Most people like to have weekly or at the very least monthly income. It makes it easier to budget for expenses. But it isn’t always easy to get monthly income from investments. For the most part, companies pay dividends on a quarterly basis. Some only pay annually or semi-annually.  But there are stock and ETF investments that pay monthly. Some of my better investments pay monthly, including MAIN, GAIN and O.

A word of caution before you go crazy buying investments that pay a monthly dividend: many of them are not good investments. But it is possible to find good stocks with rational payout ratios and steady, growing dividends. It is also possible to add some good ETF’s to do the same thing.

One good tool is the MarketBeat page. You can sort the MarketBeat page by stock/ETF, Dividend Yield, Annual Payout and other values. For example, I sorted by stock and then scrolled down to see the following. We own shares of EPR, O and LTC.

We own shares of EPR, O and LTC

I have owned monthly dividend ETF’s like PFF from time-to-time, but I prefer to buy stocks and ETFs that pay quarterly. Bear in mind that you can also create your own flow of dividend income by purchasing shares of stocks that pay in different months. Some stocks, for example, pay in January, April, July and October. Others pay in February, May, August and November. The third group pays in March, June, September and December. This would require some extra work, but it can be a powerful engine for income.

LINK: Market Beat