how-much-does-it-cost-to-invest-today

How Much Does It Cost to Invest in 2021? Here is What You Need to Know

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If you are looking to start investing your money, you may wonder how much it costs to invest, from the not so simple fees associated with investing to the costs of getting started. If you are looking to start investing your money, you may wonder how much it costs to invest, from the not so simple fees associated with investing to the costs of getting started.

In this complete guide, we will discover all of the costs associated with investing to give you a thorough understanding of how much is needed to start investing.

Types of Investing Costs

From tools to get you started if you are a complete beginner to the costs associated with having a brokerage account, it is worth knowing the facts before you go in.

How Much Does It Cost to Invest: Costs Before You Start Investing

Before we dig into the fees of a running brokerage account, there are optional costs you may consider, especially if you are new to investing. Here are five things to consider:

How Much Does It Cost From Your Monthly Budget?

It’s essential to have a monthly budget before you start investing. The main reason is that investing is a long-term play. So bSo by having a clear budget and way to manage your expenses, you will make sure your investments stay invested.

Using a budget like the 50/30/20 budget will calculate how much you can afford to invest every month. For example, your monthly investment could be as much as 20% of your monthly income after taxes if you have an emergency fund.

If you struggle to stick to your monthly budget, it’s worth looking into banks like Starling, which have built-in spending categories to help you see where your money is going each month.

Takeaway: Look at your monthly income and expenses and work out how much you can realistically invest each month. Treat investing as a monthly bill/fixed cost.

How Much Does It Cost for a Stock Advisor Service?

Putting investing fees aside, you may be concerned with the costs of losing money on the stock market by investing in the wrong stocks. This is where a Stock advisor service comes in handy.

If you are starting and are not sure which Stocks are worth investing in, then it’s good to get tips from experts.

An example is Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor, which you can expect to pay $99 for a year’s subscription. Depending on how much you plan to invest in the stock market and your free time to research stocks, this could be a cost that gives you a return on investment.

Here are some of the benefits of a stock advisor service like Motley Fool:

  • For example, Time-saving – The Motley Fool comes with 15 starter stocks that Motley Fool invests in and knows to be good long-term investments. This is a great way to get you off the ground with your first stocks instantly.
  • Up to date advice from experts – Each month, you get various stock picks based on what is going on in the market so you can invest at the right time.
  • They tell you when to sell too – If you go with their advice (which you should if pay for the service), they will also tell you when it’s time to get out of a nasty stock.
  • The Motley Fool Stock Advisor service at the time of writing delivered 566% in returns since 2002, so if you want some guarantee of success, then this could help you.

How Much Is Needed to Start Investing?

Many people think investing is just for the rich, and whilst this might have been true in the past, investing can be for everyone in today’s world of technology.

With the rise of platforms such as Robinhood and Trading 212, you can invest from the comfort of your own home.

Apps like this offer you the opportunity to start investing with as little as $1! That’s by investing in what is known as fractional stocks, where you buy part of a whole stock.

Of course, just because you can invest with $1 doesn’t mean you should. So it’s good to understand the fees involved before jumping in.

How Much Does It Cost to Invest: Common Investment And Brokerage Fees Explained

You may need to pay several different fees when investing, so we’ve broken down the most common ones below.

Platform/Brokerage Fee

Brokerage fees can come in different forms, so it is good to research your broker before committing to any account.

Here are some of the typical fees that you should look into before committing.

Account Maintenance Fee

This can be in the form of either a monthly or an annual fee. In addition, you are charged for the maintenance of your account Or any subscriptions for premium research or investing data.

You can even be charged for inactivity, so good first to understand how often you plan to invest.

You can generally avoid brokerage account fees by choosing the right broker.

Trade Commission

This is also called a stock trading fee, and this is a brokerage fee charged when you buy or sell stocks. You may also pay commissions or fees for buying and selling other investments, like options or exchange-traded funds. Some platforms now offer 0% commission fees, but the investment rate isn’t always as good.

This payment goes directly to the broker. This cost usually ranges from $1 to $5 per trade and, in some cases, will be waived if the investor reaches an account minimum.

Sales Load

This is not often in most cases, but it still does happen. A sales load is paid on some mutual funds sold by the broker who sold you the fund.

It would help if you were wary of these charges as most mutual funds today don’t have these, and remember, the broker is trying to sell these to you because they get a commission. So be sure to make sure the fund is right for you!

