My parents were always big on giving me stock on special occasions. Usually it was a large company that they direct invested in through the company plans. Most of these were in the days before discount internet brokerages were offering $5 trades, and the main advantage to these was that you could invest small amounts for no to little fee and dividend reinvestment is usually free. Another perk to having the shares directly registered to you is that some of the companies will send you freebies around Christmas or annual report time.

By far the best stock I own that sends something is Wrigly (WWY). Every year in December they send me a box (20 packs) of gum – usually their latest and greatest product push. Anheuser-Busch (BUD) sends me a 15% coupon for their parks. Starbucks (SBUX) sends me a $3.50 gift card.

Not all places require you to direct register - Royal Caribbean (RCL) gives me a $100 shipboard per cruise credit for owning 100 shares even though I own it through a brokerage.

I have about 20 different stocks registered directly through the company that my folks bought me over the years. I am extremely grateful they did, but in my financial life it causes me some pain. First, all of these stocks are through different holding companies. There is Mellon which hosts such companies as Bank of America and Microsoft, Bank of NY which holds among others GE and Pepsi, Computershare (who acquired Equiserve recently) has places like IBM and Wrigley, Wells Fargo has Kellogg and 3M…. the list goes on. So there are about 20 different places I have to log in to check my stocks – sure I can check them on Yahoo Finance but that doesn’t tell me if they’ve paid me a dividend recent and I can’t perform any transactions from there. Fortunately my greatest love in the world Yodlee offers access on one screen to most of these, but not all.

Another real downer is that when I want to invest additional money or sell, it can’t be done at the drop of a hat. Usually there are set times during the month when a company will buy or sell shares. Wrigley only invests money you deposit once a week, but they will sell daily. Intel only invests deposited funds once week, and sells shares in around 5 days (but not guaranteed). It also becomes a pain during tax time where I have to wait on and sort through 20 different 1099’s for these companies.

My goal is cut down on some of these direct investments to the ones I actually gain something by having it direct invested. I still have to sift through all the plans investment materials to see the various fees and times involved with making a transaction to see what’s worth it and what is not.

Here are some other various freebies:

• AT&T sends out 10 minute calling cards.
• Boston Beer sends out freebies ranging from stickers to bottle openers.
• Colgate-Palmolive shareholders receive discount coupons valued at about $15. There are also coupons in its shareholder mailings sometimes.
• CVS sends a sheet of coupons for different CVS products
• Disney shareholders receive a 20% discount on membership in the Magic Kingdom Gold Card Program (membership fee for shareholders is $39). In the past, annual meeting attendees have received free passes to Disneyland
• Gillette gives out coupons with it’s quarterly and annual reports.
• IBM gives discounts on computers and accessories.
• Kimberley-Clark sends out toilet paper and paper towels.
• McDonald’s sends a coupon for a free item (this past year it was the Premium Salad)
• Sarah Lee scatters their coupons throughout the report
• Smucker’s shareholders usually receive a gift package with 3 or 4 new products or spreads.