most important chapter in it.

If you want to see this story come to life, I recorded a full video version on my YouTube channel. [Link to video]

And if you’re working on building your own income snowball, my Freedom Calculator is completely free. It can help you figure out your freedom number and your timeline to get there. You’ll find it right here on Substack.

— Rico

There’s an entire category of ETFs out there — funds paying 10, 15, even 30-plus percent annually in distributions — and your financial advisor probably hasn’t mentioned a single one of them.

Not because they’re scams. Not because they don’t work.

Because the system your advisor operates in wasn’t built for them.

I want to walk you through the three structural reasons why. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Quick disclaimer before we get into it: I’m not a financial advisor. I’m not bashing anyone’s profession. I’m a former creative tech executive who retired in 2023, and this is just what I’ve observed, researched, and personally done in my own portfolio. Always do your own research before putting your hard-earned money into anything.

1. Follow the Money

Let’s start with the uncomfortable one.

How do most financial advisors get paid?

The old-school model was commissions — you buy a mutual fund, your advisor gets a cut upfront. That model still exists, but it’s not the dominant one anymore. Today, the most common model is AUM — Assets Under Management. Your advisor charges a percentage of your total portfolio value. Industry average is roughly one percent per year.

So if you hand an advisor a million dollars, they’re earning about ten thousand a year to manage it.

Now here’s where it gets interesting.

If that advisor puts your million into a broad market growth fund and it grows to two million over a decade — their fee doubles. Ten thousand becomes twenty thousand. Their business grows as your portfolio grows. Everybody’s happy.

But what if they put that same million into an income ETF yielding ten percent? You’re pulling out a hundred thousand a year in distributions to live on. The portfolio value stays flat. Maybe it even drifts lower depending on NAV erosion.

The advisor’s fee? Stays flat. Or shrinks.

I want to be clear — I’m not saying advisors are greedy. Most advisors genuinely want to help their clients. But incentives are real. And when the business model rewards growth over income, growth is what gets recommended.

It’s not a conspiracy. It’s just math.

2. The Gatekeepers

This one surprised me the most when I started digging into it.

You and I — retail investors — can log into Fidelity, Schwab, Robinhood, whatever platform we use, and buy a brand new ETF five minutes after it launches. No approval needed. No committee meeting. Just click and buy.

Financial advisors at major firms can’t do that.

If you’re an advisor at a Morgan Stanley, a Merrill Lynch, a UBS — or even a large RIA — there are centralized research teams and compliance departments that have to vet every single fund before it gets added to their approved list. And the bar is high. Many institutional platforms require a fund to have at least a three-year track record. Some want to see hundreds of millions in assets under management before they’ll even review it.

Think about what that means.

Some of the most innovative income ETFs on the market right now — funds using covered call strategies, options overlays, 1256 contracts for tax efficiency — many of them are less than three years old. Some launched in the last twelve to eighteen months.

So even if an advisor wanted to recommend these funds — even if they personally owned them in their own brokerage account — they might not be allowed to buy them for clients yet.

The advisory world moves like an ocean liner. Retail investors move like speedboats.

That’s not a criticism. It’s just how the system works. Compliance exists for good reasons. But the side effect is a massive time lag between innovation and adoption.

3. Career Risk

This might be the most human reason of all.

There’s an old saying on Wall Street — “Nobody ever got fired for buying the S&P 500.”

If an advisor puts a client into a Vanguard growth fund and the market drops twenty percent, the advisor can point to the screen and say, “The whole market is down. This is normal. Let’s stay the course.” And the client nods. Because they’ve heard of Vanguard. They’ve heard of the S&P 500. It feels familiar.

But what if that same advisor puts a client into a leveraged options-based income ETF — something using weekly covered calls on semiconductor stocks — and it underperforms during a massive bull run? Or the NAV erodes faster than expected?

That conversation goes very differently.

The client doesn’t say, “Let’s stay the course.” The client says, “What did you put me in? I’ve never heard of this. Why wasn’t I in the S&P?”

And in the worst case? That client files a complaint. Or leaves. Or both.

There’s real career risk for advisors who recommend newer, more complex strategies — even when those strategies are sound. Even when the math works. The reputational downside of being wrong with something unfamiliar is way bigger than the upside of being right.

I get it. I understand it. But as someone who’s personally building my income from these exact funds, I think it’s important for you to know that this dynamic exists.

So What Does This Mean for You?

I’m not saying fire your financial advisor. If you have a good advisor who understands your goals, who listens to you, who’s transparent about how they get paid — that’s valuable. Keep that relationship.

But here’s what I am saying.

Your financial education is your responsibility. Not your advisor’s. Not your broker’s. Not mine. Yours.

