What investments to generate 500 euros more per month in retirement?

Receiving 500 euros net following your investments, each month, in your bank account during retirement, that’s 6,000 euros per year which falls effortlessly, at a time when your income will have decreased.

To achieve this without touching your capital, you must seek a certain security. With a realistic return – 4 to 5% net – this requires a capital of 120,000 to 150,000 euros depending on your risk tolerance and your tax situation. The good news is that you can do it with affordable investments. The tip: diversify between the stock market and real estate…

Obviously, before embarking on this type of investment, make sure you already have your safety cushion (3 to 6 months of expenses on the Livret A or better, the LEP). It’s the rest that will work for you. Let’s see right away how.

SCPIs, for rents that fall every quarter

Have you ever heard of SCPIs, these companies which buy office, retail or healthcare buildings with the money of investors like you, then pay them a share of the rent every quarter? SCPIs are the first investment to consider for a regular annuity. But there are two ways to take out it: directly, or via life insurance.

SCPIs live offer more choice and higher returns than life insurance. Take Iroko Zen: 7.14% in 2025, without entry fees, with a diversified portfolio in Europe in shops and offices. Heart of Europe reached 6.25%, without taking into account a nice revaluation of the shares. Sofidynamic achieved a return in 2025 of 9.04%; the SCPI Comète 9%. But we also have SCPIs with much lower yields, so you have to choose carefully.

Directly, rents are paid in full each quarter, barring exceptional deferrals in a real estate crisis, and are not subject to management fees existing in life insurance.

With 60,000 euros placed directly in SCPI, you can hope for 3,600 gross per year if the average return is 6%, which was feasible in 2025. After taxation on property income (single flat-rate levy at 30% – or social security levies at 17.2% and progressive scale if that benefits you), this leaves around 2,520 euros net.

SCPI via life insurance are reduced in fees, because insurers negotiate them. There are therefore fewer entry fees, and no benefit period: directly, you generally have to wait 3 to 6 months before receiving your first rent, this is not the case with life insurance. In addition, liquidity is assured: you can resell them at any time, which depends on demand if you want to sell them directly. Obviously, housing your SCPI in life insurance allows you to benefit from the tax advantage: no income tax on 4,600 euros of earnings withdrawn per year, 7.5% beyond that. You will also have inheritance benefits – because that is the original purpose of life insurance.

If you pay 30,000 euros into a life insurance SCPI portfolio and you receive on average 5% gross, that’s 1,500 euros. And after 17.2% social security contributions: approximately 1,242 euros net.

You have the theory, now the practice: how to choose between all these SCPIs? Don’t just look at the return for the year: look at the distribution rate over 3 to 5 years, check the occupancy rate (it is better that it is above 95%) as well as the geographical and sectoral diversification. Finally, avoid SCPIs that are too young without a solid history.

Bet on dividend stocks in the PEA

When investing in the stock market over the long term, we often recommend ETFs. But to generate regular income from the stock market, the strategy will be completely different! To ensure a regular inflow of money regardless of the ups and downs of the stock markets, you can focus on dividends. To do this, you will need to build a portfolio of solid values – called dividend aristocrats. These companies have been paying an increasing coupon (dividend) for at least 10 years and are generally more resilient to crises than broad indices.

You can invest via a PEA (Equity Savings Plan) which offers tax advantages. Among the dividend stocks eligible for the PEA, some large stocks are well known: TotalEnergies stands out with 5 to 6% payout over the last 5 years, and a rising dividend for 25 years. Sanofi offers a return of around 5%. FDJ, which has seen rapid dividend growth since its IPO, exceeded 6% last year, and Rubis 7%. Television channels like M6 and TF1 also have a high dividend, around 8%, but their price is more volatile. This is why you need to analyze the values carefully before investing. Additionally, even though the values cited are known to be solid, past returns are no guarantee of future returns.

This is why we are going to take an average return of 5% gross on 60,000 euros placed in a PEA: that’s 3,000 euros in dividends per year. After 5 years of detention, there is no longer any income tax, just 18.6% social security contributions: we have 2,442 euros net.

The returns presented are estimates, but with the portfolio of 150,000 euros invested in total that we have just seen, we achieve the following returns: