There are many reasons why I hold AT&T ($T) for my passive income goals. The first one is that it was around during the Great Depression and the second, it will probably be around during the next Great Depression. I can be pretty sure that AT&T will weather the storm if another future event like the Great Depression strikes the markets. Sure, all the stocks will drop in price, including the ones with dividends, but think of those skyrocketing dividend yields!

Today is the day I want to write about Johnson and Johnson ($JNJ) and why I’m holding it for the long term. One, it’s a well-established company that cranks out great products that everyone uses, and two it has amazing dividends. For each share of JNJ, you get $4.04 of dividends per year. JNJ hits all the sweet spots for building my $100,000 a year passive income portfolio. Let’s dig a bit deeper as to why.

Building a dividend producing passive income portfolio requires thought, time, and education. Today I’m sharing 5 tips for building a dividend passive income portfolio and how you can figure out the right strategy for you. As I’ve written before, this idea came to me after my wife and I reviewed her 401k at the end of 2020. She had by accident generated a large sum of dividends without even trying.

I continue to collect dividend producing stocks and ETFs on my journey to generate $100,000 a year in Passive Income. Earlier this month I picked up $RYLD, another covered call writing ETF that invests primarily in the Russell 2000. This one has a higher Beta though, so I’m taking on more risk but I’ve kept my initial purchase small. Stock Price RYLD is trading at its all-time highs. Everyone is thinking the Bull Market is getting a bit long in the tooth and are starting to wonder when the Biden bump will fade away.

My quest continues to earn $100,000 passive income in a year. Supporting my strategy is $QYLD, a monthly dividend producing ETF that uses a Covered Call strategy by owning and selling Nasdaq 100 stocks. It’s not one for the faint of heart, but it fits with my passive income strategy and I went long. There are two things that jump out at me risk wise. For my readers, I’ve written covered calls before, and they’re a great strategy to amp up your returns.

I added $GILT to my passive income portfolio at the beginning of 2021. I did it because the ex-dividend date was on 1/8/2021 and I saw that it had a low price with a history of big dividend payouts. Albeit it is a short dividend history. I’ve written that my goal is to build up a passive income portfolio. My measure of success will be when I generate a $100,000 a year income, and right now GILT is part of that strategy.

I spent the first week of 2021 reacquainting myself with Dividend Reinvesting and I’ve concluded that it makes a ton of sense for someone like me. Retirement isn’t here yet but I can see it coming on the horizon. I’d need to think about stabilizing my investments against volatility and start thinking of long term income. When I first started investing I put a small amount of money in Dividend Reinvestment Plans (still long INTC, thank you very much) and focused on growth inside my retirement accounts.

As 2020 was ending I took some time to look at our 401k balances. This was a good year for our investments, all things considered, but one thing surprised me. There was a line item for “dividend’s earned” and it was quite a large number. My wife’s 401k earned more dividends than what I made as a salary in my first year out of college! This got me thinking about a passive investing strategy that I first read about decades ago.