✅ The Six Percent Plan
One of the benefits I was excited about at McDonald's was their 6% employer match on 401K contributions. Unfortunately that only becomes available “after one year of service.” So I thought a good solution in the meantime would be to take 6% of my take home salary and buy McDonald’s shares.
After posting about my initial small purchase of stock a few shareholders expressed concern about this financial strategy. So I have paused my company stock purchases until I can get shareholder approval (currently I have 1.19 shares of MCD which has already risen 1.8%) on how to proceed.
Maybe it’s because I spent so many years working for startups, but I think it’s important to have an ownership stake in the company where I work. And historically McDonald’s has been a good investment (heck, Warren Buffett called selling it a mistake)!
Chart shows McDonald’s stock from about the year 2000 to present.
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Based on my estimated paychecks and taking advantage of the price drop in MCD stock after the E. coli outbreak I'm ahead of schedule for purchases. I'll keep an eye on the actual numbers (based on hours worked) but I shouldn't have to make a purchase until Dec 24th or so.
This is a tough one — not because of the answer (mine is No), but because no labels match my desires.
Picking stocks isn’t a foolish game — but you buying MCD right now is.
Listing these options as percentages ends up being confusing. Sorry about that!
McDonald's isn't a startup and historical performance is no guarantee of future results.
I think it's exceeding unlikely that this will turn out to be a great (McDonald's get bought by Apple and the stock soars) or horrible (the meat in the McRib turns out to be people and the stock tanks) decision, but I think more context here would help. Is 6% of your take home pay a significant enough amount that doing this could cause you pain? What about the other percentages (3%, 15%, 50%)?
When matched ya free money if you can do it you should. when not matched though I think the capital would be better deployed elsewhere.
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE. (sorry)
I chose 6% initially because it was the match amount, and I thought it would be good training for giving up 6% for potential gains. I also kind of believe in McDonald's, as an investor, a customer, an employee, and a Hamburger Business Reviewer. And then of course, it also seems sort of funny to me, no that I'm rooting for the share price to go higher while also scrubbing ketchup stains off a table.
Since this is a fixed length proposal, and you'll start getting a match after a year, what is the approximate total amount you would be investing in $MCD over the course of the next year? I feel like that is a very different question than "should I buy 6% of $MCD indefinitely". My vote for an indefinite length investment is definitely don't buy individual stocks, but for a fixed length commitment it could be a fun experiment.
Based on my current schedule (which could change a little) I'd estimate it's about $120 to $150 per month. So 1/2 of a share per month at the current price.
So a total of $1800 invested by the end of the 12 months. That's not an outrageous amount to play with.
I voted no (0%) for content, because if we make you sell the existing stock it'll be fun to hear about it on Hamburger Business Review.