Today Millennials have easy access to a number of online investing tools and mobile apps that make it easy for them to invest in stocks and/or cryptocurrencies.

So let’s review the M1 Finance investment platform and see how it measures up. A score of 10 being excellent, and 1 being the worst.

What does M1 Finance offer?

• Automated deposits
• Both individual stocks and ETF’s
• Can create multiple portfolio “pies”
• Can invest in fractional shares
• Mobile app and website
• Pie charts, graphs, nice UX
• Self-managed accounts
• Borrowing at a low 3% APR
• Smart re-balancing feature
• Zero fees to invest

My favorite features

Fractional shares

Most people want to invest in great companies like Google, Microsoft or Amazon. The problem is they don’t have enough cash to afford such expensive stocks.

A single share of Amazon (AMZN) costs over $3,000. Ouch. With M1 that’s no problem, because you can buy fractional shares, so you don’t need to cough up the entire share price, you can buy smaller fractions of a share. And if that share earns a dividend, then you can also receive fractional dividends. How nice is that.

Portfolio pies

The investment portfolio pies on the M1 platform are pretty slick. You can add up to 100 slices (stocks, to each individual pie), you can also add pies inside of pies. For example, if you decide to create 4 pies specific to individual sectors, and then if you want each of those pies to take up 25% of a main pie, you can totally do that.

You can even share your pies with other investors via a sharable link. You can download pies from professional investment firms and literally copy their investment strategies if you want, or you can create a completely custom pie of your own.

Retirement accounts

Many people keep their retirement account in a 401k. This is actually a terrible idea unless your employer is giving you a percentage match on your 401k, because in that case at least you are getting something for free.

It’s generally a bad idea because most brokerages will quietly steal from your 401k though mismanagement of your assets, penalties or by way of fees.

Fees of only 1% can slash the value of your savings [or retirement] by 28% over the next 35 years.

US Dept of Labor

On M1 Finance however, you can transfer your 401k (by converting it to an IRA) and then you never have to pay any more fees on it again. I did this, and I love being able to quickly see the value of my retirement account from my phone at any time, and having the ability to easily self-manage it at any time/anywhere is an additional bonus.

Are there fees?

Nope! Unlike the Acorns/Stash investing apps, on M1 there are no fees when you buy/sell/deposit or withdraw funds.

The entire platform is free for individual investors. There are no trading commissions, no account maintenance fees, and no charges for deposits and withdrawals.

Quoted from cashcowcouple.com

You might be wondering, “Then how do they make money?” If you desire to know, you can find the answer to that question here. I love the fact that they are very open and transparent.

Missed opportunity

The “transfers” tab is a super nice addition to M1 Finance mobile app. It allows you easy access to deposits/withdrawals, etc. Basically maintain all transfers, in and out of your investment account from one convenient location.

So you can do automated deposits and auto investing which is good, but I think not having the ability to do auto withdrawals on dividends is unfortunately a big missed opportunity. For example, perhaps under the transfers tab, add icons for: reinvest dividends | keep dividends in cash account | auto withdraw dividends to external bank account. If they added this, it would be a godsend.

Overall Rating: 8/10

Overall, I think M1 Finance is awesome. The more I use M1 Finance to invest, the more I enjoy it. Being able to self-invest your own money (without fees) is very liberating.

Perhaps someday they might also include decimal points in the pie slices though, for example if I wanted a pie with 15 items divided evenly you can’t do it without inserting something like 6.66666% in each slice. Currently the pie slices must all be whole numbers that total up to 100, so you cannot use decimals. But this is a very minor setback.

I’m loving this app and you guys might want to to try them out. (Minimum is $100 to start and then you can invest whatever amounts you want) This way you can decide if you like them or not.

If you guys decide to sign up, use my promo code so we both get $10 bucks for free. What do you think about M1 Finance? Do you love it or hate it? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Disclaimer: This article was written for educational and entertainment purposes only. This is NOT financial advice. Always do your own research and please consult with a licensed attorney before making any serious investment. We are not responsible for any investment decisions that you choose to make.

Anything that causes money to flow out of your pocket is a liability. Even people—your family for example, can be liabilities.

When you have kids, they need: milk, diapers, food, clothes, toys, school supplies, college, etc.

As your parents get older they need: life insurance, healthcare, medications, respite care, etc.

You love your family, yes, but if you are a provider, taking care of your loved ones is not cheap.

Two-legged liabilities are much more expensive than buying a big TV, or a brand-new car. Two-legged liabilities are arguably the #1 way for most people to burn their cash reserves. And the only way to offset all of this financial loss is by having plenty of insurance + investments.

Your family, should be investing. Your kids, should be investing. Yes, Everyone should be investing! Because if they’re not, you’ll soon find yourself rekt.

Make preparations

Lets face it—there are things coming which you cannot control.

• Your health, will deteriorate.
• Your parents, will die.
• Your kids, will grow up.

This is not me just being negative or making pessimistic comments. This is reality. Now you can either bury your head in the sand and act like this won’t happen, or you can prepare for these inevitable outcomes.

