Poll: What is your annual cash income from securities?

[haha]

I have had trouble making these polls precise enough, but what I am looking for here is dividends, interest, MLP distributions, etc., but not capital gain income or capital gain distributions from funds. Cds, savings accounts etc are considered securities for this poll. On your tax return, this is stuff that will show up on your schedules B or E for the most part, if it is held in a taxable acount. No need to differentiate between taxable and deferred or tax free accounts. All income credited goes here. I am ignoring the special tax treatment of certain dividends. I also am not looking for money you withdraw, only account earnings whether you leave it in place or withdraw it to spend. If you take $40,000 from your accounts, but the accounts only show cash earnings of $20,000, then $20,000 is the figure we are looking for here.

I should stress that this can be done completely blind- a person can fill out the poll, but not post any commentary. If it still seems intrusive, just ignore it. I hope we can get some aggregate info, I am not looking for anyone's personal details

Ha

 

[kumquat]

I voted <45K with the provision that I have no way of knowing the dividend portion of gains in my (Cdn) registered accounts. IOW, I have <$45K dividends from my 'regular' investments. For Canucks, that leaves out RRSP, LIRA, TFSA etc. For Americans (I think) it leaves out IRA (anything tax defered).

 

[haha]

I voted <45K with the provision that I have no way of knowing the dividend portion of gains in my (Cdn) registered accounts. IOW, I have <$45K dividends from my 'regular' investments. For Canucks, that leaves out RRSP, LIRA, TFSA etc. For Americans (I think) it leaves out IRA (anything tax defered).

These are complications. But Americans can see what they get in interest and dividends in tax free or tax deferred accounts. I am not at all familiar with Canadian schemes.

My intent was not to limit this to currently taxable or even currently withdrawable income. The way I look at it, my income in a taxable account is perhaps a bit more valuable than income in a traditional IRA, but perhaps a bit, or a lot, less valuable than income in a Roth IRA.

Ha

 

[David1961]

I took my total from my Schedules B and E from last year's tax return. Does not include capital appreciation of stocks/funds or Savings Bonds.

By the way, haha, your avatar has always reminded me of Paul Simon for some reason. I think I know why. Check out the link below. Must be the hat!

Amazon.com: Negotiations And Love Songs (1971-1986): Paul Simon: Music

 

[FIREd]

What about cash income from rentals? Or are you only interested in securities?

 

[photoguy]

I think the yield from all my investments (cash, bonds, i-bonds, equities) is just under 2%. Is there a reason you are interested in absolute dollars as opposed to as a percentage of the portfolio?

 

[Animorph]

401k's would be rather opaque as far as dividends (in my experience) unless you have a brokerage window. So mine is a pretty rough guess.

 

[haha]

What about cash income from rentals? Or are you only interested in securities?

I was really looking at completely passive, securitized, or interest income. I know many people will have many other sources of cash income-pensions, social security, perhaps alimony, rentals and part time businesses, but that is beyond my scope here.

@photoguy-I was looking for $ amounts, not percentages. Both are interesting and important, depending on what is being investigated. But we buy food and shelter with $s, not percentages.

Don't forget, no one needs to know any personal information, it is just for the survey.

Ha

 

[FIREd]

I was really looking at completely passive, securitized, or interest income. I know many people will have many other sources of cash income-pensions, social security, perhaps alimony, rentals and part time businesses, but that is beyond my scope here.

Ha

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Meadbh]

I voted <45K with the provision that I have no way of knowing the dividend portion of gains in my (Cdn) registered accounts. IOW, I have <$45K dividends from my 'regular' investments. For Canucks, that leaves out RRSP, LIRA, TFSA etc. For Americans (I think) it leaves out IRA (anything tax defered).

I think that is institution specific. I can see all that on my quarterly reports, including tax sheltered accounts. Too lazy to do the calculations, especially as I am rearranging things.

 

[kumquat]

You aren't as lazy as I am.

 

[clifp]

I am lazy about virtually everything. But I am reasonably good about tracking big expenses. However income is something I know practically to the penny, since I update my income spreadsheet at least 4 times a year.

 

[Meadbh]

Yeah, I'll do that too, when my portfolio and I are ready for ER.

 

[ERD50]

I'm not sure my answer would be meaningful. I currently have a fairly high dividend income from junk bond funds. One reason is that I currently have child and college deductions, no pension or SS income, so my Fed taxes are low.

Long term, I'd expect divs to be more in-line with something like whatever a 70/30 to 60/40 SPY/index bond fund would kick off. Or pssssst Wellesley? Roughly 3%? A significant part of a sub 4% WR.

-ERD50

 

[obgyn65]

I have zero $ from securities.

 

[Gill]

I don't know and I don't really care. Total return of the portfolio is what is relevant to me.
Bruce

 

[donheff]

I had the number for taxable but had to guesstimate the number for our 401ks/IRAs. Probably in the ball park. Why did you make the last two entries greater than or was those brackets typos? (I'm not up there - just asking.)

 

[Amethyst]

Looks like some responders must really have the dough. $105K - $175K investment income (not withdrawals) = whew!

Amethyst

 

[Free To Canoe]

I don't know and I don't really care. Total return of the portfolio is what is relevant to me.
Bruce

Never the less I made a guesstimate by doubling the income from divs / interest on the 1040. Doubling is an estimate for the IRA accounts.

 

[67walkon]

Including tax free interest from municipals, I presume. My goal is to have enough interest and dividends to make ends meet without drawing down the principal.

 

[scrabbler1]

I am in the low end of the $30k-$45k range with only taxable account dividends (including muni bond fund dividnds) and still in the that range including IRA dividends.

I also included short-term cap gain distributions from my mutual funds which are, for tax purposes, included on Schedule B as taxable dividends. Haha, is this okay? (I would still have chosen the same range.)

 

[Alan]

I have zero $ from securities.

From his first post, Ha wanted to include CD's in this survey.

I have had trouble making these polls precise enough, but what I am looking for here is dividends, interest, MLP distributions, etc., but not capital gain income or capital gain distributions from funds. Cds, savings accounts etc are considered securities for this poll.

This was actually an interesting exercise for me

I've not considered this before other than what is reported on the 1040. To discover the total I had to look into the funds within the IRA's to see the dividends and also our I-Bonds which accrue interest each year but are not taxed until withdrawn.

As mentioned above, the last 2 categories have > instead of <. If you'd like the text changed, let me know.

 

[Lsbcal]

Why separate out "income" from total return? I'm really curious to see the answer.

 

[FIREd]

It's interesting to see that many people don't track their dividend and interest income. I am quite obsessed with tracking that kind of data. I have the spreadsheets to prove it.

 

[GrayHare]

Previous polls here put the average investment income rate at roughly 2.5%. So one can multiply the values of this poll by 40 to get a rough estimate of the total amount of securities held.