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Motif Investing vs Betterment: Which is Right for You

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Two powerhouses in the robo-investing world are Motif Investing and Betterment. If you’re considering signing up for one of these services, you should first be aware that they offer tools better suited to particular investors. Read on for a run-down of what makes these robo-advisors unique, and which one is the best fit for you.

  • Review of: Motif Investing vs. Betterment
  • Reviewed by: Michael Foster
  • Published on: January 17, 2017
  • Last modified: January 17, 2017
  • Betterment Promotional Offer? Betterment Provides Non-pay 2 Months
  • Motif Investing Promotional Bonus?: Coming Soon…

Motif Investing: Bundled Stocks and ETFs

The best benefit that Motif offers is the ability to buy a group of ETFs at one low commission price. With Motif, you can purchase up to 30 stocks and/or ETFs and pay a one-time commission of $9.95 per trade. With most conventional online brokerages, fees are closer to $9.95 (and can even go up to $19.95) per trade, so you’re already saving potentially $300 off the bat with Motif.

When you purchase these assets, you have significant control over what you’re purchasing. To understand what I mean by this, let’s drill into the concept of “motifs.”

Motif Investing offers an easy-to-use platform where investors can select a particular investment thesis and they’re automatically presented with a portfolio of stocks and funds that match that particular thesis. For example, let’s imagine you think inflation is going to skyrocket during President Trump’s presidency and this could ultimately hurt economic growth. You’ll want to buy gold and precious metals to hedge against inflation and diversify away from stocks and bonds.

On other platforms, you would need to find those ETFs and stocks that fit your thesis. With Motif, you choose the pre-selected portfolio for precious metals, and you can buy a group of stocks and funds that match your investment thesis. This brings instant diversification while still corresponding to your own view of the market.

Motif Investing offers thousands of these kinds of portfolios for all kinds of investment styles. If you want high dividends, specialty tech companies poised to boom with AI and IoT, or biotech firms on the cutting edge of science, there’s a motif for you.

On top of that, Motif Investing allows you to create your own motifs if you aren’t happy with the pre-set ones out there. This gives you an additional level of control on your portfolio. You can mix and match the professionally designed motifs with your own to create a portfolio with exposure to multiple hypotheses at the same time.

It’s best to think of Motif Investing as diversification on steroids. Not only do you get the power of controlling your own portfolio, but also the opportunity to diversify across hundreds or thousands of assets at a low-cost.

There’s a low barrier to entry as well. Motif Investing has a $250 account minimum, so it’s easy to jump in.

Power Tools

One of the best things about Motif Investing is that it has tools for more advanced investors. These include:

  1. Adjusting Motifs

With Motif, you can buy and sell individual stocks inside Motifs or add additional stocks outside of the motif any time you want. These trades are also cheaper (just $4.95 per transaction).

  1. Real-time quotes

For an additional monthly fee, you can get access to real-time quotes for thousands of ETFs and stocks.

  1. Automated investing and rebalancing

Again, for an additional monthly fee you can set up Motif to automatically withdraw funds from your bank account and invest them into the motifs you like. (Read below for a breakdown of these fees).

  1. Margin Investing

Motif also allows leverage. You can borrow at rates between 4.25% and 6.75% to make more aggressive bets. The minimum account balance requirement for margin investing is $2,000.

Betterment: Holistic Financial Planning

Motif Investing gives power investors an extra tool to invest based on their market view, making it a great tool for someone who has confidence in their investment ideas and a clear plan for the future.

Not everyone is so sure about tomorrow, however. For a lot of us, we don’t even know what financial goals are realistically achievable and how we can get there.

If this describes you, then Betterment may be a better choice.

Betterment focuses on individual investors’s financial wellbeing by providing calculators and planning tools to identify what investment strategy will help them achieve their goals. In most cases this means planning for retirement, but people can use Betterment to plan for all kinds of investment goals like building a rainy day fund, saving up to buy a house, or just general prudent money management.

Betterment does this with beautiful, easy-to-use tools. You punch in your income, your age, your goals, and Betterment will tell you how you can reach those goals. Betterment will also tell you which asset allocations will best fit your situation and your risk tolerance.

