Hey Scott — sorry for the delay getting back to you! I’ve been completely swamped with reader messages lately and this comment accidentally slipped past me.
I’m really glad you brought this up though — it’s a great question, and one that comes up often behind the scenes.
While shorter expiries can accelerate premium decay, I tend to stick with 30–45 DTE windows for a few reasons — especially since most readers here are newer to options:
I - You get more premium per trade, which makes the effort worth it
II - There’s more time to manage or adjust if things move against you
III - It avoids the kind of “intraday babysitting” that shorter trades often require
IV - And most importantly, it gives newer traders a safer ramp to build confidence
That said, I do sometimes explore shorter setups around Fed events or when volatility spikes — but that’s more of an advanced layer, not the foundation.
One thing that really helped me was creating a 'wealth snowball' - starting with tiny $100 automatic investments while learning the ropes. Takes the pressure off and lets you fine-tune your strategy before deploying serious capital. Then your FCF criteria become the north star once people scale up.
ove the systematic approach to income generation! The combination of dividend growth + options premiums is powerful. How do you balance the income vs growth components in different market environments?
Mike, looking forward to digging in. Have you written about why you don’t go for shorter expiries that maximize decay?
Hey Scott — sorry for the delay getting back to you! I’ve been completely swamped with reader messages lately and this comment accidentally slipped past me.
I’m really glad you brought this up though — it’s a great question, and one that comes up often behind the scenes.
While shorter expiries can accelerate premium decay, I tend to stick with 30–45 DTE windows for a few reasons — especially since most readers here are newer to options:
I - You get more premium per trade, which makes the effort worth it
II - There’s more time to manage or adjust if things move against you
III - It avoids the kind of “intraday babysitting” that shorter trades often require
IV - And most importantly, it gives newer traders a safer ramp to build confidence
That said, I do sometimes explore shorter setups around Fed events or when volatility spikes — but that’s more of an advanced layer, not the foundation.
Sorry this one fell through the cracks
One thing that really helped me was creating a 'wealth snowball' - starting with tiny $100 automatic investments while learning the ropes. Takes the pressure off and lets you fine-tune your strategy before deploying serious capital. Then your FCF criteria become the north star once people scale up.
ove the systematic approach to income generation! The combination of dividend growth + options premiums is powerful. How do you balance the income vs growth components in different market environments?