Monday, February 16, 2015

Betterment Investing and Saving Money

I was recently looking for a better way to save and invest money, so I was doing some research and came across Betterment.com

Betterment easily lets you set savings goals, and they invest your money in Vanguard backed stocks and bonds. I don't know a ton about investing, or more precisely, very very little, but I do know that Vanguard has very low rates, has been around along time and it's also what the company I work for uses for our 401K. It's done pretty good for me with my 401k, so I thought I'd also give this a shot.

The thing I like about Betterment is the ease of use, the interface is great, setting goals is easy, and not having to know a ton about the financial world is appealing to me, over just sticking my money into a super-low returning savings account. It also has a ton of great reviews by companies and people who actually seem to know what they're talking about. The best thing to me though is that I can take money out as I see fit, or put money in. No penalties for taking the money out, so if I chose to lower my 401k investing a bit and throw some of that money towards this, then I can access that money in non-emergency or emergency situations without getting tax penalties like would happen if I pulled money from my 401k.

Anyways, check it out and read some reviews. If it seems like something you might like, and want to try out for free for 30 days you can sign up. If I or you get three other people to sign up then your year is free, so there is a referral aspect to each account.... so if you do decide it's a good match for you, it would be great if you could click on of the links I've put in this post, so I could get a free year of their service. Thanks.

From FrugulRules website "What makes Betterment so unique from other brokerages is that you do not trade individual stocks or mutual funds, but you invest in a bucket of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) that are personalized to your specific goals."

Here are some reviews of the service from much more knowledgeable sites and people than me:

I'm finding it pretty amazing how fast you can save some money when you have a goal and you can login to an app on your phone or computer and see how you're doing.  There is some risk to investing like this, but if you're investing long term, then it's minimized.  Some people recommend not looking at it every day to see how its doing, and as a person who doesn't follow the markets or other things, that's not too appealing to me anyways.  Good luck and start saving!

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