Lauren Graves

Titan Invest Review: Hedge Fund Investing For Everyday People

Written by: Lauren Graves
Published May 22, 2021

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Titan Invest is a robo-advisor that offers investment services similar to those of a professionally managed hedge fund.

It was founded in 2018 by Joe Percoco, Clayton Gardner, and Max Bernardy and passed $150 million in assets under management in Q3 of 2020.

Joe and Clayton have several years experience in hedge fund investing between the two of them – working for companies such as Goldman Sachs, Cerberus Capital and McKinsey and Co.

Their technical co-founder, Max Bernardy, is a graduate of Stanford University with a degree in computer science. He has also been the technical lead for several early-stage technology companies prior to joining Titan Invest.

Titan Invest, as a platform, uses cutting edge technology combined with an innovative business model to provide users with access to world-class investment opportunities while letting their algorithms do all the heavy lifting. Investors can invest capital and track the growth of their portfolio through the highly-rated Titan app for Apple and Android.

You can get started here for mobile downloads.

Hedge funds are normally inaccessible to the average Joe and generally require one to be an accredited investor to participate. What Titan Invest aims to do is bring this investing technique to a demographic that hasn’t been privy to the opportunity in the past.

Titan Invest requires a minimum opening balance of just $500 (with a $100 transfer fee minimum) and calls itself an asset manager for millennials. Is this investment manager right for you? Continue reading our full review below.

What is Titan Invest and How Does it Work?

As with many conventional robo-advisors, Titan Invest constructs and manages your investment portfolio.

Where they differentiate themselves (other than the personalized hedge) is that they actually invest in individual stocks rather than traditional ETFs, which are a basket of different securities.

The individual stocks in which Titan places your money are limited to what Titan believes are the 20 highest quality companies on the market. These companies include household names and members of the S&P 500 such as Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Apple and more.

After the individual stocks are selected, your portfolio is then provided an automated “personalized hedge.” The size of the hedge will be dependent on your personal risk tolerance which is assessed upon opening the account.

The range will be: conservative, moderate, aggressive. The more conservative you are as an investor (ie the less risk you can tolerate) the larger the hedge against your individual stock investment. This allows protection against severe price swings and overall market volatility. That said, it will not guarantee the protection of your principal investment and your overall portfolio could still lose money.

To get a better idea of how your funds are allocated based on your appetite for risk. Here is the general rule of thumb according to Titan (assuming your portfolio is not in a downturn):

Conservative Investor: Titan will allocate roughly 10% of your position to the short.
Moderate Investor: Titan will allocate roughly 5% of your position to the short.
Aggressive Investor: Titan will allocate closer to 0% of your position to the short.

If your portfolio is experiencing a downturn, the breakdown would look more like this:

Conservative Investor: Titan will allocate roughly 20% of your position to the short.
Moderate Investor: Titan will allocate roughly 10% of your position to the short.
Aggressive Investor: Titan will allocate closer to 5% of your position to the short.

Remember, the Personalized Hedge feature is fully-automated. There is no financial advisor behind the wheel. The way your Personalized Hedge self adjusts will be dependent on your portfolio’s performance relative to the S&P 500. If the performance of your portfolio starts declining against the S&P 500 for a period of time, more of your funds will be allocated to the hedge (and vise versa).

What is a Hedge Fund and How is Titan Invest Different

In a nutshell, hedge funds are pools of money contributed by investors with a fund manager whose mandate is to maximize returns for investors while mitigating risk through “hedging.”

You may not realize it, but you probably make financial “hedges” already in your life. Do you own a home? Did you purchase homeowners insurance on that home to protect against fires and break-ins? If so, then you’re essentially purchasing a hedge.

While hedging with stocks gets a little more complicated than simply purchasing insurance on the stock, the basic principle applies. You invest in an asset (the stock) and then purchase another financial instrument that pays out in the event of said asset losing value.

Hedge funds can invest in pretty much anything – stocks, real estate, land, currencies, etc. and are highly responsive to the market.

Titan Invest is not a hedge fund but provides clients a personalized hedge tool to protect capital in times of market downturns and high volatility. This tool aims to replicate the strategies used by hedge funds to outperform market returns in the long run.

Like hedge funds, Titan Invest accounts are highly responsive to the market. Titan re-adjusts its Flagship stock portfolio each quarter and intervenes when your stocks or overall portfolio enter a downturn.

Another key difference between Titan accounts and hedge fund accounts is liquidity. Whereas hedge funds lock up your funds to allow managers to back out of investments, Titan does not. When you invest with Titan, you can withdraw your funds whenever you want.

Finally, Titan costs its investors much less than the average hedge fund. Many hedge funds charge a very high performance fee, but as you will read about in the next section, this is not the case with Titan Invest.

Titan Invest Fees and Features

Titan charges an annual advisory fee of 1.00% for deposits of $10,000 or greater, and this encompasses all services. If you deposit less than $10,000, you’ll incur just a flat $5/month fee.

The good news is there are no performance fees of any kind unlike hedge funds that have historically charged up to 20% of the investor’s net profit for a calendar year. On top of that, Hedge funds generally charge a 2% asset management fee for their services as well.

This 2% asset management fee plus 20% performance fee has been dubbed two and twenty by those in the financial industry and it has come under fire by investors and politicians alike for a number of reasons.

Titan Invest Fees and Facts

Term	Details
Minimum Investment	$100
Annual Fee	1.0% of AUM
Performance Fee	None
Lock Ups	None
Investor Qualifications	US only
Custody & Clearing	Apex Clearing
Legal Counsel	Lowenstein Sandler LP
Compliance	Greyline LLC
SIPC Insurance	Up to $500k

If you’re thinking 1.0% of AUM annually is a little steep, that is because it is. Generally speaking, robo-advisors charge anywhere from 0.25% – 0.50% in annual fees.

Features and Perks

That said, there’s a nice remedy to lowering your annual fee if you can bring a few new customers into the Titan Invest family. Currently, when you refer people to Titan, they will knock 0.25% off your AUM for every person you successfully refer, with the potential of bringing fees to 0% if you can get four people. The best part is that the fee waiver is applied to your account for as long as you have it. You don’t have to refer new people every year.

Other than kickbacks for referring new clients, the Titan Invest platform also offers many additional features to its investors. These include:

personal digital vaults or separately managed accounts of your own,
fractional share trading,
access to a portfolio manager, and
the ability to make instant deposits.

Titan Invest Account Types and Services

Titan offers two investment programs:

Titan Flagship Program (launched in 2018), and
Titan Opportunities (slated to launch in July 2020)

The primary difference between the Titan Flagship and Titan Opportunities (once it launches) is the size of the 20 companies in which Titan spreads your funds between. With Titan Flagship, the 20 companies are going to be made up of large household names. With Titan opportunities, the focus will be on smaller companies that are poised for exceptional growth.

Titan Flagship Program Details:

Number of Stocks	20
Mandate	US only
Median Market Cap	$180 billion
Inception	2/20/2018

Titan Opportunities Details:

Number of Stocks	20
Mandate	US only
Median Market Cap	$5 billion
Inception	July 2020

Regardless of whether you choose Titan Flagship or Titan Opportunities, you’ll have the option to house these in a retirement account or individual investment account.

Titan invest offers both individual investment accounts and retirement accounts such as traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs and 401ks.

