Stock Gifts, Chicago, Old Parking Tickets

Is it wrong to sell a stock that someone gave you as a gift. How long do you have to wait until you can sell it?

You must ask yourself 3 things when it comes to stock gifts. Who gave it to you? What company it is? and Do you need the money?

For the first question, you need to decide how much you'll be seeing that person. If its close family or a close friend, you've got to wait a year. If its someone more distant, sell away. The point of this is to make sure you avoid those awkward "How about that stock I gave you comment, its awesome" when you sold it. One year should be enough time.

The second question is important because of the "insider" effect. If my distant cousin was working for a big company, and gave me stock in that company, I'd keep it for a while. Not forever, but for a while. He may know something you don't...but don't ask him for advice, you get in trouble that way.

The last question trumps all others. If the person is close to you, then you can prob tell them right away, "Thanks for the gift, but I actually need it to buy a house, or pay for school, so I'm going to sell it." If they aren't close, def sell away. If you're selling to rebalance your portfolio, or something like that, then you've gotta wait a year. It's not like a sweater that you can just trade in for something else.

To summarize, 1 year, unless you need it.

Where is everyone?

Everyone is in Chicago. I don't know about your friends, but mine are all going there. My best friend from college just moved there, I have 2 friends in law school there, one in grad school there. Makeyoucrawl also moved there and so did all of Sarah's friends. I need to visit.

Are you allowed to protest outside of your own building in order to keep occupancy low and keep the landlords from raising your own rent?

I hope so, and I don't see why not...but that's a lawyer question. The noise from construction in my building is crazy. I want to make sure people coming to see the apts realize this so they don't move in, lowering my rent. I gotta figure out a good way to do this.

Do busses in NY run all night?

No, they stop from 2am - 6am or so. At least thats the M23.

The other day I was going through a stack of papers from college. All of this stuff was back from 2003 so I have not seen any of it in a while. While I was going through all this junk, I came across two parking tickets from that year. I guess I never paid the fine to the city of Syracuse, since I was still in possession of the tickets. I was a little surprised to come across these tickets since over the course of the past 3 years, the city never made any type contact with me regarding them. There was never a reminder, warning, or additional fine for lateness sent to me.

I am leaning right now towards paying the original fine, which is only $35 for both tickets combined. However, I am afraid that if I do pay the tickets. it will remind whoever the person is that was suppose to collect the first time that it was late and then they will give me an additional fine. What should I do?

If it has been 3 years, as you say it has, then 3 things may have happened. 1) There is a warrant out for your arrest 2) You were issued a ticket by campus police, not state police, and thus, you don't have to pay it. The most they can do is hold your diploma, which you already have. 3) They switched systems and your info got lost. If they know your car, and that car is registered to you or your parents in NY, they prob sent you a letter. I'd ask your dad, to see if he got a letter and just paid it. Then, I'd call and ask if there's an outstanding warrant, if there is, then I'd probably send them a check.