Poor Man’s Covered Calls: The Definitive Guide to Smarter Options Income

Poor Man’s Covered Calls (PMCCs) replace costly stock ownership with long-term call options (LEAPS), reducing the capital needed by as much as 65 to 85%. Yet they preserve the same ability to generate option premium income as a standard covered call. In this deep dive, we’ll explore how PMCCs work, why they matter in today’s market, and how you can use them to boost income with less risk and greater flexibility.

Why Poor Man’s Covered Calls Matter More Than Ever

Every generation of traders rediscovers the covered call. It’s simple, elegant, and reassuring: buy 100 shares of a stock you believe in, sell a call against it, and collect income regularly. For retirees, it can feel like a steady paycheck. For newer traders, it feels like they’ve finally “unlocked” a reliable Wall Street strategy. Covered calls are indeed a popular, conservative way to generate extra income from stocks you already.

But here’s the truth: traditional covered calls, while dependable, come with a heavy price tag. Locking up $20,000 to $50,000 (or more) in a single stock position just to earn a few hundred dollars in premium every month is not always the best use of capital, especially in markets where diversification and flexibility aren’t luxuries; they’re survival tools. Tying up so much money in one trade can limit your ability to invest in other opportunities or manage risk across a portfolio.

That’s where Poor Man’s Covered Calls come in. (Despite the nickname, there’s nothing “poor” about this strategy.) In technical terms, a PMCC is essentially a long call diagonal spread, you buy a deep in-the-money, long-dated call option and sell shorter-term calls against it, replicating a covered call position with far less . In other words, you’re using a LEAPS option as a stock substitute. By doing so, you can cut your capital outlay by roughly two-thirds or more while still running the exact same income-generating engine as a covered call.

Think about that: why park $25,000 in one stock to sell calls when you could control that position with maybe $4,000 to $8,000 and free up the rest to build five or six diversified income streams?

In today’s market, efficiency matters. PMCCs offer a way to stay nimble. They give you the same income potential as a covered call, but with a fraction of the capital tied up. That frees you to diversify and adapt. In short, PMCCs let you trade like a professional; measured, adaptable, and focused on repeatable outcomes rather than chasing hot tips or reacting to every headline.

Key Goals and Benefits of a PMCC Strategy

This isn’t a parlor trick or some get-rich-quick scheme. The PMCC strategy has specific objectives that make it uniquely suited for individual investors or options traders looking for a capital-efficient approach. These are the core goals (and benefits) of using Poor Man’s Covered Calls:

• Generate Consistent Income: Just like a traditional covered call, you sell short-term call options against your position and collect premium income regularly. The income stream is the same as if you owned the shares and sold calls, providing a steady cash flow that can feel like a paycheck for your portfolio.

• Reduce Capital Outlay: Instead of buying 100 shares of stock, you buy one deep in-the-money LEAPS call option as a surrogate. This typically costs 65 to 85% less capital than purchasing shares. In practice, a position that might require $20,000 in stock can often be opened for, say, $3,000 to $7,000 via LEAPS. Your upfront commitment drops dramatically, freeing up cash.

• Boost Return on Capital: Because you commit far less money upfront, each dollar of premium you collect represents a much higher percentage return on the capital at risk. The return on capital for a PMCC can be several times higher than that of a standard covered call on the same underlying. In other words, you’re making your money work harder. For example, a $200 premium on a $5,000 LEAPS position is a 4% immediate return; that same $200 on a $25,000 stock holding is only 0.8%. Smaller base, same income, much higher yield.

• Participate in Upside: A properly chosen LEAPS (usually deep in-the-money with a high delta around 0.80 to 0.85) will capture most of the underlying stock’s upside movement. That means if the stock rises, your long call (LEAPS) gains value almost like you held the shares. You still have upside exposure, minus the cap imposed by the short call’s strike. The strategy is typically employed with a moderately bullish outlook: you expect some gains in the stock over time, and your LEAPS will reflect those gains.

