re: Dividend stocks and DRIPs as a long term investment vehicle

Volvagia you're young,you clearly know it all, you're not seeing the big picture bc you truly don't have the assets to where it would even matter.I'd assume your total portfolio is well under $50k at this point Let me put it another way, your relative works his whole life, he dies, he leaves you XLP ETF worth $2M you first off won't be taxed on the gains so you can liquidate at that point.

You have 2 choices, observe XLP and its top 10 holding which make up 60% of the fund and decide to buy those on your own OR you continue holding and paying $3,600/year and rising as your base grows

over 10 years you pay $36,000 at least, yes a miniscule .18% of that $2M to be informed on how to buy consumer staples you could have bought on your own, there's a list of the ETF's holdings!

you are truly missing the point im trying to make, that ETF's are nice, but if you can do your own research, even 30 minutes a day is 3.5/hrs a week of research you will be ahead of the game and you can save alot of money in the long run

ETF's were created to make money off the ignorance of the many, sorry, that's just the truth. The take your regular joe who knows nothing about the markets, can't read a balance sheet, and understands nothing about dividend history,payout ratios and growth and wow them with all kinds of statistics and returns, etc all while collecting that tiny fee over and over on billions of dollars

I choose to do it on my own, i wont share my insights anymore then.Being able to stand on your own is a basic premise of life at all levels, if you can't stand on your own with your investments you need to think twice about diving in.