20 Finance Tools to Make Money Work For You During Rising Inflation and Global Recessions
The Ultimate Guide to Personal Finance 2022
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Global Investment bank leaders warn that although the U.S. economy is better positioned now than it was a decade ago, the economic outlook for the foreseeable future is worsening due to rising market volatility and recession fears. This has also been fueled by geopolitical tension, the war in Ukraine, and soaring inflation rates.
The global recession at the peak of the pandemic in 2020 translated to record levels of unemployment, evictions, and business shutdowns that millions are still recovering from. Speculations of another recession make it imperative to understand our relationship with money and reevaluate our approach towards managing personal finances. This way, we can protect our investments if not profit from them in the future.
It is time to make money work for you. As inflation shows no sign of stabilizing, the value of idle money will only go down. In order to grow your money in extremely uncertain market conditions, you should learn which finance tools to use to realign your assets proportionate to market movements and your financial aspirations.
The primary objective of this article is to help you budget your money, save money on stock trades, explore alternative and emerging asset classes, make use of gateways to financial advisors, efficiently manage retirement accounts, and protect your credit profile and your family’s financial future.
Table of Contents
Investment Tools and Financial Advisory Services
Since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2020, hundreds of billions of dollars in losses due to money mismanagement have been observed. Countless investors pulled out of the market fearing that they would lose more money in the downward stock spiral, pushing back their investment goals by years.
The first thing to bear in mind when investing in global markets is that your portfolio worth is likely to rise and fall every now and then. This is mostly swayed by market sentiment. Investments fetch permanent gains only when your stock company grows its productivity, outreach, consumer engagement, employees, range of services, talent upskill programs, and scale profitability using emerging tech and system automation. Several other factors like environmental impact also play a role in deciding company valuation and subsequently, its stock price.
While watching your assets tank during a recession isn’t easy, it would help to understand that wealth loss is only on paper. This will self-correct with time if your stock picks are companies that are poised to grow in the future.
Market research is probably the most time-consuming aspect of stock investing. This is followed by choosing the right brokerage account that offers a holistic view of all your investments, high asset liquidity, ensure fast trade executions, and low fees.
Today, top stock trading and investment management apps often understand user investment goals better, thanks to brief quizzes. The feedback is run against mega-repositories of decades of market data using evolving algorithms and AI to create a portfolio tailored to your financial aspirations. Furthermore, it is imperative to choose an investment tool that offers a vivid picture of assets and progress in a single glance.
Here are some of the top investment tools that offer a transparent and secure interface into the world of investing.
Smart Asset | Leading Unicorn Company Matching Over 50,000 Investors With Fiduciary Advisors Every Month
smartasset
Leading Unicorn Company Matching Over 50,000 Investors With Fiduciary Advisors Every Month
Best For:
Pricing:
Financial Information
Free
Fees: $0
SmartAsset is a billion-dollar company that helps financially educate over 45 million people each month on its intuitive website that hosts award-winning tools covering tax guides, loan calculators, retirement calculators, home buying and banking guides, and investment tools for better control over monthly income and expense and clarity on future financial goals.
Moreover, their financial modeling simulations have a decent accuracy in predicting what your future financial condition might look like based on your present day money moves.
SmartAsset is also becoming a gateway for investors to connect with fiduciary advisors. The company claims to match over 50,000 clients with vetted advisors on their platform with the help of their highly experienced and dedicated concierge team.
While robo-advisors and virtual meetups with human financial advisors is impactful, working with an in-house financial advisor who is dedicated to work in your best interests can help you keep emotions out of investing and prevent you from making rash decisions when markets crash. In addition, in-house advisors will attempt to establish a safe space for you to communicate your worries, divulge spending patterns, and help you understand your relationship with money without judgment since talking about money isn’t easy.
The intent to seek trusted financial advice is at an all time high, and most don’t know where to start looking. Some ask friends and family while many settle for what they think is the best on the Internet. SmartAsset has an impressive success rate of matching investors with fiduciary advisors who understand client goals.
Best SmartAsset Features
- Vast universe of financial resources and tools.
- Client-advisor matching service connects you with up to 3 fiduciary advisors near you within minutes.
- SmartAsset arranges introductory calls so that you can interview all advisors that fit your profile to make a well-informed decision.
