Easy, Low Cost Investing with Acorns

A few months ago I signed up for an Acorns account. At the time it seemed like a simple way to save a few extra dollars every month (money that I wouldn't have done anything with anyway), and it wouldn't feel like a sacrifice. For the most part that has been true.

How Acorns works.

When you sign up for Acorns you link one or more checking accounts to your Acorns account. Acorns then monitors the transactions in your account and rounds each of of them up to the nearest dollar. So if I spend $3.12 then Acorns records a "round up" amount of $0.88 or if I spend $198.97 then Acorns records a "round up" amount of $0.03. Once the total of my round ups gets to $5.00 Acorns withdraws that amount from my checking account and invests it in my Acorns account where it can earn money on the stock market. This process allows people to begin investing in the stock market for a very low rate (most of the time you have to start with a significant up front investment). If you get a windfall Acorns also allows you to make additional investments at any time.

My experience

Overall I've been please with Acorns it has allowed me to relatively quickly save up some money. I haven't left it in long enough to make any significant earnings through interest, but over time that should change.

These are the things I've appreciated:

It's easy (once my account was set up and linked I didn't have to do anything else).

It's painless (because it's such a small amount at a time I hardly even notice it).

Cons:

Really the only downside has been the $1.00 per month investment fee. When the invested amount is low this fee usually wipes out any gains through interest, once the amount gets higher though that should change.

I'm happy with Acorns and plan to keep using it. If you are interested in trying it out use this link for a $5 sign up bonus.

https://acorns.com/invite/5NFMB7

Comments

Toddler Bunk Beds--DIY

Build your own Bunk Beds Toddler Size! In this post I provide the measurements I used to build bunk beds to fit toddler sized mattresses and link to the plans that I modified to build these toddler bunk beds. When we were expecting our third child we lived in a small apartment at the University of Utah. The apartment was great, but the bedrooms were small, so to maximize space we wanted to have our 5 year-old and 3 year-old use a bunk bed that would accommodate the smaller toddler size mattress. We searched all over and could not find anything, not just anything affordable, but nothing at all! Turns out toddler size bunkbeds can't be sold because of some regulation or another. So we decided to build our own. This was my first real building project and other than one shop class in 7th grade I haven't done a lot of work with wood. I did enlist the help of a friend who had worked quite a bit with wood and who had a lot of the tools. We started by choosing a straight forwa

Sugar-Free Jam with Stevia

We recently decided that we wanted to try making our own sugar-free jam and wanted to try using stevia as well. After listening to the book The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes we decided that we need to drastically reduce the amount of sugar that we eat in our home. While this hasn't been too bad for Joanna and I, it is harder for our kids. We wanted something for the kids to put on their sandwiches, pancakes and similar things and so had been buying sugar-free jams from our local grocery store. But these were expensive. We checked in speciality stores as well as online and couldn't find anything cheaper. Since we've made freezer jam in the past we thought we'd try the same with sugar-free jam. We bought a box of peaches, since they were on sale at our local Sprout's Market and about 7 boxes of pectin ( Sure Jell No Sugar Pectin, 1.75 oz (Pack of 2) ). Now a note here about the jam, it isn't actually sugar-free since there is sugar in the peaches

DIY-Indoor Play Area for Kids

How to Build an Indoor Play Area for Your Kids We have four very active children, so about a year ago we decided that we needed a place for them to play and burn energy in the winter and when they couldn't go outside. In our search for ideas we came across this blog , showing their indoor climbing wall and monkey bars. We really liked the idea and made our own very similar version. Climbing Wall We used these rock climbing holds from Amazon for the climbing wall. We liked these holds because of the price, the natural rock look, and because they are installed with screws instead of with bolts. To make the wall we used 3/8" sheets of OSB (oriented strand board) that we glued and screwed together to create a double thick board. I made two sets so we could stack one on top of the other to make a taller wall. We used OSB because my parents had some extra and we could get it for free. Plywood would look nicer, but is more expensive. After attaching the boards we s

Home Management

Search This Blog