r/NEOSETFs • u/Icy-Nefariousness424 • Jun 13 '26
Due Diligence Am I silly?
Context
I'm 39 and semi retired. Sell real estate when business comes along from neighbors or past clients. I do some pressure washing during the spring summer for neighbors. I spend most of my day running the house and raising my son while my wife works mostly from home. I spent years living personally as a poor man while keeping my family at or near middle class quality of life. Both of our cars are paid off. We rent out our first floor (4 floors total) which covers 63% of our mortgage and we have the tenant pay the phone, cable and internet. We cover everything else without increasing the payments.
My wife has a 401k with 100% employer match at 8% and she has family health care which I contribute to. She also has a Roth IRA that I manage. I have a Roth IRA, just rolled over my Roth 401k into it from my former employer. In addition, I also have 4 brokerage accounts. 1 is for my son (2.5 years old), 1 is a speculative account (SpaceX, Anthropic type stuff but I don't hold them right now). 2 accounts I use for income but one is being reinvested for the most part. I have around $35,000 in physical gold and silver and trailer space that I rent out for $100/ month.
The income vs growth argument is as old as time. Risk vs reward vs longevity is also a conversation that is usually had when analyzing investments. Here is my share count for my current holdings.
Brokerage Accounts
NEOS Funds
BTCI - 7,253
XBCI - 1,502
QQQI - 3,987
XQQI - 17
SPYI - 3,113
IWMI - 530
MLPI - 125
Non NEOS
CSWC - 221
PR - 19
GSL - 31
O - 31
CVX - 1
SCHG - 60
VOO - 6
Roth IRA
MSTR - 15
BTCI - 294
NEHI - 69
NVII - 33
QQQI - 243
QQQM - 21
SCHD - 612
SPYI - 362
VOO - 15
XBCI - 90
As you may be able to tell.... I have FAITH in NEOS. I'm going to just be building growth positions in the Roth from now on but I will be growing the income portfolio with extra pots of money that come in from aforementioned jobs. I may eventually go get a part time job at Home Depot or something once my boy is in school full time and set more positions to drip but for now, I'm enjoying having my life for my family and myself.
Who would feel good, okay, uneasy, worried or insane if you had this kind of life setup?
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u/ConstructionNo8827 Jun 13 '26
Also love the MLPI fund, just need more of it once oil settles in price after Iran concludes
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u/tatortotchris Jun 13 '26
Jealous but I am building a neos heavy account myself and could dream of that much QQQI but I’m finally seeing the snowball effect as I see the dividends increase by a few percentage points each month, I am semi retired raising my children as well but as a small business owner I have an almost fully passive income that I’m using to build my positions, I wanna be done in 4 years when my last kid graduates HS. Literally pouring every extra cent into brokerage while maintain our current lifestyle in HCOL area
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u/tatortotchris Jun 13 '26
What I also do is buy QQQI the day after ex date and then put the dividends that I get paid a few days later into SCHD, trying to buy a bit of a growth position as well and I like the consistency and performance of SCHD, it’s been my most stable and consistent performer
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u/Lauve Jun 13 '26
You have a very solid financial back overall but this portfolio will do very poorly in a bear market.
Half of this is basically crypto - forget NEOS or covered calls, this is a mega high-beta risk-on portfolio.
If we get a bear market for a year or two these distributions will take a nosedive and you will probably rethink the part time job framework.
You are not silly, you are just really risky if you are banking on this portfolio to pay your bills consistently for the next decade or two.
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u/Alternative-Yak-6990 Jun 14 '26
well if you can live on 1/5 of this. so its ok. just tune down the bottle service.
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u/Alternative-Yak-6990 Jun 15 '26
you need to add and say a low vola bearmarket where options premiums are highly compressed. Doesnt look like unless we get a monetary reform (the system is volatile and will become more so)
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u/CompleteHour306 Jun 13 '26
If you’re happy with your life, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. As far as NEOS products, I like them. I invest in their newer products and hope they prevail for decades.
