Disclosure: This site contains affiliate links. If you click and sign up or make a purchase, I may receive a commission or referral bonus at no extra cost to you. I only recommend tools and resources that I believe add value to the ‘Snowball’ journey.
The Goal:
Reach $1000 a month in passive income via dividends.
The Plan:
Split money between high risk weekly paying funds, medium risk monthly paying funds, and low risk Dividend Aristocrats.
Previously we talked about EARN the seed fund, but that isn’t the entire portfolio on the taxable Vanguard account. We started with a Balance around $14,000 just after Thanksgiving 2025. After a few weeks of looking, researching and fiddling. I settled on 9 monthly paying funds at Vanguard. My split is like this:
AGNC, ARR, ORC are all Residential Mortgage securities. EARN kind of falls in this but they transitioned in 2024 for be more credit/loan focused.
PSEC, PFLT, HRZN, and OXSQ are Business Development Companies.
PVL is a Natural Resources fund.
AGNC – AGNC Investment Corporation – 85 Shares – $1,014 – $0.12 dividend paid second week of the month.
ARR – ARMOUR Residential REIT, Inc – 98 Shares – $1,873 – $0.24 dividend paid end of the month.
ORC – Orchid Island Capital Inc – 64 Shares – $533 – $0.12 dividend paid end of the month.
EARN – Ellington Credit Co – 1859 Shares – $10,484 – $0.08 dividend paid end of the month.
PSEC -Prospect Capital Corporation – 61 Shares – $174 – $0.045 dividend paid third week of the month.
PFLT – Pennantpark Floating Rate Capital – 93 Shares – $886 – $0.1025 dividend paid first of the month.
HRZN – Horizon Technology Finance Corp – 63 Shares – $418 – $0.11 dividend paid second week of the month.
OXSQ – Oxford Square Capital Corp – 174 Shares – $323 – $0.035 dividend paid end of the month.
PVL – Permianville Royalty Trust – 79 Shares – $138 – $0.023 dividend paid middle of the month.
Some of those share counts probably seem extremely random, but the goal of the snowball was to have the funds I picked be funded enough that they can self-fund or buy 1 share of themselves every time they pay a dividend, with the remainder buying another fund up to a set goal. Currently that fund is OXSQ. With the end goal being around 3000 shares.
These 9 funds are producing around $205 in dividends per month, but they aren’t the only money that is coming into this snowball. As I try to keep these “mini” articles I will dig in deeper on the next one.
~~ Miniwing ~~