Don’t find yourself in a situation where you say, “I wish I had bought more insurance/investments.” Get that stuff ready.

Teach your family members to buy and hold assets, so they can be self-sufficient. Make sure mom and dad have sufficient life insurance, and (if they let you) health insurance too. Always have auto insurance, and renters insurance too if you need it.

Being single is not a curse

If you have no boyfriend/no girlfriend, no spouse and no kids, then you have NO REASON to not have money. You are 100% in control of your money, minus taxes. That gives you no legitimate excuses for having debt.

Now I’m not saying don’t have kids, or don’t date/marry. What I’m saying is that this money trap exists and you should prepare for it. Your loved ones can do a pretty good job of keeping you broke. So it’s wise to always have some cash set aside in case of emergencies. Have cash, and have investments that are always growing.

But what if you are single and just barely getting by? In that case, what you lack is either 1) sufficient financial literacy, 2) self-control/discipline or 3) a financial plan.

Here are some things to remember:

1. Saving money won’t make you rich
2. Inflation steals your wealth, so invest
3. Buy assets, not liabilities
4. Never spend more than you make
5. Pay yourself first, always
6. Compound interest works wonders

So yes, people can be liabilities, but people should never be assets. This means don’t be a user—using other people to pay for your debts. That’s shameful. And embarrassing.

Follow a process, not the money

It’s much easier to set financial goals and stick to them if you have no other family obligations. And that’s not an excuse, its the truth.

It’s also easier to grow wealth if you are focused on the process rather than counting every dollar you make. For example, would you rather have $2000 dollars worth of Amazon stock, or 2000 shares of Amazon stock? (approximate worth over $4 million dollars). Focusing solely upon the value of your assets will be a needless distraction for you. Focus on the fundamentals.

Disclaimer: This article was written for educational and entertainment purposes only. This is NOT financial advice. Always do your own research and please consult with a licensed attorney before making any serious investment. We are not responsible for any investment decisions that you choose to make.

Knowledge is power. And the world today (including financial markets) is constructed in such a way that those with greater intelligence generally have a greater advantage (than those without the knowledge or education) to succeed. The more you learn, the better you can position yourself in life due to your increased awareness.

World-renowned physicist Albert Einstein also knew this. He knew that you need more knowledge before you can get more money. And one of the most profound aspects of money is compound interest.

Einstein once said,

Unfortunately, most people today don’t understand the power of compound interest.

If you accumulated (saved) money, lets say at a rate of $50/week, after 6 months you would have over $1,000 dollars in your bank account. Now imagine if you both accumulated money and it compounded, meaning a small percentage (relative to the total size) was added each month. Then it would grow much faster.

Let’s consider an example.

Which of the two options would you rather have?

A) $1 million dollars right now, or
B) $0.01 cent that doubles every day, for 30 days

Many people would quickly choose option A and run. But option B is actually a better choice.

After just 30 days, option B = $5,368,709.12 !

Clearly, more money comes to those who are patient.

You might be wondering, How can that be? Well the fact is that things which compound, also grow exponentially. Let’s define this to better understand it.

Definition: ex·po·nen·tial growth (noun).
growth whose rate becomes ever more rapid in proportion to the growing total number or size.

Basically, as you begin to accumulate more and more, the size of your investment will keep growing faster and faster if it has any element that compounds. This behavior is actually a mathematical constant.

A mathematical formula

Math is nature’s way of saying, “this is truth.” And this is the mathematical formula used to express exponential growth.

A = final amount
P = initial principal balance
r = interest rate
n = number of times interest
applied per time period
t = number of time periods elapsed

You can choose to be on either side of the equation. Either someone who’s earning interest yourself, or someone who’s paying interest to others. But the choice is entirely yours, and it all depends upon how you choose to manage your money.

Most people don’t even bother to try to understand any of this, and it’s no surprise why they are always broke.

What banks do

Banks, credit card companies and money lenders are very aware of compound interest, and they use it every day to make millions of dollars. They call it an Annual Percentage Rate (APR) and this rate is basically a small percentage (in interest) that you pay them every month for buying something today, which you intend to pay off in the future.

APR is very small amounts of money, but when compounded over months and years it adds up to a substantial amount. And when you factor in thousands/millions of customers paying those interest payments, it’s enough to make the banker rich. And this is just one item in their bag of tricks.

So what is the point of all this? If you can understand compound interest, you can use it to your advantage. Instead of always paying interest to your credit cards and loans, you can earn it from them if you never carry a balance.

Take advantage of any opportunity you have to gain compound interest. Learn as much as you can about annual percentage yields, capital gains and dividends. Because if you don’t increase your financial intelligence, someone else who knows more about money will find a way to transfer it from your hand to theirs.

Disclaimer: This article was written for educational and entertainment purposes only. This is NOT financial advice. Always do your own research and please consult with a licensed attorney before making any serious investment. We are not responsible for any investment decisions that you choose to make.