My First Share Purchase - Qantas (QAN.AX)

Your first ……….. In life are really major experiences that stay with you for your entire life. Your first best friend, first love, first car etc.

One of my main first experiences that I remember was my first share purchase like it was yesterday.

It was 1998 and I was 12 years old and at the time I had been saving money for what felt like forever as didn't have a lot of income sources being 12 years old.

Luckily my parents saw the importance of what I was wanting to achieve and offered to match every dollar I saved and planned to invest in the stock market. So I set myself a goal of saving $150 dollar so with the matching money I would have $300 to invest.

Being 12 I knew only the real basics of how the stock market worked. You buy a share at x price and then hoped over time it went up and then you would sell it for a profit and then buy another share and would continue this until I was rich.

So being a kid I wanted to purchase a company/brand that I knew and saw everyday as thought this would be a better company to purchase. This thought process still stands today as the most successful investor in history (Warren Buffett) believes in investing in industries you know and understand.

So I purchased a hundred Qantas (QAN) shares for $2.642 each.

Luckily over a very short period of time (Only about 5 months later) I decided to sell my shares for $4.30 a share

I thought making a profit of over $100 at my age without having to do anything was fantastic.

Looking back now I can see how this shaped my early interest in the stock market and why I can see it as a path to retirement and to becoming a millionaire.