There’s an entire world of income-generating ETFs out there. Funds paying weekly and monthly distributions. Funds using covered call strategies, options overlays, tax-efficient structures. Funds designed to pay you now — not thirty years from now.

I’ve been building my income snowball with these exact tools. I share every position, every distribution, every mistake in real time. I’m not saying these funds are perfect. I’ve taken losses. I’ve had to cut positions. I’ve learned expensive lessons.

But I’ve also built a portfolio generating over eighteen thousand dollars a month in passive income.

And I didn’t learn about any of this from a financial advisor. I learned it from doing the research myself, from other investors sharing their journeys, and from being willing to take messy action.

Every dollar has a job. And sometimes the most important job is making sure you know what tools are available to you — even if the professionals in the room haven’t caught up yet.

Your Next Step

If you want to figure out your own freedom number — how much passive income you’d need to cover your lifestyle — I built a freedom calculator that’s completely free. It walks you through the math so you can see what’s possible for your situation. You can find it right here on my Substack.

And if you want to go deeper — see my full portfolio, talk strategy, and connect with other income-focused investors — that’s what this community is for.

If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you. Messy action is better than no action.

— Rico

I gave an honest 1-month update. Mixed results. Some green, some red. All paying income.

Now it’s time for the next chapter — because the portfolio looks very different.

I exited three of those original positions. And I’m doubling down — literally tripling down — on the ones that earned their spot.

Read more

The Setup

About three weeks ago, I hit a wall with my portfolio. Not a financial wall—a philosophical one.

I was sitting on roughly $854K in a Fidelity Individual account, generating around $180K annually in distributions. Sounds stable, right? The problem wasn’t the income. The problem was where it was coming from.

I had massive concentration in high-yield, options-based ETFs—funds with yields in the 30-45% range. ARMW at 133%, GDXY at 44.5%, EGGY at 28%. These funds deliver incredible income, but they come with a cost: NAV erosion. Every month, the fund eats itself to fund those distributions. Over time, that compounds against you.

I was also carrying significant tech concentration—QQQI at 16% of the portfolio, FEPI (FANG options), and multiple AI-linked positions. And I had zero international diversification.

So when the AI sector took a breath last week and the market corrected, I didn’t panic. I saw an opportunity.

The Rotation

Here’s what I exited:

Read more

If you’ve ever Googled that question, you’ve probably landed on the same answer everyone else gets: save a million dollars. Maybe two million. Follow the 4% rule. Don’t touch the principal. Hope it lasts.

But here’s what nobody talks about. Two people can retire with very different amounts of money — and the person with LESS can actually end up with MORE income, more security, and more money left over at the end.

I ran the math. And the numbers completely changed how I think about retirement.

Before I get into it — I want to hear from you. When do you want to retire? And more importantly, what’s your plan to create income when you do? Leave a comment. I’m asking because I’m already there. I retired from corporate in 2023 and I’m living off my portfolio income right now — while continuing to build my snowball so I can keep traveling and living life on my terms.

I’m not asking from the sidelines. I’m in it.

Quick disclaimer — I’m not a financial advisor. Everything I share here is what I’m personally doing and researching in my own portfolio. This is education, not advice. Always do your own research before putting your hard-earned money to work.

Where the 4% rule came from

If you’re going to follow a rule, you should at least know who wrote it and why.

In 1994, a financial planner named William Bengen published a paper called “Determining Withdrawal Rates Using Historical Data.” He looked at every 30-year retirement period going back to 1926. The Great Depression. World wars. Stagflation in the ‘70s. Every major market crisis.

His question was simple: what’s the most a retiree could withdraw each year — adjusted for inflation — and never run out of money over 30 years?

His answer: about 4%.

Four years later, three professors at Trinity University in Texas ran a similar study. Same conclusion. And the “4% rule” was officially born.

Here’s the thing. That research assumed a 60/40 portfolio — sixty percent stocks, forty percent bonds. It assumed a 30-year retirement window. And it was built using data where bond yields were significantly higher than what we see today.

This rule was designed over 30 years ago, using market conditions that no longer exist, for a retirement window that many people will outlive.

And yet — it’s still the default advice for millions of Americans.

What the 4% rule actually requires

Let’s run the math with a real number. Say your lifestyle costs $75,000 a year. That’s what you need to live comfortably.

Under the 4% rule, you take your annual need and divide by 0.04.

$75,000 ÷ 4% = $1,875,000.

You need nearly two million dollars saved before you can retire.

And here’s the part that really gets me. Every single year, you have to SELL your investments to generate that income. Year one — you sell $75,000 worth of stock. Year five — you’re selling $84,000 because of inflation. Year ten — nearly $98,000. Year twenty — over $131,000.

Over 20 years — from age 65 to 85 — you will have sold over $2 million worth of assets just to live.

