After working in Apple Retail for 5 years I ended up with 210 shares of AAPL stock, currently worth ~$26k. What should I do with it? (29 years old, no debt, married no kids.)
I'm 29 years old and make about 55k per year as a contractor for a technology company. Before that, I worked in Apple Retail for 5 years. Even though at the time I was living a little bit paycheck-to-paycheck, Apple's Employee Stock Purchase Plan was too tempting not to participate in, and for the full 5 years I worked there I did the maximum contribution of 10%. (Basically every 6 month period they took the price of the stock at the beginning and end of the period, and sold you the stock at 15% off the lower of the two, up to 10% of your paycheck. Often it was as much as a 25% discount.) I'm now in a better paying job, but saving a bit less in a traditional savings account.
I am debt personally debt free but my wife has a fairly large Medical School debt. Ordinarily I would put this asset toward paying off that debt, but her plan is to take advantage of a government program wherein that debt is forgiven after 10 years of work for non-profit hospitals (which isn't difficult in her field.) Her plan here seems sound and she's already several years into it. She insists I not apply my assets toward her med school debt.
The Apple stock has been doing extremely well and I am personally of the opinion that (small ups and downs aside) it will continue to be strong for at least several more years. My current plan is to hang on to it as-is for three to five more years until we're ready to buy a house, then sell it and put that money toward a down payment on a house. Is that a sound plan, or should I be thinking more long term?