Stocks

Over the past ten years I've made a little money in individual stocks, nothing major. The most was when my friend tipped me off about a health lab, whose sports drink just signed a big athlete. I bought 100 shares, tripled my money (less than 2K), and wished I'd bought more. I dabbled in a couple regional / local stocks like Xerox, Kodak, and Paychex and wished I'd held onto them. I got out, especially with Xerox ($4.25/share when I bought, trading ~$18 now) way too early and made only a few hundred. Since then I've owned Krispy Kreme (kept going down) and Exxon Mobil (kept going up) and sold one too early and one too late (you guess which). I've found I don't like that kind of excitement, especially now.

A couple years ago I got involved with DRIPs (Dividend Reinvestment Plans). Basically a DRIP lets you buy an initial amount of shares (or sometimes a single share) and you then set up ongoing monthly investments (with as little as $50). Not all stocks are involved with this kind of investing, but some well-known ones do like Exxon Mobil, Citigroup, Pfizer and many others. I use Computershare (interface is not the best; was better when it was Equiserve). One thing you have to watch out for are the little fees some of the DRIPs hit you with. Some of the companies make you buy a single share and then you have to pay to have it sent out to you before you continue investing. Others require a fee at startup, whenever you invest, and when you sell. You can whittle down your choices until you get to one that interests you and is fee-free. My safe bet a couple years ago was Pfizer. I've invested $50 a month (and occasionally an additional $50-$100 here and there) and now have over 80 shares. My goal is to hit 100 shares, stop the automatic investments, and move on to another. The beauty is that Pfizer pays a pretty solid dividend and the DRIP reinvests it automatically for you. You can choose to have the money sent out to you, but why bother? At this point, I am almost picking up an entire share each quarterly dividend. At this rate, I'll be hitting the 100 share mark sometime around Christmas. Microsoft is looking pretty attractive right now. Maybe they're next...