What to do with some extra money?

[WarDekar]

Which founder are you talking about? I know one of them went to UofIllinois and was in the CS program there (what I'm doing currently). Just wondering where he ended up going to law school if it's the same guy.

[squiffy]

The founder I know of is Peter Thiel. Went to Stanford Undergrad and law school.

Though I believe there is more than one founder, as there are computer issues and business issues. But Thiel is the only one I know of.

[eggzz]

At your age, I recommend a Stock Dividend Reinvestment Plan in a solid blue chip company. I started one in ExxonMobil (well, back when it was just Exxon) and FannieMae. Fannie has had some problems of late, but I continue to invest in these two plans about 80% to Exxon and 20% to Fannie anyways. This is aside from my pension and 401k.

Now once you can build up a good nut, you get quarterly dividends which you reinvest and buy more shares. You don't have to do anything, the plan does it for you, you get quarterly statements, etc...

What I like about the Exxon plan is that you can send them a check for as little as fifty bucks, and they will buy all stock with it, that would be like .901 of a share. You don't have to buy an even number or anything. Additionally, there are no fees. I don't know why or how they do this, but there aren't. I guess its in place to invest in the company, and they don't need to charge five bucks every time you purchase new shares, like Fannie Mae does.

I started with five hundred bucks, now I have about ten grand in exxon stock, and its cool getting the statement and seeing how many shares I repurchase each quarter by doing nothing. Actually its not that much right now, but once I can get up to 30k or something, then it will be tangible.

Then when you are old and grey, you start cashing those dividend checks.