• Lower Your Cost Basis Over Time: Every time you sell a call and collect premium, that income effectively chips away at the cost basis of your long LEAPS call. Over successive months, the net cost of your LEAPS position drops. This creates a cushion: even if the underlying stock doesn’t move much (or even dips slightly), the accrued premiums can offset potential losses. In a sense, the short calls slowly pay for your long call. With discipline, a PMCC can eventually pay for itself, at which point all further premiums (and any stock upside) are pure profit.

• Diversify Across More Positions: By drastically reducing the capital required per position, you can spread the same total capital across multiple underlying stocks or ETFs. Instead of one big covered call position, you could run, say, five smaller PMCC positions simultaneously. This diversification means your income stream isn’t reliant on a single stock’s performance. It’s real risk management: you’re not putting all your eggs in one basket, even as you generate income from each. (We’ll discuss some portfolio applications shortly.)

• Reduce Time Decay Risk: LEAPS options (Long-Term Equity Anticipation Securities) expire one to three years out. Because they have such long durations, they lose time value (theta) much more slowly than short-term options. This gives you room to breathe. Your long call isn’t decaying rapidly day by day. Meanwhile, the short calls you sell are very short-term (maybe one to two months out), so they do decay quickly, which benefits you as the seller. The net effect is a favorable setup: slow decay on your long position, fast decay on the short position. Using LEAPS “stock replacements” means you can rinse and repeat the short call sale many times before the long call expiration.

These aren’t just minor perks, they are foundational pillars that make the PMCC a viable long-term income strategy. In combination, they allow you to generate reliable income while keeping your capital demands and risks much lower than a classic buy-write (covered call) approach.

A Walkthrough Example: GLD as a PMCC Candidate

Let’s make this real with an example. Imagine you are bullish on gold and want to generate income from that view. You consider using the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD), which is trading around $300 per share. Here’s how a traditional covered call would compare to a Poor Man’s Covered Call on GLD:

Traditional Covered Call: You’d buy 100 shares of GLD at ~$300 each, costing about $30,000 for the position. Then you might sell a call option against those 100 shares to generate income. Your capital tied up is over $30k (not to mention the risk of holding all those shares).

• Buy 100 shares of GLD at ~$300 = $30,000

• Sell Dec 2024 $310 call for ~$2.00 = $200 premium collected

• Capital at risk: $30,000

• Return on capital (39 days): $200 ÷ $30,000 ≈ 0.67%

• Annualized if repeated: ~6–7%

Poor Man’s Covered Call: Instead of buying 100 shares, you purchase one long-term in-the-money call option (your LEAPS) as a substitute for owning GLD shares. For instance, you might buy a Jan 2027 $270 strike call (which is below the current price, hence in-the-money) for around $55.00, or $5,500 total cost (since an option contract covers 100 shares). This option has a delta of roughly 0.85, meaning it will move almost in tandem with the stock’s price changes. In effect, you now control 100 shares of GLD for only about 18% of the cost of actually buying them (you’ve saved ~82% of the capital).

• Buy Jan 2027 $270 LEAPS call at ~$55.00 = $5,500

  • Deep in the money, delta ~0.85 (behaves like stock)

Now, with the LEAPS in place, you sell a short-term call against GLD to generate income. For example, you could sell a Dec 2024 $310 strike call (slightly out-of-the-money, given GLD is around 300) for approximately $2.00 per share, which brings in about $200 in premium. This call might have around 39 days until expiration. By selling this call, you obligate yourself to potentially sell GLD at $310 if it rises above that level by expiration, but remember, you don’t actually own GLD shares; you own a call option. As the short call seller, you’ve collected $200 upfront, which immediately reduces your net cost in the trade (your effective investment drops from $5,500 to about $5,300).

