thanks meredith. considering i was once on general assistance, i certainly have worked very very hard to get where i am now.

yesterday i cut off my fingertip, left pinky. i actually put it in a baggy and took it to the er and they sewed it back on. pain meds today

but i can type while daintily holding my pinky above the keyboard.

drip plans are dividend reinvestments. stock tips are tough. look for the ones that pay good dividends. There's a lot of info on line -- good dividends would be 5 % or more. They pay per share. i bought duquesne, a utilities company. not so great. a good one is duke realty. McDonalds was good but i don't know how it's doing. I struggle with the idea of being socially responsible vs. making money. I don't eat mcDonalds so why buy it? my kids used to like it though. i bought exxon 9 years ago. For a while it was doing badly, now it's rising like a star. procter and gamble looked good for a while but i never bought any. All these are available for direct purchase. try googling DRIP

see if costco is available. also apple computer might be good. a friend of mine bought martha stewart. you need to do reearch. btw, my ex is a broker. there's a lot of mumbo jumbo involved. no one really can predict the market. research a company. Go with what you know. reinvest the dividends. buy and hold -- don't use it to gamble. i can tolerate some risk. after 911 people panicked and sold everything and lost money. i hung on and my stocks came back.