The Scoop on Micro Investing Apps #029

of every month they have free admission. Emily and I like literally just saw a billboard for so the High museums like our local major art museum in Atlanta. It's a I mean, it's a major art museum across the country. I saw the billboard that there's some major folk art exhibit at the High right now, and Emily and I were like, okay, wait, we got a research like wins the three Days again. Okay, So it's second Sunday of the month. Yes, so second Sundays of the month it's

free admission. Um when I think normally it's fifteen bucks. So that's why we went. You know, it's a great deal. So we actually went because I saw that they have like a Oneie the Pooh exhibit, and we don't care about that. Yeah, I don't care as much. Although they've got a ton of sketches by the artist. Super fascinating because you could, you know, you get to see the process and there's a there's a lot of drawings to where he didn't like, wouldn't erase stuff, and so you

can kind of see the progression of the characters. Super cool. I'm all about the process and kind of how did you arrive to the you know, the final product. Yeah, the story to get to the final product is to me almost more fascinating than the than the end result. And I actually didn't even know that the folk art

thing was going on. It was because it was called like outliers American vanguard artists sort of thing, basically talking about how you didn't you know the folk artists starting in their early nineteen hundreds, you know, throughout close to the two thousands. I guess just lad the way I guess with like kind of modern art and based on their sort of out fire tendencies and ways in the way they did things. So we almos want as an afterthought, which you would have been like murdered me over had

and I going. But yeah, you'll be happy to hear there's some poward finsters in there, and a bunch of other guys. I'm sure you're more you're more familiar with gosh. Yeah, that I wish I could have in my house. They already actually at the High they have a normal, awesome folk art exhibit just upstairs, I think the top floor. That's that's good no matter what. That's always there, permanent

installation of great folk art. But so the fact that they have this exhibit expanded exhibit, yeah, I mean I have to go for sure. It's not just folk cart That's why they call it the outlier, sort of vanguard thing. It's I mean, it's sort of an umbrella term I think, to include just a bunch of outliers, just folks that weren't doing art, you know, whether it be because they're

self taught or just using different techniques. One guy in particular, I thought you would, you'd love to look for Sam Doyle. When I saw the stuff, I was like, man, Joel would, totally. I feel like that's right up Joel's alley. I'm writing the name down. I'm gonna look at this slew stuff.

Sam Doyle. Yeah, he's a self taught artist out of South Carolina and sometimes he would paint on building materials and kind of different stuff like that, but just a general s plus, this stuff is really big, and I know everything you like is like oversize. I'm like, I loves art, Like, why would you get something it's like nine inches by nine inches or something like that. I don't know. I love like the big broad strokes, like if it's not at least three ft long, like don't

even show it to me. Then yeah, check this guy out there. You'll love it. But so, okay, here's my question. When you go in for you know, the free museum day, how bad is the line? Yeah, okay, that's what I was about to say, because the lines were a little bit longer than than we would have preferred. But we also went kind of at the right in the middle of the stinking day, so like right at the peak hours.

I would definitely recommend going, you know, right when they open, or maybe even closer to the end while everyone else is heading out of there. Dude, that's a good call, but in general, still worth it and it's fun. We actually hadn't been there with the girls yet and so even though I've been there for for work, you know, multiple times with photography, never actually taking the kiddos there.

So it adds another element of stress when you've got your girls and she just from touching like a priceless work of art on the wall, which Eddie straight up succeeded in touching something. I was just like, oh dag, it likely didn't set off any alarms. Like father like daughter. I just like to lick it, you know, like it give me that artwork. Yeah, but that's a cool thing.

We recently just heard about that, like the free Sunday things, So everybody out there that these are the kind of things that you can do, you know, save thirty bucks here there and actually you know, go do something you know with your family or you know, with your spouse.

These are just awesome, you know, potential date night or but they're there are all sorts of you know, tips and tricks like this that you can find out in your town, probably with a quick Google search or asking friends, you know, what what they do to save money around town.

And man, that's like, yeah, that's a great tip. Because literally I saw that billboard and I was thinking, I need to figure out when the free time to go is because I know there is one if you live in the you know, in the county where we live, and so I'm totally taking taking you up on this

thanks to the tip buddy. You got it man, all right, I want to tell you really quickly, I sold a bunch of stuff today on the Facebook yard sales site and so I sold two items, made ninety bucks, just kind of trying to declutter a little bit and do The Facebook yard sales site has gotten so much better. I was. I'm surprised at how good it's gotten with kind of I feel like the listings just look better, and like the user interface basically, like it just feels

better as you're kind of swiping through stuff. Yeah, and it's like so much easier to post to multiple spots, Like if you're a member of you know, specific groups like the East Atlanta group that I'm a member of, and then there's a couple other ones that I'm that I'm also a member of, I can post to like all of them at the same exact time, plus the generic market place as well, and so it just they

they've made it super easy. It's way better than than listening to Craigslist now, And yeah, I had an easy time getting rid of stuff. And you know that would you would you rid of So I had like this big mid century style metal like metal island cabinet looks you know. Oh yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about. And so yeah, we sold that as a beast. Oh yeah, dude, did you tell them that you're gonna help them take