• Sell Dec 2024 $310 call for ~$2.00 = $200 premium collected

• Net cost after premium: $5,500 − $200 = $5,300

• Return on capital (39 days): $200 ÷ $5,500 ≈ 3.6%

• Annualized if repeated: ~35–40%

Figure: Using a LEAPS call instead of 100 shares in GLD dramatically reduces the capital required. In this example, buying one deep ITM call on GLD cost about $5,500 versus $30,000 for 100 shares, an 82% reduction in capital outlay. We then sell a short-term $310 call for $2.00 ($200 premium) to generate income, lowering the net cost basis of the LEAPS to roughly $5,300. This 39-day trade generates a 3.6% return on the smaller capital at risk, which could be repeated multiple times a year.

Notice what’s happening: with only ~$5.5k at risk (the cost of the long call), you’ve generated the same $200 income that a covered call on $30k of stock would have generated. In percentage terms, that’s a 3.6% return in 39 days on your capital. If you can repeat similar trades around 9–10 times over a year, you’re looking at roughly 35–40% annualized return from premiums alone – and that’s before accounting for any increase in GLD’s price that your long call would capture. In contrast, the traditional covered call on GLD (with ~$30k tied up) would have only yielded about 0.67% over that 39-day period from the $200 premium (which annualizes to ~6–7% if repeated). The PMCC is making your capital vastly more productive.

Now, of course, if GLD’s price moves significantly, there are some differences in outcome between the covered call and the PMCC, which we’ll address in the risk section. But the key takeaway from this example is clear: with only about one-fifth (or less) of the capital, the PMCC produces the same income and a dramatically higher return on capital. Your remaining capital (the other ~$24,500 that you didn’t spend on GLD shares) is free to deploy elsewhere or keep as cash reserve. This efficiency is the power of the PMCC strategy in action.

Side-by-Side Snapshot

Key Takeaways for Traders

• Same income, less capital. Both trades earn $200, but the PMCC requires only ~$5.5k instead of $30k.

• Higher yield. 3.6% in 39 days vs. 0.67% in the traditional approach.

• Capital efficiency. ~82% less capital tied up means ~$24,500 remains free for other PMCCs, hedges, or cash reserves.

• Upside participation. The LEAPS moves like stock (delta ~0.85), so you still benefit from bullish movement in GLD.

• Repeatable income. Sell new calls month after month, steadily lowering your cost basis and compounding returns.

Why Security Selection Is Half the Battle

Here’s where many traders go wrong: they treat Poor Man’s Covered Calls like a plug-and-play trick, buy any LEAPS, sell any short call, and voilà, free money. That’s not how professionals trade. The underlying stock/ETF you choose for a PMCC, and the specific options strikes you use, are absolutely critical to the strategy’s success. In fact, security selection is half the battle.

When I screen for good PMCC candidates, I’m looking for several key characteristics:

• Liquidity: Plenty of trading volume and open interest in both the underlying and its options (especially the LEAPS). Wide bid/ask spreads will eat into your returns. Liquid underlyings (think popular stocks and ETFs) tend to have tighter option spreads. You want to be able to get in and out of the LEAPS and roll your short calls without significant slippage. Illiquid contracts can become a trap, you might find it hard to sell or adjust your position at a fair price.

• Moderate Implied Volatility: Ideally, the underlying’s implied volatility (IV) should be high enough to make the call premiums rich (so you earn more income), but not so high that the LEAPS become prohibitively expensive or excessively risky. Lower IV is preferable when purchasing the long-dated call because it reduces the option’s cost. Extremely high IV names (like meme stocks or biotech catalysts) might tempt with juicy premiums, but the LEAPS will be very costly and could lose value quickly if IV collapses. I aim for an IV that’s middle-of-the-road: it provides a volatility risk premium to harvest, but it’s not at an extreme that inflates the option prices too much.