When you fill in a brief retirement quiz, SmartAsset’s concierge team matches you with vetted fiduciary advisors within minutes based on your responses.
Aikido Finance | Use Quantitative Investing Techniques Mostly Limited to Hedge Funds
Aikido
Use Quantitative Investing Techniques Mostly Limited to Hedge Funds
Best For:
Pricing:
Automated Investing
$25/month
Fees: Starting at $0
Top hedge funds use quantitative investing techniques to reduce market exposure and improve trading accuracy. Quantitative investing essentially refers to using complex algorithms and math-based financial models to analyze market trends and derive customized strategies that enhance diversification and offer uncorrelated market performance.
While 80 percent of hedge fund managers think investors are likely to adopt quant investing in time, the emerging space is often limited to institutional investors. This is because the capital required to formulate quant techniques requires a highly-experienced team of data science and coding experts.
Aikido Finance comes as a silver lining to the average investor who wants to utilize the power of quant investing. The online platform was founded by computer scientists who wanted to democratize this space by offering quantitative strategies for free.
You can sign up for free, connect your broker or crypto exchange on the platform, and choose from 17 long-term stock and crypto quantitative investment strategies. While their free membership allows you to manually add the recommended stocks generated by the algorithm to your portfolio, their premium membership automates portfolio creation and stock rebalancing for a completely hands-off trading experience.
When selecting a strategy, you need to understand if it aligns with your investing goals. You can check the Sharpe ratio to compare strategy return to its volatility, for instance, where a higher ratio implies a higher risk-adjusted return.
As a long-term algorithm trader, you might want to know if your strategy beats the market over time. Checking base rates, which is essentially the duration for which a trading strategy has outperformed the benchmark, in in-sample and out-of-sample tests could introduce further clarity when choosing a quant strategy.
Best Aikido Finance Features
- Quant investing reduces market volatility and human errors while increasing parameter-based trading capability and expanding scope of market analysis.
- Integrate portfolio with over 700 brokers/exchanges.
- Automate investing with an oversight on market trends using a trove of portfolio analytics tools, including stock screener and stock & crypto resources.
- 30-day free trial for a premium membership at $9.99 a month.
Thousands of investors use quant strategies from Aikido Finance and have collectively invested $1.7 million to date.
Linqto | Top Investing Platform for Accredited Investors to Invest in Privately-Held Pre-IPO Unicorns
LINQTO
Top Investing Platform for Accredited Investors to Invest in Privately-Held Pre-IPO Unicorns
Best For:
Account Minimum:
Investment in Pre- IPO
$10000
Fees: $0
Minimum Investment: $10,000
There are 1,172 unicorn companies around the world with a total valuation of $3.84 trillion. Unicorns are privately-held startups that have a valuation of $1 billion or more. Investors who want an early entry point in these companies to grow their wealth proportionate to the growth phase of a unicorn often find it difficult to invest due to exclusivity in the private share market and the high investing fees.
Linqto is one of the few digital platforms that allows accredited investors to find, research, and invest in the shares of its privately-held unicorns (pre-IPO) for as low as $10,000 without any fees or hidden costs whatsoever.
An accredited investor must have an annual income exceeding $200,000 for the last two years with the expectation of earning the same or a higher income in the current year or have a net worth exceeding $1 million individually or jointly with their spouse.
Linqto has partnered with unicorns in diverse industries starting from autonomous drones and fintech to software, digital assets, and even sustainable materials. Some Linqto partner unicorns include BitPay, Dapper, Ripple, Varo, Tradeshift, and Zipline.
When you sign up, you can view investment options and detailed insights into company specifics and in-depth financials through Linqto investment summaries for each offering to make educated investment decisions. .
You can simply choose the amount of stocks in a private unicorn and click on the ‘Place Order’ button on their web interface to initiate your order. Linqto’s team of financial professionals will walk you through the funding process for order completion.
When the company you have invested in goes public through an IPO, Linqto will transfer your share of the registered public stocks to your brokerage account so you have full control on how to manage them moving forward.
Best Linqto Features
- Linqto is a zero-fee investment management platform that allows you to invest in private companies with no management expenses or brokerage fees.
- Linqto provides liquidity in the private tech sector, hence early investors might have the option to realize early returns without waiting for an IPO or a company exit.
