A recent Substack post by the Rational Optimist Society was titled: “Why optimists live longer” So I had to know. The post included these details…
A team from Boston University and Harvard followed nearly 70,000 nurses for a decade and 1,400 veterans for 30 years. The most optimistic lived 11% to 15% longer than the least optimistic.
The study found being in the top fifth for optimism was worth 10.9% more “life.” Never getting type 2 diabetes was worth 13.1%. Being optimistic is almost as important as avoiding diabetes!
The average life expectancy in the U.S. is 79 years. Divided by sex, that’s 81.4 years for women and 76.5 years for men. That means being an optimist could add eight or nine years, compared to spending your life as a grump.
Using my Dividend Hunter strategy as the basis for your retirement investing is a great way to build up your optimism.
I publish a recommended portfolio of high-yield investments, including stocks, ETFs, and closed-end funds. The portfolio’s average yield stays around 10%.
With this strategy, I have subscribers focus on building a stable and growing high-yield income stream. The philosophy is that we can control the dividends we earn but can’t control or predict what happens to share prices.
In practice, if you focus on the dividend income, your account value will take care of itself. A growing income stream naturally leads to a growing total account value.
Investing focused on cash income makes it easier to plan your retirement optimistically. You know exactly how much cash your retirement savings are earning to support your retirement.
Many subscribers have told me that, by becoming Dividend Hunters, their retirement accounts are much better than they ever expected. That makes me optimistic.
I hope I have convinced you to check out the Dividend Hunter newsletter.
Let me close with a high-yield investment idea: I recently added Milrose Properties (MRP) to the portfolio. This REIT was spun out in February 2025. The company is growing its quarterly dividend, and the current yield is 9.6%.
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