For instance, let’s say you’re a 25 year old office worker making $50,000 per year and you have $10,000 in cash savings. You know you should put that money to work, but you don’t know how. Also you know you want to retire eventually, but you don’t know when you’ll be able to or how much money you need to get there. You also have no idea how much you should be saving and which accounts you should use to save your money. What’s more, you don’t know which assets make the most sense—stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.—and you don’t know where to buy these and how much you should buy every month.

Betterment uses artificial intelligence to answer these questions. You just go to the site or app, input how old you are, what you own, and it will tell you how much you need to save to retire at any age you choose. You can see how much more you’ll need to save to retire at 50 versus retiring at 60. You can also adjust your portfolio to fit your risk tolerance to build a plan that will help you sleep at night.

When you’ve done all of that, Betterment can set up an automatic deposit schedule so you’re automatically investing your money according to your financial plan every paycheck. If you want to save more, you can use their SmartDeposit tool to save and invest extra money left over in your account, instead of letting it sit there and earn virtually 0% in the bank.

Cost Comparison

Already we can see pretty clearly that Betterment and Motif Investing are very different tools, but is one of them cheaper than the other?

That’s not an easy question to answer.

Motif Investing starts at the $9.95 commission price point mentioned above. For every motif you buy and sell, you’re going to pay nearly $10 per transaction. Motif also allows you to buy and sell individual stocks for $4.95 per transaction.

If you want to auto-invest and auto-balance your portfolio with Motif, that will cost a flat fee ranging from $4.95 per month (for 1 motif) to $19.95 per month (for 3 motifs). You also get three commission-free trades with the more expensive plan as well as real-time stock quotes and exclusive market reports. There’s also a $9.95 per month option that offers almost everything of the priciest option, but without the real-time quotes.

Betterment works on a flat-fee pricing model that ranges from 0.35% for balances less than $10,000 to 0.15% for accounts worth more than $100,000. In-between, you’ll pay 0.25% annually.

Let’s break this down.

If you are looking to invest $30,000 and you plan to buy and hold 3 motifs in one year, Motif Investing will cost you $29.85. If you go with Betterment, you’ll be paying $75. However, if you plan on selling those 3 motifs more than once in a year, you’ll be paying more than Betterment.

When you want to figure out which service is cheaper, it’s best to think about how you’re going to use it. If you plan on buying and holding one basket forever and you know what you want to buy, Motif Investing is the way to go. If you don’t really know what you want, Betterment will probably be better.

However, if you want automatic deposits into your account monthly, Betterment will probably be the cheaper option because of the $4.95 monthly fee at Motif Investing. Unless you’re dealing with a really huge account of $500,000 or more, the math is on your side with Betterment. You can avoid the $4.95 monthly fee at Motif if you deposit manually, again demonstrating that Motif is really better for someone who wants more control over their investing.

Conclusion: Power versus Automation

This overview of Betterment and Motif Investing makes it clear that both have their strengths, and both will work for different kinds of investors.

If you already know what your financial goals are and how much money you need to reach them, Motif Investing will give you the tools to invest based on your own view of the market and the future of the world’s economies. At the same time, Motif offers powerful diversification tools and low-cost trading to buy a basket of related assets that is less risky than buying and holding just one stock.

Betterment, on the other hand, is more of a personal finance assistant that helps you plan your financial goals and create an investment plan that will help you reach them (please check out out Betterment Review article).

Lending Club vs Prosper vs SoFi vs Best Egg

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A bunch of online lending companies have appeared in the last few years, and each has their own strength. But it’s difficult choosing the right one, or knowing which ones to go to. With more online lenders showing up every day, the choice is just getting harder. Fortunately, there are a few standouts, and as the market gets bigger, these options keep getting better. But they all have their own special value for potential borrowers, so it’s important to weigh the pros and cons of each.

 

Want to learn more? Here are the 4 best online lenders, what they’re best for, and what the downsides are with each one.

Lending Club

Lending Club is the biggest of the peer-to-peer loan universe, and allows people to borrow for all sorts of reasons: debt consolidation, business funding, medical procedures, vacations—really just about anything. The good thing about this is you can go to Lending Club for any kind of loan. Lending Club also can provide great returns for investors, especially if you know how to use it correctly.

