In this blog post, I discuss about the 3rd of 3 services which I am currently using to financially invest in stocks, REITs, and bonds with the philosophy that small investments with whatever monies I currently have is possible to do and that can over time build up into a lot. You can find information about the other 2 services which I mentioned in previous post in the links below.
What is Loyal3?
So, what is Acorns Investing and would you want to use this service? Let me tell you why I use this service. I keep an ear to ground for products and services which come out that might be able to help me invest… be it the stock market, real estate, etc. When I first heard about Acorns Investing, I thought to myself nah, I don’t need it because I was already investing in a brokerage account and this service had at fee charged every month of $1 in order to use and I am thinking that is not a $1 I needed to spend. Fast forward 1 year or so from me first hearing about Acorns Investing to end of 2016 where I had less large amounts of free cash flow to invest, although I still wanted to invest, and I started feeling more and more that those services that allow you to make what would seem to be a small insignificant little investments could add up if done over time and it didn’t have a be a large lump sum of money. I often feel that I can overlook what the small changes could do to make big impact until reminded of the wisdom of, “many a little makes a mickle”. So I signed up for an Acorns Investing in late 2016.
Acorns Investing has an online website as well as an app that can be setup and what you would then do is link your credit and debit cards which you make purchases on and depending upon the amount of the purchase, it would be rounded up to the next nearest whole dollar (recommended setting; however this is configurable). For example, if you purchased a coffee at Starbucks for $3.75, Acorns Investing would recognize the purchase in its application and trigger the value to be round up to $4.00 and that difference of $.25 ($4.00 – $3.75) would come from a single checking account you link to extract the round-ups amounts. I had some confusion around this at first myself as I was thinking at the time of purchase it was rounding it to $4.00, but it doesn’t work like that, it’s just triggering internally to set aside $.25 when it reviews your purchases on cards you linked and sees you made a purchase that qualifies to be round up. When the summation of the round-up amounts are $5 or greater, that amount is transferred from your linked checking account into a brokerage account on Acorns Investing which will invest into the diversified portfolio that you select from the 5 options* Acorns Investing have. If you used a debit card to make the purchase from the same account from which the round-up are being taken, you will likely see transaction items on your account like follows:
Date Description Amount Balance
1/20/2017 Acorns Investing Transfer $5.25 $75
1/19/2017 Starbucks $3.75 $80.25
- Dollar cost averaging
- Small contributions can be made
- Invested into diversified portfolio (without needing knowledge of asset allocation)
- Found Money – If you shop with their brand partners, they’ll invest money into your future via Acorns Investing. As of writing this, a few of these partners are Jet, Blue Apron, Airbnb, Hulu, Dollar Shave Club, …) Be sure to use card you have linked.
- Invite friends and we each earn $5
- $1 monthly fee (but let’s be real, they should make something from the service they are providing, so I can live with this; although, I certainly prefer free)
- Potential lost of investment due to stock market exposure
My overall experience with the service has been good, except for the fact as of writing this my round-up have stopped happening. I have contacted Acorns Investing customer support about this and they are working through it. However, since my sign-up in mid August, my account now stands at $201.34. I am balls to the wall, so I am invested in the Aggressive portfolio, but this will be up to you what they suggest and you select based upon your answers to the type of financial profile you have.
This is the skinny of Acorns Investing where you are not putting off making investment for your financial future for a later date because you can invest a small amount of change and it can grow over time into something substantial and you probably won’t even notice the difference. It truly is like a small acorn that over time can grow into a big tree. So is this a service you think you can use, if so, kindly visit my Affiliate and Referral link here and find Acorns Investing to sign up?
