A week or two ago I wrote a review of Betterment.com, an investing website and online brokerage that allows people to automatically invest their money on a regular basis, and have their money be automatically and regularly re-allocated to their correct percentage of stocks and bonds. Basically, it’s an easy and simple way to invest for people who don’t want to deal with all the nitty-gritty details of investing.
I’ve been pretty impressed with the site, and with how it makes investing more accessible to regular folks who might have otherwise not had the time or inclination to invest. It’s a point-and-click solution that will take you 5-10 minutes to get up and running.
Now that they’ve announced this week that you’ll also get a signup bonus when you open your account, I think now is a good time to sign up for an account. After all, you’re already making a return before you start!
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Details Of Signing Up For Betterment
Signing up for Betterment is about as simple as a process can get. I went through it a couple of weeks ago when signing up for my own account. It will take you about 5 minutes to enter all your information. You’ll need the following to get started:
- Contact information, date of birth, and social security number
- Employment information
- Checking account information
I had opened my account and linked my checking account in less than 5 minutes, and then I just had to wait for Betterment’s trial deposits into my account, which took about 1-2 days to happen. Next I transferred my money over to my account and I was ready to invest!
Using Betterment Once You’ve Signed Up
Betterment keeps everything extremely simple when it comes to investing your money, and really you’re only going to have to make choices on a few things.
- Choose how much to put into your account.
- Choose your allocation of stocks vs. bonds. (They’ll help you with this if you’re not sure)
- Decide if you want to do automatic investments.
Here’s a video from Betterment talking about the site, the signup process, and how their tools work.
What Investments Make Up The Account?
Curious about just which investments make up your account? They divide up your holdings into a few different diversified ETFs so your money will basically track market performance.
Stock ETFs:
- 10% SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA)
- 20% iShares S&P 500 Value Index ETF (IVE)
- 20% iShares S&P 1000 Value Index ETF (IWD)
- 15% iShares Russell 2000 Value Index ETF (IWN)
- 15% iShares Russell Midcap Value Index ETF (IWS)
- 20% Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI)
Treasury Bonds:
So there is your diversified portfolio! Piece of cake!
Track Your Betterment Account In Mint.com
If you’re a fan and user of Mint.com personal finance manager like I am, once you’re signed up for your Betterment account you can also track your portfolio’s performance in your Mint.com account. To add your new account just log in, and click on the “add account” link in the left sidebar. On the page that comes up search for Betterment when it asks for your bank name. It will bring up the login screen where you’ll just put in your login info for betterment. Your account will then be added to the “Investments” section of your accounts.
If you’ve set up automatic investments already with Betterment, you can now just track your performance in Mint without having to regularly log in to Betterment. It will show you historical performance charts, allocations, and lots more. Talk about easy.
Sign Up Now To Get Your Account Fee Free For A Limited Time!
I’ve been using Betterment for a couple of weeks now, and I’m really enjoying using the site because it just makes everything so easy. Add money, allocate, invest. That’s how simple investing should be!
Since they now have a limited-time account bonus that will give you your account fee-free for a time, you’ll be ahead of the game right out of the gate. There’s no reason not to invest, especially if you were thinking about jumping in anyway! Sign up through the link below.
Signup Bonus When You Open A Betterment account. Click here.
I am not too familiar with the Betterment sent, I might go check it out to see if it is something that I might consider using.
Peter,
I appreciate the link and I intend to sign up, but I wish you would disclose that you do get a referral bonus as well.
Thanks for the heads up offer though!
There is a disclaimer in the sidebar that discloses that we may at times have an affiliate relationship with some of these companies. Here’s the relevant part.
In accordance with FTC guidelines, we state that we have a financial relationship with some of the companies mentioned in this website. This may include receiving access to free products and services for product and service reviews and giveaways.
The links on this post are affiliate links – and as such I would get a referral bonus for any new account sign-ups. As always, however, I only promote sites I either use myself (like Betterment) or ones that I think others may find helpful and want to use. I try to avoid promoting any that I believe are bad deals, I disagree with, or that are un-ethical/etc. I should also note that my views in the reviews are completely honest, even to my detriment in promoting said affiliate offers at times.
Ah! I really appreciate the honesty. Thanks!
(sorry for encouraging you to type that all up)
I don’t mind Wayne. I suppose it’s something I should create a standard disclosure for on the posts themselves. I guess I just figured that it was on every page on the sidebar, but I suppose not everyone sees that – or understands that it’s saying some of the posts may have affiliate links. :) Thanks for commenting!