- Linqto will create a separate entity for you if you choose to invest through a retirement vehicle.
- The firm scored 100/100 on cyber resilience as rated by SecurityScorecard on July 13, 2022.
Personal Capital | Comprehensive Robo-advisor for Navigating Uneven Markets Created By Industry Stalwarts
Personal Capital
Comprehensive Robo-advisor for Navigating Uneven Markets Created By Industry Stalwarts
Best For:
Account Minimum
Robo Advisor
$100,000
Fess: Minimum assets of $100,000 for robo-advisor access
Personal Capital is a California-based wealth management firm that manages over $20.8 billion of client assets and helps 2.7 million people to grow net wealth and avoid market pitfalls with their award-winning financial tools and a robo-advisor with a human touch.
When you link your investment accounts on their 256-bit encrypted platform, Personal Capital’s proprietary tech creates the “You Index” and compares it with major market indices such as the S&P 500 to offer clarity on your current financial stature.
In addition, you can check your retirement preparedness using their free retirement planner and fee analyzer tool that generates a retirement readiness score based on your long-term goals, risk appetite, investment bandwidth, taxes, and other parameters so that you can make impactful changes.
Personal Capital’s fee analyzer compares annual fees you pay every year to invest in tradable instruments like stocks, bonds, or mutual funds with their recommended low-fee portfolio and asset allocation in alignment with your investing goals.
If you have $100,000 in assets, you can take advantage of Personal Capital’s robo-advisor for hands-off investing by automating investment decisions with an oversight of a vetted fiduciary financial advisor. When you opt in for their cutting-edge robo-advisor, you can partner with a fiduciary advisor for a fee of 0.89 percent of your assets under management per annum and create a roadmap to achieving short-term investing goals to long-term retirement vision while navigating uneven markets and exploring emerging asset classes of the future.
Best Personal Capital Robo-advisor Features
- The robo-advisor runs Monte Carlo simulations on your input regarding retirement visions to estimate chances of reaching that goal, and create a low-cost, ETFs-heavy portfolio to reduce market exposure and promote steady portfolio growth.
- Harry Markowitz, recipient of the John von Neumann Theory Theory Prize and Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Sciences, is a key portfolio strategy expert at Personal Capital.
- Tax-loss harvesting feature helps you reduce/defer your taxable income by allocating regular income-generating assets to tax-advantaged accounts like 401(k) or an IRA.
- Military-grade encryption, multi-factor authentication, and fingerprint verification followed by regular system penetration testing ensure that your data and money are in safe hands.
- Investors can connect with financial advisors to resolve queries over phone or email, as per convenience.
Blackbull Markets | Access Next-Gen MetaTrader Accounts and Trade in Over 23,000 Instruments
Blackbull Market
Access Next-Gen MetaTrader Accounts and Trade in Over 23,000 Instruments
Best For:
Account Minimum
Forex Trading
$0
Fees: Starting at $0
Minimum Investment: $50
BlackBull Markets is an award-winning, true ECN (Electronic Communication Network) trading platform that directly connects investors to global markets without any internal dealing desks.
Its ECN in combination with a proprietary aggregation system ensure fast trade executions and low spread and fees as Blackbull Markets’ diverse liquidity providers compete with each other to offer the best bid/ask prices.
The trading platform has a worldwide presence with tens of thousands of investors across 180 countries who can access and invest in over 23,000 instruments such as shares, indices, forex, commodities, and contract for differences (CFDs) using the feature-rich BlackBull Shares app.
The intuitive app allows users to place 70+ order types in extended trading hours using advanced analysis tools and data from a wide range of resources.
In addition, Blackbull Markets offers access to MetaTrader 4 (MT4) or MetaTrader 5 (MT5) accounts. These next-gen, institutional-grade platforms for traders provide faster trading times, additional tradable instruments, tons of indicators, and advanced pending order functionality.
Best Blackbull Markets Standard Account Features
- Commission-free trading with $50 minimum deposit account.
- The ECN system uses Straight Through Processing (STP) run by 3 Equinix servers to prevent failed executions, ensure data backup, unrivaled depth of market and very low trading latency of 2-5 milliseconds.
- Widest range of tradable instruments across 80 global markets.
- A 24/6 support team and account managers to resolve your queries in multiple languages through email, live chat, and phone calls.
