The Acorns app rounds up on your purchases and invests the change for you.  Today we discuss the new app with the founder and innovation officer.

You download Acorns, connect it to your credit cards, they give you portfolio recommendations, and each time you spend, Acorns rounds up to the nearest dollar and invests that amount for you. Simple!

A lot of users are new to investing so the app provides a lot of guidance.  There are also cool tools, like the goals tool.  You enter your goals and what age you want to achieve them by and the app tells you how much you need to invest to get there.  Found money will sweep money from rebates, cash back rewards and loyalty programs into your account.

They offer ETF’s, stock funds, and bond funds.  The funds are chosen by a team of mathematicians and engineers who work in conjunction with Nobel Prize winning economist Harry Markowitz.  There are no commissions, the cost is $1 per month and a maximum of .5% a year on managed assets.  Once you reach $5000, the percentage drops to .25%.  There is no fee to add money or withdraw it from the account.

Using Acorns is safe, your data is encrypted and they are working with “white hackers” to make sure that everything is private.  You can maintain a high degree of control in Acorns but if you want to set it and forget it, you can choose auto round ups where each transaction will be rounded up.  You can also have money auto deposited into the account via automatic transfer.

Currently it is only available as an app and only for Apple products.  Soon though it will be available on desk tops and on Androids as well.

You know at LMM we only suggest things we’ve used and approved. Check it out, every penny counts!

Show Notes

Acorns:  Invest your spare change.

Acorns vs Betterment vs Wealthfront: We went deep on a comparison between Acorns and Betterment and Wealthfront, we think you should check it out!

Allagash Tripel:  A golden ale with a long, smooth finish.