• Quality, Stable Underlyings: Because a PMCC is often a longer-term trade (you might hold that LEAPS for many months while cycling through short calls), you want an underlying that you believe in and that isn’t likely to implode. Think ETFs, blue-chip stocks, or companies with steady performance and well-understood business models. This doesn’t necessarily mean zero-growth stodgy names, but you want something that at least trends upward or stays range-bound, no wild biotech moonshots or ultra-speculative plays for this strategy.

  You also might favor underlyings that don’t pay high dividends (since as a call holder you won’t receive dividends – more on that later). Strong secular trends or fundamentally sound companies/ETFs make the best candidates. In short, you want underlyings that you’d feel comfortable owning for the long term (were you to own the stock). For example, broad index ETFs, sector ETFs (technology, healthcare, etc.), and solid large-cap stocks can all be good choices for PMCCs.

In practice, I also look at factors like delta (I typically choose a long call with delta around 0.80, per earlier discussion, to closely mimic stock owndership) and the time to expiration (LEAPS 1 to 2 years out give a nice balance, enough time to weather ups and downs and sell multiple calls, but not so long that the option’s extrinsic premium is through the roof). And for the short call, I often choose strikes with about a 15 to 30% probability of being in the money at expiration (i.e. delta ~0.15 to 0.30) so that I get decent premium but lower chance of assignment. The bottom line: a disciplined selection process is what separates a thoughtful income strategy from a haphazard gamble. Pick your spots wisely.

Portfolio Applications: Where PMCCs Shine

The real edge of Poor Man’s Covered Calls isn’t just in juicing one trade’s returns, it’s how they enable you to construct an entire portfolio of income-generating positions. By saving so much capital on each position, you can deploy a diversified strategy that would be impractical for most investors if you tried it with full-priced stock positions. In other words, PMCCs let you have your cake and eat it too: you get multiple income streams without needing a seven-figure account.

With the capital freed up by using LEAPS instead of stock, you can build model portfolios that mirror time-tested investment strategies, while layering on the covered-call income component. For example, using the same amount of money that would normally go into one or two covered calls, you could spread across five or six PMCC positions covering different themes or sectors. Here are a few portfolio themes where PMCCs can shine:

• Dalio’s All-Weather Portfolio: Ray Dalio’s famed All-Weather strategy is diversified across equities, bonds, gold, and commodities to perform in any economic climate. Using PMCCs, an individual investor could emulate this balanced mix (e.g. positions in a stock index ETF, a bond ETF, gold via GLD, etc.), and write calls on each for income. The PMCC approach makes this capital-intensive allocation far more accessible by slashing the cost of each component. You gain broad diversification plus an overlay of option income.

• O’Shaughnessy’s Growth/Value Blend: This strategy involves exposure to proven stock selection factors (a blend of growth and value stocks) based on James O’Shaughnessy’s research. Typically, one might buy a basket of such stocks or an ETF that targets those factors. With PMCCs, you could take positions in a few representative stocks or a small-cap value ETF and a momentum growth ETF, for example, and sell calls on them. You get disciplined factor exposure and enhance it with consistent premiums.

• Dividend Aristocrats: These are stocks with a long track record of increasing dividends year after year. Normally, they’re favorites for income-focused investors. With PMCCs, you can hold synthetic positions in several Dividend Aristocrats (or an ETF like NOBL that tracks them) and sell calls for additional income. You effectively create your own “double income” portfolio, one income stream from the option premiums and, if you chose to actually own some shares or eventually exercise the calls, another from the dividends. (Keeping in mind, as a call option holder you don’t receive dividends directly, but one could time exercise or mix stock and options to capture some dividends if desired.

• Momentum Plays (Magnificent 7 and Sector Leaders): 2023’s so-called “Magnificent 7” tech megacaps (Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Nvidia, Tesla, Meta) drove a huge portion of market gains. Say you want exposure to these hot momentum stocks or other sector leaders, but buying 100 shares of each is wildly expensive. With PMCCs, you could take positions in several of these high-flyers for a fraction of the cost, and systematically harvest call premiums on them. This lets you participate in upside from leading stocks and generate income, all while keeping a handle on risk (since your downside is limited to the option cost, not the full stock price).