In the early Fall of 2019, Titan Invest began offering Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) as part of their suite of retirement products.

This means clients can now take advantage of everything Titan Invest has to offer in the way of low cost hedge-style investing BUT with the added benefits and tax advantages of an IRA. You can also roll over your 401(k) or 403(b) retirement accounts. They have a concierge system in place designated to roll those into your Titan account.

Titan Invest Historical Returns and Performance Review

Because Titan was founded in just 2018, there is limited data to draw upon, but the outlook thus far seems promising.

Per the June 2020 Performance Update, Titan clients were up +8 to +10%. Conversely, the S&P 500 was down -3% and Wealthfront and Betterment (other popular robo-advisors) were down -6% and -10%, respectively.

In the second quarter of 2020, Titan brought a +31% return and the S&P brought +21%. Titan attributes these high returns to three key drivers: idiosyncratic alpha, big tech rebound, and flight to quality. Full hedges remain activated.

Since its founding in 2018, Titan Invest is up +37% total. The S&P 500 has gone up +19.6% since then, Wealthfront +7.6%, and Betterment just +0.5%.

These numbers speak for themself. Titan Invest, through outstanding research and planning, has proven itself to be a force to be reckoned with. In just over two years, its investors have seen higher returns than they otherwise likely would through another robo-advisor or hedge fund.

Keep in mind that this data is for Titan’s Flagship strategy. Titan Invest is in the process of developing a second strategy, Titan Opportunities, that will focus on identifying smaller U.S.-based companies that are expected to see high growth rather than investing in companies that are already at the top.

Is Titan Invest Safe?

Any reasonable person is going to wonder whether their money is actually going to be safe in an investment account operated by an algorithm.

The answer here is basically yes, or at least as safe as any robo-advisor or digital investment platform can be.

Titan Invest is not any more unsafe than other investment accounts, brick-and-mortar or otherwise. It uses high tech security encryption and is insured by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation.

SIPC covers accounts up to $500,000 and all data flow is encrypted using 256-bit encryption and SSL.

Final Thoughts

Millennial or not, Titan Invest presents many advantages.

You don’t need to be fabulously wealthy to begin and you don’t need to do much of anything to maintain your account.

You’re given tools that have historically only been available to financially privileged clients and the returns thus far have been eye-catching.

On the flip side, the 1.0% annual fee is certainly above average for robo-advisors and the historical returns, while substantial, only go back two years.

That said, Titan Invest does do a good job of providing clients with a way of recouping some (or all) of the annual fee by referring new clients at 0.25% each.

Serve Prepaid Debit Card by American Express Review

Written by: Lauren Graves
Published April 30, 2021

The Serve Prepaid Debit Card by American Express is an alternative to traditional debit cards and credit cards that can encourage responsible money management. This makes it great for adults and even better for teens. Many parents use this prepaid debit card to give their teens the financial independence they desire with the added protections of a prepaid account.

This product is unlike other debit cards for kids in a few important ways. We’ll go over these as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the Serve Prepaid Debit Card here.

Who’s it For?

Average age: 13-18

Good candidate: teens who are ready for a real checking account that want spending freedom

Features and Benefits

A Serve Prepaid Debit Card is not specifically designed for use by kids and teens. Only users 18 years old or older are eligible to open their own account. However, this prepaid debit card is great for giving teens relative financial independence.

If a parent is getting this card for their child, they need to add a sub account for each child. In order to be added to a sub account, a user must verify that they are at least 13 years old. Parents can add up to four sub accounts to their account.

Please note that Vermont residents are not eligible for this card and that some states require account holders to be 19 years old rather than 18.

For Parents

Parents are the sole owners and account managers for Serve accounts. This means that they alone are responsible for reloading their kids’ prepaid debit cards from their main funding account.

Most reloads are free and there are many ways to add money to an account. Just a few include direct deposit, ACH transfer, and cash reloads. Please see “How to Sign Up” for a complete list of options for account funding.

Cash reloads at in-network retailers use barcodes to instantly transfer money into an account.

There are several ways parents can control how their teens are able to use their card. They can:

Set daily spending limits
Enable or disable Serve card use
Decide whether to permit or allow international purchases
Restrict sub account user account access by freezing or closing the account
Permit or prohibit ATM access
Enable low balance alerts for themselves
Enable text alerts for sub account users for low balances and balance updates

All of these changes can be made from the app and reversed at any time.

Primary account holders can also set up to six savings goals for their account. Only account holders are eligible to create these goals, but sub account holders can contribute to them. All goal balances are held separately from the main account and debit card account (meaning users can’t use their Serve cards to spend goal money without transferring it).

To use the money from a goal, the funds need to be transferred from the goal back to the main account. From there, the funds can be added to sub accounts as desired. Parents may choose to set these savings goals for their children to help them learn good habits or contribute to them themselves.

There is no option for parents to reward their kids with bonuses for meeting savings goals or pay interest on money saved built into a Serve account.

For Kids

Sub account users are not able to fund their accounts themselves. To get more money on their card, they must request money from their parent, the primary account holder.

This debit card can be used almost anywhere American Express is accepted. Although American Express cardholders experienced issues with finding places to accept their cards in the past, increasingly more merchants are adding AmEx to their list of accepted card issuers (in fact, an estimated 99% of merchants accept AmEx).

Sub account holders can use their card online and in-person or withdraw cash from ATMs (if the primary account holder has chosen to allow ATM access). There are over 30,000 MoneyPass ATMs that accept American Express transactions at no cost. Withdrawals from out-of-network ATMs may cost up to $2.50 each. Alternatively, kids can withdraw cash from their Serve account using Cash Pickup Powered by Ria.

Another way it is possible for a sub account user to use their money is through Serve Money Transfer Powered by Ria. Using this feature, sub account holders can send money from their account to another Serve account for domestic cash pickup. All cash pickups can be made at Walmart stores within the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

These Serve cash pickup and money transfer capabilities are available to all Serve account users who have activated their cards. To initiate these transfers, a sub account user must select “Money Out” from their American Express account and select either Serve Cash Pickup or Serve Money Transfer.

These transfers incur fees. Each Serve Money Transfer costs between $4.99 and $16.99, with higher fees assessed on greater transfer balances, and each Serve Cash Pickup costs between $3.49 and $9.49.

It is not possible to overdraw an account. However, users are charged $0.75 every time their card is declined at an ATM, in- or out-of-network (a card may be declined for insufficient funds, exceeding ATM withdrawal limits, or entering a PIN incorrectly). Sub account users may receive low balance alerts to prevent attempts to overdraw if their parents choose this.

Serve users with sub accounts are encouraged to save but are not able to set savings goals for themselves within the app. Serve sub account users may freeze their accounts if they have lost their card or suspect it has been stolen. Both primary account holders and sub account holders may request replacement cards

How Much Does the Serve Prepaid Debit Card Cost?

Fees: no fees for electronic reloads, no fees for cash reloads at in-network retailers, no fees for inactivity, up to $3.95 for cash reloads at out-of-network retailers, $2.50 for out-of-network ATMs

There is a $6.95 monthly fee for all Serve accounts. This is a monthly maintenance fee that is assessed regardless of balance. This fee can be avoided by setting up direct deposits that are equal to at least $500 per month.

Benefits of Serve Over Competitors

There are so many reasons to choose Serve over other options if you’re the parent of a teenager.

