What are people's thoughts on employee stock purchase plans? I was laid off from a previous employer after 13 years. Since I worked there so long, I qualified for max severance which was 26 weeks salary. Since I knew the company was collapsing, I cut expenses and saved cash. Long story short, I didn't need to touch my severance and now have a savings of about 18 months of take home salary. My reserves are good right now. This new job is about a 50% increase in salary. I doubled my contributions to my 401k. I have money to work with and was thinking about putting a little towards the company stock. It's a 15% discount. The company is very old, over 150 years old, so the stock has been stable and is not some new startup where you can expect huge gains or fluctuations. I'm not sure the tax implications. I feel essentially I would be buy at a discount and selling probably in a year or two at around the price the stock is now so essentially returning 15%. Given the uncertainty of the economy, I want to keep my reserves large and have investments that are at least liquid. I should also add that in addition to the 401k, this company offers a pension. The company puts away 4% of my salary and is guaranteed to return 3.8%. It's fully vested after three years. I never invested in these employee plans before so I'm not sure they are worth it.