I just finished selling the last batch of call contracts available for me. After fees, it's another $280 I pocketed, pushing the income total up to above $1000. So, despite the fact that I'm a newbie in options trading, I think it's very realistic to generate $1000 a month in contract income this way.

Of course, risks and potential losses aside, most of this occur within my retirement accounts, so it's not like I can actually use it for anything.

I'm already fine-tuning the strategy as we speak, and I think I would like to get out of individual stocks completely. Maybe. The option is always there, of course, but I think I can use this strategy just fine with nothing but SPY (US stock market ETF). The volumes are gloriously high, and contract intervals are much shorter (which isn't necessary, but it does give me greater flexibility).

Yeah, in other words, I'm basically done trying to speculate on the market. I'll let others do that. I'm content with just being a "loan shark", and despite the name "options trading", holding SPY and selling contracts on them is actually very conservative and safe (as far as trading goes).