The Serve Prepaid Debit Card offers users many more ways to fund their accounts than the average kids’ debit card account. For example, they can set up direct deposit, which many competitors do not allow.

Compared to similar products, the Serve card is inexpensive. There are no subscription fees and besides an avoidable monthly service fee, few charges at all. There are also no per-kid charges to worry about, which is nice for larger families.

The Serve card can also be reloaded with cash at no cost. This action can be done for free at more than 45,000 retailer locations.

Being an American Express customer also has other advantages in general, and these are extended to all Serve users. For example, AmEx cardholders—including Serve users—receive discounts at many retailers and restaurants. You can add specific offers to your American Express account to get the most benefit from this complimentary feature.

Other (free) American Express benefits offered to Serve customers include:

Roadside Assistance – a dispatch hotline open 24/7
Purchase Protection –
Emergency Assistance – 24/7 emergency coordination assistance for medical, financial, and legal emergencies
American Express Experiences

Potential Drawbacks

Though the Serve Prepaid Debit Card is definitely an all-around great option for most, there are a couple of potential disadvantages to be aware of with this product.

For example, this is not strictly a kids’ account. If you are looking for a kids’ debit product that comes with educational resources and a comprehensive platform designed to teach kids financial literacy, the Serve card may not check all of your boxes. This is a fairly standard checking account that doesn’t really attempt to simplify money management, which may be either an advantage or a disadvantage for your family.

Another thing that the Serve card lacks is flexibility for sub account users. To name a few of these limitations: teens cannot fund their own accounts, set their own savings goals, donate or invest their money, or use bill pay features.

Consumer Sentiment

Many customers with Serve debit cards speak highly of their experiences with the product. For the vast majority of users, this card is easy to reload and convenient to use. Customer service is said to be generally satisfactory when addressing concerns, but some users have called it inconsistent.

This product has a rating of about 3.7 stars out of 5 on ConsumerAffairs. Most complaints have to do with seemingly random account closures and slow processing times for refunds and deposits. If you do get this card, be aware that these issues exist for some users.

You can reach customer service for Serve users by calling 1-800-954-0559.

The American Express mobile app has a rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars on Google Play and 4.9 out of 5 stars in the App Store.

Is It Safe?

The Serve American Express Prepaid Debit account is protected by up to $250,000 of FDIC insurance. All accounts are also covered by Fraud Protection that monitors for suspicious activity and dismisses responsibility for unauthorized transactions.

In addition, users are prohibited from using their cards to make purchases that are considered unsafe, such as transactions involving alcohol, tobacco, or gambling.

The Serve Pay Bills Guarantee ensures that you never have to pay late fees on your bills. If a bill does get paid late, American Express covers the charges as long as you submitted payment at least six business days before it was due. You can set up bill pay reminders for your account to avoid this.

How to Sign Up

There are two ways to sign u p for a Serve account, if you meet eligibility requirements (18 years old or older in most states, 19 in Alabama and Nebraska): You can register directly online or purchase a temporary Serve card in person at a participating retailer such as Walmart, Dollar General, or Walgreens.

Temporary Serve cards are just reloadable prepaid cards that can be loaded with cash and used at retailers that accept American Express. You must load at least $20 onto the card and may not exceed $500. These do not have checking accounts or online accounts and cannot be used at ATMs.

If you have a temporary Serve card, you can register it online to set up a Serve account. If you choose to register directly online without a temporary card, you will just go online and verify your identity and your Serve card(s) will come in the mail shortly.

Once your account is verified, you can fund it and set up your sub account(s). Every sub account user gets their own card. There are a number of ways to easily fund your account. You can:

Set up direct deposit to automatically add your or your child’s earnings to the account
Link an external checking or savings account
Deposit cash for free at a participating retailer (funds will be available immediately)
Link a debit card or an American Express credit card
Deposit a check through the American Express mobile app
Request money from another Serve account

One nice perk to make note of is that you can get direct deposit funds up to two days faster with a Serve account. Rather than wait for your electronic direct deposit to process automatically, you can get access to your paycheck early if your employer submits payment information to your bank ahead of schedule.

Final Thoughts

There are many advantages to being a customer with a prestigious bank like American Express, and there are many advantages to the Serve American Express Prepaid Debit Card as well. This account charges fewer fees than many of its competitors and offers many account protections and benefits.

Serve account holders are able to control their sub accounts in a variety of ways, but sub account holders may feel somewhat limited by their options (e.g. no option to set savings goals, invest their money through the app, etc.). With that said, this kid-friendly debit card gives users real-world experiences in a neat package that is easy to navigate.

BusyKid Visa Prepaid Spend Card + Chore App Review

Written by: Lauren Graves
Published April 23, 2021

BusyKid has been around since 2011, founded by certified financial planner and father Greg Murset. What began as a chore and allowance app expanded into a money management tool that empowers kids to make financial decisions for themselves and gives parents peace of mind when their children make purchases.

BusyKid is a subscription-based product that features prepaid debit cards and an app for managing payments and spending. This card might be right for your family if you pay your kids allowance and want them to have spending freedom.

Read more about the features and benefits of BusyKid below – or see how it stacks up against the competition in our rundown of the best debit cards for kids and teens in 2021.

Who’s It For?

Average age: 5-16

Good Candidate: Kids and young adults that receive money through allowance paid by their parents.

Kids between the ages of five and 16 are eligible to get the BusyKid spend card. And because this product started as a chore and allowance app, BusyKid is best for young users that receive payment from their parents or guardians for chores they complete (whether for individual tasks or on a weekly basis in fixed payouts).

BusyKid makes it easier for parents to pay their children allowance and gives kids the opportunity to learn about money through hands-on, real-world experiences. Families who operate on a system of chores and allowance will get the most out of this product.

Features and Benefits

Fees: $0.50decline/PIN transaction fee, $5 monthly paper statement fee, $5 replacement fee for new cards ($7.99 if replacing with a designed card), subscription fee (see “How Much Does the BusyKid Spend Card Cost?”), foreign transaction/currency conversion fee of 3%, $3 for card to account transfers.

There are many fees associated with a BusyKid account. These are, for the most part, pretty low, but the majority of them can not be avoided.

There are no fees for low balances, inactivity, or monthly maintenance.

For Parents

The BusyKid platform lets parents pay their kids for chores in a couple of ways. They can assign them individual chores to be done during a pay period or give them a flat rate payment every week.

Chores need to be assigned to individual children. BusyKid provides a number of age-appropriate chores and values to choose from, but parents can change how much they pay their kids for each task as well.

Allowance is paid out via weekly paydays, which fall on Fridays. Money for allowance is not automatically loaded onto a child’s spend card.

If a child has gone above and beyond the tasks expected of them or done something great that is not chore-related, a parent can choose to give them a bonus that can be loaded directly onto their spend card or put into a different category.

Parents can encourage their children to save their money by offering savings matching. They can choose a percentage of their child’s savings to match every week and this amount will automatically be withdrawn from the parent’s account and deposited into the selected child’s account on their next payday.

Parents can always track how much their child has earned in allowance, how they’ve spent their money, and when funds are transferred into different categories. They can see this complete account history from their dashboard in the BusyKid app and choose to receive push notifications when their child uses their card as well.

In addition to allowing parents to monitor their kids’ spending, there are a few things they can do to intervene in how their kids spend.