- The emerging brokerage is currently serving over 30,000 traders worldwide.
Blooom | Top 401(k) Retirement Robo-advisor
Blooom
Top 401(k) Retirement Robo-advisor
Best For:
Account Minimum
Retirement Robo Advisor
$0
Fees: Starting at $0
Blooom is a robo-advisor that caters to retirement investment vehicles like 401(k) and IRA. The Kansas-based firm of registered investment advisors and tech experts believe that Americans can no longer solely rely on Social Security and pension income in retirement.
Employer-sponsored retirement vehicles like 401(k) or Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) happen to be one of the few chances Americans have today at retiring comfortably.
Think of 401(k) as a fund or basket of stocks, bonds, ETFs, or mutual funds where you can customize allocation of these instruments in proportion to suit your retirement goals and risk appetite.
A traditional 401(k) allows you to defer taxes on your capital gains until you withdraw in retirement while Roth 401(k) contributions are made after tax considerations so that your withdrawals are tax free in retirement. In addition, your annual contributions are tax-deductible, which further lowers your annual tax burden, and unlike Social Security benefits that begin at the age of 62, 401(k) account holders can start penalty-free withdrawals from the age of 59 and a half.
The biggest advantage of a 401(k) is employer matching, which is basically free money. Employer matching implies that your employer will contribute to your 401(k) every year up to a certain limit, which can be structured in multiple ways.
The most common problem in 401(k) investing is that employers or 401(k) providers generally offer employees to choose from a couple of default portfolio setups that might not work for all. The expense ratio (ER), which is the measure of 401(k) fund operating and administrative costs relative to the AUM, helps investors determine if they are paying too much in fees to invest in a fund. The average ER is, which is expressed as a percentage of assets, is 1 percent, which translates to $1,000 in annual fees for managing $100,000 in assets.
Bear in mind that since 401(k) fees are expressed as a percentage of your assets, the amount of money you lose in fees grows with your portfolio size, ultimately amounting to a significant chunk of money that you’d never see again.
Blooom is the go-to robo-advisor for your 401(k) or IRA if you want to reduce fees, automate portfolio rebalancing to stay within your asset allocation, and benefit from virtual access to a financial advisor when making financial decisions. The firm is currently managing over $5 billion in assets.
When you create an account and link your retirement accounts on their secure platform, Blooom will offer a free analysis comparison of how your 401(k) account could look like with low-fee assets poised for steady growth and in accordance with your retirement goals. If you like what you see, you can hire Blooom to fix existing gaps in your 401(k) and manage your assets moving forward for a flat transparent fee.
Blooom uses AI to scour through market repositories with decades of data to analyze trends and suggest tradable instruments in proportions that could work best for you. Their intuitive dashboard showcases your retirement progress in one place.
When you delegate your 401(k) matters to Blooom, it will conduct market research on your behalf to create a personalized investment strategy focused on risk management, portfolio diversification, and fee minimization.
Best Blooom Features
- Blooom’s free 401(k) Personalized Portfolio membership offers access to expert insights on retirement goal setting and analysis of investments using financial planning tools.
- The Advisor Access membership enables trade assistance to automate trading and portfolio rebalancing decisions alongside access to a virtual fiduciary financial advisor through chat or email to resolve your queries and keep your portfolio on track.
- Blooom claims that the median expense ratio for its clients is 0.09%, as of July 1, 2022, which is way lower than the market average.
- The robo-advisor monitors your 401(k) account 24/7 and alerts you with recommendations tailored to your profile.
Budgeting Tools
In order to invest for growing net wealth, you first need to save money. The inflation rate, which is the rate of change in price levels of goods and services, soared from 0.12 percent in May 2020 to a record 9.06 percent in June 2022. This means that the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar has significantly decreased in the new decade.
High inflation immediately affects our living expenses. Many people struggle to manage rising monthly expenses on a fixed budget. With the boom in e-commerce and in online retail spending induced by the pandemic, you should explore opportunities to save on online purchases. At the same time, you should also learn to track the flow of money.
Here are three lightweight budgeting tools that aim to help you save big on online purchases while giving you a 360-degree view of your finances in one place.