Mutual Fund Transaction Fee

Another brokerage fee, this time charged when you buy and sell some mutual funds.

Expense Ratio

This is an annual fee charged by mutual funds, index funds, and exchange-traded funds as a percentage of your investment in the fund. The charge is to manage the fund.

Management or Advisory Fee

Typically a percentage of assets under management, paid by an investor to a financial advisor or Robo-advisor.

401K Fee

An administrative fee to maintain the plan, often passed on to the plan participants by the employer.

Ways to Minimize The Costs Of Investing

With all of these different costs involved, you are maybe wondering if investing is worth it. But, for many people, it is, if done correctly, investing can be an excellent way to beat inflation.

Here are some tips to help you minimize some of the costs of investing to turn over more profit!

Invest Long Term

If you are constantly buying and selling stocks, then you will no doubt have high commission fees.

Avoid these by doing proper research before buying stocks and hold for the long term. Take the steer from successful investors like Warren Buffett, who has held on to stocks of Coca Cola for more than 30 years.

What does long-term investing mean? Well, according to Investopedia, you should be looking for investments to stay put for at least five years if you want to ride out infatuations in the market.

If you are unsure what to put your money into long term, then considering a stock advisor service could be a good option. Think of it to offset the costs of buying and selling investments all the time.

Get Tax Credits

No matter where you are in the world, tax implications can impact your investing profits.

Short-term capital gains are taxed as ordinary income. These rates range from 10% to 37% again, depending on your income and filing status. You can find out precisely what percentage of long and short-term capital gains tax you’ll pay by visiting FactCheck.org.

Sign Up To 401K or Companies Retirement Scheme

The reason many people decide to start investing is for longer-term financial security. But before you begin investing freely, making sure you take advantage of any company retirement scheme, especially if your investment goals are retirement.

This is because many employers will contribute if you contribute, meaning you can make more money! As long as you don’t withdraw before 59.5 years old, this account is also tax-deferred. Tax-deferred accounts, which safeguard investments from taxes as long as the assets remain untouched

Cheaper Platforms Don’t Consistently Save You Money

When it comes to investment companies, it’s important to remember that the cheapest isn’t always best and that you will often get what you pay for. For example, a company might be more expensive, but it could have a website that is easier to use, has telephone support, and even sends research out to make decisions that you feel confident about. Conversely, other providers charge lower fees for a more basic service.

You need to weigh the fees (and the reasons for them) when choosing where to put your money. Either way, make sure you aren’t paying too much for the service you receive – after all, high fees will eat into your returns over time.

How Much Does It Cost to Invest: Bottom Line

You may have heard that investing is a great way to top up your income, but it isn’t free. Make sure you do your homework and pick the right platform for reaching your financial goals. If you are looking at investing in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, or ETFs, make sure you understand how these investments work before deciding which one to buy into. The key takeaway here is don’t invest without doing your research first!

While some investments may obscure their costs in the fine print, anyone can quickly get to the bottom line with the wealth of information available online. Use reviews and comparison sites to find the right broker that fits your investment goals.

This post originally appeared on Your Money Geek.

Robinhood App Review: I saved $420 in trading fees in 6 months

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While I have recently updated this Robinhood App Review, it still holds true that the Robinhood App has saved me $420 in trading fees in my first 6 months of buying and selling stocks on the stock market.

However, our article is now updated to reflect 5-years later those savings have grown to over $1,631 in trading fees saved!

Since my initial review in 2015, the Robinhood App has grown into a wildly popular stock trading platform and their $0 trading fees have become industry standard. Companies such as Charles Schwab, Fidelity and more have all moved to $0 trading fees simply to compete with the Robinhood App now valued at $8.3 Billion (source). With all these companies reducing their fees, the average customer is the real winner, thank you Robinhood.

Nowadays with every brokerage platform offering free trades, Robinhood still holds a competitive advantage (especially with millennials) due to how simple it is to buy and sell stocks.

That’s what we’re going to look at today!

What is Robinhood?

Robinhood is a mobile app (plus now website interface) that allows anyone to buy and sell stocks on the stock market. Plus recently, users also have the opportunity to buy and sell cryptocurrency.

