Acorns Review: Automatic Investing And Banking

 in Blog

Acorns has turned the age-old saving loose change into a piggy bank into a modern, efficient, way to invest your change. It allows you to round up your purchases and invest the change. For example, if you spend 22.47 on groceries, Acorns will add $0.53 to your investment account.

It is a fantastic option for anyone who struggles with savings or just wants another way to invest more money.

Sign up here and get $10 to invest!

What is the Acorns App?

Acorns is a Robo-advisor app with automated savings, which makes it easy to build wealth. It has modernized the practice of saving up any loose change. By rounding up the purchases you make on any linked debit or credit cards, any sweeping change is turning into an investment portfolio made by intelligent software. This is a useful tool for people who want to save more. 

How Does Acorns Investing Work?

Acorns works by giving you a platform to invest any spare change you have. You can set aside leftover change from the purchases you make every day through an automatic round-up function. Acorns also help you save up for your retirement account. Acorns also work to grow your knowledge since the platform has thousands of videos and articles from financial experts. 

Acorns Fees and Pricing

The fees are the downside to investing in Acorns. I am never an advocate of investing in platforms with high fees. But, if the app helps you invest more money, than the fees may be for you. Acorns have three-tier sign-up structures, but each of the levels is pretty cheap.

Lite

Acorns Lite only costs $1 monthly and allows you basic functions to grow knowledge, earn bonuses, and invest spare change. It gives you access to the Invest feature in Acorns. You can earn bonus investments from the 350+ partners from Found Money. 

Personal 

The personal account costs $3 monthly and is a great platform to make investments, save for retirements, and checking. It comes with money advice, bonus investments, and a debit card. 

You will have access to three key features: Invest, Later, and Spend. Invest allows you to set up an investment account to build your wealth. Later helps you earn tax advantages and save for retirement. It even updates frequently according to the goals you have set up. Spend is a checking account that allows you to save money without any account fee. You will even get reimbursed for ATM fees and earn around 10% more in bonus investments. You can even invest automatically through retirement or investment accounts. 

Family 

The Family account charges $5 a month and has investment accounts for your children as well as personal investment, checking accounts, and retirement savings. Other exclusive content and rewards are also offered. 

You will have all the features of Lite and Personal as well as access to the Early account. This is an investment account for kids that you can open in just 3 minutes. You can have different accounts without any added costs. Multiple recurring automatic investments can be made at the press of a button. You will also receive financial advice for the whole family as well as exclusive bonus investments. You can also get access to potential tax savings as your children grow. 

Acorns Pros and Cons Review

Pros

Automated Approach 

Any tool that allows you automatic saving should be applauded. If you don’t have to think about saving all the time, you will be more likely to save. Acorns takes any excess change from the purchases you make on your linked cards automatically and forms an investment portfolio from it. You can connect as many cards as you prefer on it. Every purchase you make is rounded up to the nearest dollar, and you are given the option to transfer it to your investment portfolio. 

You can even keep this option automatic without manually approving every transfer. While these round-up changes remain the biggest reason people turn to Acorns, you can also invest lump-sum amounts. You can set up recurring deposits on a monthly or weekly basis or manually invest. Such transfers can be as small as $5. 

You can also open up your Acorns Spend account that comes with a debit card. You can easily access your funds through it and even get reimbursed for any ATM fees that occur. You don’t need to have any minimum balance in the account either. 

Minimum Investments 

The best part is that you don’t need huge amounts of capital to invest. You can go ahead with a basic $5 balance to invest in any of the five portfolios offered by Acorns. This makes it easier for the average investor to build wealth. 

Found Money 

The investment portal allows you the chance to invest through someone else’s money too. The Found Money program is based on building a nice investment portfolio without using any of your own money. Acorns has partnered with 350 large companies, including Nike, Sephora, Airbnb, Walmart, and more, to hand you cashback when you use linked payment methods with any of the partners. You can get your cashback automatically without worrying about additional steps.

 All you need to do is to use a card that you have linked with the Acorns account for a purchase. The Found Money reward will be reverted to your account in 60-120 days. 

Educational Content

If you are a new investor, you will definitely appreciate Acorns. It is well-suited to beginners who may not be aware of financial terms and languages. Hence, the app uses clear language and defines any key terms so that you can keep up. 

The Grow magazine by Acorns is also a great resource for people who want to learn more about credit card debt, side gigs, student loans, and pretty much any other financial topics. 

Cons 

Portfolios Are Small 

Acorns like to take the reins when it comes to portfolio building. It takes into account data like your goals, income, age, and time horizon. Then it recommends you one of the five pre-made investment portfolios. You can take up the recommendation or go for a different portfolio that has less or more risk. 

The portfolios are small than many robo-advisor portfolios. They include low-cost Vanguard or iShares exchange-traded funds. They cover around five to seven asset classes include small-cap stocks, large-cap stocks, real estate, emerging markets, and government and corporate bonds. 

How to Fund Your Acorns Account 

One thing that you can do is simply link up your credit and debit cards to the Acorns account. Every time you make a purchase, it will ask you whether you want to transfer the change into the investment account of Acorns. You can also automate it so that you don’t have to give your manual approval each time. 

If you want to transfer more funds into the account, you can follow these easy steps: 

  1. Select the Invest tab from the main menu of your Acorns application. 
  2. Select the account you want to deposit in. 
  3. Scroll down and choose the One Time Investment option. 
  4. Confirm the investment. 

You will see that the funds are transferred in 2-3 days. You can also set up recurring investments on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis. 

What does Acorns Invest Your Money In? 

There are 5 basic portfolios offered by Acorns that are made of ETFs. They are a mixture of bonds and/or stocks. Depending on which portfolio you choose, you will be investing in a mixture of companies, including bonds, real estate, markets, and companies.

Sign up here and get $10 to invest!

andrew
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