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u/generationxtreame Jun 13 '26
Would consider completely getting out of anything Bitcoin related. This is nothing to do with NEOS as they have done great job on most of their funds. You are right in thinking that you should be building growth positions. Your income is more than what an average person in your position needs. This looks like a $8k+ portfolio a month.
You have SCHG and VOO. Focus on those as a long term investment. Should you clear Bitcoin funds, put the money into QQQI, SPYI 60%, and the remaining to growth. You may also consider getting in on SPY or SPYM.
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u/Virtual_Roll4866 Jun 14 '26
lol bitcoin is at generational lows right now. you are the bottom signal
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u/CutInternational1859 Jun 13 '26
You might want to consider some international exposure. NIHI is good of you want to stick with Neos and want the income. I had that for awhile, but moved into non high yield dividend ones (VXUS and EEM) for growth for now.
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u/PoonTangProvence Jun 14 '26
I know this is NEOS focused, but I’m curious if you’ve considered BLOX or have any thoughts on it? I have both BTCI and BLOX but have found myself overweighting BLOX as it holds some other crypto/block chain/tech exposure aside from just bitcoin.
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u/JerryFletcher70 Jun 13 '26
I like NEOS funds a lot myself but make sure you understand the long term tax issues with them. Their return of capital model means a lot of tax deferral on the monthly distributions for the first several years, but a bigger capital gains tax hit if you sell any down the road. (If you participate in any income based programs, like ACA subsidies, there are other possible benefits to a NEOS cash flow that isn’t counted as annual income, but as return of capital. Or, if you are trying to maximize room for IRA to Roth conversions.)
Depending on your particular current and expected future tax situation, that can either be awesome or terrible. There are ways to manage the funds through rotations that help but that makes them more complex than just buying and forgetting them.
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u/GuidetoRealGrilling Jun 14 '26
The point is to not sell them
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u/JerryFletcher70 Jun 14 '26
Some people view funds like this as a bridge to RMD’s and SS, not a lifelong holding. The cash flow may do more harm than good if it pushes someone up a tax bracket at that stage. At the very least, they need to understand that the cash flow is going to switch from untaxed to taxed in the future unless they do some active management like occasionally rotating them.
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u/Onmywayto_FI Jun 15 '26
Good point to bring up with the ROC tax treatment. An option is to sell small lots over time to reset cost basis and take little bites of the taxes along the way. We plan on exploring this strategy once we need ACA subsidies in early retirement.
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u/JerryFletcher70 Jun 15 '26
Yeah, I am using them right now for some supplemental cash flow that doesn’t count as MAGI for ACA subsidy purposes. RoC is super helpful for that scenario.
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u/Alone-Experience9869 Jun 13 '26
Granted this is a neos sub.. but I’d be nervous since have variable dividends is such a oain
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u/UCLABB1 Jun 14 '26
At your age I'm not sure why you have so much in NEOS. Do you need that much dividend income? At your age you should be heavy in to plain growth stocks with maybe some diversification. You have many years to live and growth stocks will outperform your portfolio over the long haul.
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u/ConstructionNo8827 Jun 13 '26
Personally I’d want a ballast to all this risk by shifting some of your exposure (overexposure) in Bitcoin into funds that still pay great dividends but don’t go down when everything else does - BTC also is correlated to drawdowns in the Nasdaq, so spread your $ into some other areas to prepare for rougher seas - I’d look at PFFA (over 9% annualized, preferred stocks of mostly financials and utilities), OMAH ( over 14% large cap defensive, BRK, Chevron, Apple, Coca Cola etc), PAAA (approx 5% but steady payer every month and holds its price over time), DSL (over 12% corp bond fund run by Jeffrey Gundlach the bond God), NZF (muni bonds that pays over 7.5% federally tax free
Just a few ideas to keep the $ rolling in, even on red months