Investing for cash flow vs investing for total return (stock market)

[Poker Player]

I have a dilemma about this, and I would like to know what you think.

I have been investing in the stock market for many years and combine making contributions to an S&P 500 index fund with buying individual stocks.

In principle, you would have to be a genius to beat the S&P 500 return, sort of like Buffett, and Buffett, if we take into account the last years, doesn't even beat it.

So, if we're looking for the best return it's better to invest in an index fund than to build up a portfolio of individual stocks yourself.

The reason I invest in individual stocks is cash flow. I buy stocks that pay dividends, with a history of growing dividends. Dividends you can reinvest, but at any given time you can also spend them if you need to. If I only invested in the index fund, I could sell some of it too if I needed money but after years I've realized that:

1) I have never sold any of the fund indexed to the S&P 500.
2) I have sold shares, mainly for two reasons, that they would have gone up too much too fast or because of loss of confidence in the management team (as happened to me recently with AT&T).

So, apart from the better performance of the fund indexed to the S&P, I also see the advantage that I tend to touch it less. I simply invest and invest and invest. Every month. 

Stocks I buy and sometimes sell. Besides, if you buy reliable companies, the dividends are around 3% a year, which, even if it compounds over the years, does not give me a significant cash flow. Let's think that buying $2K of stock at 3% per year gives you 4 payments of $15 minus taxes.

In the end I am hesitating to liquidate my individual stock portfolio and move it to the index fund.

I do not take Bitcoin into account here. Bitcoin investment is separate.

Thoughts?

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[Kong Hey Pakboy]

It's a bit trite but I think it's the best thing to do which is doing both, what I mean by that is that you are splitting your capital for investing for cashflow and for a total return. It kind of sounds bias though because that's what I plan to do when I finally invest in stock market, gather as much blue chip stocks that pays dividends and have some that are speculatory that I believe will boom and make a lot of money in the future.

[so98nn]

Individual companies would be beneficial all the time rather than indexed trade. One thing is clear, you know very well how to play with the share market. Because individual companies can be studied well in advance before we can invest in them. We can completely understand the future of that company, study the board of directors, their visions about the company, the products along with it's performance in the market.

When you go for an option like fortune companies, S&P 500 etc, it's gonna be hard to judge which companies are doing what amongst the hundreds of them and it could be the possibility they won't make you actual returns in the long run.