Parents can prevent their children from moving their money between their different accounts (money to spend, money in savings, etc.) by enabling “Money Lock.” Both parents and kids can load a spend card with funds from a child’s account.

Parents can also easily withdraw money from their child’s account from the app or report a card lost or stolen with the tap of a button, which will instantly cancel the card and order a new one.

To avoid decline fees, parents can set up low balance alerts when their child’s card balance approaches $0.

Two parents can co-own one BusyKid account and fund it separately.

For Kids

Kids can choose to Spend, Save, Share, or Invest their money. BusyKid automatically sets percentages of a user’s balance to be distributed to each category based on a user’s age, but these are just suggested amounts. Kids can choose how much money to allocate to different uses for themselves (or parents can do this for them).

However, before a child can designate their money to a category that will move funds outside of their BusyKid account (e.g. loading their card, making investments, donating to charities, etc.), their parent must approve it. Parents can lock these categories to push their child in the right direction as they see fit.

Spend: A child can use their card to spend money using whatever balance they have allocated to this category. When spending, it is not possible to overdraw a BusyKid account. A BusyKid Visa spend card can be used almost anywhere Visa is accepted, including online. Users can load their cards with money from any category.

Save: Kids can also save their money in a savings category. Savings balances do not earn interest (either paid by a parent or by BusyKid), but parents can reward their kids with bonuses or savings matching for saving money and reaching goals.

Share: Kids can also donate their money to charity. They can choose from a list of options selected by BusyKid including the American Red Cross, The Salvation Army, and the Special Olympics. You can see the complete list of charity options here (charities not on this list are not eligible for direct donations).

Invest: Finally, kids can use their investing money to purchase real stocks that they’ll be excited about. BusyKid partners with Stockpile to provide users with fee-free stock options. Please note that selling a stock incurs a $0.99 fee. Just a few of the companies kids can invest in include Apple, Disney, and Apple. There is a minimum stock purchase of $10.

Cards are not eligible for ATM withdrawals, so a child will never have cash access to the money in their account. Cash back is also prohibited.

Every kid on a BusyKid account can have their own card and PIN. Kids can choose from 10 different BusyKid spend card designs.

How Much Does the BusyKid Spend Card Cost?

The annual cost for a family BusyKid subscription is $19.99. This fee includes all of the services BusyKid offers as well as one spend card. There is no per-kid charge for a BusyKid subscription, but there is a per-kid charge for spend cards.

On top of this subscription fee, it costs $7.99 per year for every spend card in your account. You get one for free when you enroll in BusyKid, but you’ll pay this fee annually for each card after that.

This is the one and only plan. There is currently no free version of a BusyKid account.

This does not include fees associated with card use (e, which you can read about above in “Features and Benefits.”

Benefits of BusyKid Over Competitors

BusyKid is great because it gives users more freedom over what they can do with their money. For one, BusyKid allows users to invest, which not many of its competitors do. Children can also use their BusyKid account to share or donate money to one of many pre-selected charities.

Another benefit of BusyKid over consumers is that it allows for multiple parent users per child account. The primary and secondary parent can work together to ensure that their child is making sound financial decisions and learning.

Potential Drawbacks

If you’re looking for a kids’ debit card that’s free to use, this is not it. Not only does a BusyKid subscription cost money, but users incur fees for things like adding spend cards to their account and making PIN purchases.

Another major inconvenience associated with this product is that the only way to load a BusyKid account is through the BusyKid website or app. It is not possible to add money to an account with a cash deposit or mobile payment through a platform like PayPal.

Another con to be aware of is that all account bonuses and savings matching comes from a parent account, so parents will need to be prepared to spend more than they are paying their kids for chores if they want to encourage good financial habits with monetary incentives.

These cards are also not eligible for ATM withdrawals, which could be quite inconvenient for a child if they need to pay for something with cash or want to pay someone back quickly and easily.

Consumer Sentiment

Real users seem to be generally happy with their experiences with BusyKid. The company has overhauled its customer service in the past year to better accommodate its growing user base, and it shows. Most users have no problem receiving help when they need it and are satisfied with the quality of service they receive.

The BusyKid app isn’t perfect and could use updating. The main things people complain about are that the app requires parents to assign chores to each of their kids, that the app does not show a detailed running balance of a spend card, and that transfers can take a while to appear in their child’s account. Some parents are also frustrated that they can’t choose charities for their kids to donate to themselves (these are chosen by BusyKid).

This app has a rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars in the App Store and 4.4 out of 5 stars on Google Play.

To get in touch with customer support, we recommend using the chat feature on the BusyKid site or emailing help@busykid.com. The support team is available from 9 AM to 6 PM (PT) Monday through Friday and from 9-11 AM and again from 4-6 PM on Saturday and Sunday.

You can also leave a message at 833-287-9543. For questions concerning Cliq, BusyKid’s card provider, call 866-634-3044 between 6 AM and 5 PM PT.

Is It Safe?

BusyKid’s parent institution, Stride Bank, is a Member FDIC and all BusyKid cardholder funds are insured up to the federal limit of $250,000.

This debit card is backed by Visa’s Zero Liability policy, which will keep your kids’ money safe if their card is lost or used without their authorization.

How to Sign Up

To enroll in BusyKid, just fill out an application with your personal information and set up a payment account.

You fund your account by linking a checking account, credit card, or debit card upon sign-up. Credit and debit cards move funds into your account faster but may incur fees; linking a checking account is free but transactions will take a little longer to process.

BusyKid partners with Plaid and Stripe to link bank accounts and credit or debit cards with a BusyKid parent account.

If you want to add more spend cards to your account, you will need to pay the annual fee of $7.99 per additional card on top of the subscription fee of $19.99.

Final Thoughts

The BusyKid Visa Prepaid Spend Debit Card offers more flexibility for kids than other cards like it and a good number of parental control options. BusyKid may not get as much attention as products like Greenlight and FamZoo, but it competes fairly well with other prepaid cards for kids in terms of accessibility, safety, and features.

BusyKid is essentially a chores app with money management features, so it is best for families that use allowance systems to pay children. If this sounds good to you and you don’t mind paying subscription and account fees, you may be a good candidate for this BusyKid spend card.

FamZoo Review – Build Strong Financial Habits Early

Written by: Lauren Graves
Published February 22, 2021

If you’ve shown any interest at all in getting your kids their own debit cards, you’ve probably come across FamZoo. The FamZoo prepaid debit card is flexible and easy for kids to use, and it is accompanied by an app designed to help parents teach their children valuable financial literacy skills.

FamZoo seems to be gaining popularity, but it isn’t new—this company has been doing business since 2006, and what started as a father making an allowance app to more easily pay his kids has turned into a highly-rated financial product. But is FamZoo a good fit for your family’s needs? Keep reading to find out.

Who is FamZoo For

Average age: Kids ages 12 to 18

Good candidate: Parents who want to play an active role in teaching their children about money management and children who are motivated to learn more about financial literacy and practice

FamZoo claims to be “perfect for all ages,” but it is ideal for older children and teens. With that said, all ages are permitted, there are just different rules for how children in certain age groups are verified and allowed to use these cards. The three age groups are Young Child (<12), Teen Child (13 to 17), and Adult Child (>18).

