Dividend investing

The claim

“I made over 5k in passive income for September 2026”

@DarthDividend23, 1 October 2026, 792 views when collected¹²

The tweet does not give the amount invested, what it is invested in, or how many years it took, and we saw no portfolio or statement behind it¹³. The figure is not implausible. This page judges the scheme, not the person who tweeted.

The sums

A dividend is a share of a company’s profit paid to shareholders, and the company chooses whether to pay⁵⁰. Income is money invested times yield, the yearly payout divided by the share price. So a claim about dividend income is a claim about how much money is invested. A payout is not extra money on top of the share: the US Securities and Exchange Commission notes that “With a significant dividend, the price of a stock may fall by that amount”⁵¹.

One route needs far less. Some funds sell options on the shares they hold: contracts that bring in cash now and give away any gains above a fixed price. One, MSTY, showed a payout rate of 75.81% as of 7 October 2026 (a weekly rate we could not re-confirm on 13 October), so about $79,000 would show $5,000 a month (our sum)¹⁰. The fund’s total return over one year, payouts included, was -47.13%, against 15.74% for the S&P 500, the index of about 500 large US companies, though since its launch in February 2024 it is still ahead, +88.13% in total against 58.76%¹⁰. By the issuer’s own estimate, part of many payouts is the investor’s own money handed back¹⁰. So a monthly income figure alone does not show whether the holder is ahead.

What happens to most people who try

No dataset we found shows how many dividend investors reach a given income. Among the 56% of US families that hold shares, directly or through funds and retirement accounts, the median holding is $77,400²³. At a 3.32% yield that pays about $214 a month (our sum)⁶²³.

From October 2013 to October 2026, after inflation and with payouts reinvested, $10,000 became $39,847 in an S&P 500 fund and $31,064 in SCHD⁴⁵.

The upside

The mechanism works. These cases are the people who published, so they show what success looks like, not how likely it is. The first two are own statements, without brokerage statements.

• The Canadian blog Tawcan reports C$64,838 of dividends in 2025, its 15th year, roughly US$3,800 a month (our sum)²⁹⁸⁰. Its authors credit “the injection of new cash” and do not disclose the portfolio’s value³¹.
• The Canadian blog My Own Advisor says its dividend and distribution income “might get close to” C$90,000 in 2026, about US$63,000 a year (our sum), after about 18 years; it does not disclose the portfolio’s size³⁵⁸⁰.
• The one case anyone can check is a company’s: Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholder letter says its Coca-Cola shares cost $1.3 billion and paid $75 million in 1994 and $704 million in 2022, one winning holding, not an average⁹⁵.

What it takes to compete

Holding the funds is nearly free: trading costs $0 at a mainstream US broker and fees start at 0.06% a year¹⁶⁶. The cost is the capital.

The two logs nearest the tweet’s figure took 15 to 18 years of adding new money, and neither names a course, tool or paid community as the cause²⁹³⁵.

Our estimate (3.3% yield, payouts and prices growing 4% to 6% a year, everything reinvested, no tax, future dollars): reaching $5,000 a month in about 15 years needs roughly $4,700 to $5,600 added every month, 69% to 82% of the $82,200 median family income before tax²³.

To tell early, multiply your own amount by the yield. Of anyone showing a monthly figure, ask the amount invested, what it is in, the total return including price changes, and how much of the payout is the investor’s own money.

Who else makes money from it

On 10 October 2026 the account’s link page showed no course of its own, but eleven links to other sellers’ guides, in the shop platform Gumroad’s affiliate address format, and a link to the broker M1 Finance⁴. An affiliate link pays the sharer when someone buys. That these pay the account is our inference; we do not know what it earns. Nine are investing guides, priced $5 to $97⁶⁴.

Most of the bloggers quoted above also sell or promote something tied to the subject³². Fund issuers earn a yearly fee of 0.06% to 1.40% on whatever is invested⁶¹¹.

FINRA, the US brokerage industry regulator, fined M1 Finance $850,000 in March 2024 over its paid influencer programme; M1 settled without admitting or denying the findings, which name no individual influencer⁵⁷. Apart from such broker settlements, a limited search found no regulator or court action against the method, the account quoted or any guide seller mentioned.