it off the porch? Yeah? But I was also like, you need to bring like three people because it's gonna take four people to lift. And yeah, I'm glad I wasn't there for them. Me and this like one dude did it together. And then I sold a mid century

style like rolling bar for like fifty bucks. So yeah, and that's the thing too, Like I was, you know, I probably could have gotten a little bit more for each one, but I'm just kind of like ready to get rid of them, and you know that they seems like a fair price for me to be able to sell stuff quick. So I just kind of going back to like that spring cleaning episode we did. You know, it just feels good just to kind of unload stuff

and just be done with it. You can kind of move on and just remove it from your brain and just kind of move on with the things you want to think about, not just the stuff that you have floating around your house. Yeah, and I mean there's a lot of things that that I have to think about on on a daily basis, you know, like kids and

work and podcasts and all these things. And so yeah, for me, sometimes if I can you know, list it at a at a ice point where I can get rid of it, you know, fairly quickly and easily without too much hassle, then I'd rather, you know, lose ten bucks and kind of sell it in in a way that's gonna mean less mental stress for me. So yeah,

Facebook gard sales sites is great. At the end, it asked me to rate the person that that bought the item from me on their punctuality and stuff like that, Like they're like six different items they want to kind of like taking it to like the level of eBay almost Yeah, and accountability. Well, I'm like interested to see how that actually how do I then see a user's like ratings, Like I don't know, I don't think they've actually put that side out of it yet, but right

now they're gathering information atly. I wonder if they instead of actually rating it. So just like on eBay where you see their actual rating or their star rating. I wonder if they're just going to feed that into like their algorithm and instead they're gonna feature people who are

rated well, oh totally. They're gonna like feature their posts like when they go to sell like higher up or sort of thing, give them priority, or or maybe if they message you, like because that's usually how people try to get in touch with you about buying something. Maybe you'll see like a little something you know by their by their picture, like this guy sucks trusted buyer or or even like trusted by so and so, like if

you there's a transaction that you did. I'm so curious and now as to how they're going to implement yeah, or it could just be like like like uber ratings essentially where if you get enough batter reviews, they banned you from buying or selling on the marketplace. I don't know, but it'll be really interesting to see how they use those things. How sad would that be if you got banned from Facebook marketplace? Man? Like, hey man, I need

to use your profile real quick. You have to be to go make a purchase, You have to be one rotten apple, right, So yeah, man, that's really got me thinking because I actually purchased a washer dryer recently on through the marketplace, and I don't remember any of that, So I wonder if they only rated me, it might just be the seller that rates. I'm I'm not sure interesting because as a buyer, I don't remember that. However, it would probably make sense to rate on both sides

of the coin, right, it would make sense. Maybe they hadn't. I mean, this was only like two weeks ago though for me, But yeah, I got a wash and dryer.

I did remember it being easier though. You know, they're constantly updating stuff and they've got the listing and then you click a button and it's like at an automated message that ye, since it's I mean, yeah, they just make it so easy for those transactions, just and you can you can notify everyone after you've sold it essentially, but you hit sold and then it essentially says, you know, we're telling everybody that messaged you then about the items

they know not to contact exactly. It's yeah, it's gotten really nice because it used to be super ganky and people like, wait, is it still available? Is it not. And basically you're saying, used to be like Craigslist. Yeah, I guess you could just like remove the post on Craigslist, but um, but yeah it was. It used to be a lot worse. And Facebook Marketplace is really getting it together.

It's really kind of becoming kind of that go to resource for selling stuff locally, so especially neighborhood groups like that where you can just hop on, hop on down the street to pick something up from somebody. Yeah. Like, well, and I used to never even click like the marketplace

button because I would just look in the groups. But the marketplace itself has actually gotten really really robust, and I feel like feeding me things that I'm interested in and then also just just kind of making it easy to scroll through things. So yeah, way to go Facebook. I love it. Awesome, man. Let's get to the beer today. We've on a beer by a local brewery here in Atlanta, Orpheus Brewing, and they have donated Wandering Blues, which is a blueberry sour ale. I don't know if I've ever

actually had this, dude, so I'm I'm super pumped. Yeah, it's been around for a few years, but yeah, they I think last year they started putting it in like six pack cans, and um, I feel like they've actually kind of honed in the recipe. So I'm excited to have this one again. So without even pouring it, you can pop that can and I can. I can see that head and it's pink. Yeah. Man, kind of like last week's beer poured a cherry red. This one pours

like a blueberry that kind of bluish purple. Yeah. Yeah. We were talking about how many held it up to the light. It looks like a soaked cherry. This looks like a soaked blueberry, yeah, which is like the exact color. You want beer like this, so, yeah, you want It's a match. I can't remember what beer this was. I was listening to a beer podcast and they're talking about a perfectly clear beer that this brewery was making, which

sounded terrible. It's like, what is there to see? Yeah, exactly reminded me of like pepsi crystal or something like that. You know, That's what my mind immediately went. You're just like, oh, this is gross. It's like, what kind of chemicals are in here? That is fooling my eyes? Right? Yeah? And I love by the way, I love the can art on this and and so if you want to see, you know, a picture of that, go to our Instagram page. We've got like an awesome little instagram following instagram dot

