Woohoo, first time I’ve seen the Gherkin!
At the beginning of this month, I was on a business course for 3 days down in London. As it was a 9am start on Monday, I travelled down on the Sunday by train (can you believe it was cheaper to travel by First Class…so of course I did!) with a colleague who was on the same course and we met up with some other people on the course.
Having heard that the course was pretty intensive (all about self-development, self awareness, career progression etc), after our evening meal, I just had one social drink and headed back to my hotel room to chill and relax.
What I should have done was read up on some of the pre-course work and then have an early night.
What I ended up doing was stay up reading about dividend investing, transferring some funds (rent money had just been received) into my share ISA account and setting up an instruction to buy some shares!
Impulsive
All quite impulsive in fact for me, although fortunately, it wasn’t a huge amount of money. I’m not sure what came over me. Maybe it was the surroundings, being in fancy London among all the suits. Maybe it was just me having a ‘moment’…or maybe it was something to do with my alleged ‘gambling issues’…
My course started promptly on the Monday, what little breaks we had were spent ‘networking’ so I didn’t get a chance to check my phone or email. I forgot all about the night before, until when I got back to the hotel room and saw emails about ‘stock purchased’. Oops!
Shares
Anyway, I bought some shares in GlaxoSmithKline Plc.
The last time I owned shares, Maggie Thatcher was still prime minister!
I need to factor in buying some more shares and I’m wondering whether I might be best just buying them little and often, to fit into my regular savings – need to find a platform with which I can do that economically as I can’t do it with my current platform.
Anyway, how do I stop myself from checking the share price every day? It can’t be good for my health or sanity (especially when it’s going down….)!
Ending on a frugal note, I made the most of the hotel’s generous freebies!
My case was heavy going home!
I’ve donated most of the above toiletries to the local women’s refuge – just kept the shower gels that are handy for the gym!
Love the idea of donating toiletries. I have many that are unused and still in date. As a women I've been lured in to buying many things I don't need. Well done on purchasing those shares. I have a few friends that work for Glaxo
Hey Weenie,
Congratulations on the share purchase! You've bought yourself shares in a very reliable dividend paying company. Their share price is really low at the moment too, so you should see some nice capital gains from that over the course of months and years (don't worry about the daily fluctuations).
Well done on getting your monies worth at the hotel and even more so for donating some of it.
Keep up the great work!
Cheers
Huw
Hi DBC, thanks – Glaxo seems like a great company.
I've been donating unwanted/surplus toiletries a while now – there's a box at work that goes to the local refuge. Maybe there's a place near you if you have stuff to donate? Sometimes, they ask for stuff like mugs or clothes. Another time, they were after unwanted furniture. I donated a spare bed that was gathering dust in my garage and was rewarded with the news that the bed enabled a vulnerable woman in the refuge to have her son stay with her as he now had somewhere to sleep. It's feedback like that keeps me donating to this cause.
Hey Huw, thanks, I'll try to ignore the daily fluctuations and keep reminding myself that the shares are for long-term.! I'm hoping to get some more shares at this low price.
It's great that you're starting to invest again. Honestly, it doesn't matter if you made the best purchase in the world or not. You try, you learn.
I wish I could tell you a good solution to constantly checking stock prices 🙂
Hi Zee,
Thanks – definitely, if I don't try, I don't learn and there is so much to learn. Next week, I'm going to try to see if I go the whole 7 days without checking prices haha!