For borrowers, this is a bit of a drawback. Peer-to-peer lenders tend to be hungry for the highest rate they can possibly get while taking on the least amount of risk. This can make them picky and raise the floor of how low loan rates can be on the platform. The good thing about borrowing with Lending Club is you can approve or reject any kind of loan offer you want, and set your own terms of how you want to borrow. The tools remain in your hands throughout the entire process.

Prosper

Prosper is very similar to Lending Club: a peer-to-peer lending platform that matches borrowers with investors who want to give credit to people. Prosper specializes in personal loans of many types, and all Prosper loans last 3-5 years.

Prosper has a wide range of how much people can borrow: anywhere between $2,000 and $35,000. The loans can be paid at any time, and rates will vary but usually start at 7%. Because of the high rate, Prosper is best for emergencies or for consolidating credit card debt—with car loans, student loans, or other financial needs, you’re probably better off with someone else. If you have a student loan, read on.

SoFi

SoFi stands for “Social Finance” and is another big lending operation. Unlike Prosper and LendingClub, they focus on one thing: refinancing student loans. Since student loan debt has grown to over $1.4 trillion and keeps growing, there’s a big market for SoFi to handle on their own. They’ve already helped people refinance over $9 billion in loans, and there’s plenty of room for more lending.

This is a great opportunity for students to refinance their student loans at very low rates. Unlike LendingClub and Prosper, SoFi does not do peer-to-peer lending. Instead, they get money from accredited investors and large institutions, who are looking to spread their investments to lower their risk.

This is partly why SoFi rates are so low; loans have fixed rates at 3.5% and above, but if you choose AutoPay you can cut your interest rate to 2.14%. Since inflation is currently at about that, this means you’re pretty much borrowing for free.

The one drawback with SoFi: they have high standards, and your rate is based on a variety of things, including your career, the school you went to, and your credit score. Your rate could be considerably higher if any of these isn’t exactly what SoFi is looking for—but it will still probably be lower than what you’re paying now.

Best Egg

With over $1 billion in loans already done, Best Egg has grown fast, and it’s still growing as more people take advantage of the platform’s advanced features. Best Egg offers an excellent, intuitive app for managing your loan and has some of the best customer service in the online lending world.

Best Egg is still borrowing from a bank; the platform is run by Cross River Bank, and all loans are funded through them. This means you can expect personal loan interest rates similar to what you’d get at a bank: Best Egg rates start at 5.99%, and they depend on your credit score when setting your rate. The amount you can borrow is identical to Prosper: $2,000 to $35,000, and the platform only offers 3 and 5-year loans.

The downside is that rates can go up really high—they max out at 29.99%. Also, Best Egg charges an “origination fee” of 0.99% to 4.99%, so beware those fees when you apply. Don’t worry—you won’t pay the fee until after you’ve been offered a loan and accept it.

The best reason to choose Best Egg is loan management: their online tools make it much easier than any bank loan, but remember that it remains a bank loan. Because of that, their approval process can be a bit more demanding than Lending Club or Prosper.

Lending Club vs Prosper vs SoFi vs Best Egg Conclusion

The online lender you choose depends on your situation. If you are looking to refinance a student loan, SoFi should be your first stop. For personal loans of any other type, we recommend Propser.

Consolidate Your Debts with a loan via Prosper.com. Learn more about peer-to-peer lending with rates from 5.99% to 36% APR*

Betterment vs Wealthfront vs Vanguard

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If you’re planning for retirement, you have more options than ever. That’s good and bad, because some of these options are a perfect fit for your unique situation, while others can end up being extremely expensive.

  • Betterment Promotional Offer Link?: Sign up here and Betterment will provide Non-pay 2 Months (this is by far the best promotional link available as most affiliates only offer 1 month no pay)

The biggest problem people have is choosing a company to help them plan. There are so many options each promising to deliver something better than everyone else. But a fast-growing trend in financial management seems to be working out for a lot of people: Roboadvisors. This is an ultra low-cost way of using algorithms to optimize an investment strategy for you. Starting with a few questions, these services can get you set up with a detailed financial plan and tell you how to get there.

There are two big roboadvisors out there: Betterment and Wealthfront. At first glance, they are very similar, but there are key differences that make one option better than another.

