Acorns is the 21st century version of a piggy bank. The app helps you save and then it invests the spare change for you.
The real genius of the Acorns app is that if you link it to your debit card, it will round up your purchases to the next dollar and put that extra change into an investment account. For example, if you buy a coffee for $2.75, Acorns would round that up to $3 and take the extra quarter and put it in your investment piggy bank.
Every time an Acorns user gets another $5 of spare change accumulated, the app automatically invests it. There are five pre-set investment portfolios. The app recommends one based on a few questions (your age, income, etc.) to gauge what type of investor you are.
"What we wanted to do was make investing a small decision, not a really big one," says co-founder Jeff Cruttenden.
The app is easy to set up. Nearly a million accounts have been created since Acorns launched in August of 2014. There are fees. Acorns charges $1 a month until your account reaches $5,000 (then you pay 0.25%).
Acorns also just started Found Money, which allows retailers, airlines and other businesses to give you reward points that you can turn into investing dollars.