In a perfect world with a steady 7% average return, the math works. Your portfolio actually grows to about $3.4 million by 85. But here’s the catch — you had to start with $1.875 million, you had to sell assets every single year, and you’re sitting on a fortune at the end that you’ll probably never spend.

That doesn’t sound like freedom to me. That sounds like a savings account with extra anxiety.

The 8% rule — same problem, bigger risk

Now let’s talk about the 8% version. This has been making the rounds in FIRE circles and from some well-known financial personalities. The argument: the stock market averages 10 to 12% per year, so why not pull 8%? You’re still leaving a cushion.

$75,000 ÷ 8% = $937,500.

Half the savings needed. Same lifestyle. Sounds great.

In a perfect world — smooth 10% returns every year — it works. Your portfolio stays above a million the entire time.

But the world is not perfect. And this is where the 8% rule falls apart.

I ran a scenario where a bear market hits in the first three years of retirement. Down 20% year one. Down 15% year two. Up only 5% year three. After that, the market returns to a normal 10%.

Your money runs out at age 75.

Ten years into retirement. Gone. Zero. You’re 75 years old with no portfolio, no income, and a decade of life left to fund.

That’s not a worst-case fantasy. Bear markets at the start of retirement have happened multiple times in the modern era. It’s called sequence of returns risk. And if you’re withdrawing 8% when it hits, it will destroy your plan.

The 8% rule works on a whiteboard. It does not work in the real world.

The third approach — income investing

What if instead of saving two million dollars and slowly eating it... you built a portfolio that PAYS you?

Not by selling shares. Not by drawing down your nest egg. But by collecting distributions — real cash — from investments designed to generate income.

This is income investing. And it changes the entire equation.

Same $75,000 lifestyle. But instead of withdrawing 4% or 8%, I’m collecting income from a blended portfolio yielding around 11%.

$75,000 ÷ 11% = $681,818.

Less than $700,000. Not two million. Not even a million. Under seven hundred thousand dollars — to generate the same $75,000 per year.

And here’s the difference that changes everything. You never sell a single share. Your income comes from distributions. Dividends hitting your account every week or every month.

Over 20 years, you collect the same $2 million in total income. But you sell zero dollars in assets. Zero. And with even a conservative 3% price appreciation, your portfolio grows from $682,000 to over $1.2 million.

The 4% rule needs $1.875 million and still requires selling assets every year. Income investing needs $682,000 and you keep every share you own.

Same lifestyle. Less than half the starting capital. No selling. And you end with MORE money.

That’s not theory. That’s math.

The side-by-side comparison

Here’s all three approaches laid out for a $75,000/year lifestyle from age 65 to 85:

Assumptions: 4% rule uses 7% avg return (60/40 blend). 8% rule uses 10% avg return (100% equities). Income investing uses 11% distribution yield with 3% price appreciation. All scenarios adjust for 3% annual inflation. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.

Same income. Same lifestyle. Completely different outcomes depending on the approach.

Why this works — and how I structure it

I’m not going to pretend this is magic. There’s no free lunch. Income investing has its own risks — NAV erosion, distribution cuts, sector concentration. I’ve been burned. I’ve talked about those lessons before.

But here’s what I’ve learned: the risk isn’t in the income. The risk is in not having a structure.

That’s why I use what I call the 3-Bucket System: an Income Engine for high-yield funds that pay the bills today, Core holdings for stable broad market income, and a Defensive Moat for protection when markets get ugly. I’ll be doing deeper dives on each of these in future posts.

And I use the PLAN framework: Purpose and Patience. Learn the Landscape. Asset Allocation. Net Income Focus. Every dollar has a job — and the PLAN makes sure those jobs are assigned with intention, not impulse.

Here’s what this looks like in real life. My portfolio is sitting at $875,000. It’s generating $222,749 a year in passive income. That’s over $18,500 a month. And my yield is sitting at 25.45%.

Now — I know what some of you are thinking. 25%? That sounds aggressive.

You’re right. It is. On purpose.

I’m in what I call the building phase. I retired from corporate in 2023, but I still have part-time active income — coaching, content, projects I choose to take on. That active income covers my lifestyle right now. Which means every single dollar my portfolio generates gets reinvested. Every distribution goes right back in — growing my snowball, adding to my core positions, compounding.

Because I still have active income as a safety net, I can afford to carry higher-yield, higher-risk positions in my Income Engine bucket. I’m using that yield to accelerate the build. That’s the whole point of the building phase — you take strategic risk while you can absorb it.

But here’s the important part. When I’m ready to fully step away — no more active income, no more side projects — I’ll rotate out of those aggressive positions and into my Core and Defensive buckets. SPYI. QQQI. MLPI. IAUI. Funds that yield 10 to 14% with more stability and less volatility.

