Dividend investing is a time-honored approach that gives investors passive income and a proven pathway toward creating long-term wealth. Because returns are generated both from dividend payments as well as stock price appreciation, dividend investing offers investors multiple ways to win, outperforming the broader market over time.
You may not think that you have enough to get started on building your stream of passive income from dividend stocks, but here's some good news: You don't need a lot of money to get started in dividend investing. The biggest journeys start with a small step, so here are three great dividend stocks that you can buy right now for less than $50 each.
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1. Foot Locker
Foot Locker (FL -4.11%) might not be the first name that comes to mind when you think of dividends, but this is a great dividend stock that you can buy right now for less than $50. At the current stock price, shares of Foot Locker yield over 4%, well above the market average.
Like many other companies, Foot Locker trimmed its dividend payout amid the uncertainty of the beginning of the COVID pandemic in 2020, but it has been making up for lost time and getting the payout back up to speed since then. The company increased its quarterly payout from $0.15 per share to $0.20 per share in 2021, hiked it again in 2021 to $0.30, and raised it to $0.40 this year, meaning that the dividend is back to where it was when the pandemic hit.
As an added bonus, shares of Foot Locker are very inexpensive. The stock trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of just seven and at only a slight premium to book value.
There are plenty of cheap stocks with dividends that unfortunately have their best days behind them and are unlikely to ever turn things around -- but Foot Locker is not one of them. This September, new CEO Mary Dillon took the helm of the $3.5 billion, New York-city based company. Dillon previously had a tremendously successful run as the CEO of Ulta Beauty, where the stock price nearly tripled during her tenure, which bodes well for Foot Locker shareholders.
Dillon will look to revamp Foot Locker's e-commerce efforts, which she had great success doing at Ulta Beauty, where e-commerce as a percentage of sales grew from 4% to 30% during her time there. If Dillon can figure that out and make Foot Locker a fun destination that customers look forward to going to again, Foot Locker could be off to the races while paying out some nice dividends in the process.
2. Franchise Group
Franchise Group (FRG) is another top-notch dividend stock that is even cheaper than Foot Locker and yields even more. Shares trade at just under six times earnings and yield over 7%, which is hard to beat in today's market.
Franchise Group is an Ohio-based company that owns and operates franchised and franchise-able businesses, including Vitamin Shoppe, Sylvan Learning Centers, Pet Supplies Plus, and a group of furniture-related retailers.
Shares of Franchise Group are down 35% year to date as inflation and a slowing economy seem to be hurting demand for its furniture businesses. But the company is well-diversified, and its pet and vitamin businesses are doing well despite the broader economy, which is a nice advantage of holding a diverse portfolio of businesses.
Franchise Group has aggressively increased its dividend over the past few years, paying out $1.00 per share in 2020, then increasing the payout to $1.50 in 2021. In 2022, Franchise Group again increased the annual payout, this time to $2.50 per share.
Franchise Group is a well-diversified holding company for a number of interesting businesses, and its attractive valuation plus the significant dividend increases over the past three years make it a top dividend growth stock that you can add to your portfolio for less than $50.
3. Altria
Let's stay in the world of ultra high-yield stocks with our final selection, Altria (MO 1.45%). Shares of the tobacco giant yield a whopping 8.4%. Altria sells cigarettes and other tobacco products in the United States and is most notably home to the Marlboro brand.
Because cigarettes are a product that people buy habitually and smokers are unlikely to alter their consumption based on the ebbs and flows of the economy, a company like Altria is, for better or worse, uniquely positioned to weather a difficult macro environment. As such, shares of Altria are only down 5% year to date, far better than the major indices.
Altria has increased its annual payout every year for 53 years, making the stock a Dividend King. This level of dedication to not only paying but raising its dividend payout like clockwork for over five decades should help shareholders sleep soundly at night knowing that the dividend is a top priority for the company.
In conclusion, $50 is probably less than the cost for a dinner out for two at a lot of restaurants these days, and these three stocks all feature dividend yields far higher than the market average, allowing you to put that $50 to work and get started on your passive income journey.
