Blog with Rob: Seeds of Change

It’s a banking program many of us are familiar with: round up for savings.  When you swipe your debit card at your local grocery store or deli, the bank rounds up to the nearest dollar and puts the spare change into a savings account.  But what if the same type of program could be applied to investing?  A new app startup, Acorns, is making it possible.

With just a little seed money (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), you could be on your way to creating a diverse portfolio of investments.  Simply link a credit or debit card up to the Acorns app.  Every purchase made on that card is rounded up to the nearest dollar by the app, which then invests your spare change into “a diversified portfolio of index funds, which are selected by Harry Markowitz, a Nobel prize-winning economist.”

Wow.  Sounds pretty impressive.  What’s the catch, right? Once you open an account, Acorns charges a dollar a month if your account has a balance of less than $5,000. If your balance is more than that, you get charged 0.25% per year (The 0.25% is charged monthly and computed daily).  Still sounds like a bargain when compared to hiring a broker if you ask me.

The app works because it is a simplified gateway into an intimidating and complex, but opportunity-filled financial practice.  Could you streamline what you do into an app?  There could be a lucrative company in your future!