
Bad Gambler
153 posts

Bad Gambler
@jeffdapro
Rivers, beer, golf, and beer.


I’m about to buy a $1 million house at about 5.5% VA loan. I’ve been saving for a long while in order to make a larger down payment, and came up with $450k in cash. I initially planned to put the whole thing into the down payment to borrow much less, even though 5.5% is low enough that I can probably do better in the market. But I talked to my cousin Vinny in NJ (he’s a CPA) and we looked at some better choices. We talked about $VIG, $SCHD, and $SPHD as conservative investments that will probably do more for me than making a massive down payment. $VIG isn’t really as much a dividend ETF as it is an ETF of dividend-growing companies. It tracks the S&P pretty tightly but the yield is real low. I have over 700 shares already. $SPHD pays monthly dividends, which is nice, but most of its holdings are in real estate or other more interest rate-sensitive sectors. Its dividend is choppy. $SCHD has a really low beta at 0.73 and so is probably the most conservative. It’s also pretty heavy on energy. We ran some simulations and determined that based on current dividend growth, my dividends will probably exceed my mortgage interest between 6-7 years from now. I decided to put 20% ($200k) down on the house and put almost all of the rest into SCHD. I’m now holding 6,100 shares of SCHD and I’m riding hard with the most boomer of all dividend ETFs. Maybe I’ll get lucky and interest rates will drop enough that I can even refinance lower later.












Hillcrest Pro Am announced $30k first place prize for First Dakota Pro Am on July 31-Aug 3, 2025 in Yankton SD. For more information please visit dakotastour.com to register. Limited housing for golf prof is available. There are many other Dakota’s Tour events to follow.
