Slide | Flat Four Percent Cashback on Every Online or In-Store Purchase at Hundreds of Global Brands
Slide
Flat Four Percent Cashback on Every Online or In-Store Purchase at Hundreds of Global Brands
Best For:
Pricing:
Cashback Rewards
Free
The Slide app is an easy way to earn a flat four percent cashback on every purchase from hundreds of global brands covering apparel, beauty, dining, entertainment, grocery, sports, travel, shoes, home, and pets.
After you download the app and sign up for free, you will be required to link a payment method like a credit/debit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or BitPay on their safe and intuitive platform.
When you want to make an online or in-store purchase; simply open the app, select the merchant, enter the purchase amount, and complete the transaction using your linked payment option to immediately earn four percent cashback.
Once the transaction is complete, a bar code and serial number will be generated. Enter the serial code in the ‘Gift Code’ section at the checkout page of the merchant when shopping online or have the barcode scanned by the cashier when shopping in-store or dining out.
Best Slide Features
- If you pre-fund your Slide balance, you’ll get an additional one percent cashback on top of the four percent. That’s a total of five percent savings on every purchase from participating merchants.
- You can apply earned cashback to your next purchase or simply withdraw it to your Venmo or PayPal account when your cashback balance reaches $15.
- Slide’s cashback stacking feature allows you to link a credit card in the app that has its own cashback rewards program, so you can get Slide’s five percent cashback on top of your credit card rewards and save big.
- First-time users can get $5 off their first four purchases (up to $20). If you refer to any of your friends, you will also earn $5 on your friends’ first four purchases.
Honey | Automatically Find the Best Coupon Codes to Get the Largest Discounts From Over 30,000 Stores
Honey
Automatically Find the Best Coupon Codes to Get the Largest Discounts From Over 30,000 Stores
Best For:
Pricing:
Online Discounts
Free
Honey is a web browser extension that finds the best possible coupon codes for your online purchases to save you both time and money.
Simply add the free browser extension in a few clicks and start shopping as usual. For select websites, Honey will scour the Internet to find the best possible discount coupon codes for the items in your cart.
When you land on the checkout page, Honey will automatically apply coupons with the highest savings, and then you may complete your transaction.
Best Honey Features
- Honey lets you find coupon codes for over 30,000 participating merchants. So, if you’re ordering pizza or booking a trip, Honey can most likely help you put money back in your pocket.
- Do you have a wishlist? Simply add products you want to buy in the future to the Droplist. Honey will then keep track of product prices and alert you whenever it detects a price drop.
- When you activate Honey Gold, their loyalty rewards feature, you can earn Gold points when shopping from over 5,500 stores such as Amazon and Nordstrom. You can then convert the Gold points into gift cards or redeem them to your Paypal account.
- The average discount for all Honey users stood at 17.9 percent as of Q2 2020.
- Honey has over 17 million users and is rated 4.8 out of 5 based on 167,962 reviews.
Quicken | Track Cashflow, Pay Bills, Monitor Investments, and Manage Business and Real Estate Income
Quicken
Track Cashflow, Pay Bills, Monitor Investments, and Manage Business and Real Estate Income in One Place
Best For:
Pricing:
Tracking Finances
$47.99 – $103.99
Saving money works best when you have a holistic view of your finances. Tracking your money on a spreadsheet can be daunting and prone to miscalculations. Protected by 256-bit encryption, Quicken is the go-to budgeting app that allows you to stay on top of your spending habits and all aspects related to personal finance.
With Quicken, you can create custom budgets to ease your monthly cashflow and track the flow of money from all your accounts in one place. This way, you can make informed decisions and flag unauthorized transactions to protect your finances. Moreover, Quicken’s Bill tracker makes paying online and offline monthly bills a breeze. You can also create scheduled transactions with flexible payment windows. Automated alerts ensure you never miss a due date.
In addition, you can track all of your investment accounts to visualize wealth growth, returns, and export data for easy tax prep. You may also link your retirement accounts like 401(k), IRA and create goal-aligned plans to check your contributions and progress, and even take a data snapshot that you can easily send to your financial advisor.
Best Quicken Features
- Quick Pay allows you to pay bills at more than 11,500 digital network billers.
- The Check Pay feature lets you send physical checks to anyone in the U.S.
