Risks associated with investing in dividend paying stocks for short term income. Alternatives?
I wouldn't focus too much on dividends itself; at the end of the day what matters is total gain, because you can convert capital gain into income by selling your assets (they have different tax implications, but generally capital gains tend to be more tax efficient).    I think the more important question is how much volatility you can tolerate. Since your investment horizon is short & your risk tolerance is low (as in if you suddenly get much lower income than you planned from your investment you'll be in trouble), you probably want assets that have low volatility.   To achieve that, I'd consider the following if I were you: tl;dr If I were you I'd just hold a general investment portfolio with a lower risk profile rather than focusing on dividend generating assets.