Betterment vs Wealthfront vs Vanguard

 

But not everyone likes roboadvisors, and another investment firm has seen huge growth in the last decade as investors turn to them for help. That company is Vanguard, and their low-cost approach to investing makes them even less expensive than the roboadvisors, while offering some services that Betterment and Vanguard don’t (while lacking some important things those guys do have).

So what’s best for you? To get to the bottom of this, let’s take a look at each in some detail.

Betterment

One of the first roboadvisors on the market, Betterment combines asset allocation, retirement planning, and optimizing investing all in one service. They also offer this at a fraction of the fees that most financial advisors pay. For every $100,000 invested, Betterment charges $150 per year (a 0.15% fee), which is a fraction of the $83 that most human advisors charge (a 1% fee).

However, fees are higher for smaller accounts. With accounts under $10,000, investors pay a 0.35% annual fee. Accounts between $10,000 and $99,999 will pay an annual fee of 0.25%.

Also, Betterment has no minimum account balance, so you can start investing with just $1.

What do you get for your money? Betterment starts with an online questionnaire that asks about your age, your income, your savings, and your goals. Betterment focuses mostly on retirement, but they will also help you set up an emergency fund and get you on the investing ladder.

Betterment will also link up to external brokerage accounts and help you keep track of what is in them. This is all automated and easy to do—just log in with your username and password. The security here is top-notch, so no need to worry about being your data.

After you’ve done all that, Betterment will set you up with a plan and show you how much money you will have saved in the future. They will also tell you how much you need to reach your goals, and if you’re on track. They will also maximize your portfolio for tax purposes.

Speaking of taxes, Betterment can work with your IRA and help you roll over a 401k into a traditional IRA, a Roth IRA, or a SEP IRA. Again, this is all automated but they have people ready to help you—and you can call them or email them 7 days a week. Betterment even works with trusts.

Betterment knows different investors have different risk levels, so they can help you identify the ideal mix between stocks and bonds for your comfort level and recommend funds that are best for you. They will also recommend portfolios based on your age, future goals, and risk tolerance and tell you how many fees each fund will charge you, so you know how much you are paying for your investments.

Wealthfront

Wealthfront is a lot like Betterment, but is slightly more expensive, at $225 a year in fees for a $100,000 account. However, the first $10,000 are managed for free and Wealthfront only requires a $500 account minimum to set up.

Wealthfront is a bit more expensive than Betterment for larger accounts, but offers many of the same services, like an automated questionnaire-based portfolio setup and tax-optimizing portfolio management.

So why pay more for Wealthfront? While Betterment uses automation and focuses on funds, Wealthfront also offers a useful tool for people who own shares in a single company. This is particularly useful if you work at a public company and have been compensated in stocks.

It’s called the “single stock diversification service” and, in short, here’s how it works: if you have individual shares in a brokerage account, Wealthfront will help you build a plan to sell your stocks based on your risk profile, your financial goals, and how quickly you want to sell your stocks. They will also set aside money in an account for taxes, so you won’t be shocked by a high tax bill when April rolls around.

Vanguard

Thanks to its age, Vanguard is a more traditional brokerage: founded in 1975, the company has quietly grown to manage over $3 trillion in assets, versus the $3 billion or so that startups Wealthfront and Betterment manage.

The company was founded by John C. Bogle, who spearheaded the passive investing movement. Bogle rightly points out that most mutual fund managers cannot beat the market, and investors are better off just buying low-cost, low-fee index funds and holding for a long time. This philosophy drove him to start the first passive index mutual fund, the Vanguard 500 Index Fund, which has a fee of just 0.16%.

The fund has grown to manage nearly $430 billion in assets, and has become a popular choice with investors who want to save for the long-term without worrying about finding great stocks that will outperform duds.

Vanguard is also a brokerage, so you can open an account and start buying Vanguard mutual funds as well as ETFs, individual stocks, CDs, bonds, and options. Commissions are high—a trade costs $20 after the first 25 trades, which cost $7 (accounts with $50,000 or more have lower trading costs).

These added features make Vanguard a better option if you want to buy and sell individual stocks in addition to buying mutual funds and ETFs, but Vanguard’s services are very different. They don’t offer the roboadvisor services of Wealthfront and Betterment, so if you want to plan your retirement future and your asset allocation, you’ll need to speak to one of Vanguard’s advisors.