Young Child: If your kids are less than 12 years old, they may not have a debit card in their own name but may use a card issued in their parent’s name. In this instance, your child may use this card as they would their own and track their spending in the FamZoo app, their card just won’t have their name on it and you may need to verify your identity for certain purchases. According to FamZoo, more than half of all users are younger than 13.

Teen Child: If your kid is between the ages of 13 and 17, they need to pass a teen verification test to prove their identity. Users in this age bracket may have cards issued in their own names.

Adult Child: Yes, your children can still be FamZoo users after turning 18, they just need to provide a little extra documentation. Adult child users are required to complete an adult verification test before their card can be activated.

When your child moves into a new age bracket, you will need to arrange for them to get a new card and complete any necessary identity verification processes.

Features and Benefits

Fees: FamZoo does not charge overdraft fees (this is a prepaid debit card and overdrafting is not possible/permitted), non-cash reload fees, low balance fees, or ATM withdrawal fees.

The two FamZoo products offered are prepaid debit cards and IOU accounts. The prepaid cards can be loaded with money to be used to make purchases and the IOU accounts can be used by parents to track the money they owe their children without actually putting these funds in a separate account.

For this article, we’ll stick to covering the prepaid cards, but you can read more about the FamZoo IOU accounts here. Each FamZoo account may have both prepaid cards and IOU accounts, but you do not have to use both products if you don’t want to.

For Parents

At least one parent is required to open a FamZoo account, and this parent becomes the account holder and receives a funding card of their own. The parent then must load their card via bank transfer, direct deposit, cash, etc. as this is what they will use to pay their kids.

Parents load their kids’ cards from their funding account. Many parent users choose to make automatic transfers from their cards to their kids’ to pay them an allowance or compensate them for completed chores and jobs. Each automatic transfer can be awarded on an age-based, fixed, or combination basis. Parents can also make transfers instantly between their card and a child’s at any time or kids can request money themselves (more on this below).

To incentivize saving rather than spending and teach their children about compound interest, parents can pay their kids interest on money they put away. This amount is set and paid by parents, paid out at the interval of their choosing.

Another interesting feature of FamZoo is that parents can also charge their kids or penalize them for certain things. This can be a good way to encourage kids to complete chores on time and/or teach them early on to help pay for services they use and share with the family, like internet and phone bills. Parents can also loan money to their kids informally and schedule automatic debits for repayment, even charging interest.

Parents may choose to give each of their kids a single card of their own or to give their children multiple cards each to be used for different purposes.

Whenever a child uses their card, their parent is notified immediately. Users can have these alerts sent to multiple people via text or email. Alerts include detailed information about how much money was spent, where it was spent in terms of location, and at what vendor it was spent.

Cards can be instantly shut off and re-activated from a parent account as well. If a transaction is ever declined, parents are given detailed summaries of why it was declined and whether any follow-up action needs to be taken (e.g. putting more money on a card or making sure their child knows their pin number).

For Kids

Every FamZoo child user can use the money on their card in three different ways: they can spend it, save it, or donate it to charity. These spend categories allow children to practice simple envelope budgeting techniques by giving all of their money a purpose. They can allocate a percentage of their earnings to each category and have all the money they earn automatically split into these categories.

If a child decides that they need more money on their card, they can request a reload themselves. The parent may approve this request as is, approve it but change the amount of money, or decline it. Both kids and parents can leave notes on such transactions to keep track of what requests have been made and why.

Kids can set savings goals for themselves and use savings projections provided automatically by FamZoo to see how long it will take them to reach a certain goal.

Kids can also create budget categories for themselves to practice good spending habits. They can make budget proposals for the entire year and submit these to their parents for approval, and their parents can then help them adapt their budgets as they see fit.

FamZoo prepaid debit cards can be used anywhere Mastercard is accepted, including online.

FamZoo Costs and Pricing

Have your kids chip in on the FamZoo bill!

FamZoo pricing is for families of up to four children. The standard monthly fee is $5.95 for a FamZoo account with four cards, but you pay less per month if you pay in advance.

Here’s a breakdown of pricing when you pre-pay:

6 months: $25.99 or $4.33/month
12 months: $39.99 or $3.33/month
24 months: $59.99 or $2.50/month

When you pay month-to-month, you can cancel at any time. If you need to cancel but have paid in advance, you will need to call for a refund.

Other potential charges to be aware of are:

Cash reload fee of up to $4.95
Additional card fee for each card after the first four you get for free of $3
Card replacement fee of $3 each time after the first two free replacements

Right now, you can try FamZoo with prepaid cards for one month at no charge or FamZoo IOU accounts for two months for free.

FamZoo VS Competitors

FamZoo is definitely one of the most educational kids’ debit cards out there. It gives parents total control and there are many opportunities to make notes on transactions, purchases, and other actions. The detailed record keeping aspect of FamZoo is one of the major benefits of this product over others.

Another pro of this product is that these prepaid debit cards don’t need to be funded by a parent account. They can also be funded via direct deposit if they have their own source of income. Also, the parent account itself can be loaded in a variety of ways including direct deposit, bank transfer, cash, and debit card transactions.

FamZoo VS Greenlight

The Greenlight debit card is another popular option for families. Here is a side by side comparison of the two options:

Item	FamZoo	Greenlight
Monthly Fee	$2.50 – $5.99	$4.99/family
ATM fees	$0	$0
Allowance Payment/Control	Yes	Yes
Interest Distribution	Yes	Yes
Custom Card Design	Not Offered	$9.99
Card Replacement Fee	$0	Up to $3.50

If you pay monthly and have a family of 4, Greenlight beats FamZoo on price, however, if you opt for FamZoo’s “pay-in-advance” plan, you’ll end up saving more with the FamZoo plan.

FamZoo VS BusyKid

BusyKid is another popular choice for families looking to introduce debit cards to their kid(s). Below is a side by side comparison of the two options:

Item	FamZoo	BusyKid
Monthly Fee	$2.50 – $5.99	$0 – 19.99/year
ATM fees	$0	Not Eligible
Allowance Payment/Control	Yes	Yes
Interest Distribution	Yes	No
Custom Card Design	Not Offered	Not Offered
Card Replacement Fee	$0	$5.00

BusyKid started as an app designed to motivate kids to save, invest, donate and spend the allowance they earn doing chores around the house. The Spend Card was introduced by BusyKid in October 2017.

Potential Drawbacks with FamZoo

FamZoo is certainly one of the best kids’ debit cards on the market from an objective standpoint, but it’s not for everyone. For example, this product requires parents to manage their kids’ spending closely and approve/deny requests. If you’re not going to take full advantage of all the tools available to you with FamZoo, you might be better off using a different card and app that is a little more hands-off.

However, it goes without saying that the more time you’re willing to commit to educating your children about how to manage their money responsibly and guide them through real-world experiences, the more they will learn.

FamZoo is also a little more expensive than some of its competitors. There are free products that you can use to teach your kids about money management and kids’ debit cards that cost a bit less.

As with many products like this, families with multiple kids get a bit more bang for their buck. If you are most interested in getting the best price or you only have one child and don’t feel this service would be worth it, check out some great alternatives like the Jassby virtual debit card and the Copper debit card in our article about the top 12 best debit cards for kids.

Consumer Sentiment

The FamZoo blog and website are packed with positive reviews from users, and you can also visit the site and read posts written by users about their family’s experiences with the product.