Robinhood offers $0 trading fees

Initially for this Robinhood App Review, Robinhood’s biggest claim to fame was that it had $0 trading fees. This was a big deal because at the time most brokerage accounts charged $7 – $10 per trade. Meaning if you wanted to buy 1 share of Apple (APPL) or 50 shares of Apple, most traditional brokerage accounts would charge you $7 – $10 in addition to the stock price for the privilege of purchasing that stock. Plus another $7-$10 whenever you sold it.

This obviously sucked because those fees would add up and drastically cut into your profits, especially for younger investors who could only by 1 share of stock at a time.

The Robinhood App wasn’t the first start-up to offer $0 trading fees, but they are one of the most well-known to have done it successfully. So much so, that it became industry standard. If you’re wondering if they don’t offer fees like other brokerages, how do they make money? I’ll explain below in a moment.

Incredibly Easy To Buy/Sell Stocks For Beginners

The target audience for Robinhood is the millennial investor, around the average age of 24 who recognizes the benefit of buying a stock like Amazon (AMZN) but intimidated by the often mysterious process of purchasing a single share of stock.

Robinhood wanted to make the process simple, easy, and fast, so they designed an elegant and intuitive process for buying stock. Simply find the stock ticker you want and hit “buy” and confirm with a swipe.

I have personally used other brokerage accounts in the past and grown headaches for the unnecessarily complex design and clunky software. Those experiences have produced a deserved fondness for the ease of Robinhood. Since then, many of my friends have switched to the app.

It’s worth noting that Robinhood has received some negative press over some individuals who have lost a significant amount of money on Robinhood because they say Robinhood makes it “Too Easy” to buy and sell stocks. While I feel terrible for those individuals, I can not fault Robinhood making such a successfully simple solution for people wishing to invest in their own financial future. We should encourage these simple solutions to complex problems, like the iPhone, Internet, and Indoor Plumbing all making our lives easier.

This ease-of-use has allowed me to build my own stock portfolio now worth over $10,000 that we track here on Wallet Squirrel.

Robinhood Logo in Robinhood App Review

How Robinhood Makes Money

If you ever want to understand a company, understand the way they make money. Nike and Gap use child labor to make a higher margin. I’m not here to judge, just a shining an example of why you should understand the fundamentals of how profits are made. For our Robinhood App Review, we have to look at the finances.

Robinhood makes money by:

  • Collecting Interest from the cash you have lying in your brokerage account that isn’t invested. For example, if you have $1,000 in your account and haven’t yet bought any stock. The Robinhood App gains interest off that $1,000 similar to how you would gain interest on a savings account. You won’t ever lose money sitting in your brokerage account, but it’ll simply be there gaining interest for Robinhood, so invest it! This is a pretty common practice for most brokerage accounts.
  • Robinhood Gold is an additional subscription ($5 monthly fee) that gives you additional research tools, larger instant deposits (typically any deposit up to $1,000 is instant, otherwise you need to wait 3 days) and margin investing. I typically don’t recommend this for beginners and use Yahoo Finance for all my investing research.
  • Rebates from Market Makers and Trading Venues this means when you buy certain stocks, ETFs (Electronic Traded Funds) and options. Robinhood sometimes recieves a rebate (money back) on the back end if they have a relationship with some of the companies they purchase stocks, ETFs or options from. It’s like getting a rebate on a cell phone, but instead of a discount, Robinhood gets to pocket that money. It doesn’t affect you, but it’s a nice little boost to Robinhood’s profit line.
  • Stock Loan Income meaning Robinhood Securities earns income from lending stocks purchased on margin to counterparties. This is more for advance users.
  • Cash Management is the debit/credit card that Robinhood started. It earns fees from your card like a typical bank would see.

All in all, these are a nice way to help Robinhood make a profit without charging you additional money. It’s pretty clever.

 

 

Robinhood App Review: My experience

I initially signed up for Robinhood because they have a great deal when you use this Robinhood App Referral Code, you will automatically receive one random share of stock. I am happy to say that our referral code won a free share of Apple (AAPL) now worth over $400. It’s worth signing up for the free money. One of our favorite ways to make money.

Robinhood App Review - Notice Free Share of Stock On Sign-Up

Signing up: Pretty simple. I downloaded the Robinhood App from the Google Play store on my android phone (also available for iPhones). You will fill out the same info you would open a bank account. You will have to give your social security number, so be warned, but this is the same info you’d give to any brokerage account. It just feels weird because you’re doing this all over the phone.