- Benefit from the option to connect bank, investment, and retirement accounts from over 14,000 financial institutions to track 401(k)s, IRAs, options, bonds, ETFs, and mutual funds.
- Quicken’s property management tool is an all-in-one bundle for property owners to track rental income and rates, property value, rental agreements, security deposits, loans, tax documents, tenant contacts, and expenses. It also simplifies tax reports.
- The business management tool streamlines payroll, reviews cash flow, and stores business documents like invoice, receipts, and client agreements, among other business processes.
Quicken offers several membership tiers billed annually with the option of a 30-day money-back guarantee. The Quicken Deluxe membership, which starts at $3.99, is the most popular one. For more than three decades now, the firm has helped over 20 million members take control over their finances.
Real Estate Investing Platforms
Real estate has come out as one of the most resilient and profitable industries in US markets. The pandemic led to the growth and visibility of niche sectors as well as showcased farmland as a premium asset that is poised for value appreciation.
The pandemic-induced e-commerce boom continues to fuel demand for storage spaces and data centers to meet the growing online consumer spending and support the digital infrastructure backbone. The accelerated growth of data centers will continue through 2022 as new technologies like 5G, AI and edge computing add to the existing high demand created by the e-commerce sector.
In addition, online food sales, particularly perishable and refrigerated food, have ramped up the requirement of cold storage warehouses. These have a high-capital entry but return higher income than dry warehouses.
A CBRE real estate 2022 outlook estimated that soaring e-commerce growth and requirement of space for inventory storage and logistical support amid global supply chain disruptions are likely to drive investments in the industrial sector.
The housing sector came out as a winner as home prices and rents reached record-levels while occupancy rates remained high. The CBRE outlook stated that multifamily options could grow by 7 percent this year while occupancy rates are expected to hold strong at 95 percent.
Farmlands have several intrinsic factors that make it a premium real estate asset. Declining arable land at the rate of 23 hectares per minute to rising population could severely raise pressure on the global food chain supply in the coming decades. This will likely skyrocket the price of farmland around the globe. The World Count projected that the world could run out of food in less than three decades. Additionally, food prices could rise by a whopping 130 percent by 2030 if existing aggressive farming practices, food consumption, population growth rate, and community lifestyles persist.
Investing in real estate was once limited to the rich due to the high-capital entry barrier and geographical constraints. However, online real estate investing platforms have cracked the code to facilitate remote real estate buying and selling through sourcing and listing of institutional properties and fertile arable land in online marketplaces compliant with high due diligence standards.
Now, regular investors are ow able to scout U.S. markets from their home and buy real estate at feasible prices. With it, they can generate passive income streams through rental profits and grow net wealth through land value appreciation. However, in contrast to the stock market, real estate investments are generally illiquid in nature since land value appreciates steadily over years. Hence, most investments come with a hold period averaging two to three years.
CrowdStreet | Best Platform for Private-equity Investing in Top Crowdfunded Commercial Real Estate Deals
Crowdstreet
Best Online Platform for Private-equity Investing in Top Crowdfunded Commercial Real Estate Deals
Best For:
Account Minimum
Real Estate Investment
$25,000
Fees: Vary with deals
Minimum Investment: $25,000
CrowdStreet is one of the largest online real estate crowdfunding platforms in the U.S. that facilitates direct equity investing in commercial real estate projects as well as investments in real estate funds for those desiring portfolio diversification.
Since its inception in 2014, the Texas-based real estate firm has raised over $1.9 billion and paid back over $197 million in return on investments to over 100,000 investors. Currently, they have successfully completed over 656 real estate projects, with 124 of them being fully realized.
Most of their offerings are available to accredited investors for a minimum investment of $25,000 with fees varying for each deal, which the firm tries to keep below the market average using cutting-edge technology.
You can choose to directly invest in the equity stack of a commercial real estate, or own portions of multiple properties through one of their real estate funds and witness returns in the form of dividend payouts and property appreciation. CrowdStreet’s averaged annualized internal rate of return from all of its real estate deals hovered around 19 percent.
CrowdStreet is the gateway for investors to connect with real estate project sponsors or developers who are seeking investors willing to contribute capital in funding real estate deals. All investments directly reach sponsors, and you as an investor can make a well-informed decision by directly interacting with the sponsor to learn about their vision as well as review troves of information about the deal such as sponsor history and documents on the CrowdStreet platform.
