SPYI
NEOS S&P 500 High Income ETF
stock BATS ETF

Retired last month at 55 and still 80% in high tech and Ai stocks like Micron, Nvidia, TSM, Broadcom and ETFs like VGT and VUG. I'm slowly diversifying into lower risks stock, dividend, high income ETFs like VTI, VXUS, VYM, VYMI, QQQI, SCHD, SPYI.
I wouldn't be 100% in VOO but would put some into more high tech/ai and then some more diverse lower risk stuff.

I was thinking about SPYI, QQQI, and BTCI in a taxable brokerage.

No not all QQQI. There are risks when you rely on income from one fund. So it is best to have at least 5 sources of dividned income. SCHDD is not really a dividend fund yes it pays a higher dividend than growth index funds but it is still very small. SCHD is more of a growth fund than a dividend fund.
For low tax drag dividend funds you can use QQQI 13% yield, GPIX 8%, IAUI 11%, EMO 9%, UTF 7% UTG 6.$%. For IRA,401K, or Roth accounts were dividends are not taxed I would go with QQQI 13%, SPYI 11%, IAUI 11%, ARDC 9%, PBDDC 9%, EMO 9% CLOZ 8%, PFFR 8%, UTF 7%, UTG 6.4%, JAAA 5%
Ideally you want enough income to cover all of your living expenses with the rest of your income in growth. funds.But if your retirment fund has limited money use a mix of the highest yield funds.

My JEPQ, SPYI, and QQQI have rebounded way better than my JEPI. So, I think I'm going to put more focus into building up those 3.

SPYI follows an index. JEPI does not.

I put my extra cash into 25% each SGOV, USFR, SPYI, QQQI. I move SPYI and QQQI dividends equally into the other two on a monthly basis. This has been working well for me.

Really you should look at your lifestyle and how much you can live on. With 10 million even if you stuck it in a high yield savings account at 3.5% you could have 350k every year without investing in anything and live off of the interest.
If you stuck it in Covered call ETFs like XYLD or SPYI you could be doing a million in dividends a year.

How easy is it to buy an index fund?
You don’t think I have a bunch of those?
I also hold QQQI, SPYI as income holdings.
I have Roth IRA account that I buy and hold long-term stuff, and I have a brokerage account that I trade in and as I said before, make over 12%, for a hobby.

>the flip side worth tracking: some of the names generating your dividends (PSEC, DNG, DHF) are higher-yield vehicles that carry more credit or distribution risk than your core holdings.
I actually don't hold most of these any more. Most were bought a couple shares at a time over a period of 10 years as I contributed my $25 weekly, and I was trying to get a dividend payout every day. I've sold off most and moved the capital into HMAX, ADX, AGD, AOD, SPYI, JEPQ, GSL, and FLNG for my dividend stocks (I get $12,490USD annually). Those dividends help fund my options wheel which so far in 2026 has given me a 13.99% yield.

I own all these. Jepi has really under performed. I know its supposed to be low volatility, but negative return?
**AI gave me my answer but I still don't like it: JEPI is lagging because this was a “risk-on / rebound” month, and JEPI is built to sacrifice upside for income and lower volatility.** It may look weak next to SPYI/GPIX during a rally, but that same structure is usually supposed to look better during sideways or down markets.
https://preview.redd.it/prm9jenxw30h1.png?width=2041&format=png&auto=webp&s=25eeaa760af119566fcdf08106d5718cf21835ca

Go all in with SPYI and add some SCHD. Put it all on DRIP and forget about it for 30yrs….Download DivTracker to follow your portfolio. Enjoy! Keep your head up!

You're correct which is why I'm pleasantly surprised at how well SPYI recovered after the April 2025 and March 2026 downturns.

In comparison, QYLD has terrible decay and still hasn't recovered from april 2025

10 million id definitely have different accounts with different blocks for different purposes.
2 million in a long term growth focused account. Mainly etf like SPY, VTI, with some SMH, QQQ, IWM, XLF, XBI, XLV, ITA, IYT, IGV. I’d sell far OTM covered calls hoping they expire worthless and treating it like another dividend.
2 million in a income based account with Covered calls ETFs that generate a healthy dividend every month. SPYI, XYLD.
2 million in real estate
2 million in bonds, treasury, international and China based ETF
1 million in single blue chip stocks.
Half million cash used to buy Leveraged ETF during pull backs that have RSI at weekly oversold conditions. SOXL, TQQQ , TNA, SPXL.
Half million to gamble with call or put options.