Once you register and sign in. You don’t have to use your email and password every time. You can set up a 4 digit pin for security or a fingerprint if you prefer for quick access.

Connect your bank account: Everything is electronic, so you need to connect your bank account. Both traditional brick & mortar banks, as well as virtual banks, will work. I connected both my Wells Fargo account and Ally bank account. Keep in mind, when you sign up, you won’t be able to trade right away. There is usually a 5 business day waiting period once you sign up. This is usually just for Robinhood to verify that your money (a few cents) can be sent to your bank and back.

Is it weird doing everything over an app? There is definitely an adjustment period where you need to get comfortable trading over the app. I’ve never traded over anything before this, but it turned out quite easy. There aren’t many buttons, so for our Robinhood App Review, it was pretty straight forward.

  1. Search for your stock ticker
  2. There is a large buy button, click it
  3. There is a verify screen, where you must swipe up to verify. This removes people who accidentally double-tap from making mistakes.
  4. Done.

Here is a look at what the Robinhood App looks like.

Robinhood App Review - Screenshots of the App

What I Like About the Robinhood App

In the past 5 years, I have done over 233 trades. Most of these are buying a single share of stock at a time because that’s all the money I have to invest.

For me personally, I buy stocks that offer dividends because this matches my dividend investing strategy. I like the idea that I can regularly earn money from a stock without ever selling it by collecting the dividends they produce for stock shareholders. This way I rarely worry about the stock market going up or down because I constantly am collecting dividend payments. Here are all the dividend stocks I own.

Since I did mention earlier it’s easy to buy stocks on Robinhood. Here’s an example.

I can receive a notification that Realty Income (Stock Ticker “O”) has decreased in value over 5% and immediately open the app, hit buy, select the number of shares I want and swipe to confirm. All within 10 seconds I can buy stocks whenever I feel with absolute ease. I’ve done this during work meetings, walking in the park, and eating out with friends.

All investing should be this easy and free to use.

 

 

What I Don’t Like About the Robinhood App

  1. The biggest issue with Robinhood is the three business day wait period. If you transfer money to your Robinhood brokerage account on Monday, it won’t be available till Thursday. If you sell a stock, you won’t have that cash available to you till 3 business days. Yes it sucks, but I have more time than money. Easily worth $0, but worth sharing. Just wait till Robinhood Instant is revealed to everyone.
    UPDATED 9/22/2017 – There is no more wait period for Robinhood Instant. It’s open to everyone, so no more 3 day wait period for your investments. This is awesome! 
  2. There is no website to access your stocks whatsoever. That means I can’t connect it to Mint (my money manager). Mint as consistently stated that since Robinhood doesn’t have a website, it can’t connect to the brokerage account. So my true financial worth isn’t provided. This does kind of suck.
    UPDATED 11/1/2017 – Robinhood now has a website interface so you can check your stocks on your computer. Plus it now integrates with Mint, one of my favorite apps. 
  3. There is no in-depth analytics to analyze stock values. It gives the basic info, but I usually use Yahoo Finance to do my research and just use the Robinhood App for pulling the trigger. With so many great analyzing tools on the web, this isn’t the biggest loss.
    UPDATED 9/29/2016 – Robinhood launched Robinhood Gold with additional research tools however, it cost $5/mo. I still prefer using Yahoo Finance. It’s free and a great tool!
  4. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the recent glitch Robinhood had. I once woke to find that Robinhood glitched out and didn’t display my portfolio value. In total shock, I absolutely froze from fear. My balance went from $6,604.54 to $8.14 (which was my available cash). I immediately noticed that I still had all my stock positions, but it simply wasn’t totaling correctly. I knew since it was displaying my available cash instead of the portfolio value, this was a glitch and pulled the wrong info. Customer service was promptly reached and they fixed the issue in a couple of hours.
    UPDATED 8/11/2020 – This hasn’t happened since.

Notice how all those negative comments have been fixed over time from the original Robinhood App Review?

Robinhood is constantly growing and improving. They still have a start-up mindset by listening to customer’s feedback while being large enough to have an $8.3 billion evaluation. I use this app daily and simply haven’t found a better investing solution.

Would I Recommend the Robinhood App, Yes.

In my experience for this Robinhood App Review, this is simply the best brokerage solution I’ve ever used.

It’s a well-established brokerage, backed by Google Ventures and a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), which protects securities customers of its members up to $500,000 (including $250,000 for claims for cash).