CrowdStreet’s success can be attributed to their extensive deal review process that involves a dedicated team focused on complete asset inspection and review, sponsor vetting, background checks on sponsor history followed by a sensitivity analysis to gauge robustness of business plans. CrowdStreet claims that approximately five out of 100 real estate projects checks all boxes and get listed on their online platform.
Best CrowdStreet Features
Access 14 real estate classes starting from retail, office, industrial to multifamily, storage and even hospitality segments.
Since many sponsors on CrowdStreet raise capital to make the required down payment and secure loans for the rest, some deals could increase the equity percentage of the investor in time once the loan is paid back.
Remote and low-capital entry to institutional-class commercial projects through a safe and encrypted online gateway.
Average hold period across all listed real estate projects is 2.9 years.
HappyNest | The Only Commercial Real Estate Investing Platform Starts at $10
Happynest
The Only Commercial Real Estate Investing Platform With a Minimum Investment Requirement Starting at $10
Best For:
Account Minimum:
Crowdfunding
$10
Fees: $0
Minimum Investment: $10
The HappyNest app is best suited for the average investor who wants to begin their journey into real estate with a small amount for steady growth. HappyNest offers access to its Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) of Fortune 500 tenants on long-term and net leases for consistent dividend income and net wealth growth.
Property tenants on net leases often take up the responsibility to pay rents, operating and administrative costs, building insurance premiums, and other expenses throughout the lease term.
REITs are companies that own and manage several cashflow-positive, tenant-occupied properties across multiple real estate asset classes that are managed by property managers. When you invest in a REIT remotely, your money is appropriately distributed in REIT properties. This reduces your exposure to market volatility. Over 140 million Americans have invested in REITs so far and earned billions in returns collectively. In addition, REITs are required to distribute 90 percent of rental income to investors as mandated by the IRS.
You can dip your feet in real estate properties through the HappyNest REIT for just $10 without any brokerage or platform fees and benefit from quarterly dividend payouts and long-term wealth appreciation. HappyNest REIT managers follow a rigorous underwriting process and review system to source, vet, and list properties tailored to investor preferences.
When you create an account, you can link the payment method through their secure gateway and make an initial investment of $10. After that, you can increment your holdings in multiples of $5.
At present, the HappyNest REIT showcases a 42-acre Industrial shipping property in Fremont, Indiana occupied by FedEx with more than 10 years remaining on active net lease. The property is strategically located between interstate freeways I-90 and I-69, making it a premium logistical hub with amazing accessibility. It is well-positioned to logistically support the booming e-commerce sector. The 18,536 sq. ft. property with 188 truck bays housed by FedEx generates an annual rent of $1.2 million and a proportion of it is passed on to HappyNest investors as per the size of holdings.
The second property is a 8,775 sq. ft. retail hub in East Hampton, MA that can handle 11,000 cars a day. The property is occupied by CVS pharmacy on a net lease and comes with a corporate guarantee of a rent hike of 10 percent scheduled every five years. With 13 years left on the net lease, the CVS pharmacy has historically generated an annual rental revenue of $300,000 with no signs of slowing down.
Best HappyNest Features
- HappyNest strives to source properties with single Fortune 500 tenants on long-term leases to insulate investors from short-term economic risks.
- The HappyNest website and app are fortified with 256-bit encryption. User data is secured through email verification, biometrics logins, identity verification with alerts for any unusual account activity to protect against fraud.
- Low-capital entry into real estate to create a passive income stream.
FarmTogether | Most Credible Farmland Investing Platform Focused on Investor Profitability and Sustainable Agriculture
FarmTogether
Most Credible Farmland Investing Platform Focused on Investor Profitability and Sustainable Agriculture
Best For:
Account Minimum:
Farmland Investment
$15,000
Fees: Vary with deals
Minimum Investment: $15,000
U.S. farmland prices increased in the last 15 years from $2,010 to $3,380 per acre in 2021. Although a premium asset, the industry was scattered without a transparent system or availability of investor information until online farmland investing platforms like FarmTogether came into being.
FarmTogether offers accredited investors investable farmlands sourced through an extensive review process and managed by established operators. The firm claims that only 2 percent of the $5 billion worth of farmlands reviewed made it to their online farmland investing marketplace.
