(The following is a transcription from a video I recorded. Please excuse any typos or errors.)
Today let’s talk about how to buy stock as a gift.
You can even buy stock as a gift card with this website/app that I’m going to share with you.
You can get one share of stock (or even a partial share) as a gift for grandchildren, kids, nieces and nephews, or anyone.
This is SOOO much better and more fun than the savings bonds we used to get as kids, because you can actually pick a company that your recipient might be interested in.
Maybe it is Apple, Tesla, Nike, Snapchat, Netflix, or one of hundreds of other companies.
If you buy stock for them in a company they use and love every day, it is a fantastic way to get them interested in the idea of investing.
In this article, I’ll walk you through exactly how this process works.
I’ll also introduce you to the company that allows you to buy the stocks as gifts.
And, I’ll be sure to tell you why I like it so much. If you’re looking for a unique gift idea to give, I’m sure you’ll like this too!
(Since creating this video, we have learned that they are now charging $4.95/month to use their services.)
I actually created a video that you can watch to see how this process works – just click the video below:
Stockpile
All right, so this is a look at their website, and this website is called Stockpile.
And, essentially, what I love about this site is that they allow you to start investing like they say just for $5. What is great about that is they allow you to buy fractional shares of stocks, and there are actually very few companies who actually will allow you to do this.
Almost every stockbroker online forces you to buy an entire share of a stock. For example, Amazon’s stock price right now is around $1700 to $1,800 at the time of this recording, so you would need that much to buy one share of Amazon. But with a tool like Stockpile here, you can get in for a small fraction of that amount.
So what does this mean for you and I as gift givers? I think this is a great option for Christmas gifts and birthday gifts because it’s something that, potentially, could make them more money.
It’s like a modern-day version of the savings bonds that a lot of us got as kids. But what I like about it, even more, is it gets kids and teenagers interested in the stock market and interested in investing because they have little gift cards like this where you can send your little nephew this $25 gift card that allows them to get $25 worth of Amazon stock. They just need to take it to the website, sign up. It doesn’t cost them anything.
There are other ways that you can give stock as a gift, but this is by far the easiest, cleanest, I think best gifting experience to where you actually have a gift card that you can give someone. And to be honest, I just think it’s a really cool idea.
Now, if you want to see how this works once your recipient gets the actual gift card and how they redeem it, we’ll just walk through that process right now. All they need to do is come over to the Stockpile website and then go to Redeem the code.
Redeem Your Code
It’s going to take them to a page that looks like this. They just enter this redeem code. It’s a lot like just having a gift card. And then, after you enter the redeem code, it tells you you’re about to own $25 of Apple stock.
Own The Stock
So at this point, if they did want to get a different option, if they wanted to invest in an ETF or if they wanted to invest in a different stock, they could. They could click other options and go down that path. But in this case, we’re just going to click Get This Stock, and then we’re going to now just quickly create our account.
Create Your Account
Redeem The Gift
It’s telling us what it is trading per share. It’s $182 for a share. We don’t have to spend that much. We can get it for $25 in this case. Then we’re going to go ahead and click Redeem, and then what we’re going to get is a portion of a share of Apple stock.
That’s really all it takes to take one of these gift cards and redeem it and turn it into something hopefully far more valuable than what you’re actually spending. So, it’s a gift that actually makes them money instead of one that is getting thrown away in a couple of years.
FAQs
Here’s a handful of questions that I had and wanted to get answered before I moved forward with this so I’ll just answer them here for you.
Are there fees?
One thing I was wondering about is, are the kids going to be charged fees, like monthly fees in their account? Because I remember having an IRA that I opened as a teenager and they charged me like a $20 monthly fee, and I watched my balance go from, I think it was like two or $300 down to zero. The fees literally ate all of my investments out of my account.
Thankfully, Stockpile doesn’t have any fees, and they have no minimums.
Can you invest more?
Additionally, if the kids or any of the gift recipients want to invest more, they can invest more for 99 cents a trade. Now that is pretty much the cheapest that I’ve found at any online broker. So, I love how accessible they’ve made this for the younger generation.
How do you actually get the gift cards?
And if you’re wondering how to actually get these gift cards, I think these are sold in some stores, but you can go to their website, and you can buy these. You don’t even need an account to buy them. You can just buy them directly from their website. You also can send an e-gift, where it will send them an email where they will have basically a virtual gift card attached to it. And then you can also print one off at home and put it in a birthday card or something like that to hand that to them as well.
Now, I think these plastic cards just feel like a normal gift card, and I think it’s a really cool way to do it. But it costs you a few bucks extra to do these, and additionally, you have to wait for them to arrive in the mail. So whatever works best for you.
And if you have any other questions, you can ask down on the comments down below. Or, you can check over at Stockpile website itself.
But all in all, I just think this is a great way to give a gift, and I’m super excited about it. So I hope this helps you.
