*This is a follow-up post to my original review of the Acorns App which you can view here: http://www.jaimeh.com/2014/08/29/acorns-app-review-invest-with-your-spare-change/
A few months back I posted about the Acorns App, which is designed to let you invest with your spare change (link to the original post is above). I had hoped to post again last month but time go away from me. It actually works out well. With a full two months of investments through the Acorns App I can give a better review.
To give a re-cap of how I got started, I loaded my account with $50 to get started. Since then I’ve added about $80 worth of round-up investments.
The app itself works very easily. Once your round up account is linked (for me it is a Visa that I use to pay for just about everything), the App takes care of everything. The App simply looks at your transactions and rounds that amount up to the next dollar. When you total $5 of round ups, then it pulls from a funding account (for me it’s my checking account). So if you spend $4.53, then $0.47 will be your round up amount.
One interesting thing to keep in mind about the round ups is that if you spend an even-dollar amount, then $1 will be your round up. So if your spend is $4, then you will have $1 as your round up amount.
The only annoying thing I’ve run into on the app is that I occasionally have to log back into my round up account (the Visa I mentioned before). This might be a security feature, but the App will give me the alert that it can’t verify the account anymore. Maybe it’s semantics, but I find it kind of annoying.
From an actual investment standpoint, my concern with the App is that I would have to make at least a couple dollars each month to cover the fees ($1 + 0.25%). That was looking bad the first month I had the App since the stock market was tanking. That has since come back, but I also haven’t been charged any of the fees I should be. I should have a fee of about $1.05 for October but my statement doesn’t show anything.
I’m definitely not complaining about this, but it something to keep in mind for any investor that you need to be able to cover the fees to make the investment worth it.
Overall, I’d recommend this app on a few conditions. One, like any investment you need to be able to handle the loss. If you don’t make money, you shouldn’t be missing out on meals or anything. Second, you need some money to fund the account to start with. I did $50, but $100 might be a good place to start. If you have a lot of time to invest, that can turn pretty big over time.
Have you tried the Acorns App? What do you think of it? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!