I am taking a few days or weeks to test out a few more applications. I enjoy branching out, eventually taking advantage of what each platform has to offer.

Right now I am currently working on M1 Finance, Public, and Fidelity. M1 has been an interesting experience, and I think there is a lot to offer, I just need to spend more time within the app.

Fidelity is taking a really long time to get the account up and running. I will have to report back, but ultimately, not impressed with the delay. Some of these apps give you same day approval, but mostly just within a day or two.

Public approved my account, but they are taking a really long time to send the micro transactions to get started. I received a free $2.00 fractional share of Disney and that is about all I can do until it places those micro deposits in. I am excited about Public because of the social aspect to it, but it doesn’t appear to be very active.

I’ll take some time to go over these applications, get some investments started, and see how these apps take care of the user.

Let me know what apps you are currently using!

Acorns is an app that aims to help the beginner investor by automating the investing. This type of investing account and app is called a Robo-Advisor. I suggest you do your own due diligence with Robo-Advisors, because the market has become flooded with different options.

I have had Acorns installed on my phone before, removed it, and after a while, I’ve decided to give it another try. It’s by far the app I spend the least amount of time in. The app itself is clean and is definitely a dream for a minimalist, but I feel it lacks something to keep me within the app, or at least understanding the full method of auto investing.

Other Robo-Advisor type of applications or fintech give you an option to also try an active investing account or give fraction shares as an option to build a separate portfolio. I understand the idea behind the robo-advisor is to be hands off, but when it comes to money, I like to know where it’s going, even though I might not have put my money there is the first place.

Acorns gives you a few different approaches on investing, Aggressive, Moderate, or low risk, and I went with Aggressive. It takes a little bit to get used to the interface, but if you managed to find your way to it, you can actually see the pie chart of where your money goes, you can change your approach to investing, and you can narrow down to see where your holdings are.

Most other fintech or robo-advisors give some sort of news, but Acorns sticks to a minimalist view, only giving directions on how to further invest your money within Acorns.

My biggest gripe with Acorns is that not all banks are created or function equal. I have a bank that unfortunately doesn’t allow roll overs that Acorns in famous for, so the basic function doesn’t work for me. They also have a $1.00 minimum charge for the account which can be seen as cheap, but when you are first getting started, every dollar counts. My family is attempting to use our credit cards less, so the roll over is just not a reality for me as an Acorns user.

Overall, I am enjoying the hands off approach as it’s a bit freeing than constantly monitoring your own choices. I also really enjoy the focus on minimum investments, reoccurring investments, and the simplicity to use the overall app. The sign up is quick as well, which is not always the case with other apps.

If you’re looking to get started, use my invite link below!
https://www.acorns.com/invite/5UA35V

When you begin investing, one thing stands out the most. Diversification. This means spreading your money out instead of focusing on one sector or market.

Coinbase is a perfect application and company to get started with if you are completely new to Cryptocurrency, trading, buying, and selling crypto. They invest a lot of time and money in the users they acquire, and rightfully so. When I signed up, not only did I get $5.00 in Bitcoin, but I was added to multiple presentations that resulted in earning other cryptocurrencies after answering quiz questions.

I have been able to increase the amount of free money I’ve been given, simply as the market moves up. It’s free money, just sitting there, waiting for you. Just a little bit of time gets you up and running.

I now have a better concept of what crypto is and how its being traded on certain markets. I may not fully understand it, but I at least understand it enough to invest small amounts. The crypto revolution isn’t going anywhere, and most keep picking up steam. This becomes a perfect time to diversify your portfolio.

Coinbase allows you to start small, then work your way up. Not only can you trade, buy, sell, but you can convert your Crypto into other cryptocurrencies. I have most of my money in Bitcoin and Ethereum, but soon to get into LiteCoin.

The Crypto market is a 24/7 market with ups and downs, get comfortable with fluctuations, because bad days, your number may drop a few dollars, but the opposite can happen as well with good days. There definitely seem to be more good days with Crypto than bad, allowing my money to keep growing, snowballing into an eventual mountain (remaining hopeful).

If you’re looking into a one stop shop for learning, buying, selling, trading, converting crpyto with a huge market for all of the favorites, then check out Coinbase and take advantage of their free money. They really do invest a lot into the user. Check out the invite link to get started.
https://www.coinbase.com/join/white_t35

Let me start by saying, I LOVE the interface for SoFi. At first, it feels like it might be way too much, but eventually you just keep scrolling and scrolling to find every bit of information that can help you on this quest.

With SoFi, I started with $20.00 in two different accounts, SoFi Automated, and SoFi Active. I also have a reoccurring deposit two both of these accounts and I’ve made it a fun game to see which one does better.

