Actually, every time you get that dividend check, your share price goes down (relative to what it would have otherwise been) by the exact amount of the dividend per share. This means that the “cold hard cash” of the dividend actually reduces the value of your investment.

Worse, dividends get taxed as regular income (at least in the US), and are paid on every dollar of those dividends. This means that you could pay up to 85% higher taxes on this form of income compared to selling appreciated shares. It also means that you pay taxes on all of that money now, instead of deferring taxes on capital gains until you realize them by selling shares.

Overall, the secret to eternal wealth is to get to the point that you spend less each year than your portfolio grows in real (after-inflation) terms. When that growth comes from capital gains, your taxes on the increase will be lower, and will only be paid on the money you liquidate to cover expenses.

That means you can get to that Financial Independence point earlier if your portfolio performance comes more from capital gains than from dividends.