In the final months of 2017, I have made it my mission to figure out how to save money. I know it sounds kind of silly, especially when I could’ve waited to make it a New Year’s resolution to find ways of saving money, but let’s be honest, New Year’s resolutions don’t usually make it out of the month of January. So in my nights of researching on how to save money and make money, I came across this app called Acorns. Acorns takes the change from your daily purchases and puts it into a small investment account. It takes minimal effort on your part and helps you create savings, in a short amount of time.
Acorns is nifty, because again, it just takes the change from your purchases, and puts it into a small investment account. You can grow this investment account as you please, and along with just putting your change in there, you can opt to make one time investments as well as recurring investments. You can also set it to do double the change (so if you have $0.50 as the change from the purchase, it will invest $1.00) or triple the change (the same scenario as above, but instead it would invest $1.50). Mine is personally set to double the change.
I have had the app for a little over 2 months now, and have saved $107.02 from just my double the change investments. $52.20 from the past month alone. Depending on how many purchases you make on a daily basis, this number could vary drastically. You are also investing in the stock market, so the more you invest in the app, the more you can receive back in dividends and interest on the account. By about a month in, I had earned about $0.42 in interest, and a few pennies in dividends, which may not seem like much, but for short-term growth, it definitely isn’t terrible.
It is super easy to withdrawal too. Within the app, on the menu section, there is a small tab that says “withdrawal,” and you just select the amount you want to withdrawal, and it shows up into your checking account within 5-7 business days. Which is great if you are trying not to spend money, but like to make irrational decisions last second to buy something. You can’t access the funds immediately, which makes it much more difficult to do irrational spending with the money saved.
There are some downfalls to this app though, such as that it does not invest the change as you spend it. It waits until $5.00 has been saved, then transfers it from your checking account. For the first month or so I had the app, I would often forget about this, and it overdrew my account once or twice. After a while, you do get used to the app and learn to keep at least $5.00 in your account at all times. The app also becomes accustomed to your spending and bank account habits, so now if it’s trying to withdrawal more than what is currently in my account, it places a freeze on my Acorns account, to prevent it from overdrawing my checking account again. They will wait until I have the funds in my account again to pull out the money for the investment.
So if you are looking for a way to save money, while not really realizing you’re saving money this app is the way to go. I know a lot of banks have the save your change accounts, but they can be very easily accessed, which makes them a perfect target if you are trying to purchase something irrationally. On top of spending the money you are saving, you can also earn a little bit on the account, which can help grow your savings to meet your target goal. Just stay aware of your finances!
Featured Image via Unsplash.