I started transitioning away from the yieldmax single etfs in my other brokerage where it’s just all dividend income. Went with SPYI, XDTE, and SCHD as my mains. Still hold a few like YMAG and a few other companies, but my Yieldmax days are mostly over.

Broad indices, from less to more diversified. Choose 1. Buying more than one of these is overlapping.
- S&P500 [SPYL](https://www.justetf.com/en/etf-profile.html?isin=IE000XZSV718)
- Developed World, large & mid caps [UETW](https://www.justetf.com/en/etf-profile.html?isin=IE00BD4TXV59)
- Developed and Emerging World, large & mid caps [WEBN](https://www.justetf.com/en/etf-profile.html?isin=IE0003XJA0J9)
- Developed and Emerging World, large, mid & small caps [SPYI](https://www.justetf.com/en/etf-profile.html?isin=IE00B3YLTY66)

If by derivatives you mean a JEPQ, yes. GPIQ, GPIX, SPYI, JEPI and JEPQ.

The "collected $10K in dividends but still net negative" experience is exactly what trips most people up with these funds. The distribution FEELS like income while it's happening, but if NAV is bleeding faster than the premium offsets it, you're basically distributing your own capital back to yourself with extra steps. Your brain registers each payout as free money even as the underlying shrinks.

The transition to SCHD, JEPQ, SPYI is genuinely a quality upgrade — better underlying companies, more sustainable distribution structures, less exposure to single-stock volatility compression that tends to destroy the YieldMax thesis over extended periods.

One thing worth watching: the DRIP timing. Dripping back into SCHD-type funds where NAV tends to be stable or growing is compounding in the right direction. Dripping into a fund with chronic NAV decay is effectively buying units of a declining asset — you're compounding the drawdown. Worth checking each fund's 1-year NAV chart before committing DRIP long-term.

Also one underrated point: running these in a 401k was actually the right instinct regardless of how the strategy played out. YieldMax distributions are almost entirely non-qualified ordinary income, so shielding them in a tax-deferred account was the correct tax-location call. That part was solid.

well with 500K you could invest that in a dividned fund with a yield of 8%. That would genrate 40K a year about the same as rental produces. QQQI has the highest safe yield I know of QQQI That would generate 65K a years. for 6 years that income would be tax free but after that the income would be taxed at teh long term capital gains rate which is still less than the regular income tax rate. Overall in your case is it about a wash . You could do slightly better but dividend or wrose. yield higher than 13% are available but the risk with those funds are very high
Now with dividends you don't need home insurance and spend money on repairs, or property taxes. So you might save a lot on expenses for your rental income to make dividnedincome a better choice. But that woudldepnsd on very close examination of your accounts. Which is probably more information than you want tot share.
IN any case some tax efficient fund you can use in a brokerage account for supplemental income are
* QQQI 13% yields.
* SPYI 11%
* IAUI 11%
* EMO 9%
* UTF 7%
* UTG 6.4%
* PFF 6%.
You best choice is probably keep you rentals and gradually invest in the above funds to build up additional income in addition to your rental properties. You could gradually increase the dividned income and use the money to just cover living expenses and regular montyhly bills.
Also it is generally not to rely on just a couple of dividnend funds for income is at least 5 or more.

Here is my experience this past year with dividends — it’s been quite a journey. Last year I discovered YieldMax and Roundhill and split my 401K in half, putting $70K spread across their funds. The dividends were nice, but the NAV erosion was brutal — MSTR was the worst offender. I held for 5 to 6 months with DRIP enabled, and ended up with about half my positions positive and half negative. I collected over $10K in dividends but was still net negative overall.
Since January, I’ve been transitioning the majority of my portfolio into JEPQ, JEPI, SCHD, SPYI, QQQI, SPYM, QQQM, and SPMO, with a small allocation into a few other ETFs. With the market recovery over the past couple of weeks and May dividends coming in, I’m finally in the green — bringing in $800 to $1,000 in monthly dividends. My plan is to keep DRIP on for a couple more months to see where the monthly income settles. After that, I’ll switch distributions to cash and set up auto-invest with a 50/50 split between income ETFs and traditional ETFs like QQQM and SPYM.
I feel like income investing actually works if you hold on long enough to benefit from it. I kept my ULTY and TSLY positions — I sold off my original shares to recover my cost basis but kept the DRIP shares, which now generate about $100 a week between the two.
My original goal was to use dividend income to help build my portfolio, but the NAV erosion was eating into my overall value faster than the dividends could make up for it.
It’s been interesting experiment and learning experiences.

Liquidate everything, invest it all in SPYI, and retire on dividends of about $700,000/year?