Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ: WBA), for example, has upped its payout by around 10% annually over the past decade, and that's not such an unusual rate. The long-term average annual rate of inflation is around 3%, and that alone can cut the purchasing power of your savings by half or more over 25 years. But as long as you're sticking mainly with solid companies -- or with broad index funds featuring many dividend payers -- you'll likely see the value of your stock holdings rise over time.