Finally, Vanguard offers many different types of accounts than Betterment or Wealthfront, so if you’re planning for a child’s college education, they have 529s. If you want an annuity, Vanguard can offer that too.

Also, Vanguard offers 401ks, which is a big plus over Betterment and Wealthfront. If you’re self-employed, Vanguard can help you set up your own 401k through your company (whether an LLC or a C-Corp) and link it to your main Vanguard brokerage account.

Betterment vs Wealthfront vs Vanguard Conclusion

For someone who is a little more confident and knowledgable about investing and who wants more flexibility in investing, Vanguard is probably the best option. But for someone just starting out who is trying to establish a plan for retirement, Wealthfront or Betterment are probably the better options.

Between those two, you should look at how much money you have, how much you plan to invest, and which fee structure makes more sense for you. Also, if you have a lot of shares in a company and want help selling them, Wealthfront’s unique single stock diversification service is a great feature.

Most importantly, you need to start with a solid financial plan and look at the option that is going to be best for you and your goals. Then you can get on the road to true financial independence.

How to Use a Secured Credit Card to Rebuild Credit

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How to Use a Secured Credit Card to Rebuild Credit

No one’s financial life is perfect. Even Donald Trump declared bankruptcy and Warren Buffett has made investing goofs, so there’s no shame in having less than perfect credit. There’s also no reason to let your bad credit last for long when there’s an easy and virtually free way to rebuild your credit with little hassle and just a little foresight.

So, how do you do it? Easy—secured credit cards.

Secured Credit Cards Explained

Usually, credit cards are given to customers who are given a fixed limit that they can then charge on the card, and either pay off the balance within a month or over time with fixed payments and interest charges on top. These are known as “unsecured” lines of credit, because there is no security, or collateral, that the bank has in case you don’t pay your credit card. If you don’t you run the risk of a lawsuit against you (classactionwallet.com, wage garnishment, and a ruined credit score. In this way credit cards are different from mortgages (where the house is the collateral) or a car loan (where the car is the collateral).

Secured credit cards are different. Instead of giving you a credit card based on your creditworthiness, which is usually calculated by looking at your credit score, banks will issue a secured credit card after you deposit a certain amount of money in a restricted account.

For example,say you want a secured credit card with a $1,000 limit. For a 100% secured credit card, you’ll need to deposit $1,000 in an account with the card issuer. This ensures that the bank has a guarantee against defaults—if you don’t pay your credit card debt, the bank just keeps the money in that account until you do. Of course, if you pay the credit card you can get your money back if you request it—but the bank may then cancel your secured credit card.

This makes secured credit cards virtually risk free for banks, but what’s in it for you?

Benefits of Secured Credit Cards

People who have limited or bad credit will often get secured credit cards as a way of building up their credit scores. Since issuers of secured credit cards report the activity of cardholders to the major credit bureaus, a secured credit card is a way for you to build up a good credit history that, over time, will improve your credit.

This positive impact on a credit history is the main reason why most people bother with secured credit cards.

There are other benefits, too. Some secured credit cards offer rewards like points or airline miles, much like their unsecured cousins.

Also, it has become more common for card issuers to offer partly-secured credit cards to cardmembers who stay in good standing with a secured card for a while. For instance, if you have that $1,000 secured credit card for a couple months, you can call the bank and ask them to free up some of the money securing the card. If they say yes, they will release some portion—perhaps $200 of the initial $1,000 deposit—and keep your credit limit at $1,000. Over time, a secure credit card can turn into an unsecured card as the card issuer builds a relationship with the bank. Many card issuers will do this.

Dangers and Risks with Secured Credit Cards

Not all secured credit cards are a good thing, though. Some banks and card issuers frankly prey on people who don’t know any better. With secured cards, they do this by charging enormous fees for opening and maintaining the card.

Avoid this risk. Many card issuers will give secured credit cards with no fees, so check to make sure if there is any charge up front or during the duration of the account. If so, look elsewhere.

Where to Get a Secured Credit Card

Some of the better credit card offers for people with bad credit include Wells Fargo Secured Visa Card and the Capital One Secured MasterCard.

