A half-million dollars is a lot of money. Unfortunately, it won’t generate much income today if you limit yourself to popular investments. The 10-year Treasury has “rallied” to 1.85%. Put your $500K in them and you’re well below the single-person poverty level at $9,250 annually. Yikes. Dividend paying stocks are masquerading around as bond proxies for this reason. But they still don’t yield enough. Vanguard’s popular Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG) pays 2.1%. The iShares Select Dividend ETF (DVY) pays 3.2% – better, but that’s still just below the poverty level for two people at $16,000 per year. When investment income falls short, retirees sell their investments to supplement the income. Of course the problem here is that when capital is sold, the payout stream takes an immediate hit – so that more capital must be sold next time, and so on. ... Read more