Make the most out of your money
Acorns touts itself as an investment app by using your spare change to create an investment portfolio. This portfolio is tailored to your acceptable financial risk. This app also provides other useful features such as earning cash backs.
Save money from spare change with Acorns
Acorn educates you on which stocks to invest
The standout feature of Acorns is the Roundup system, which puts the spare change of your purchases to your account wallet. You can withdraw the money in your account or have the app use it to buy stocks for investing.
Roundup works by connecting your credit or debit card to your account. You will see a list of your purchases appear on the Acorns platform and how much change you get from them when rounding to the nearest dollar. Rounding out a $2.54 milk tea is 46 cents that you can add to your account. When all rounded-up change reaches a certain amount, the app will top up the money to your account from your card.
Investment option
The secondary feature of the app is its investment portfolio, which gives you five risk options. This ranges from low to high risks of getting returns. To help you with your choices, the platform tells you where your money will go to as well as the basic monthly contribution projections and its target dates.
Found Money
Apart from the Roundup feature, you can earn money through the Found Money section. This section provides offers from popular brands such as Nike, Groupon, and Macy's. A percentage of your purchase from the offers goes to your account wallet.
Where can you run this program?
Acorns are available for Android phones and other devices. It also has an Apple version that works with iPhones running on iOS 11.0 or better.
Is there a better alternative?
A similar investment app is the SoFi platform that lets you buy and sell stocks without any commission fees. It also gives you control over which investment to buy or use an automated investing feature.
Our take
The Roundup of Acorn is a novel feature that encourages anyone to save money. Its investment portfolio is also great for beginners who are looking for a simple way to break in the stock market. But seasoned investors might not appreciate the small amount of control over the purchase of stocks. It is also important to note that Acorn has a management fee of $1 per month.
