coinbase safe to buy small amount of bitcoin? + paper wallet creation question

[stones4991]

hello!

I'm new to bitcoin and would like to purchase a small amount to just hold onto. I have seen coinbase and it looks fairly simple, but i don't want to be naive and not consult someone about this first.


Basically I would like to own a small amount of BTC (1-3 btc) and store in a paper wallet, stashed away, then add more BTC periodically over time.

From what I've briefly learned online, I think I can accomplish this by:

1. Create Coinbase Account
2. Link Bank Account
3. Purchase X amount of Bitcoin
4. Wait 4 days to finish transfer
5. Go offline and create a paper wallet ( using bitaddress.org?)
6. Transfer the balance of BTC from coinbase using the public key of my paper wallet
7. Keep a few copys of the paper wallet,(safe deposit box, home safe, etc.) forget about it.
8. Keep accessable record of the public key, periodicly buy more coin on coinbase and add to paper wallet.




I'm a total noob, how secure would this be? Probably not, right?


The really big downside to my situation is that I don't have access to an additional computer to use offline to do the whole Linux/fresh install/ never conntect to internet again paper wallet thing. What are some alternatives that would be secure and safe, for long term holding, given my obvious setback?  If you have tips or suggestions of alternatives I would be really interested in learning. I've been searching and lurking these forums and online for a bit and i've found a lot of useful info, but its a little confusing since it's all so new to me.

Also it seams like the users here generally do not recommend coinbase so I'd like to learn some suggestions and alternative for buying bitcoins.

Thanks a lot

[hilariousandco]

You don't need another computer. Just download Linux and run it from either a cd or USB. Rather than create a paper wallet you could just keep the wallet.dat file offline and on several mediums - cd-r, USB stick etc. Easier to back up and make more copies that way.

[scribbles]

There are a few ways to safely accomplish what you want, but after researching options I recently went with the same plan that you are suggesting for my own cold storage. There are some details that are being left out in order to make each step secure, but you can find those by searching the forum on using bitaddress.org offline and running it from linux on liveCD USB offline. Did I say offline? 

I have a copy of my paper wallet printed and also stored on USB in a home safe and second copies in a safety deposit box. Like you said, I just have the receiving address and add bitcoin to it from time to time through coinbase and then send it to my paper wallet address.

I don't ever keep large coin on coinbase, but once they release their app for iphone I will keep small amounts there to use for daily purchases.