For the SoFi Automated, SoFi and their staff work to place the trades for you, giving you that hands off investor feel. Almost as if you have a personal assistant, helping you with the right moves.

But there is an entirely other great advantage to SoFi. It’s called Fractional Shares or “Stock Bits” as SoFi calls them. These fractional shares or stock bits, are a perfect entry way into investing and putting your money to work. You can own shares of your top favorite stocks, ETFs, and other tradable securities without having to have the entire capital to purchase one full share.

SoFi also gives you the ability to reinvest your dividends and other returns as a way to purchase more fractional shares of these big top name companies.

Overall, I am having a great time checking my app every day, getting points to check my accounts, and seeing the race between two accounts. If it wasn’t for the fractional or stock bits, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the returns and dividends of some of these large companies, and now I can have a piece of that pie.

If you are looking to start a SoFi account, feel free to use my invite link!
https://www.sofi.com/share/invest/3899735

When you start the beginning process of: How to invest, Where to invest, How much to invest, and the plethora of other questions that go along with it, the process of narrowing down your selections becomes muddy.

I too was unaware of what the best option would be and instead I went with whoever was offering the best deal at the time. Within these posts, I will give my opinion on these new fintech tools, helping to guide you into a better decision for yourself. One thing I learned, it definitely helps to have more than one brokerage or application, as diversification is the key!

In your research, you will definitely hear that a lot, diversification. It is very important to put your eggs in many baskets so in case one goes down, the other baskets can help balance your portfolio.

I have been reading the book, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, by John Bogle and it has been very eye opening at getting started and getting ahead with not only investing, but making sure your investments are diversified. If you get a chance, read that book and it will open your eyes as well.

In this post, I will be going over one of my absolute favorite fintech applications, Webull. Not only is it user friendly, but it’s a great entryway for learning how to buy and sell stocks with $0 commissions and access to the top cryptocurrency.

Webull has a lot of education packed into the application and even better, they have a paper trading module that is very important. Before buying and selling stocks, I think everyone should spend some time with some sort of simulation or paper trading module in order to get a feel for what placing a trade is like and what to expect.

There are a lot of helpful YouTube videos showing the Webull setup, but I enjoyed digging into the application myself as the menus and access is very user friendly. Webull gives you all of the tools needed to be a successful Day Trader, Swing Trader, and long time investor. The only tool I thought Webull lacked was allowing fractional trading with stocks, which allows those of us with less to invest to get started.

Instead, Webull gives you free stocks when you sign up, and more when you deposit at least $100 dollars into the platform. Webull is your broker, so everything is all contained within this easy to view app on your phone or tablet, but better yet, the desktop version is even better. I actually think if you are going to be actively trading, you might want to look into the desktop version, it’s great and allows you to see so much more information.

The Webull interface shows you a watchlist that you can build out with your favorite stocks and ETFs, they show you the market indexes and how they are operating throughout the day, and they show you a lot of other information that is helpful to day traders and swing traders, and the long term trader. They show details of high volume stocks, hot stocks that are changing either up in price or down in price, they show you what the best ETFs are at the time, and loads of other information.

When you choose a stock to look at, you get everything you could ask for in regards to News, price, charts, indicators, profile, key statistics, and they even have an Analyst rating for specific stocks that show if it’s a buy or sell.

I am new to trading, so the few trades I have made were very small and I am working up to larger risk, but I also have invested in a few ETFs for the long term ride and plan on continuing to build my portfolio as I expand.

The app runs smooth and is very capable of placing trades and finding information on stocks you are currently looking for while on a tablet or phone, but I definitely recommend the desktop version if you are really getting into trading.

Webull offers trading with stocks, ETFs, Cryptocurrency, Options trading, and the use of a margin account for day traders. I use a cash account as I would rather use my own funds than get into anything specific with a margin account and a broker. I suggest you look into which account would be best for you, Cash or Margin.

When you sign up for Webull, I believe you get a free stock added to your account, and when you place funds of $100 or more into your account, you are rewarded with 1-3 more free stocks. The stocks seem pretty random as I was given shares of ADT, Zynga, and a few other low cost stocks. You can either sell them and add the funds to your new portfolio to buy and sell other stocks, or you can keep them and see how they treat you, I mean… it is free money!

Another bonus is an invitation to Webull, if you are signing up and want more free stocks, use my code when setting up and we both can get free stocks. If you do so, I will be eternally grateful, and we can help each other out to get a little closer to achieving the dream of financial freedom.

Webull Invite Link – https://act.webull.com/iv/mOf8ClcblelS/ufo/inviteUs/