Doubling your money by focusing on dividend stocks will probably take a bit more time than if you invested across the stock market. But if you invest in a dividend mutual fund or exchange-traded fund, you can double your money in time, provided that you reinvest your dividends.
The Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF (NYSEMKT: VYM) and Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (NYSEMKT: SCHD) are two examples of funds that invest in stocks with a strong track record of paying out dividends and increasing them over time. A $10,000 investment in Vanguard’s High Dividend Yield ETF made 10 years ago would be worth close to $34,000 today. The same investment in Schwab’s U.S. Dividend Equity ETF would have soared to more than $40,000 in the past decade.
4. Buy and hold real estate
The average home price was up roughly 20% year over year, according to the S&P Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index from August 2021. As with a lot of the investment returns we’ve seen since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, these results aren’t typical. Over the past 30 years, home prices have increased by a little more than 4% annually.
