Back in the day, I inherited some PacifiCorp shares from my grandad. I knew 0.0 about the stock market or investing in general, but it paid a $100 dividend every quarter, which was pretty cool. But I was just smart enough to see they had a DRIP and I signed up for that, realizing the $100 was cool, but not life changing. That went on for a while, then PacifiCorp was bought out by Scottish Power, which didn't have a DRIP, so I got the dividends again. Then for some reason, PacifiCorp got sold, and for some reason I got some cash with that deal, but I still had Scottish Power stock, until Scottish Power was bought by Iberdrola. The Iberdrola DRIP has worked intermittently on a schedule I can't figure out.
I'll be damned if I know what my cost basis is. I'll be damned if I even know how to begin to figure it out. Yes, I should have been keeping the paperwork all these years, but I didn't know enough and I didn't.