I did it!

I did it I did it I did it!!!

*does happy dance*

I, Erin Williams, am now officially a SHAREHOLDER.

That's right, I own stock!

I am the proud owner of exactly one share of J.Crew.

Yesssss!

Ok, so I know it's J. Crew and it's only one share, but I finally bought stock in something!

Here's how it happened:

The other day, I was reading an article about how Michelle Obama's preference for J. Crew was leading to a positive gain in sales for the company. It then went on to talk about how she could resurrect fashion, blah blah... but the story got me to thinking: If Michelle Obama can make prices rise, the their stock will go up, and in four years, they could possibly have shares that are through the roof.

So why don't I jump on this and buy some of their stock???

I immediately went to ShareBuilder and started researching prices and facts and figures, etc. But then that old feeling started creeping back up - the one that says, "What are you doing? Why would you buy stock? You don't have any money, anyway.

Oh, but I did. See, Friday was a payday. And after looking at the price of trading and doing some math, I realized that I could afford the one share, for now, and eventually buy more shares and even invest in more companies.

I was sold!

So, Friday I bought the share and Tuesday morning it was completed - it would have been Monday, but it was a holiday.

Now, I know that this sounds a bit frivolous and fast, but here's the thing about me: if I don't do it when I feel the itch, then it will never happen. The timing just happened to be right and I had the money and why not?

So, there you go.

If you are interested in starting out with just one share like me, try OneShare which is a great place to start.

Also, this USA Today article gave me the confidence to go on and buy it.