inluminent

The wife and I are contemplating buying the new baby something really special this year for his first Christmas. It doesn’t need to be anything expensive, just something that’ll last him a long time, than he can appreciate years from now. Here are a few things we’ve thought about:

• First Piggy Bank – Piggy banks have a great history, and can be important tools, but I think we want to wait to give him one until he can better understand its value.



• My First Stock – From oneshare.com (I’ve always been a fan of this company). Classic ideas might include buying your kid a share of Pixar, Disney, Harley Davidson, Apple, GE, or Microsoft, but they have quite a few $14.99 or $29 deals for sale too. (We opted to buy our son his first share of Microsoft this Christmas).
• Savings Bonds – (Ok, first, since when does a government website look like it’s not a government website? Threw me for a minute how good this site looks). I Bonds or EE Bonds? At this point, I’m thinking I Bond, as it’ll grow for 30 years, and has a slightly better interest rate. We’re not talking major investment here folks, we’re thinking keepsake gift, but it really is too bad they earn only 3 percent or so.
• Gold or Silver Coins or Bullion – This is a new one to me, and I haven’t researched it much (at all). I’d recommend doing a little more research before you make this purchase, but something tells me a US Gold Eagle or Silver Eagle from the year your child was born, would be a pretty cool gift, though it’ll set you back a little more than the other gifts listed above, and thus really should be researched a little more if you’re worried about getting taken by an unscrupulous dealer.

Like I said, we ended up going with one share of Microsoft… we figure it’s the best investment out of the 3 options we considered at this point.

update: It looks like Oneshare.com can’t sell to people in Texas, so I got a refund for my one share of Microsoft… time to start researching gold coins I think