That last part is taken from their website.

Back in 2015, I predicted that Robinhood would powerfully impact the market and force other brokerage firms to lower their prices. That absolutely came true and Robinhood continues to take market share from traditional firms because they have an elegant solution to investing, much how Tesla took over the car industry because they had a better user experience (yes you can invest in Tesla).

Robinhood Referral Code to Start with A Free Share of Stock!

I will continue to use the Robinhood App myself, my friends have started using it, and I’m happy to chat with anyone about my experience.

It’s simply great when people realize how easy it is to start investing themselves!

Robinhood App Review - Free Share of Apple (AAPL) Stock on Sign Up

How great is Robinhood that when you signup, you get a free random share of stock? We won a free share of Apple (AAPL) with the referral code.

3 Reasons Why Monthly Dividend Stocks Are Better than Quarterly

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Starting to get into dividend investing? Here are 3 reasons you should be looking at monthly dividend stocks rather than quarterly. Earn some extra passive income through dividend investing.

Here on Wallet Squirrel, every day we are finding new ways to earn money and investing those profits to build an online stock portfolio. Our stock portfolio is exclusively made of dividend stocks, so in the future, we can live off the income produced by those dividends. As investors, we have some preferences on why monthly dividend stocks are better than quarterly.

All Hail Dividends

If you’re curious about what dividends are, our best summation is that they are a portion of a company’s profits that are distributed to shareholders regularly.

If you want to know more, check out our What Are Dividends article. There are a lot of companies that produce dividends (why I love them), but receiving dividends monthly is pretty awesome!

Why Monthly Dividends Stocks are Awesome!

  1. Monthly Dividend Stocks are way easier to budget for – If you’re waiting quarterly for those dividend checks, you’re forced to budget that income for the next several months. A lump sum you have to let sit in your bank account tempting you to spend it. No matter your willpower, you’ll always be thinking “I’d be willing to eat Ramen Noodles for the next month if I bought a boat right now”. You’ll be the most sodium-rich sea captain. You’re better than that.
  2. Better Compound Interest – If you’re receiving dividends every month, you can use that to reinvest in more stocks and have those dividends grow more by the time your other quarterly stocks arrive. Simply, the faster you reinvest those dividends, the faster they’ll compound interest. For Example, if you owned 1,000 shares of a $10 stock at a 5% annual dividend. At the end of the year, you’ll have earned 5% at $500. However, if you received monthly dividends, you could reinvest those dividends each month and have earned 5.12% at $511.62. This is assuming you have a DRIP campaign set up. However it’s obviously more, and that’s only one year.
  3. It’s enjoyable seeing regular income – There is something incredibly satisfying as an investor seeing their investments create monthly income. It feels like you’re earning extra as your stock price fluctuates, you’re still seeing income being produced. You can reinvest or spend that monthly income but it gives you extra cash each month to play with.

 

 

What Type of Companies Produce Monthly Dividends?

You’ll mostly find monthly dividend companies limited to Real Estate Investment Trust, Business Development Companies and sometimes Master Limited Partnerships.

  • Real Estate Investment Trust – is essentially a company that owns multiple properties and generates income based on those properties. They can specialize in different real estate niches such as commercial property, apartments, office buildings, hospitals, etc. Each REIT usually has a specific focus and most produce dividends.
  • Business Development Companies – are organizations that invest in small to medium-sized companies to help them grow in pivotal stages of their development. Their income is made up of their investments in companies.
  • Master Limited Partnerships – are organizations that generate predictable income streams based on production/processing/storage and transportation of depletable natural resources.

Are you invested in any monthly dividend stocks? Tell me about them.

Robinhood Crypto Lets Anyone Buy Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies

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Robinhood Crypto Pinterest Vertical Header Image You may not know, but I’ve been a long time user of the Robinhood App. I did a review of the Robinhood App three years ago, and still, continue to use it. That’s why I am SO excited that they are now releasing Robinhood Crypto to buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum and monitor 14 other cryptocurrencies. At least starting off…

What is Robinhood Crypto?

Robinhood Crypto will let you buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum without any transaction fees. The free transaction feature has traditionally made the Robinhood App popular among millennials. While the Robinhood already allows anyone to buy and sell stocks, Robinhood Crypto will allow anyone to get in on cryptocurrency social phenomenon!

