1. Read post 19 (by proxy_user); the advice is excellent.
2. If you are going to pick blue chip stocks, I would suggest that you take the 30 Dow Industrials or some similar list, and cross off the 15-20 that seem least safe, at most risk of a technology game changer, least stable, worst managed, etc. Buy the remainder of the list. Whatever you buy, review it quarterly, but plan on holding it for a minimum of 5 years. I don’t try to pick the great stock that I can brag about to my friends, just to avoid the bad stocks that will make me cringe in a year. As a result, I have outperformed the broad market by an average of 2.5% over the past two decades.
3. I have found that you can safely withdraw 1% a quarter, essentially forever, either to support yourself or to supplement your budget from other sources. With natural variation, that might mean occasional drops in your quarterly income, but anything unspent from the previous quarter(s) can be used to smooth those out, and with a reasonable return, the balance may rise faster than inflation on average.
Unfortunately, we have discovered he is in Sweden. An entirely different approach is required.
My post is good for US investors, though.