Image source: Getty Images There are lots of different ways people earn a second income – and they do not all involve working more hours. For example, putting some spare money into a portfolio of dividend-paying blue-chip shares could help someone boost their income. Using dividend shares to supplement your income Imagine that someone has a spare £20k. They could put that into a Stocks and Shares ISA, and buy a range of shares. If those shares yield an average of 5% or more, that £20k ought to generate at least £1,000 annually in income. That presumes that the dividends…
Author: user
Image source: Getty Images Quantum computing growth stocks like Rigetti Computing and IonQ have been popular investments this year. It seems investors see a lot of long-term potential in these companies. I’ve been buying another quantum computing stock, however. Because unlike Rigetti and IonQ – which trade at sky-high price-to-sales multiples – this stock actually looks cheap. An under-the-radar quantum computing stock The stock I’ve been buying lately is SkyWater Technology (NASDAQ: SKYT). It’s a small US chip manufacturer that operates across a range of end markets including aerospace and defence and partners with small companies to help them develop…
This post is sponsored by The Bike Lane.The group Cyclingxsolidarity has been involved with multiple Chicago events many of them involving mutual aid. These have included Bikes and Bonfires (formerly Promontory Pint), Burrito Brigade Chicago, Beyoncé Biké Valét, and Cycles of Support.Founder Rick Rosales moved to Chicago only five years ago. He, his wife, and their Yorkie got to enjoy two whole weeks in our city before the COVID-19 pandemic forced everyone into lockdown. After using that time to explore different Chicago neighborhoods and develop connections with bike and mutual aid groups, Rosales wanted to combine cycling and community engagement.…
Image source: Getty Images What makes for a good retirement portfolio? The answer will be different for each investor. From timeframe to risk tolerance, different people have their own idea of how they want to prepare themselves financially for their retirement. One thing a lot of people like is shares they reckon can give them generous dividends. But dividends are never guaranteed to last. When salivating over a high yield (or any yield, come to that), an investor always ought to ask themselves how likely it is to last. 10%+ yields in the FTSE 250 As an example, a number…
Image source: Getty Images British companies have paid out tens of billions of pounds in dividends already this year, providing passive income streams for lots of investors. Some of those investors are big pension funds or asset managers – but others are people with only a small amount of spare money to invest, who decided that buying dividend shares could perhaps be a useful source of passive income for them. Such an approach really need not be expensive. Here is a passive income plan someone could consider putting into action today for 2026 and beyond, for just £3 a day.…
Image source: Getty Images I think investors with a long-term focus should be looking carefully at UK shares right now. To my mind, the relative discount on offer at the moment is huge. One way of looking at how attractive share prices are is by comparing them with bonds. And when it comes to the FTSE 100, I think the difference is quite striking. Stocks vs bonds In general, stocks offer more potential reward at the cost of higher risk. A bond return can’t go up, but a government defaulting on its debts is less likely than a company going…
Image source: Getty Images I’ve had some big winners and some big losers in my Stocks and Shares ISA in 2025. And I’m in the process of figuring out my strategy for 2026. The big question is what I should do with my less successful investments. Should I double down on them, or cut them loose to focus on ones that have been working well? Underperformers The overall performance of my Stocks and Shares ISA this year has been held back by a few stocks that have fared very badly in 2025. These include the likes of Bunzl and Diageo.…
Image source: Getty Images What’s not to like about passive income? The concept of earning money for doing very little certainly appeals to me. And with the State Pension currently around 30% of average earnings — and the age at which people qualify likely to increase further — I think it’s never too late to start looking at dividend shares. But how many are needed to have a decent retirement? Some important numbers According to Pensions UK, a single person needs £43,900 a year (£3,658 a month) to live comfortably in old age. To achieve this, a portfolio of £439,000…
Image source: Getty Images The Autumn Budget’s changes to the Cash ISA limit mean anyone thinking about passive income may need to rethink their strategy. I ran the numbers to see how big an ISA pot someone would need to target a £16,000 yearly income – that’s £1,333 a month. Could this be achievable with a typical savings plan? Crunching the numbers Using the classic 4% rule, an ISA pot of around £400,000 could hypothetically generate £16,000 a year in passive income – a useful benchmark for thinking about the size of the pot needed. So how much might someone…
Image source: Getty Images Lloyds (LSE:LLOY) shares have been enormously popular with dividend investors down the years. Can they still claim to a top Buy for passive income, though? I’m not so sure. At 94.3p, Lloyds’ share price has rocketed 72% since 1 January. As a result, dividend yields on the FTSE 100 bank have collapsed below the long-term average. That’s not the only worry I have as a stock market investor myself. Is Lloyds a dividend share investors need to think about avoiding today? Great qualities What makes retail banks like this such popular dividend stocks in the first…