We are in the heart of summer. Half the year is already over. How time flies. Regardless of the season, I feel like I am constantly reviewing my financial health and constantly planning for the future. Maybe it’s therapeutic. I don’t know. In any case, after doing some soul searching, I decided to give Acorns another try. Yup, Acorns – that same investment app whose tag line is: Grow your oak!
Let’s dive in to see why. This won’t be a long post.
Why Did I Cancel?
As you may know, Acorns is a service that helps you save and invest your spare change. I initially first reviewed them back in 2017 in my post partially entitled, Invest Your Spare Change. If memory serves me well, it was free to use (or the cost was very low). Since that time, however, the cost to use the service has risen.
Now, Acorns charges $3 per month. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you’re only investing your spare change, $3 is a HUGE cost per amount invested. For example, if I invest $10 for the month, Acorns would charge me 30% just for the privilege of investing the $10. That doesn’t seem worth it to me. Hence the reason why I constantly report in my monthly dividend income reports that I’ve cancelled my subscription.
Furthermore, there seemed to be little reason to use Acorns when there are other brokerages, such as M1 Finance, that allows me to invest completely for free and with more options to customize my portfolio. So, I’m not knocking Acorns or the service they provide, but the cost didn’t make sense to me.
So Why Give Acorns Another Try?
As I was going through the process of canceling my account, I realized that there was another option available. Instead of paying $3 per month, Acorns charges $1 per month!
$1 per month is still high, relatively speaking, but it’s much more affordable than $3. Now, taking my example above, the $1 per month would represent only a 10% fee for the privilege to invest my spare change of $10.
The more money invested per month, the less impact the $1 per month fee becomes.
Moreover, I do like the service that Acorns provide. Sure, I can save and invest my spare change on my own, but will I? Probably not! And that’s the point!!!
By using the app again, I will be investing my spare change on a regular basis. This won’t be my retirement funds, but the portfolio may build up overtime to assist me in my financial goals for the future.
So, for now, I’ve decided to give Acorns another try.
Conclusion
Acorns is an app that provides an interesting service to its customers. It allows users to save and invest their space change automatically, and in the background of life. Although there are other companies out there that do similar things, Acorns makes investing easy and simple. But, all that comes at a cost.
There regular cost of $3 per month seemed excessive. Now, with their more affordable $1 per month plan, I am ready to give Acorns another try.
What did you think of this post? Do you use such as as Acorns?
Let me know your thoughts by commenting below.