Dividend Shares – in the form of a “Birthday Present”

Have you wondered at times having cracked your brains out for several nights and hours on what gift to buy for your family (i.e parents/siblings) birthday present?

While it might seem quite noticeably that we spent our everyday lives together, at times it gets quite tricky when choosing a birthday present. For example, I remembered giving my mum a make-up set for her birthday 3-4 years ago or giving my sister a branded pouch for her birthday gift in the past. While I do understand that they appreciate my thoughts and they claim that they “like” the product, sometimes the gift that we bought may be deemed as “useless” and much of the times we saw them lying in one corner collecting dusts over the years.

I understand that at this point you must be thinking: “IT IS THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS, NOT THE GIFT ITSELF”. While I agree with the intention of this sentence, however when it comes to dollar and monetary sense, wouldn’t it better if you could choose the gift that you really want? After all, as a family, we are very close to one another and we can dispense with the extreme formality.

It is at this point that I thought of investing dividend shares for members in my family as their birthday gift. Starting this year and onwards, I will buy them 1 lot of dividend share (which of course I think is value at that point in time) for each of their respective birthday period and give them the “dividend payout” which will last them for infinity. With all fairness and humility, I probably will still keep those shares as mine, though i intend to keep forever and don’t intend to sell anyway.

You may also discount it as a mere 1 lot of share. But if you take into account 10,20 years of birthday celebration and which you will celebrate anyway one way or another, that will be MASSIVELY A LOT until now. So starting early is immensely important. After all, which birthday presents you bought in the past are true value now? Ask yourself this: Do you even still remember what presents you bought for your brother 3 years ago?

In summary, here are the advantages of investing in dividend shares as a form of your family’s birthday present:

1.) Promotes the value of saving and passed down the habit to your siblings/children, etc.

2.) Dividends (in most cases) payout will last you to infinity.

3.) Accumulating the “gift” from these companies. For example, if your child is 10 years old and you have been buying diligently for every of his birthday (assuming you bought SPH), you would have 10 lots of SPH shares by now which will give your child a payout of nearly $2000 annually….and for INFINITY.

4.) As and when you really need the money, you can sell the shares and re-invest in better dividend shares.

P.s: I celebrated my mum’s birthday (13 January 2012) by buying her 1 lot of ST Engineering share for her. My intention is to transfer the dividend payout to her bank account everytime and every year i receive it and before I know it, its another birthday year which i will repeat and accumulate my “gift” for her. Of course, on top of all this, i do treat her to a nice simple lunch at Marina Keppel as well :p