You don't need to be a millionaire to invest in stocks. The key to earning great returns over long periods is to invest -- even modest sums -- regularly in excellent stocks and hold those shares for a while.

Dividend-paying corporations can be particularly great picks since the steady and reliable payouts they offer help boost total returns over the long run. Let's consider two such stocks that you can buy for less than the relatively modest sum of $500: Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) and Merck (NYSE: MRK).

Amgen is a biotech leader with a plentiful and diverse lineup of medicines across multiple therapeutic areas. The drugmaker has outperformed the market in the past year despite a pullback following its latest quarterly update. Amgen's fourth-quarter financial results failed to impress investors due to nonexistent growth on both the top and bottom lines.

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Source Fool.com