FamZoo service receives high praise from the majority of customers as well. Most consumers say they are happy with the support they receive as well as the promptness of service. FamZoo also has a private community of users on Facebook that you can join with questions about the product or tips for other parents.

The FamZoo app is available for both Android and Apple devices. In the App Store, the FamZoo app has a rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars. On Google Play, the FamZoo app has a rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars. Overall, consumers agree that the app is easy to use and functional.

Is FamZoo Safe?

All FamZoo prepaid debit cards are federally insured by the FDIC up to the limit of $250,000.

In terms of protecting your kids from making unsafe purchases or losing money to scams, FamZoo is also safe in this respect. All purchases are protected by the Mastercard Zero Liability policy.

Parents can also take necessary precautions against having their child’s identities compromised by requesting “on-behalf-of” cards for their child instead of a card issued in their child’s name.

How to Sign Up

To create a FamZoo account, register your family here and enter your information for verification. After doing this, just add prepaid cards to your account for your family and enter payment information for your plan. As soon as your cards arrive in the mail, they’re ready to use.

If you have any questions about signing up or registering, you can refer to the FAQs or watch a tutorial video on the FamZoo site.

Final Thoughts

FamZoo is an excellent kids’ debit card because it offers more real-world money management experiences than the average product like it and comes with more educational resources. The FamZoo platform is very collaborative so this product is best for families that want to work together—parents with time to teach and kids excited to learn. This debit card is packed with features and comes at a value that’s hard to beat.

10 Best Budgeting Apps for January 2021

Written by: Lauren Graves
Published January 26, 2021

If you’ve decided to be a better steward of your finances in 2021, then a logical place to start is with a good budgeting app that meets your own unique circumstance and requirements.

Finance apps, in general, exploded on the scene in a major way in 2019 and have been transforming the way we spend, invest, manage and budget our own money. The pace of user adoption is also growing rapidly. In 2020 personal finance apps saw a staggering growth rate of 90% in usage and downloads. If the past is any indicator of the future, then we expect 2021 to only continue that trend.

All that to be said, new personal finance apps are entering the market at a breakneck pace, so as a consumer you’ve got plenty of great options out there – and they’re only getting better!

In our report below we’ve outlined what we believe to be the best budgeting apps for various hypothetical circumstances.

At the very minimum you’ll want to make the budgeting app you choose has the basics covered. Generally speaking, these are:

Ability to connect with your financial accounts. Ideally several at a time.
Ability to track spending and automatically categorize your expenses to get a holistic view of where your money flows.

Depending on your individual circumstance, your budgeting app should be able to do a great deal more than that. Hopefully our breakdown of the best budgeting apps of 2021 (below) can supplement your research and help you make your decision.

Goodbudget – Best App for Overspenders

Protect against overspending with Goodbudget!

If you often have trouble keeping your spending in check, try a budgeting app like Goodbudget that makes it easy to avoid overspending.

Goodbudget uses the envelope budgeting system, also called zero-based budgeting. This approach to managing your money allows you to portion your paycheck into different categories—like mortgage payments, emergencies, and groceries—so that not a dime is unaccounted for. This means no surprises, which is often why many people end up overspending without meaning to.

Using Goodbudget, you can set aside money for each expected expense you have, with up to 10 free envelopes, and sync with your bank accounts to track balances as you go. With this app, you don’t have to deprive yourself of the things you want. Instead, you set reasonable limits for spending and can spend or save whatever is leftover (not in an envelope) as you please. You can even use Goodbudget to track your progress in debt repayments and set budget goals for big expenses like a wedding or home purchase.

A Goodbudget free plan gives you 20 envelopes, one account, two devices, and one year of history, while a Plus plan gives you unlimited envelopes, unlimited accounts, and up to seven years of history. A Plus plan costs $7 a month or $60 annually.

Where to Download	Rating (out of 5)
IOS	4.7
Android	4.4

These app ratings are accurate as per the publish date of this article.

Personal Capital – Best For Investors

Achieve your investing goals with Personal Capital.

Individuals with clear investing goals should take advantage of budgeting apps that allow them to plan their investments, not just their expenses and savings. Personal Capital provides just that.

Personal Capital is not your average budgeting app. Personal Capital offers comprehensive investment services, including portfolio management, investment tracking, retirement saving, and a net worth analyzer. A little like a robo-advisor, Personal Capital analyzes your investments to give you a snapshot of what you’re spending in fees, how your investments are doing, and let you know what asset classes you have investments in. Link your cards and accounts to track your spending and budget for expenses, even see upcoming due dates.

This app is great for managing multiple accounts in one place and seeing your budget alongside your investment portfolio.

You can get started with this tool at no cost or upgrade for a more complete service. Personal Capital offers professional advising services for an additional fee and wealth management for a fee of 0.89% annually.

Where to Download	Rating (out of 5)
IOS	4.7
Android	4.5

These app ratings are accurate as per the publish date of this article.

Honeydue – Best for Couples

Meet your budget goals together with your partner with Honeydue.

When you want to work together with your partner to build and manage a budget, choose an app that lets you easily share information and keep multiple accounts. Honeydue is the best app out there for couples in 2021.

Honeydue supports couples in meeting their budgeting goals by making it easy to share spending information and coordinate goals and due dates. With this app, you get to choose how much your partner sees. If you prefer a bit of privacy, you can choose to display only the balance of your accounts and no transactions. If you and your partner want to be completely accountable to each other, you can opt to keep everything out in the open and put real-time transaction updates on display.

It’s easy to use Honeydue to avoid late fees as well. Set push notifications to remind yourself and your spouse of upcoming bills and see how much you’re paying in late fees. If you have a concern about a purchase your significant other made, you can comment on the transaction right in the Honeydue app (before it turns into a fight).

Honeydue is free to use because the app advertises credit cards and other financial products to users.

Where to Download	Rating (out of 5)
IOS	4.5
Android	4.1

These app ratings are accurate as per the publish date of this article.

Albert – Best for High Net Worth and Building Wealth

Manage your budget while building your portfolio with Albert.

There are numerous great apps out there for high net worth individuals looking to grow their wealth, but Albert is one of the best. More than just a budgeting app, Albert is a money management tool that can help you track your spending, build an investment portfolio, and meet savings goals.

Only a $1 minimum investment is required to start investing with Albert and trades are commission-free. You may choose to either let Genius, Albert’s automated investment manager, build your portfolio for you with guided investing at the risk tolerance of your choosing, or you may opt to manage your investments yourself. Whatever you choose, you will have access to both U.S. and global stocks and options across numerous categories.

Albert can help you with budgeting by tracking your spending for you from your linked accounts, alerting you to upcoming bills, and projecting upcoming deposits before they are made. It also automates savings for you with a tool called Smart Savings that identifies opportunities to cut costs based on patterns in your spending. These savings are instantly deposited into a digital wallet in the app and can be withdrawn at no cost. If you have the free version of Albert, you’ll get one Smart Savings deposit a week and an annual bonus of 0.10%. If you have a Genius subscription, you’ll get as many Smart Savings deposits as you want and an annual bonus of 0.25%.

An Albert Genius subscription starts at $4 a month, but you will receive more support if you pay more. With this service, you’ll be able to talk to human advisors about your investments and choose the automated investing option mentioned above. Albert Investments is an SEC-registered Investment Advisor. A basic Albert subscription is free.