• Small Dogs of the Dow: A variation of the “Dogs of the Dow” strategy where each year you buy the five Dow Jones stocks with the highest dividend yield (the “small dogs” being the five lowest-priced among the ten highest-yielding). Traditionally, this is a value rotation play that can require significant capital to buy those shares. Using PMCCs, you could mimic this strategy with far less cash. You’d get exposure to value stocks (often stable, blue-chip companies) and boost the yield on the strategy by selling calls on each position. This approach provides both the dividend yield (if you eventually convert to shares) and the options income, while significantly lowering the capital required to follow the strategy.

These are just a few examples. The broader point is that PMCCs are a flexible building block. They can be applied to conservative portfolios (imagine a mini “all-weather” or a dividend basket with covered calls), or to more aggressive ideas (maybe a tech-heavy momentum play, but buffered by the lower capital at risk). For an individual trader, the ability to run multiple strategies in parallel, which previously might have been out-of-reach due to capital constraints, is a game changer. You are effectively leveling up to what institutional investors do: diversifying and not relying on any single bet, while squeezing extra income from each asset. The PMCC is the bridge that makes these portfolio-level strategies practical for those without million-dollar accounts.

The Risks (and How to Manage Them)

Let’s be clear: Poor Man’s Covered Calls are not a magic money machine. Like any strategy, they carry their own set of risks and trade-offs. Prudent traders acknowledge these risks and have plans to manage them. Here are the main risks of PMCCs and how to address them:

• Assignment Risk: When you sell call options, there’s always a chance your short call gets assigned, meaning the call buyer exercises their right to buy the stock from you. In a traditional covered call, assignment simply means you sell your shares at the strike price (often capping your profit but otherwise fine). In a PMCC, you don’t hold shares, so assignment is a bit more complicated: you would end up short 100 shares of the stock upon assignment (since the broker will sell shares you don’t have, obligating you to deliver them). You’d then need to either exercise your LEAPS call to acquire 100 shares for delivery, or buy back the short shares in the market and possibly sell your LEAPS to close the whole position. Early assignment is typically a concern if your short call goes deep in-the-money and it’s near expiration (especially if an ex-dividend date is approaching, since call holders may exercise to capture the dividend).

  How to manage it: Keep an eye on your short call’s delta and the underlying’s price moves. If the short call is moving in-the-money well before expiration, you can roll the call (buy it back and sell a later-dated or higher-strike call) to avoid assignment. Choosing short call strikes a bit out-of-the-money and not selling calls right before ex-dividend dates can also reduce early assignment risk. And remember, even if you do get assigned, your long call exists to cover much of that risk – just be ready to exercise or close positions as needed. In practice, assignment is manageable with prompt action and is often avoided by rolling positions proactively.

• Volatility Swings (Vega Risk): Unlike owning stock, holding a call option comes with volatility risk. If the underlying stock’s implied volatility drops significantly after you’ve entered a PMCC, the value of your long LEAPS call can shrink even if the stock price stays flat. Conversely, a volatility spike can increase your long call’s value (which could be a silver lining if the stock falls). In essence, a PMCC has exposure to the option Greek vega, whereas a stock holding does not. Also, if the market becomes very turbulent, options premiums across the board can jump; while this means you can collect more for selling calls, it also means your LEAPS might become pricier (good for unrealized gains, but higher stakes if you were to add or roll LEAPS).

  How to manage it: Be mindful of the volatility environment when initiating a PMCC, it’s often best to start when IV is relatively low (so you buy the LEAPS “cheap” and later hopefully sell calls into higher volatility). If IV plunges after you’ve entered, recognize that some of your LEAPS’ premium was time value that has now eroded, focus on the fact that you’re still capturing income and that the bulk of your LEAPS’ value is intrinsic if you chose deep ITM. If IV spikes, you might take advantage by selling calls further out or at higher strikes for more premium. The key is not to panic: a temporary swing in option values due to volatility doesn’t change the fundamental covered-call-like nature of the position.