While the app will initially allow you only to trade Bitcoin and Ethereum, it will allow you to monitor 14 other cryptocurrencies. These are Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ripple, Ethereum Classic, Zcash, Monero, Dash, Stellar, Qtum, Bitcoin Gold, OmiseGo, Neo, Lisk, and Dogecoin. Hopefully, eventually, you’ll be allowed to trade these in the future.

While the Robinhood App only lets you trade stocks during market hours. Robinhood Crypto will be available 24/7. You can tell this by their 80’s Tron graphic design styling on their Learn More Page.

Robinhood Crypto Will Be Available In February

Currently, all the company says about the release date is February 2018. They currently have a wait list for users and as of Monday night, January 2018, it has exceeded over 1 million users on the waitlist for Robinhood Crypto (join the waitlist here).

We expect Robinhood Crypto to be released in waves throughout February.

Only certain states will get it starting off, the new feature first be available in California, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire and Montana in the beginning. They haven’t released the following states.

What Does This Mean For Cryptocurrencies?

Robinhood is one of the first stock trading platforms to break into cryptocurrency trading scene. This gives some legitimacy to cryptocurrencies as they have often been seen as a joke. The Robinhood App will be a multipurpose marketplace for people to buy both stocks and cryptocurrencies. This isn’t something any other traditional stock brokers are is doing right now.

Currently, the biggest marketplace where you can buy and sell cryptocurrency is Coinbase. Coinbase only deals with cryptocurrency (no stocks like Robinhood) and charges a 1.5% – 4% transaction fee. This in addition to the negative media attention Coinbase has received for crashing during peak hours, lends itself as an easy target for Robinhood Crypto which has shown reliability, oh and it’s free.

It’s anticipated that the legitimacy the Robinhood App brings to cryptocurrency, free trading and it’s current millennial market. Robinhood Crypto will introduce many more people to an easy way to buy and sell bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The waitlist alone for Robinhood Crypto is over 1 million people or 1/3 of the current Robinhood App’s user base. That’s 1 million people jumping into cryptocurrencies.

Why Is The Robinhood App Doing This?

Well, Robinhood isn’t doing this for the money. Co-Founder of Robinhood, Baiju Bhatt expects “We are going to break-even on this” he followed “But it could dramatically increase our user growth”. Considering the Robinhood App has 3 million users, and the waitlist for Robinhood Crypto is already over 1 million. That’s pretty good user growth (plus lots of media attention as a legitimate place to buy Bitcoin). Here’s how Robinhood actually makes money since they don’t charge fees.

How To Buy And Sell Cryptocurrency?

Robinhood Crypto will function similarly to how you would buy stocks through their app.

You will search for the cryptocurrency symbols Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH) where you can see their price and follow the history over 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 1 year or over the entire history of the cryptocurrency.

Robinhood Crypto Screenshot

When you want to “buy”, Robinhood will give you an estimated price. Since cryptocurrencies are known to have dramatic price swings in a day, Robinhood Crypto will put a “collar” around your buy price. So if the sale can’t execute at the price you agreed to, it waits for the price to return to what you wanted or notifies you of the price change.

In times of rocket price rises or drops, you can always set limits on your orders to automatically buy/sell where you want. This will help on those crazy price swing days we hear about in the news.

Will You Try Robinhood Crypto? I am

I’m currently on the list, just behind 97,296 people. Here is the signup to join the Robinhood Crypto Waiting List.

I’m not a major advocate of cryptocurrencies, in fact, I don’t think they’re a big deal or will ever replace actual currency. I’ll only invest around $100 to say I’ve tried it and get my feet wet in the cultural phenomenon of cryptocurrencies. I’ll ride some of the hype and then exit without any qualms. It’s just nice that a stockbroker I trust and currently use is now making cryptocurrencies even easier to buy and sell, I have to try it.

Get a free share of stock from Robinhood for New Signups & Referrals

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Robinhood App now offers a free share of stock for New Signups & Referrals

Robinhood App the free stock trading app that I’ve used for my portfolio and reviewed last year has a new promotion making some unique headlines. Now for every person you get to sign up with the broker Robinhood, both you and the person who signed up, get a free share of stock.

What Stocks Do You Get?

It appears to be a randomized assortment of stocks from the messages posted on social media. Robinhood states that the stocks range in value from $3 – $150, so you could technically get a share of Apple (AAPL) randomly if you sign up now, or you help a friend signup.

