Ok so I know that excess money isn’t always a problem but what about the opportunity cost of allowing your money to just sit in the bank (or under the mattress?). There is a better way and that is investing. If you area savvy investor already then you know what I’m talking about. But for those of us that get slightly confused when someone talks about investing… this is for you. I stumbled across betterment a few years ago and have been very happy with them for one main reason: it’s super simple investing.

Why Invest?

So lets start with the basics, why invest at all? Well when I was a kid I remember my dad talking about putting money into CDs (certificates of deposit) and getting 3-5% annual returns. Those were the good ole days. Now when you check rates for CDs they barely pull half a percent annually.  I think I would rather keep my money in the bank and at least have access to it.

But CDs are just one investment tool.  Investing in stocks directly is another one.  You can open accounts with online brokers and start investing today.  I enjoy doing this sometimes because I a friend will tell me that such and such stock is gonna be a real hit so I should buy now.  But to be honest I often forget about my online stock account when I am busy.

Investing is the best way to grow your money.  At moneysoldiers.com we love it when our money works for us.  That’s why they are like little soldiers. Investing is making money work.

Passive Investing is wonderful

Day trading is very time consuming.  I know some people are good at it, but some people are just gambling.  It is quite difficult to keep up with actual company financial results as well as investors’ sentiment.  But passive investing is not so difficult.

Or is it? According to Mr. Money Mustache you can invest in index funds that cover large parts of the market. That sounds simple enough but still isn’t super clear for me. I want something super easy.

Betterment is Great

First of all I will straight up say that I am promoting betterment (wasn’t obvious?) but honestly I was a customer of theirs way before I thought of promoting them.  I have been using them for about 2 years and have just now started to promote them.  To be honest, in those two years I haven’t thought much about them.  I have a simple set up:

First, I created a goal in their system to save 10,000 in 5 years to help with buying a car.  I set it to high risk (against their suggestion) and it told me the likelihood that I would reach my goal. Then I set up automatic deposits according to their suggestion it worked out to be around $150 per month.

It was really really easy.

My favorite thing

I am not really stable with my investments yet.  And one of the things I really like about betterment is the fact that I can easy and quickly transfer money in and out of the investment account.  It kindly tells me how that will affect my taxes and I am fine with that.  So I have been just using betterment as my 2nd savings account.  I just move excess money in and let it work for me while I decide what I will do with it.

So if you hate me for promoting betterment but still want to try it out here is a non affiliate link.

Go try them out and let me know how it goes.