• Liquidity Traps: Some LEAPS options are thinly traded. You might get in with a reasonable price, but find later that the bid/ask spread is wide or there are few buyers when you want to exit or roll. Illiquidity can lead to slippage (losing money on the spread) or even inability to adjust when you want. This is why, as mentioned, liquidity is a crucial selection criterion.

  How to manage it: Stick to underlyings and expiration dates that have healthy open interest. Check the open interest on the LEAPS strike before you trade, are there at least dozens or hundreds of contracts out there? How wide is the spread? It can also help to work limit orders and not panic market-order out of positions. Additionally, plan your rolls or exits when there is sufficient time; don’t wait until the last minute when you might be at the mercy of a market maker. By being in liquid products, you ensure smoother adjustments. If you ever find yourself in a trade with poor liquidity, weigh the option of closing incrementally or at mid-prices, and factor in that cost when evaluating rolling versus just exiting.

• Over-Leverage Temptation: This is more of a risk to your discipline. Because PMCCs are so much cheaper to put on, there’s a temptation to size up too much. An investor might think, “Great, I can put on five of these for the cost of one covered call, so let me put on ten and really juice the returns!” Over-leveraging defeats the purpose of the strategy’s risk reduction. Yes, each trade costs less, but if you pile on many more trades, you can actually end up with the same or even greater total exposure (and potential loss) than you would have with fewer stock positions.

  How to manage it: Treat PMCCs with the same respect you’d treat full stock positions. Use sensible position sizing. The idea is to deploy the capital efficiency toward diversification and higher return on capital, not simply to multiply the number of contracts without bound. If your normal position size in a stock is $10,000, you might use two PMCCs of $5,000 each in different symbols, for example, but you shouldn’t suddenly bet $50,000 across PMCCs just because you can. Keep the law of large numbers on your side, a moderate number of well-chosen positions, managed with discipline, will yield more stable results over time than an army of leveraged bets.

• No Dividend Income: A subtle downside to using LEAPS instead of owning stock is that you forgo any dividends the underlying stock or ETF pays. Option contracts do not pass through dividends to the holder. For example, if your underlying is a dividend-paying company, a covered call writer would still collect those quarterly dividends while holding the shares (unless they got assigned away before an ex-dividend date). But with a PMCC, you hold a call option, not the shares, so you miss out on dividends.

  How to manage it: This isn’t so much a risk as a trade-off to be aware of. One way to mitigate it is by focusing PMCCs on underlyings that either don’t pay dividends (growth stocks, non-dividend ETFs) or that have relatively small yields. If you do want to trade a high-dividend stock, be extra cautious around ex-dividend dates (to avoid assignment, as noted) or accept that the lost dividend is part of the cost of doing this strategy (often the premiums you collect outweigh the dividend). In some instances, if the dividend is very important to you, you might stick to a traditional covered call for that particular stock instead of a PMCC.

To sum up the risk management: position sizing, monitoring, and proactive adjustments are your best defenses. I’ve practiced this for decades in options trading, it’s all about staying in control of your positions. The PMCC is not a license to be reckless; it’s a way to put the probabilities in your favor with smarter use of capital. If you respect the strategy’s rules and risks, you can greatly reduce the chance of any single trade hurting you badly. Always remember, the goal is steady income and growth over time, not shooting the lights out in one trade.

Why PMCCs Fit Today’s Market Environment

Over the past decade, many investors have been conditioned to think in extremes: either “buy-and-hold everything” or “day-trade every tick”. Neither extreme is particularly well-suited for the market environment we face now. We’re coming off a period of low interest rates and relatively low volatility, entering one with higher rates, higher inflation uncertainty, and more frequent volatility spurts. Markets are faster and more complex; correlations between asset classes that held for years can break down in months. In this landscape, both income stability and capital flexibility have become crucial.