com slash poor not Poor. Let's drink this puppy cheers. That really does have like a juicy blueberry definitely some tart. It's also like a little bit sweet at the same time. I feel like it's kind enough the city though, to kind of balance that. Yeah, like it's to me it almost has like a red wine um, like a red wine vinegar, like red wine acid, like almost balsamic i guess. But you know, it's not that concentrated though. It's it's

a really a light beer. It's really good. So thanks to Orpheus Brewing for donating the beer for tonight's episode, Wandering Blues Blueberry sour Ale. Yeah, this one was great, guys, Thank you so much. All Right, Matt, onto the topic

in hand, the scoop on micro investing apps. This is kind of like a hot new segment, right, and it's been around now for a couple of years, and you know, new players are coming in and existing players in that sphere are making changes, and so it's kind of tough to know, like, wow, should I be using a micro investing app? And if so, you know which ones are good? And there's different fees and some are kind of say they're free, but are they really free. They're just kind

of a lot to sort through. And so we figured let's tackle this subject and kind of give people the skinny, the scoop on you know, what the deal is with micro investing apps. Yeah, and by the end of this episode, we're hoping that you as a listener. Um, we're not gonna do it like a run through of every single app that's out there, because I got a feeling that there might be ten more new ones, you know, by

the end of eighteen. So it's not we're not going to get a give a comprehensive review necessarily, but we want to sort of talk about this maybe from like the ten thousand foot view for specifically you do walk away from this episode and to know should I be getting into micro investing in particular through these these apps because they make it so handy, man, that's like it's

just so easy. Yeah, So we'll talk about what it is some of our favorite players or some of the big players right now and kind of go over you know, what their model is, and then we'll kind of talk about pros and cons and then at the end whether we recommend you know, you getting involved in micro investing or not. And so let's start with like kind of a definition MATT. Micro investing usually takes place in apps.

Micro investing is usually geared towards younger folks, millennials in particular, right if you like to use that word and generation why for the more studious, right, well, you are more studios than I. So it's and it's typically done via an app. And like a lot of these micro investing players don't even have like a website where you can do it. I know, Robin Hood is one of the big players, and they just like recently started allowing you to kind of trade stocks on a web platform as well.

But but it used to be app only. Uh so that the may there's just a huge shift right now that micro investing allows people of all income levels and savings abilities to actually begin to invest. Now whereas investing used to be, there used to be this big barrier to entry. Now minimum trading level and high fees have kind of been torched gone by. There are by the wayside in this new model that allows you to begin

building wealth in like minutes with almost no money. Ye mean, it makes me think of just the different ride sharing apps, right, You've got like Uber or Lift and and even the newest thing that is in our city at least are the scooters. And it takes no time to just be like, I wonder what that's about, and you just download the app and before you know it, you're hailing a ride. You know, you're you're you're calling for a lift, or you're about to scan a scooter and you know, drop

a few bucks to try this thing out. Well that's a good too, because we went in our town at least from zero scooter services to like seven overnight. Like I see all these different brightly colored scooters and bikes, the bikes, and so there's there's a new ure's a new bike share now too, like the bright yellow ones you like, it won't be long before you know, we have a ton more of those two. So that's kind

of one of another. Yeah, and one of those things that's like expanding quickly and hitting up cities and then just inundating cities quickly, and so so obviously, I mean the reason that this is happening is because they're popular, right. It's incredibly easy to just everyone's got the smartphone. You just pull it up, download it, or scan it, give it a shot. And it's not a huge deal. And I mean you said it a second ago when you

mentioned barriers to entry. That is the number one thing that these micro investing apps have gone for them is the fact that anyone can do it well. And probably the first major player in the industry made it, you know, the absolute easiest. And so we're going to talk about the major apps that are out there right after this break. You know, the first major player that I know of in the micro investing sphere was a company called Acorns. So in Acorns got bought by PayPal, so they've got,

you know, this big major corporation behind them. They've got enough money to sun like fifty million into them or something like that. Yeah, so you know Acorns is gonna be around for a while, yeah, man, Acorns. So essentially they round up your purchases and invest your spare change.

It's almost like the digital version of kind of coming home at the end of the day with your pockets full of change, and you take that and you like in the change jar, right, except that I never do that anymore because I don't ever use cash, and so this is the digital version of that. You know, you make all your purchases, whether via debit cards or credit cards. So yeah, so imagine making a purchase for seven fifty. You know, they rounded up fifty cents to eight bucks.

You still see that eight dollar charge on your credit card, but fifty cents. So that gets invested in whatever investments that you've chosen. It's kind of brilliant because there's I feel like a group of people who kind of counted on the changes are because whether it be just sort of like having some cash on hand, uh for sort of unexpected small emergencies, or folks that would use it

specifically to say, for stuff. And so one of the great things about acorns is that they do allow you to invest in both traditional and roth ira A. So you get that tax advantage, you get that tax benefit. It's not just money that's pushed aside and invested in a standard brokerage account where're getting hit with your regular amount of taxes. You know, it's still tax sheltered, which is awesome. Yeah, and acorns is added Yeah, kind of

a couple of things to their business model. And so you know, for one dollar a month you can get their basic rounding up and investing service, and for two dollars a month you can get there they're Acorns later, which involves saving for retirement, and then for three dollars a month you can combine that and essentially get acorns new banking service. So Acorns has really, you know, grown, expanded their offerings now the PayPal has invested in them.

