Income Investing for Beginners - a 10 Part Guide to Successful Income Investing

By Joshua Kennon, About.com Guide

Do you need to build a portfolio that will generate cash? Are you more concerned with paying your bills and having enough income than growing richer? If so, you need to focus on something called income investing. This long-lost practice used to be popular before the great twenty-year bull market taught everyone to believe that the only good investment was one that you bought for ten dollars and sold for twenty. Although income investing went out of style with the general public, the discipline is still quietly practiced throughout the mahogany paneled offices of the most respected wealth management firms in the world.

In this special feature on income investing, you're going to develop a better understanding of income investing, which types of assets might be considered appropriate for someone who wanted to follow an income investing philosophy, and the most common dangers that can derail an otherwise successful income investing portfolio. At the very least, you will be armed with some things to consider before contacting a broker or money manager.

Before we begin, let's define income investing precisely so you know exactly what it is. The art of good income investing is putting together a collection of assets such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and real estate that generates the highest possible annual income at the lowest possible risk. Most of this income is paid out to the investor so he or she can use it in their everyday lives to buy clothes, pay for the mortgage, take vacations, cover living expenses, give to charity, or whatever else they desire.