Poor Man’s Covered Calls happen to hit that sweet spot for the current market dynamics:

• Income Stability in Volatile Times: No matter whether the market is up, down, or sideways, an options income strategy like covered calls (and PMCCs by extension) can generate cash. Selling calls provides a systematic way to earn yield from your holdings, which can buffer your portfolio during flat or down markets. With PMCCs, you maintain that income stream but with less capital at risk per trade, which is comforting when headlines are screaming and volatility is swirling. It’s an approach focused on cash flow, not just paper gains.

• Capital Flexibility to Diversify: In uncertain markets, diversification is key. You don’t want to bet the farm on one stock or one sector. By reducing capital requirements, PMCCs let you diversify prudently. If one position goes against you, the damage is limited (and partially offset by the premiums you collected). Meanwhile, you have other irons in the fire that could be performing well. This flexibility to spread out your bets, without diluting your returns, is incredibly valuable when no one can predict which asset will zig or zag next.

• Upside Exposure Without Overcommitment: We still want to participate in the market’s upside, but we don’t want to overcommit capital or chase fads. PMCCs give you a mostly bullish exposure (through the LEAPS) with defined risk. If the market or a stock takes off, your long call will gain (albeit capped by the short call), so you’re not left on the sidelines. If the market tanks, you only lose what you paid for the option, not a whole portfolio’s worth of stock. This asymmetric exposure (a form of built-in risk management) is well-suited for a time when big market swings can come out of nowhere.

In other words, PMCCs let you tilt your trading style toward how a professional might run a book: focus on repeatable outcomes (collecting premiums, redeploying capital), use probability and statistics to your advantage (selling options has a probabilistic edge if done carefully), and remain adaptable (since you can roll positions or change allocations as conditions change). It’s a balanced, flexible approach, not too passive, not too frantic. In today’s market, that balance is a strength.

Final Thoughts

“Poor Man’s Covered Calls” is really a misnomer. There’s nothing poor about being capital-efficient and strategic. This approach is the intelligent trader’s upgrade to one of the oldest income plays in the book. By substituting stock ownership with deep in-the-money LEAPS calls, you remove much of the capital drag and downside exposure that come with traditional covered calls, while still collecting the rich premiums that make covered calls so appealing in the first place.

At its heart, this isn’t about squeezing a little extra juice out of a strategy, it’s about fundamentally rethinking how to deploy your money for maximum effect. With PMCCs, you’re building a repeatable, disciplined framework for income that respects both risk and opportunity. You’re saying: “I want steady income, I want upside potential, but I refuse to tie up all my capital or take unrewarded risks to get it.” That’s a powerful stance, and one that aligns well with the realities of modern markets.

For many traders, embracing Poor Man’s Covered Calls could be the difference between having a single income stream or building a portfolio of them. Rather than one covered call yielding a modest return, you could have a suite of positions across different assets, all quietly earning premiums and positioned for gains, all without needing a fortune to get started. It’s the covered call strategy evolved: leaner, more versatile, and arguably more effective.

If you’re intrigued by the possibilities here, I encourage you to try a PMCC on a stock or ETF you know well, just to see the dynamics in action. Start small, manage it attentively, and you’ll quickly see how powerful it can be to generate income with much less capital at risk.

Probabilities over predictions,

Andy Crowder

👉 Inside Wealth Without Shares, I show members exactly how I build PMCC portfolios, conservative, balanced, and aggressive, using this same framework. If you want to see how it looks in practice, [start here].

📌 Related Reading:

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• The Ratio Poor Man’s Covered Call: Using Multiple LEAPS for Smarter Options Income

• The Poor Man’s Covered Call on SPY: A Smarter Way to Generate Income with Less Capital

• Building a Recession-Resistant Portfolio with Poor Man’s Covered Calls

• From Steady to High-Octane: Poor Man’s Covered Calls at Different Volatility Levels

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