But even though the Acorns business model seems really cool, and I actually really like the idea of people being able to invest their spare change, I mean, I think that's I think it's pretty cool, a brilliant concept, right, And the one dollar fee every month doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Or two dollars if you're going for the retirement account, or three dollars even right, and if you're going for their banking service as well, it doesn't seem like that much unless we're talking about

you investing twenty dollars a month. And yeah, those dollars cutting into your investment returns can add up rather quickly. Yea all of a sudden two bucks that doesn't seem like much at all if you're only in you know, setting aside twenty bucks. I mean, that's a ten percent hit, which is gigantic. Like our favorite funds. If we go directly through Vanguard, we're looking at point zero four or or point zero five per cent point zero five percent.

I'm just gonna say that again because because that's so small and it would make the you know, acorns business models, it sort of seemed like a racket almost if you're looking at it from a from a percentage standpoint. So it's definitely worth considering. And we're gonna get more into like sort of the pros and cons a little bit later on and in our specific recommendations. But yeah, I'm

glad you brought that up. Man, fees that's how I mean, they gotta make money somehow, right, Yeah, And fees are always, you know, the retirement killer. So a couple other major micro investing apps that you need to be aware of our the robin Hood app. And robin Hood was the first player on the scene to offer completely free investing, so you could trade individual stocks and ETFs completely free, zero dollars for buying and selling, which is pretty cool.

So I personally. This is one that I have tried out just with a really small amount of money. I just kind of wanted to, you know, play around and see how it worked. And so I took five hundred bucks that I figured outuld play with for you know, about six months and just kind of tool around, and you flush, you just got five hundred bucks just laying around man in your side gigs. You're like selling everything

you got on Facebook, I know, right. I mean well, I was like sometimes too to be able to talk about these things. It's really good to use them and see what they actually look like firsthand. And so I figured we would be talking about this, and I really wanted to test out robin Hood because it is literally the first platform where you can actually buy and sell

stocks commission free. You know. I just remember, you know, going back to to high school, you know, probably like ninth grade, when you did that stock market challenge and you try to outbeat all your friends and stuff like that. It's a terrible way to teach kids about how to invest in stocks. We shouldn't be doing that in schools.

But that's always kind of captivated me a little bit, and this small part of me, I mean I know it's dumb, but I still kind of, you know, part of me wants to buy some individual stocks and see how it goes. And you know, with Robin Hood, I figured five hundred bucks, I can give that a shot. And so I'm like pretty much on like Walmart and Mattel. Uh, don't ask me why you've got your reasons. You're like, I got girls, and I know America's cheap. So you

want to hear a quick funny story. The stock market game brings totally jogs my memory, and so I remember doing that in like third or fourth grade or something. Right, so my best friend George back from elementary school. I would go over to his house and because that's where the bus stop was, and we would actually kind of finish up our homework right. Well, the challenge involved choosing a stock the day before and then the next day

at school. That was part of the assignment. And like the workers supposed to us at in classes, look up the stock that you you know that you purchased the day before. Well, we would do our homework that morning and so we would have that day's paper, which meant that we could go back in time and make a purchase on something that we knew gained. How are many points that day? It's the confession we cheated a little bit, like the Marty McFly of stock paking. That's what you are.

I'm thinking of the guy. What was that show on like USA back in the ten years ago twenty years ago where the dude got tomorrow's paper. Yeah, except for we just cheated in class. We were bad kids. But uh yeah, specifically I remember one standing out, which was Xerox, and they must have had a good quarter or something

that that that year. But I just remember buying Xerox over and over because we would we kept looking and they just kept climbing and kept climbing, and so we're like, I feel like I can almost still remember the Socksuville like x r X or not. Probably it was something like that. Yeah, what a terrible thing to teach me, Lane, Right, when it comes to stock investing, to pick individual stocks and to see how they do over a day or two, right,

that's just a terrible way to do it. But so a little more about the robin Hood app you can put in, you know, as little money as you want. You're buying full shares of a stock or an e T f though on that app. So that's really cool that you can for the first time at the at your fingertips you're buying sell stocks and e t F commission free. I love that. But the downside is that you can't invest in iras, roth iras or any tax sheltered accounts for one case, right, So you can't do

any of that investing. You're essentially using a brokerage account and you're gonna pay regular capital gains taxes on it. So you know, robin hood is maybe good for a little bit of fun, but not really good for serious investing. So how long have you had that the robin Hood app. I guess I've been playing around with it for about

two or three months. Yeah, So, I mean, you know, you can read all the benefits and like the pros and cons whatever, like on the review side or even hearing us talk about it, but like you personally, like, how does it feel? The interface is quite slick, is it? Yeah,

