Anyone tried the ACORNS app?

[bronxdude]

Hey,

Has anyone ever tried the Acorns app? From what I just learned you link it to a credit/debit card and it rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar and then invests the "rounded up" change. It seems cool, but wanted to find out others thoughts on it before I tried it.

Thanks!

[gaspony]

I think the fees are too high for what you are getting. Especially starting out and it will take a long time to get enough money in there to make the fees reasonable.
Even if you have 100 transactions a month the most that could put in the account for you is 99$. I think it would be better to just budget a hundred dollars first thing each month into a TD ameritrade account and buy one or two shares of some of the commission free vanguard ETFs.  Or you could also do the same thing with Charles Schwab and their line of ETFs.
I understand that It is nice to kinda have the convenience of someone else taking money you won't miss and invest it for you but like any convenience you are paying for it. Maybe if the fees come down I would consider it but the other thing is so you really want one more thing to track. Most people will work for several companies and you might have three or four 401k accounts throughout your life to rollover and you might have a brokerage account with one company because of the commision structure and an IRA with another company because of rollover bonuses and you can accumulate several accounts over a life time. Anyway just my two cents. 

[Ricky]

Wayyyyy too expensive! I think this is just an all around bad idea. The only type of people I can see using this is people with ZERO investing expertise or experience. Ultimately, those people are just going to withdraw their funds and buy a pair of shoes within a year anyway so its completely a moot point.