What to Do After You Pay off Your Mortgage

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Paying off your mortgage is no small feat. Most people take 30 years or more to do it, and if you’ve done it before then, well, congratulations—you’re way ahead of the game.

So now what?

Many people fret about their mortgage so much that they can’t even imagine what they’d do after it’s paid off. But your financial life doesn’t end when your mortgage does; there are still many financial goals to consider: kids’ education, retirement, starting your own business, paying for future healthcare, getting another car, and so on. Where do we go from here?

Step 1: An Emergency Fund

The first step, if you haven’t done it already, is to set up an emergency fund. Most financial advisors recommend a fund of 6 months’ expenses in a highly liquid asset, such as a savings account or short-term U.S. Treasuries. We at Capitalist Review recommend having a full year’s worth of expenses in liquid assets.

What to Do After You Pay off Your Home Mortgage

Why so much? The 6-month emergency fund is a very old financial chestnut that doesn’t apply in the modern world. As US News reported a year ago, “you might be surprised by how the job market and typical hiring processes have changed in the last five to 10 years.” The fact is: 2008 destroyed the labor market. Real wages are actually down since then, and the interview process has stretched on and on. If you want to read about just how bad it can be, the New York Times writes in detail about how some employers are using a six-interview process.

Simply put, 6 months isn’t enough anymore. Have a year’s worth of expenses at the ready, and you’ll be more in control of your life if you ever lose your job.

Step 2: Pay Down Other Debts

It should go without saying, but being debt-free is even better than being mortgage-free. If you still have a car loan, student loans, personal loans, or credit card debts, pay those off now.

When choosing how to pay off your debts, there are two approaches. Some like to pay off the smallest debts first, to get the feeling of accomplishment of having paid something off. Others focus on the highest interest rate, trying to save as much money on interest payments as possible.

We like to pay off small debts first, because that frees up monthly income that would go to paying a number of debts sooner, which can then be applied to other debts. Also, don’t underestimate the psychological boost you get from paying something off. That can make the chore of giving creditors money a lot easier.

Step 3: Identify Future Goals

With debts paid off and a 1-year emergency fund in place, you’re now financially secure enough for the next step, and it’s a metaphysical one. You need to ask yourself what exactly are your goals in life—what do you want to do with your money?

It’s amazing how few people ask themselves this. Many go through the motions of working, buying stuff, paying off debts, and waiting for retirement without asking themselves if this is exactly the lifestyle they want.

Do you want something different? Do you want to start your own business? Do you want to go traveling for 5 years? Do you want to start your own business? Do you want your children to go to university?

Money is a tool that people use to do stuff. That is often overlooked in the desperate consumerist cycle where people just buy because products are shoved in their faces and all of their friends, families, and neighbors are buying the same stuff. Take a moment to step back, think about what you want to buy, and why you want to buy it. Make a list, understand what is motivating all of those purchases and life decisions.

Most importantly, be confident that you are using your money on things that will enrich your life and make you happier—not just on stuff you think you should have or you just want to have for reasons you can’t explain.

Step 4: Max Out Tax-Advantaged Accounts

When you’ve identified your life goals, the next step is easy: invest in tax-advantaged accounts.

Want to retire early? Max out your IRA and 401k. Make sure you understand the benefits and limitations of these accounts—you may want to talk to your accountant or a tax professional.

Want to give your children the best education money can buy? Look into a 529 plan and be clear it’s right for you.

Worried about future medical costs? Get an HSA and look into an FSA as well.

When you’ve identified the tax-advantaged accounts that fit your goals, max them out. Then you’re ready to dump cash into other accounts with one goal in mind: investing.

Step 5: Invest, Invest, Invest

When you’re investing both in and out of tax-advantaged accounts, you need to look for high risk-adjusted returns. Compound interest is your friend and, as they say in finance, it is the most powerful thing in the universe.

There are many investment options for different types of investors. We are fond of Lending Club, but there are many others. If you want tax-free income producing investments, municipal bonds and U.S. Treasuries are what you want. If you want aggressive growth, the stock market is what you’re looking for. If you want high income right now, there are a variety of investments that can give you that.

The key here is to get in the game. As legendary stockbroker Charles Schwab once told his daughter, “just participate in the market.”