New Recommendation: This "Real Income" Stock Pays You 10.24%

My Mom, Kathleen Rose, is a retired nurse. She just turned 88. But she’s still as sharp as can be — and still lives in the house I grew up in.

Before my son Joey left for college in Boston, he and I were over there for brunch or dinner every Sunday – an easy arrangement since the house Robin, Joey and I bought is less than 10 minutes away.

Even with Joey now away at school, “Sunday dinner” with Mom is a routine that I’ve maintained — indeed, that I’ve added to.

I take her big, ice-filled Cokes (her one vice) a couple times a week. I often surprise her with dinner – brisket tacos from Qdoba, a fish sandwich from Mickey D’s, pasta from a nifty little Italian joint near her house, or a cheeseburger (piled with raw onions) from Five Guys.

Increasingly, I’m also chauffeuring her to doctor’s appointments — and to those “long-shopping-list” days at the supermarket.

The supermarket — the local Giant Food — was where the two of us found ourselves a few weeks back. The forecasters were calling for a cold weekend — so Mom wanted to stay in and cook. She thought that steaks – specifically, New York Strip Steaks – sounded good. So we wheeled our cart over to the meat section, so that Mom could look things over.

I suddenly heard her say “Whoa!” — a striking (and audible) exclamation to hear from someone who’s 88.

Turns out, her consternation was well-founded: That NY Strip that she remembers buying for a few bucks a pound when I was in high school now costs $15.47 — a hefty six times more.

But it got me thinking: Was it just her “memory of prices past” that evoked her strong response? Or has steak truly grown “more expensive” — on a relative basis — meaning prices have raced out ahead of inflation?

I decided to look. And I pulled up real data — looking at NY Strip prices in 1979, 2015, 2023 and what I saw there today in the grocery store.

As it turns out, NY Strip Steak — at today’s price of $15.47 a pound — has massively outrun inflation … in every one of those instances, going back to that $2.50 price from the year I graduated from high school.

Just look at what strip steak was selling for, what it would sell for had it merely paced inflation, and where it really is.

So, yeah: “Whoa!”

Inflation ran along at a 2.7% to 3% clip last year. And while the aggregate consumer U.S. price index (CPI) zoomed 26% from 2019 through the end of last year, a lot of everyday items have seen much greater increases. For instance, groceries have risen an aggregate 30% since 2019 — but beef and veal rose 14.7% last year alone.

And there are others.

Indeed, if you look across 2023 to 2025, there are product and service offerings that rose anywhere from two times to five times the overall inflation rate — creating so-called “aggregate inflation” that led to something we’ve referred to as the “Whac-a-Mole Economy.”

We’re talking about things like:

• Food staples (especially beef).

• Insurance (auto + property).

• Shelter and homeowner expenses.

• Utilities (electricity, gas).

• Healthcare services.

• And transportation services and car maintenance.

I’m sharing this for a reason.

One of our Wealth Builder/Wealth Killer storylines is “Inflation, the Middle-Class Squeeze and the Need for ‘Real Income’.” And real income is akin to “cash flow” —- what actually ends up in your pocket after you back out inflation, taxes, transaction fees and “market interest rates.”

With the U.S. Federal Reserve toying with another rate cut —- even as uncertainty ratchets higher from geopolitical gamesmanship, the inflationary issues we’ve been talking about and kill shots to the American Dream.

We have a “Real Income Playbook” that’s part of the Stock Picker’s Corner Model Portfolio.

So we’re adding a new income stock to that “Playbook.” It’s got a 10.25% yield. It keeps boosting its dividend (up 21% over the past three years).

One other kinda cool point: The dividend gets paid out monthly — which means you’ll be getting 12 “passive-income checks” every year.

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