Where to Download	Rating (out of 5)
IOS	4.6
Android	4.1

These app ratings are accurate as per the publish date of this article.

PocketGuard – Best Free App

Why pay fees to manage your budget when there’s PocketGuard.

You don’t need to pay for a subscription to keep a tidy budget. For a free app with full budgeting capabilities, try PocketGuard.

Set your budget by allocating funds for bills and necessities first and then PocketGuard will let you know how much spendable money is leftover. Customize your budget by categorizing your spending into pockets and the app will generate a personalized budget for you. Tweak this as needed when you first start budgeting with PocketGuard, then let the app take over.

PocketGuard also looks for savings for you by scanning your bills and finding opportunities to lower them, even helping you negotiate lower rates as needed. The more accounts you link and bills you decide to track, the more money you will save. With PocketGuard, you can also turn on automated savings to be deposited into your wallet from your checking account as you get paid. Just set savings goals and, again, PocketGuard does the heavy lifting.

All services offered by PocketGuard are completely free when you use the basic version and app. There is a paid version called PocketGuard Plus, a subscription that will run you $34.99, but this upgrade is not necessary for most budgeting purposes.

Where to Download	Rating (out of 5)
IOS	4.7
Android	4.3

These app ratings are accurate as per the publish date of this article.

EveryDollar – Best for Cash Flow

If you ever find yourself wondering where exactly your paycheck ends up each month in a mess of bills, a budget app that focuses on cash flow will likely be good for you. To see where your money comes from and where it’s going from your smartphone, get EveryDollar.

This is a zero-based budgeting app created by personal finance advisor Dave Ramsey. Use this app to make a plan for every dollar of your paycheck and easily track your cash flow when you earn, spend, save, and donate money. EveryDollar allows you to micro budget to the dollar and makes it easy to do. It also shows you a graph that breaks down your spending into categories so you can see where the majority of your money is going and identify possible places to cut your spending.

The premium version of EveryDollar—Ramsey+, formerly called EveryDollar Plus—costs $129.99 annually, but the basic version is entirely free. The only difference between the two in terms of budgeting is that the free version requires you to manually track your transactions and the paid version syncs with your accounts to track transactions automatically.

Ramsey+ also offers more comprehensive financial literacy resources including courses and coaching as well as debt repayment tracking, but you don’t need any of this for day-to-day budgeting.

Where to Download	Rating (out of 5)
IOS	4.8
Android	4.4

These app ratings are accurate as per the publish date of this article.

Toshl Finance – Best for Business

Get the most out of your small business budgeting app with Toshl Finance.

Business owners have a lot on their plates when it comes to money management, and that’s why it’s important to get an app like Toshl Finance to make this difficult task a little more straightforward. This app allows users to create budgets easily and track spending using a “River Flow” graphic that shows how your money trickles down into various expense categories.

While Toshl is not specifically marketed as a business app, it lends itself nicely to business accounting. It is incredibly user-friendly and feature-packed. It’s easy to enter data into the Toshl app via file imports, manual entries, and account syncing. It’s also possible to input income streams in multiple different currencies and print monthly expense reports right from the app to keep a record of your spending.

When you budget for your business with Toshl, you can link several financial accounts to fully customize your budget projections. On top of this, Toshl lets you create categories and tags for your expenses to make it that much easier to see spending patterns. Your budget can operate on whatever timetable is most convenient for you, whether that’s day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, or something else entirely. Sync your expense cards and business credit cards with the app to track your business spending, which is projected in a clear graph that shows how much you’ve spent each month. Use the “left to spend” feature to see what you can afford to pay in operating expenses while still staying in the green.

A basic Toshl subscription, which allows you to set up to two budgets and sync with two sources of income, is free. A Toshl Pro subscription is only $39.99 a year and it allows you to set unlimited budgets, sync multiple income streams, set repeating transfers, and even upload receipts.

Where to Download	Rating (out of 5)
IOS	4.7
Android	4.5

These app ratings are accurate as per the publish date of this article.

YNAB – Best for the Super-Organized (Type A Personality)

Control every aspect of your budget with YNAB.

If you have a type-A personality, you probably keep a meticulous budget. For super-organized budgeting like this, download You Need a Budget or YNAB. You Need a Budget is another zero-based budgeting app, but with a unique approach to executing this type of money management.

What makes this app perfect for super-organized, type-A users is that it is very hands-on. It gives you total control over every aspect of your budget so you can play an active role in your finances. YNAB’s philosophy is that looking forward and making plans for your money will save you more in the long-run than spending money as you normally would and reflecting on what you’ve spent afterward. With that said, you won’t find any “set it and forget it” features in this app. You need to be prepared to keep checking in and updating your budget.

Budgeting with You Need a Budget means making a plan for every dollar you earn, even dollars you don’t have quite yet, and assigning everything—everything—a category. YNAB will remind you to make payments, give you choices for making those payments based on your linked accounts, and then prompt you to manually record those payments. Every time you go over budget in a spending category, You Need a Budget will immediately alert you to this and give you the option to adjust the budget as needed. Basically, while YNAB requires you to be heavily involved in your own budgeting, it provides many helpful prompts along the way so that you’re not figuring it all out alone.

An annual subscription for YNAB costs $84 per year. This cost includes not only budgeting software but also free workshops by personal finance experts, the ability to budget with your partner, and plenty of graphics and reports showing you how you’ve spent your money.

Where to Download	Rating (out of 5)
IOS	4.8
Android	4.1

These app ratings are accurate as per the publish date of this article.

Wally – Best for Simplicity

On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes you just want to keep things simple and put minimal effort into budgeting. If low-maintenance budgeting is your thing, the Wally app is for you. This app is known for its simple and functional interface.

Like the other budgeting apps mentioned so far, Wally lets you easily categorize your expenses and spending and see how you’re doing staying on track from the home screen. But where this app really shines is that it requires almost no intervention on your part. You do need to input transactions manually (unless you have the paid version), but you can scan receipts to do this if that’s easier. Wally also tracks your location as you use your card to automatically generate purchase details and create tracking shortcuts for the places you frequent.

Wally also offers the option of budgeting with a group of people. You can even upload important documents like lease agreements and bills with the people in your group for the sake of accountability and (relatively) painless shared financial responsibility.

The free version of Wally uses a stripped-down budgeting platform with few bells and whistles. The paid version of Wally, Wally Gold, costs $35.99 a year or a one-time payment of $47.99 for a lifetime subscription. This version includes the option of linking joint accounts and setting payment reminders, among other possibly useful features.

Where to Download	Rating (out of 5)
IOS	4.0
Android	NA

These app ratings are accurate as per the publish date of this article.

Mint by Intuit – Best for Monitoring & Building Credit

Monitor your credit score at any time for free with Mint.

When credit is your number one concern, keep an eye on it with a budgeting app that can help you manage and build credit. Mint by Intuit accomplishes this by giving users easy access to their credit score.

The Mint app is critically acclaimed for a number of reasons, but it made it on this particular list because it features credit monitoring services. Through the Mint app, you can see your credit score at any time for free (and, of course, without hurting your credit) and Mint will keep an eye on your full credit report too and let you know if anything changes. You do not need to pay for or opt into this service—it’s available to all users.

In addition to helping you monitor and build your credit, Mint lets you track your spending, customize your budget, and set financial goals like any other great budgeting app. This app also offers investment portfolio tracking, notifies you of upcoming payments by predicting what will be due based on your spending habits, and lets you set unlimited financial goals without a pricey subscription.

