I don't do referral articles very often, but, Betterment is offering a pretty good sign up bonus, so I figured I would write a review. Link at the bottom.
For starters, from a Forbes review: Betterment is solid robo-advisor choice for people who want to get serious about investing for something big, like a home down payment, college fund or their own retirement. Betterment algorithms match your risk tolerance and specific goals to diversified portfolios of low-cost exchange traded funds. There is no minimum deposit requirement to open an account, but a $10 minimum deposit is needed to start investing. Opening a Betterment account is relatively straightforward, as is picking the right investment portfolio for each of your goals.
In short, it is a Robo Advisor. Now, any Financial Advisor is going to tell you they can do better for you than a Robo Advisor, but here is the kicker, not only do they have to be better than Betterment they have to be way better, as the normal fee from a Financial Advisor starts at 1% and can be as high 2%. So, they have to perform better by quite a bit to overcome the fact Betterment only charges .25%.
Now, what are my experiences on Betterment and how did I end up using it? Well, to start, only about 20% of my money is there, most of my cash is with Betterment because the return on their cash account is usually one of the highest you can find, right now I am getting 4.00% with a promo they have going. My main use for Betterment is for my wife's Roth and some saving for larger items (like cars.) My wife went back to work a few years ago and we were looking for a way to easily put aside some money for retirement.
Her Roth account on Betterment has had a better return than my 401k, my Fidelity account (mostly self managed) and my Robinhood account. This is probably because there is no way to mess around with Betterment, you simply put money in and they manage everything. Your choices are very limited and if you just set up a recurring deposit, you by definition are dollar cost averaging. Usually, it is when we think we can time the market, that we start making mistakes.
You can play around with the initial investments some and choose what type of investment portfolio you want. There is a tech option, a green option, and general investment option. You can also decide what percentage you want in stocks and what percentage you want in bonds. That is about it, though. No crypto.
So, in short. Betterment is an extremely easy way to invest that doesn't sacrifice returns even with, or because of, the low management fees. It is a federally insured, so you are safe here as with any bank. You won't get rich quick and you will not be able to buy individual stocks, but, there are plenty of other options out there for that.
Betterment has moved into the individual stock arena, checking and self directed investing over the last few years. I have looked into these and they are pretty simple and straight forward, I do not use them, though, as I use other providers for this and it would defeat my purpose of having a Betterment account. I would assume it is a matter of time before they get into crypto, but, as of now, no dice.
As mentioned, there is a sign up bonus right now if you use this link, so give it a try. (150 dollars and 4.00 interest rate with the link below.)
