The first hanger: talking to Dad

I had the idea, I have the blog, but now, I have to talk to Dad.

Turns out my savings account at Merrill Lynch has both our names on it, so I can't take out any amount of the $1000 present without his approval.

I figure though, before sending him a link to this blog, that I will put together my plan for how I'm going to go about investing.

First off, during an internship last summer, I overheard fellow interns discussing investment practices, sharing advice over which online trading sites are best. Apparently, in addition to the main players, there are online trading sites that specialize in off-hour trading that is cheaper. I think this may be the way I'll go in terms of how I'll trade, but I'll do a roundup of reviews for those sites early next week (admittedly, I know very little about any of these at present, but hopefully after clicking around their sites, I can choose a good one).

Second, obviously, I'll need to choose which stocks I'll buy. I started looking early in the evening yesterday, but I actually have no idea how to really start. Obviously there are so many stocks to choose from, and they always say ("they" being Warren Buffett, I believe) that you should invest in what you know, so I just hope it'll all sort itself out, and I can pare all the options down to find the perfect combination worth $500.