Invest your money like a magnificently lazy person
Think about all the spare change we lose everywhere: in our cars, our couches, briefcases, old purses, desk drawers etc. If we’re not losing it, we’re carelessly telling the gas station cashier to keep the change, using it for scratch off’s or finding some way to get rid of it. But what if there was a better way to use it?
What if you could without thinking, give it towards a greater cause? Or use it to increase your money, without saving in advance? Acorns and Altruist, two new innovative apps, do just that, and uses spare change towards something better than the bottom of our couch cushions.
Invest your change in charity
Altruist, allows users to create a diverse portfolio of all their favorite causes and nonprofits, and donates as they wish. The way it works: you link a card to your account, and Altruist will automatically round up each purchase to the nearest dollar, and use the spare change towards your portfolio.
Altruist says not only will it rid you of your change clutter, but will also grant you the satisfaction of feeling good about your purchases because “you are helping build a better world”. There are no fees associated with Altruist, and all it takes is entering your email address on their site, to get started.
Invest your change in yourself
Acorns, for the more financially inclined, allows users to create a diverse investment portfolio, and uses your spare change to invest. After an initial investment of as little as $5, users must link a card, similar to Altruist, and each purchase is rounded to the nearest dollar.
The user then has the option to invest that change into their portfolio, or keep it. The fee’s are pretty reasonable too: it’s free for students and users under 24, and only $1 a month for accounts under 5k and 25% a year for accounts over 5k. Users also have the option of changing their investment type to fit their needs at anytime, ranging from aggressive to conservative.
No more excuses to invest
Both of these apps help eliminate our typical excuse of never having enough money to donate or invest, and are a great way to make use of change that would be otherwise useless.
I challenge you to make better use of your change and choose an app to use, invite your team as well, Altruist for the philanthropic, and Acorns for the financially savvy, and blog about why you’re using the app. I personally just downloaded Acorns, so we’ll see how this goes.
