the richest man in atherstone

At the end of February, I made the snap decision to buy some shares in Lloyds TSB. I'm not usually one to impulse buy, but I had a few hundred quid kicking about in my stockbroking account (Hoodless Brennan - £7 per trade) and, because I didn't like the thought of the money 'not working for me', I bought 65 shares of Lloyds TSB at £6.15 each.

I chose Lloyds TSB for several reasons (although my research and due diligence was very lacking). Firstly, I wanted to buy into a company for the long term (around 20 years). It's safe to presume banks will pretty much always be around and Lloyds TSB is a large corporation with many subsidiaries and a stable dividend. The dividend has remained at just over 34p per share for the last 5 years which works out around 5.5% at the price I paid for them. Not amazing but not bad either.

Lloyds TSB is also the bank that holds my primary accounts and, as a customer, I have experienced some very positive interactions with them just lately. Security has improved and although their products are not necessarily the best, they're not poor and come with marvelous customer service.

The share price today is £5.48, so I regret not holding off my purchase for a little while longer but I'm not overly concerned about this because, as I said earlier, I'm in for the long haul.

Only time will tell if my gut instinct was correct. Right or not, it will be a very stable stock for my portfolio.