it's it's a really cool good written about it. They're talking about how you know obviously, so the way that they're able to make these zero commission trades is there an electronic brokerage, so they're able to buy and sell on Wall Street for zero you know, at zero cost, and then they're able to pass that along to the consumer, which is why it's called robin Hood, right. It's sort of like get your spot at the table without having

to like pay the big fees the big expenses. So I was thinking that, like, with it being this sort of scaled down, minimal app, that maybe it would be kind of clanky or kind of junkie. Now it's it's actually, yeah, it's really good, and we'll get into it in the pros and contection. I think there's actually probably some benefit to learning a little bit about investing, you know, as you're using an app like this. So yea, yeah, we'll

get into that. One more app I wanted to mention before we kind of move on to the pros and cons is an app called m one that sounds British. It totally sounds like is there with James Bond Works

or something like that. Um well, m m was like the Boss Lady or boss Man, depending on what century or what decade you're watching, all right, M one, Yeah, and then one sounds like a fancy name and they are now turning into probably the second biggest player behind acorns, and that's because they used to charge a small feet if you had over a certain level of investments. But now m one has made their platform pretty much unlimited, free to anybody, and so you can buy individual stocks

or et s on M one. And the great thing too about M one is unlike robin hood, where you have to buy a full share of a stock, right, so if I wanted to buy, you know, one share of Amazon, that's a lot of money, right, But apparently you can drop thirty bucks on Amazon on M one and buy just a partial share, which is which is kind of cool. Interesting. So I haven't used this one and I will need to do I'll do that. I'll put that on my list to mention to M one.

That's pretty cool if you can go in with like whatever, all the amount. So that's one of the big advantages over robin hood. The other thing is you can invest in a traditional ira, a roth ira, a set ira. You can roll over a four oh one k into M one. Also, uh, no fees for that. So I love that you can buy ets or individual stocks on

the M one app. It seems to be probably right now in my mind, you know, the winner for micro investing because there are literally no feest You're not paying a dime to anybody to do these trades, and you can buy some of these some awesome ETF and some awesome individual stocks completely free from an app on your phone. And so yeah, IN One, now that I've tried Robin hood out, I'm totally gonna try M one out and give it a shot, just just to kind of see, you know, how it works, and and if I actually

like it, I get using the app. But I think in particular for people that are interested in micro investing or investing through an app on their phone, you know, IN one is probably that logical choice because of the commission free trades, but then on top of that, because of the ability to invest your money in tax sheltered

retirement accounts. Yeah, it almost seems like they're kind of going after the big guys, right, like Vanguard and Fidelity and even like like Charles Schwab like, if you can go to M one and do all of your trades specifically E T S, I like E T S personally, that's like the Vanguard E T F V V oh

that's like my number one. I can you know, have a ton of money invested with them if I can make these E t F trades via this app from the comfort of my thumb, Like, why would I want to sit down at my desktop computer, I guess and log you have to log in when I can just do a thumber condition. So, now now that we've named the top three, you know, micro investing app players, I'll just say there's a couple others. There's Stash, there's Clink.

We're not going to mention those because those have higher fees, and in a traditional sense, their fees are super low to but but we thought these players definitely deserve the most merit. They're the biggest ones, and they're the ones that can offer some of the best options. Let's talk about the pros and cons mat right after the break. All right, Matt back can break. Let's go over the pros and cons of micro investing. Yeah, man, so the first one, Uh, it is so incredibly easy to get started.

Most oftentimes you can be investing in five minutes or less. And like we were talking about earlier, that's what's so great about these apps is I mean in ten seconds, you can have it downloaded, and you can have signed up for an account, you can even link it, so I don't know, like your Facebook and whatever, and before you know, you're rolling and you're able to just try it out. It's incredibly easy. The barriers to entry have

been either lowered or completely removed. And something that was from before that was just the sort of elite, elatest sort of thing, like m I'm gonna go in and talk to my financial advisor and open up a raw ira, a four own k blah blah account. It's like super fancy talk. And then all of a sudden you've got like kids downloading this app, trying this thing out, and

before you know it, they're just they're saving money. I love it from that standpoint, the fact that folks out there can start investing, you know, at a way earlier age as well. Right, because apps, I mean, like a ten year old can download and like I wouldn't recommend it and allow your to do that. I'm sure it's in the terms and conditions somewhere that they're not supposed to, but right, yeah, but I mean it's not easy, and so from that standpoint, just the ease of use, I

love that, Yeah, no doubt. I think it's amazing. I think how much easier investing has become and how much more transparent, And then this is just kind of adds that extra layer of ease and simplicity for people. That's incredible. Another pro is that it's great for folks that don't have access to a four oh one K and want to invest in smaller chunks. So the four oh one K is like the super automated thing, right, A certain percentage of your paycheck comes out every month and gets invested.