Mint is completely free. There isn’t even a paid version to mention, as Mint generates revenue by advertising financial products with other institutions. What’s more, the Mint site features a Home Affordability Calculator that can give you an idea of what kind of house you can afford and a Loan Repayment Calculator to show you how long it’ll take you to pay off your loans.

Where to Download	Rating (out of 5)
IOS	4.8
Android	4.5

These app ratings are accurate as per the publish date of this article.

What to Look for in a Budgeting App

Above all, a budgeting app should make your life easier, not harder. You shouldn’t need to spend several hours learning how to use an app that you’re trusting to help you with money management, because you’re more prone to making mistakes when you don’t understand.

An app should also do most of the hard work for you. If you have to track every transaction yourself, input every deposit and withdrawal, or calculate your spending by category, then you’re better off looking for a different app (unless hands-on budgeting is the purpose of the app, as is the case for YNAB).

Look too for features. The best apps offer flexibility and additional services on top of budgeting capabilities. Will you have access to a support team or advisor? Are there any financial literacy resources available? Can you share your budget with someone else, access any graphic representations of your spending, or import and export files from the app? Will the app nudge you to make payments on time or look for ways you can save money on recurring expenses?

Security-wise, any budgeting app you use should have exceptional security measures in place to protect your information, especially if you’re looking to link your accounts or let the app move any money for you (as in an automated savings program). Nothing less than federal bank-level security will do. Look into encryption information and data protection policies for any budgeting app you consider.

There are enough great options out there that you can afford to be picky.

When Should you Pay for a Budgeting App vs Use a Free Option

The answer to this question really depends on two things: what exactly you’re using a budgeting app for and what the premium version costs. If you’re just using a budgeting app to get an idea of how much you’re spending on various expenses and its paid version offers features you know you’d never use, keeping the free version is a no-brainer.

Likewise, if your goal with budgeting is to save money or reduce your spending because you have a lot of debt, it probably doesn’t make sense to shell out over $100 for a budgeting app annual subscription unless there is a guarantee you will easily make that money back in savings in less than a year.

Take the examples in this list. If you own a business, you could stand to save a ton of money doing a lot of the budgeting work for yourself over paying an accountant to do that for you. At only $39.99 a year, a Toshl Finance subscription that offers robust budgeting tools is probably justified. But if you’re just using a budgeting app to save money, you probably don’t need to pay $129.99 a year for Ramsey+ when you could just use the EveryDollar app for free and access unpaid financial literacy resources elsewhere.

When in doubt, try the free version of an app first and see if it meets most of your needs. If it doesn’t, try a different one instead or addition to it. Also, most premium subscriptions include a free trial for anywhere from two weeks to 30 days. Take advantage of opportunities to try these out before buying and look into refund policies just in case.

Pawtucket Credit Union CD Rates – Still up to 0.70% APY

Written by: Lauren Graves
Published January 5, 2021

[Update January 2021: Pawtucket’s Credit Union’s CD rates remain the same to start the new year. The only APY change that has occurred within their deposit suite since May of last year has been their promotional 15 month “Easy Access” CD which lowered from 0.55% APY to 0.50% APY.]

[Update May 2020: Pawtucket lowered the APY on their standard CDs, IRA CDs and promotional deposits.]

[Update April 2020: Pawtucket lowered the APYs on their 6 month and 18 month CDs for both standard deposits and IRA CDs.]

Pawtucket Credit Union, based out of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, has consistently provided savers with above average rates over the years despite an unfavorable landscape for savers in general.

Up until February of 2020 they had one of the highest yielding 6 month CD rates in Rhode Island. However, given the FED’s recent rate drop to near zero, the annual percentage yields have come down some, but still offer respectable APYs.

Below you’ll find Pawtucket Credit Union’s CD rates and any available promotional CD offers.

If you live in Rhode Island or have family members who do that can assist you in getting membership, then you may want to consider one of Pawtucket’s deposit products.

Who Is Eligible To Join Pawtucket Credit Union

Although Pawtucket Credit Union doesn’t make it clear on their website who is eligible for membership we called them and confirmed that you would have to be a resident of the state – OR – have family in the state that could co-sign an account for you.

DepositAccounts states that they also accept a few neighboring counties in Massachusetts and Connecticut although we weren’t able to confirm that over the phone.

About Pawtucket Credit Union

Founded in 1926 Pawtucket Credit Union is the largest credit union in the state of Rhode Island with more than 110,000 members and assets exceeding $2.1 billion.

What’s also noteworthy is that they’ve seen incredible deposit growth despite a sluggish savings rate environment. Pawtucket Credit Union now has more than $110m in non-brokered deposits under their roof with an annual growth rate of more than 7% despite falling rates nationwide.

Pawtucket Credit Union’s CD Rates

Pawtucket Credit Union has certificates of deposit that can be opened online and certificates of deposit that can be opened by visiting one of their 15 branch locations.

When browsing Pawtucket Credit Union’s deposit rate page look for the little blue button titled “Open Now” to see whether or not it can be opened online. If there is no blue button, then you must go into a branch.

You’ll see the button next to the product name if it can be opened online. See below.

Below are all of Pawtucket Credit Union’s standard certificates of deposit and their APY. All of these standard CDs come with a minimum deposit requirement of $1,000.

CD Term	Annual Percentage Yield (APY)
3 month*	0.40%
6 month*	0.60%
9 month*	0.40%
12 month	0.40%
18 month	0.55%
24 month	0.60%
36 month	0.70%
48 month	0.70%
60 month	0.70%

*Their 3 month, 6 month and 9 month CDs calculate interest using simple interest, the rest are compounded daily.

Below are Pawtucket Credit Union’s IRA CDs and APY. They currently provide the same yield as their standard CD counterparts, however, they come with a lower minimum deposit requirement of $500 and, unfortunately, none of them can be opened online.

IRA CD Term	Annual Percentage Yield (APY)
3 month*	0.40%
6 month*	0.60%
9 month*	0.40%
12 month	0.40%
18 month	0.55%
24 month	0.60%
36 month	0.70%
48 month	0.70%
60 month	0.70%

*Their 3 month, 6 month and 9 month IRA CDs calculate interest using simple interest, the rest are compounded daily.

15 month Easy Access CD

Pawtucket Credit Union is running a CD promotion with a 15 month term called their “15 month Easy Access CD.” This product has a minimum deposit requirement of $5,000 and comes with an APY of 0.50%.

Here’s what you’ll get with the 15 month easy access CD:

Two penalty-free withdrawals allowed during the 15 month term.

To avoid penalty, withdrawals must be more than 6 days after account opening, and more than 6 days following each partial withdrawal; otherwise, penalty as described below for early withdrawal. Offer not applicable for retirement accounts.

You’ll also want to note, that like the 3 month, 6 month and 9 month standard CDs and IRA CDs, this 15 month easy access CD also uses simple interest rather than compounding your interest daily.

Final Thoughts

If you live in Rhode Island and are in the market for a solid APY on an FDIC-insured or NCUA-insured savings product, then keep your eye on Pawtucket Credit Union’s CDs.

Although their rates were lowered with the latest FED move, they regularly keep their APYs above the national average on many of their standard certificates of deposit products and regularly offer promotional CD’s with generous rates as well.