That’s the transition. Building phase to income phase. Acceleration to sustainability.

And that’s exactly why I used 11% in the scenario math — because that’s the yield range of a fully rotated, retirement-ready income portfolio. Not 25%. Not the aggressive stuff. The Core. The Foundation. And even at 11%, the math crushes the 4% rule.

I don’t sell a share to fund my life. My distributions pay for everything. And right now, while I’m still building, those distributions are making the snowball bigger every single week.

The real question

The 4% rule asks: how much can I afford to spend before my money runs out?

Income investing asks: how do I build something that pays me forever?

One is a countdown. The other is a system.

I know which one I chose.

I want to hear from you — which approach makes more sense? Are you still following the 4% rule? Have you started building your own income snowball? Drop a comment below.

📺 I made a full video breaking this down with visuals, charts, and the complete math walkthrough. Watch it on YouTube here.

🧮 Want to figure out your own freedom number? My Freedom Calculator is completely free — it helps you determine how much income you need and your timeline to get there. Grab it here.

If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you. Messy action is better than no action.

— Rico

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for any amount of time, you know where I stand on single-stock covered call ETFs. I’ve owned them. I’ve been burned by them. I’ve made videos about why they’re dangerous for income investors.

And then I bought one.

ARMW — the Roundhill ARM WeeklyPay ETF. A small $2,000 test position. Not a conviction play. Not something I’m growing. But a position I opened with my eyes wide open, for one reason and one reason only.

I’m bullish on ARM Holdings.

Not the fund structure. Not the leverage. Not the weekly distribution gimmick. The company. And that distinction matters more than anything else I’m going to say in this article.

Let me walk you through the data, the comparison, and exactly how I’m managing this so it doesn’t become another expensive lesson.

Read more

The May numbers are in. Portfolio is sitting at approximately $892,000 as of June 1st, with annual passive income tracking around $150K. We were at roughly $888K in mid-May — so the portfolio held steady and nudged forward through what was a genuinely choppy month.

That’s the whole point of building it this way. Every dollar has a job. The income keeps coming whether the market is calm or throwing a fit.

Let’s walk through every move.

The Standout: CHPY at +38%

CHPY — the YieldMax Semiconductor Income ETF — is sitting at a +38.68% total gain since I started the position. That’s price appreciation on top of the weekly distributions it’s been generating the whole time.

Read more

When State Street launched their sector covered call ETF suite in July 2025, they didn’t launch three or four funds. They launched eleven. That’s a covered call ETF for every major SPDR sector — and not all of them are worth your attention.

I’m currently running three of them (XLUI, XLII, XLBI) and here’s how I’d think about the rest.

The full XL covered call suite

State Street built these funds on top of their SPDR sector ETFs — the same institutional-grade sector funds that have been around for decades. The covered call overlay generates monthly income. The expense ratio across the suite is 0.35%.

The ones I’m watching most closely:

XLUI — Utilities. Already running. Highest yield, best NAV stability, most non-correlated to my existing holdings. For most income investors, this is the first XL fund worth adding.

XLII — Industrials. Already running. Reshoring trends, infrastructure spending, and defense budgets all support this sector. Good diversification from tech.

XLBI — Materials/Chemicals. Already running. Most tariff-exposed of the three. Sized smallest. Worth watching as trade policy evolves.

XLVI — Healthcare. I haven’t added this yet. Healthcare is defensive — similar to utilities in its insulation from economic cycles. The covered call premiums on healthcare stocks are meaningful and the sector has strong demographic tailwinds. This is next on my watchlist.

XLFI — Financials. Interesting because financials benefit from elevated rate environments that often hurt other sectors. A covered call ETF on banks and financial services could be useful for rate cycle diversification.

XLSI — Consumer Staples. Defensive, low-volatility sector. Similar rationale to utilities. Lower yield potential but high stability.

The ones I’d approach with more caution

Energy sector XL fund. Energy is commodity-driven and geopolitically sensitive. The volatility generates premium income but the NAV can move dramatically with oil prices. Worth understanding before adding.

Technology sector XL fund. Given that most of my existing Bucket 2 is already tech-adjacent, adding a tech-specific covered call ETF would increase concentration rather than diversify it. This one I’d actively avoid for my specific portfolio.

The honest framework for evaluating any sector covered call ETF:

Does this sector move independently from what I already own? If the answer is no, the diversification argument doesn’t hold regardless of how attractive the yield looks. If the answer is yes, run it through PLAN and size it appropriately.

→ I’ll be publishing PLAN analyses on each new XL fund I add in the paid newsletter: newsletter.riconasol.com $9/mo · Paid subscribers get every new position analyzed before I deploy capital.