And the great thing is you know you're saving for retirement over the long haul. Well, if you don't have access to that something like Acorns that is kind of this automated investment style taking money out every time you make a purchase. I kind of love that way. If you're having a hard time getting the ball rolling getting started, Acorns can kind of be that push in the right direction, the push to get you starting putting some of your money in investments for the long term. So I think

that's a big pro for for a lot of people. Yeah, and then the last pro that we need to mention is that these apps have you know, lower no fees. So with an app like Acorns that we mentioned, it's anywhere from a dollar to three dollars a month based on you know which level of service you want, and you know, that's really not that expensive. That's definitely less than you know, what you're paying for Netflix or Hulu

or any of those things. And then other apps like robin Hood or in one have no fees and I really like that. Cool man. Now let's cover some of the cons. So you know, you just mentioned how you know some of these have little to no fee at all. Well, even though some of these fees might be low, it's worth looking at it as a percentage of how much you're saving. And so you know, again you might be thinking two bucks, that's really nothing for me to really

get my savings off the ground. But in the at the end of the month, if you're only saving like twenty bucks, that's a lot of money that you're spending to save those twenty dollars. We would recommend that instead of looking at it as a dollar amounts of you know, as a fee, instead look at it as a percentage because what you'll find is that if you go straight through a low cost investment company like our favorite Vanguard or Fidelity or even charge Schwab, you'll find that the

percentages significantly lower. And I'm talking the difference between like maybe point three or five which sounds like hardly anything at all, down to point oh four or five percent, So you're looking, I mean, yeah, seven times the cost. Yeah. Another con is that micro investing can also and often will mean micro result. Matt and I think that you should be investing a whole lot more than just your

spare change. If that's all you're putting into your investments, and if you're only investing in a brokerage account and you're not saving in tax sheltered retirement accounts, you're gonna be broken retirement, and we want more for you than that. And and so investing just your your spare change just what's coming out between you know, your cushions or rounding up purchases like Acorns does. Just doing that, that's not going to make a big dent in your retirement savings

over the long run. And so you need to be doing a lot more than that. So make sure if you are using one of these apps, you're using it wisely and it's not the only way that you're investing. Also, some of these apps UH encourage you to purchase individual stocks while you can purchase e t s in them. Most folks are buying shares of Snapchat or Facebook, you know, like that basically whatever is hot and whatever is in the news or whatever it is that they're using. It's like, oh,

I like Snapchat, all buy the stock, you know. It's like that is not the wisest way to purchase stock. I think that actually is the number one stock purchased on the robin Hood apps real Snapchat. Yeah, so they're like, what do I buy? I don't know. I use Facebook a lot. Yeah, it's like millennials literally buying up social

media stocks. So you want to be you know, careful about how you're investing your money, and and those just lend themselves to investing your money stupidly in you know, one or two stocks that minor might not have good returns over time. Yeah, it goes without saying that. Joel and I believe in a very widely diversified approach and strategy towards investing, especially retirement investing, like the ultimate you know investment. And so yeah, I don't buy individual stocks, uh,

if you can't afford to lose that money. Oh dude. And one more con that I just thought of is actually like the risk of purchasing something on a whim, so right, like obviously like Facebook, it's just you know, you haven't put a whole lot of thought into it.

But also folks that are sort of thinking about stocks and are kind of hearing what's in the news, if it's that easy to sort of buy that stock because it's in an app, it's on your phone, it's in your pocket, Like in literally ten seconds, you could buy like several hundred dollars or hundred thousands of dollars worth

of stocks. I almost see that as a bad thing, you know, that's certainly that's one of the benefits of this being something that's great for a lot of people is just like how easy it is to do that. But at the same time, for folks that don't have the knowledge and don't have a plan, I see that

as a negative. There listening to the news or they hear that's you know, there's rumor about something happening to you know, Facebook or Tesla, like they Elon Musk is going crazy on his Twitter account, like like he's prone to do, and it seems like that he's got some huge breakthrough. Well you might think, well, shoot, I'm gonna freaking buy some Tesla real quick before everybody else catches the news because I'm young and I'm hearing what's going on,

and I see that as a as a negative. You know, that's not the again, if you want to do that because you want to have some fun or try something out, like Joel did with you know, five bucks, just laying around, but really it's like gambling, like and I knew that putting five bucks into it. I knew this was like point oh two percent of my portfolio something that I don't care. It's kind of like back and testing it out and thinking out, have some fun, just to try

it out. Like, but again, if you can't afford to lose it, don't invest your money that way. Yeah, and I think I don't think it's an amazing point. I think for people that lack the knowledge and the discipline, they can you know, purchase something on a whim or sell something on a whim, and that can trigger tax consequences and ultimately, you know, much worse than that, just

severe losses of your capital. You and I, Matt, we both believe in long term stock investing, and so if you were going to use an app like in one or Robin Hood even we would hope that when you're buying something, you're holding it for a decade or longer.

And that's just not the case for most out the case right using these apps, and so that is a huge downside that people would you know, use it for day trading or you know, quick buy and sell transactions that are you know, really actually gonna hurt them, or even man just to get their hands on some cash.

You know, I don't know if you've made the mistake of like a late night purchase on Amazon, like from your phone or something like that, or even like a late just a comment that you're like, oh, man, I shouldn't it was the weekend. I shouldn't have made that comment.

Oh you're that guy in the YouTube comments section, Matt, Yeah, not even YouTube of it, you know, talking about imagine that, but like with consequences with monetary value attached to that, you know, like I would love to know what the stats are of like some of these purchases that go down like late night when someone's maybe not in the best frame of mind and they're like, oh man, I gotta get my hands on three hundred bucks by it tomorrow.

