I started using Simply Safe Dividends in 2019, when I found it through a newspaper column by Elliott Raphaelson in the Chicago Tribune. His description matched exactly what I was trying to do with my own money at the time. I had spent years with everything sitting in money market accounts, high yield savings, and index funds, and I knew I was retiring, so I needed my portfolio to provide my annual income. Simply Safe Dividends looked like the tool built especially for me and the way I think. So I signed up and have been a member ever since. I want to make clear that this is not a sponsored post and I have no affiliation with Simply Safe Dividends. I’m simply a happy customer.
Today, the service costs $468 a year, billed annually. There’s no monthly plan or free tier, but there is a trial period before the annual charge kicks in and a 60-day money-back guarantee if you decide it isn’t for you. The one thing worth knowing if you’re considering giving it a try: your annual rate locks in at whatever price you paid when you signed up. When I joined in 2019 the price was $399 a year, and that’s still what I pay today even though new subscribers pay $468. At least that was the policy when I joined. That kind of price protection is rare for any subscription service. It’s nice to see rewards for long-term customers instead of punishing them. It’s certainly not inexpensive, but I feel it has paid for itself many times over by keeping me out of dividend cuts I would have otherwise walked into blind, and by giving me a screening tool to evaluate prospective holdings.
My daily use is simple. On most days, I keep both of my portfolios open in browser tabs and check how they’re doing against the broader market. It’s an invaluable tool when I need to think about rebalancing. At that point I use the screener and look for holdings I don’t already own that fit what I’m trying to add, whether that’s a name to fill a sector gap or a replacement for something I’m ready to move on from.
The dividend safety scores are where this service shines. It’s a simple numerical score that goes from 0 to 100, with 100 being the safest. Over the years I’ve had plenty of holdings get downgraded. When Simply Safe Dividends issues a downgrade, or an upgrade for that matter, Brian Bollinger, the founder of the service, publishes an analysis explaining why they made the change. I read through the reasoning before deciding what to do. Sometimes the downgrade points to a real structural problem and I sell. Other times Simply Safe Dividends is flagging a modest cut it thinks is coming, and I decide to stay the course because I believe in the business over the long run. A smaller dividend from a company that recovers and grows the stock price back is sometimes still a better outcome than panic-selling. Have I made mistakes? Sure. Who doesn’t. But using Simply Safe Dividends has given me more confidence to make my own choices rather than depend on an advisor. I can look up the information myself, determine how much risk I’m willing to shoulder, and then make the choice of what to buy, sell, or hold.
I do have some minor gripes that have nothing to do with the core service they provide. Things like wanting to sort my portfolio a certain way so I have a better picture of what I’m looking at. There’s no way to do a multi-column sort inside the platform. The only way I can do this is to export to a CSV and sort it in a spreadsheet. I like to eliminate extra steps if at all possible. I’d also like a cleaner way to compare a portfolio’s performance before and after I make changes. Right now the only method is building a separate “play” portfolio that mirrors the old version and checking it against the current one. It’s more manual than I like. But otherwise the UI, or UX in modern web parlance, is pretty rock solid.
In addition to the web based service, Simply Safe Dividends also publishes a newsletter, gives ideas for companies you might want to invest in, and has a YouTube channel where Brian explores different scenarios for dividend investing. Here’s a link to their channel. https://www.youtube.com/@simplysafedividends
I’m just going to repeat that this isn’t a sponsored post. I’m not being paid to post it and Simply Safe Dividends didn’t ask me to. I use the service because I depend on it for the way I invest, and I think anyone reading this blog with a similar approach to dividend income would get real value out of it too.
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