This is a huge fallacy, dividend investing is not even remotely a “something you do when in retirement” thing. it does NOT necessarily mean “buying a dying company that pays 7% dividends and spend the money out”
I recommend reading about it, do the math add the numbers on a continuous timeline rather than a lucky “double up on share x” or “the future is obviously share Y”
Since SNPs inception: at any given consecutive 20 (or 25) years, dividend aristocrats outperformed SNP500. Even dividend kings and champions have more outperforming samples. There is a vicious cycle of dividend growth pushing share price up, share price feeding dividend growth
@Dougal1984 and @Jobloggs as well go checkout single best investment I promise it is not boring at all 
A very nice example from my portfolio is something I use quite often: CHD, go check it’s yield (i don’t even know) because it is low, like any other money printing company like diageo etc.
My total growth in CHD is greater than 2000% and I continuously buy this stock. It is not about “timing” or getting lucky etc. And it is a boring old consumer staple.
I hold a grand total of £1000 in my “emergency fund” but I got some fairly liquid assets (like gold) that can be converted easily and would provide me maintenance for may be a year. More immediate liquidity can be solved with a 75K limit AMEX 