Because I gotta do this, and they're like, I'm just gonna sell some of this with zero regard to you know, what the market is doing and if it's a downturn or anything like that, that's yeah, and nine concern of people at least will not use these apps wisely. And so you know, if you can be one of those uber discipline people that once commissioned free et F purchases inside of a roth IRA through a company like m one,

I think that's great. But yeah, just make sure that you're you're willing to be in it for the long haul, because yeah, that that is I agree. I think that's actually probably you know, the biggest potential con to these apps. All right, Matt, let's move on. So do we actually recommend using these micro investing apps. Yeah, so micro investing we think can be a small part of your stock

market investments. Apps have gotten so much better over the last few years especially, and the fees have been reduced to next to nothing, and so you know, micro investing apps are probably here to stay. Just know that investing regularly in tax advantaged accounts is probably going to be

the best bet for your long term financial health. And maybe you know, it's not just a small part of your investment strategy and your portfolio, but specifically, I see it better suited to be like an initial like the early onset portion, like as like on a timeline right early on, if you're trying to get into investing and you're trying to find a ways to set aside money, whether that be through a load to no cost brokerage like robin Hood, or just finding ways to set aside

money what you know, like through Acorns, where it just kind of rounds up. I see that being a great approach and a great strategy to like we said earlier, just kind of like kicking it off and getting started. But honestly, long term, I see that being less and less a part of your overall financial plan. You know,

what are your thoughts? Yeah, no doubt no, I think yeah, I can be kind of that jump start that way for someone to actually get in on investing and figure out, you know, how to start and maybe learn about I think another benefit is that it kind of piques your curiosity and and so you know, doing something like Acorns or robin Hood, you know, hopefully learning a little bit you know, piques your curiosity about investing, and maybe you start doing some more reading and some more thinking about

you know, your long term financial future. And there's a you know, a huge swath of Americans that have I thought for more than fifteen minutes about their long term financial future. And so maybe you know, one of these apps kind of gets them thinking, you know, along those lines, and I think that's great, all right, So yeah, do

I recommend it? Well, I would say I personally don't see myself continuing to invest on micro investing platforms, but I think for a lot of people, this, like we said, this can be you know, the kickstart to thinking about stashing money away for the future. I think for most people, you know, the pitfalls and the cons are actually greater than the potential rewards. Specifically in regards to moving your money around, you know often which is a terrible thing

to do when it comes to the stock market. You want to be well diversified in your holdings, and you want to hold onto that well diversified portfolio over you know, the long run. We're talking decades, and so anything that causes you to even think about your moving money around willy nilly here and there, I just think that's a terrible strategy of terrible way to approach it. I think micro investing apps have a lot going for them. I think they're really cool. I think the interfaces are neat.

I think it's getting a lot of people interested in saving for retirement that haven't thought about it before. But I think ultimately, you know that are are a lot of potential pitfalls that that could really derail your your savings for the long term. Yes, I think what we said earlier in the fact that it kind of gets people curious. I think that's one of the best benefits

of this. I think that it gets people thinking about it, They get curious, they kind of do a little bit of dig in, they kind of do some googling, see what's out there, and it gets them down the path of better financial literacy versus just like this app that they kind of use and they don't really know exactly how it works, but they're doing it. And I love

the results of that because it gets people saving. But at the core, you still need to have a plan, and so if it converts app users into spreadsheet users users, like that would be the path that I would love to see more users kind of going down. I think it's all about having a plan, being able to think things through, and then you know, based on the plan, based on your goals and what it is that you want to pursue, make the changes that you need to make,

uh to achieve those things. And so along those lines, we would recommend you too, if you haven't already, to listen to episode nine, where we talked about how investing for retirement is a lot simpler than you think. It's not this sort of complicated thing, and certainly app developers out there have found a way to develop that into this slick app that you can kind of just touch on your phone a few times and all of a sudden you're saving and setting aside chunks of money. But

really it's not that hard to begin with. It oftentimes does get overly complicated if you allow it to kind of build up to be this sort of giant thing. But listen to that episode. We really try to break it down and help you realize that it is so much simpler than you think. Yeah, I agree, Matt. Investing as an individual investor has gotten so easy, you know, and these apps are just kind of that furthest reach

of like how easy can you get? But just regular investing through you know, a discount brokerage house is so easy. We tell you how in that episode. That's an episode you should listen to before you go all in on one of these micro investing apps. All right, let's head back to the beer mat tonight. We're drinking Wandering Blues, a blueberry sour ale from Orpheous Brewing. Yeah, thank you guys again so much for donating this beer. Uh, we

think it's delicious. What I've noticed as a sort of warmed up man as we've gotten to the bottom of my glass, it's almost got like I feel like I say this too much, but it's almost has like a weedy finish it to me, It kind of finishes like a like a Berlin advice. Yeah. I think it's pleasantly tart along with you know, a nice dose of blueberry sweetness. And it really it has like that kind of feeling of biting into a blueberry. And and you know, a lot of these fruit bears, I would say, got lack