What Are Your Chances of Getting $175?

Depends, how lucky are you? Like REALLY lucky. You have a 1% chance of getting a stock valued at $175. Reading the fine print on their website you’re most likely to get a $2.50-$10 stock.

Here are your chances for a free share of stock when you sign up.

  • 98% of getting a stock valued at $0.50-$10
  • 1% of getting a stock valued at $10-$50
  • 1% of getting a stock valued at $50-$200

Thanks to Social Media, we have an idea what it looks like.

So get all your friends to sign up?

For everyone you get to sign up, both you and your new sign up friend get a free share of stock. All you need to do is use the referral code that Robinhood gives you.

If you’ve been with Robinhood for a while, this is the same referral code you’ve always had. Now there are just perks for you to refer a friend to Robinhood.

Here click on my referral code to see what it looks like. You don’t have to sign up.

Robinhood Referral

However, if you’re someone like Kim Kardashian who can get ONE MILLION people to sign up, you won’t get $1M free shares of stock. You’ll be capped at $500 worth of stocks no matter how many people you refer. Lame I know.

Is this promotion available to anyone with Robinhood?

It started off a few months ago. I was NOT one of the early testers for this. However earlier this week I saw on my Robinhood App that I’m NOW able to this. I’m not sure what changed. If everyone is able to do this now or what (I’m not special). They must have just opened this up to a much wider pool of users.

If you’re curious if this works with your Robinhood referral code. Go to your app and if you can’t find “Free Stocks” in your sub menu. You’re not in the program yet. Maybe send the Robinhood App people a tweet (@RobinhoodApp) and say “Hey, can I join this super cool referral club like @WalletSquirrel”. I’ll retweet for you.

 

Should you feel comfortable referring friends to Robinhood?

If it helps, I refer all my friends to start investing with Robinhood. It’s a great broker to start off with (one I personally use) because there are $0 fees to start buying stocks and all of their securities customers are insured up to $500,000 by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC).

Also keep in mind that Robinhood recently raised $110M in Series C round of fundraising, which they’re valued at $1.3 Billion. Some of the investors working with Robinhood are Google Ventures.

These guys are growing and they have the support of some major players in the game.

This promotion makes Robinhood worth considering

If you’ve ever considered the stock market, you should do some research on Robinhood because not only are you going to get free trades while using their app, you’ll start off with a free share of stock that could be Apple.

This isn’t on our list of ways to make money, but maybe it should be.

Income Report – August, 2016

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As I start ramping Wallet Squirrel back up, I’m reminded that no matter what I do. There are some passive income strategies that keep earning me money. So dear passive income. Thank you.

August-2016,-Dividend-Monthly-Income-Report-Infographic

Let’s talk Double Cash Back Credit Card

During a recent Entrepreneur Meet and Greet in Denver (yes, I go to these). It was pointed by a fellow entrepreneur who read my blog (eek, people read this) that we should clarify good and bad ways to use a credit card.

See, I pay off my entire credit card debt daily, since I paid mine off in 2015. So I treat my credit card like cash. I know that I am going to HAVE to pay it all off the next day so anything that I’m willing to pay cash for, I use credit. Mainly just for the 2% cash back.

It was pointed out though, that some people may not know this difference and could continue their spiral of debt. I’m obviously not condoning this. Only use a credit card if you have good credit card habits. It’s easy to say you’re getting 2% back with a credit card, but things still cost 98%.

Moral of the story. It’s hard to say my 2% Cash Back Credit Card is a sort of passive income. Especially if I’m using it to buy wants like Colorado Rockies Tickets. However, a majority of the time I use my Cash Back Credit Card on purchases I’m going to make anyways, so I consider it passive income.

Monthly Goals (I HATE monthly goals)

I have a bad habit of not liking being told what to do. Once I write something down, I’m telling myself to do something and sometimes that’s a bit much. Especially when the guilt of failing a to-do list is a lot worse than actually accomplishing something. Maybe I’ll rename this “Some things Andrew, could maybe do in the future, if he wants”. Catchy right?

  1. Write 2 posts this month on how to earn additional income. That’s what this site is about and let’s get down to the roots.
  2. Comment on 70 blogs. I came to this number because I have 70 blogs on my “To Read” list. Let me know if you want to be on this list.