some of the fruitiness that you're that you're looking for. Yeah, this one's got it for sure, this one's got it. This one's got blueberries. Hopp The wazoo and so fruity tart. I think it's excellent for the summer. It was actually fermented with fresh blueberries that were actually juiced. Yeah, so it's probably got like actual blueberry juice in there, which yeah,

it's this is really good. So yeah, Orpheus literally just put this back out in six packs, into the into the wild and in our fair state of Georgia, and it's yeah, it's really good. Look forward at your local bottle shop. Yeah, if you're coming down to Atlanta, if you're a local, Yeah, check these out. Man. Before we do, like o our little recap that we normally do. What

do you like? What are your thoughts in general? Like, so specifically we're talking about m one where it seemed like that them and actually some future apps that are out there are looking to compete with some of the big names like Vanguard and you know, even kind of replace them altogether if they've got zero fees. Like, do you feel comfortable, like, would you transfer like your entire rathire a over from you know, a big player like Vanguard or Fidelity or something like that into this app?

So I wouldn't transfer my funds over And there's a couple of reasons. One, you know, my four O one K through work is through Vanguard, and so just doing all my investing in one place just gives me kind of one less thing to worry about, one less headache, especially when you know the expense ratio on the fund that I'm in is so ridiculously low. To move into an app that has, you know, kind of I don't know the future for them, I'm I'm not willing to

do that. You know, I would definitely be willing to maybe start dabbling in an app like m one or and like I did with Robin Hood. But I definitely, you know, think that Vanguard is this kind of stalwart or Fidelity or Charles Schwab. They are these companies that have been around for decades and you know, will likely continue to be around because they've built a busines this

that will stand the test of time. Yeah. Man, certainly they've got a lot more to lose than like these new startups, right, Like, I mean, we even talked about this, but I think of even like customer service, and I've never had to get on the phone to talk to Vanguard or anything like that, but I gotta imagine it would be a heck of a lot easier to talk to somebody and have them fix the problem. Vanguard versus you know, Robin Hood where I'm just like, where's my money?

Then like nobody picks up. Um, but yeah, I'm I'm totally with you. They only probably do customer service to Snapchat, I would imagine, so they're like new number who do this. Yeah, So I'm self employed, so I don't have a four one K. I've just got the roth ira A and I would not at this point at least feel comfortable transferring over, um, my my roth are a or my wife's roth are from Vanguard over to a newer startup

and a newer app. But you know what, if I was just starting out, I would feel way more comfortable starting off there and building up from there and just kind of riding it out and seeing where it leads, just because you know, you've got less to lose, certainly, and nobody wants to lose you know, the amount of money. But it's not like, I mean, you're not gonna be

losing money anyway. These apps are insured by the s I A PC, just like any of the big players like Vanguard, Uh Infidelity to your funds are insured up to fix exactly one or a vantguard. But something about starting off small and kind of building up with the company versus just sort of like doing this massive shift of all of your funds over um, I would feel much more comfortable kind of doing the small growth model

along with the company. It's like we're in this together, versus feeling like you're coming to the table with a lot more chips and who knows how long they're going to be around. Yeah, no doubt, So let's do a quick recap. Mat Ultimately, I think that micro investing is this major shift that is breaking down barriers to investing and allows pretty much everybody to invest, whether you've got

five bucks or five bucks. I kind of think it's really neat in this investing revolution that it's accessible to pretty much anyone. Yeah, man, I love how it levels of the playing field and uh, it's completely accessible. Yeah, And we only mentioned some of the bigger and better players that are out there, that being Robin Hood, Acorns and then the sort of honorable mention the new guys for us at least M one. But just keep in mind that this is a very fast evolving scene. There

are a lot of players out there. There are a lot of folks I bet that are going to be out there that didn't even exist when we recorded this by the end of the year. Is to be sure to do your homework. It will be sure to link to our favorites there on our show notes. Yeah, and one of the pros of micro investing is that it's easy to get started. You can be investing in stocks and ETFs in five minutes or less from the comfort

of your own smartphone, which is nuts. The second best thing, man, is that these apps have low or no fees all together. When you're looking to save money, you don't want it to cost you money. But sadly, micro investing really is going to be micro results. And so so it's not good to bank all of your retirement nest egg on pennies rounded up here and there put into a portfolio of stocks that's just not going to be enough for

you to live on. And so you need to be thinking about investing on a level that faster passes just micro investing. And another downside is that you're buying and selling of these stocks within these apps could be based more on emotion than there would be otherwise. You know, when it's as easy to sell or buy a stock as unlocking your phone and making you know, two or three clicks, that scares me, to be honest, Yeah, no doubt.

And I think micro investing ultimately can be fine, you know, initially starting out and you know, learning a little bit about stock investing with small amounts of money, but you need to have a plan for the long term and you need to be saving more than just your spare change, which is what micro investing apps are really all about. Thanks everyone for listening. Our home on the web is how to money dot com. We'll have shown us up

there for this episode. And if you like what you hear and have found this podcast helpful, please let us know by giving us a review on Apple Podcast. We'd love to hear from you, and be sure to subscribe while you're there. Until next time, Man, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out. M