As one of the largest online farmland investing platforms, FarmTogether allows investors to benefit from physical ownership of farmlands that grow 14 different permanent crops in the Pacific Northwest and California. The firm has over a thousand clients who have collectively invested in 40 deals worth $175 million of carefully-sourced farmlands.
Investors can invest in crowdfunded farmland offerings starting at $15,000 or gain sole ownership of bespoke offerings at a minimum investment of $3 million. Returns come in the form of quarterly or semi-annual dividend payouts generated through farming yield and long-term returns after deal exits upon the completion of the hold period, which averages 5 to 12 years.
FarmTogether sources farmlands with an abundant water supply and fertile soil, and works with partner farmland operators like TriNut Farms who take care of day-to-day activities like tenant management, rent collection, and farmland maintenance.
The firm leaves no stone unturned when evaluating farmlands. Their triple-layered review process uses a 150-point checklist including location, crop type, soil quality, water levels, title inspection, equipment and infrastructure, climate, and farmer wages. This enables them to zero in on farmlands that can grow your money and act as a buffer during recession seasons.
The second stage of the review involves understanding crop prices and demand, regional trends, trade dynamics. and yield records to estimate how likely the farm is to generate profit for investors. If all boxes are checked, an in-house inspection is conducted to confirm water rights and quality, review title and ownership, and gauge operational capabilities of irrigation and pump systems and the possibility for future upgrades.
After creating an investor profile and verifying your accreditation status, you will be able to access FarmTogether’s marketplace and view each offering in detail. This includes the original deal documents, inspection reports, minimum investment amount, fee, hold period, projected returns, and funding status so you can determine if they fit your investment goals and timeline.
You can contact their dedicated support team for a thorough walkthrough and even execute legal agreements through electronic signatures from your home.
Best FarmTogether Features
- All-in-one farmland investing platform that offers a hassle-free, completely online investment experience with a vision to promote sustainable agriculture on a massive scale.
- Highly transparent digital ecosystem managed by a team of experts with over 70+ years in cross-industry experience.
- Offerings with diverse crops and historical returns of 7 to 15 percent with average cash yields between 3 and 9 percent, excluding fees that vary for each deal.
Partnership with major operators and a Leading Harvest certification that confirms that all FarmTogether-owned farmland acreage is managed through sustainable farming practices.
Crypto Currency Investing
Cryptocurrency emerged as the hottest investment asset in the new decade. Although driven by millennials and new investors, it also piqued the interest of seasoned investors. At present, Bitcoin nosedived from above $60,000 in Q4 2021 to below $20,000 in June 2022 showcasing extreme volatility.
The crypto bull run that began in 2020 kicked off a chain reaction of private equity investors buying tokens and equity stakes in crypto businesses. One of the largest investment banks in the world, JP Morgan Chase, pointed out that venture capital investing in crypto startups and blockchain-based industries continued at a record pace, where the year-to-date VC investment stood at a whopping $11.9 billion. The trend is likely to continue.
VCs pumping billions of dollars in crypto and blockchain startups could mean that amid fears of a ‘crypto winter’, the industry could find an opportunity to realign priorities and focus on building more successful projects. This year’s VC deals have been in diverse crypto sectors starting from exchanges and blockchain data and analytics companies to non-fungible tokens (NFT) infrastructure groups.
From an investor’s perspective, safe and easy accessibility through popular exchanges, crypto and blockchain adoption in a growing number of businesses, and the perception of it as a high risk/reward asset backed by VC capital makes it a long-term investing option.
Unlike stocks and bonds, crypto holdings are stored in online wallets generally provided by the exchange in use, and can be accessed using a private key available only to you and the exchange. For better security amid concerns of rising cybercrimes, investors also opt in for the cold wallet option, which is essentially keeping assets in USB or hard drives disconnected from the Internet.
When selecting a crypto exchange, it is advisable to be aware of the security protocols in place, the diversity of crypto tokens available for investing, and the transaction or storage fees. Here are the top crypto exchanges and investing tools for both beginners and seasoned investors.
Crypto.com | Fastest-Growing Crypto Exchange With High Staking Rewards
Crypto.com
Fastest-Growing Crypto Exchange With High Staking Rewards and a Diverse Crypto Pool
Best For:
Trading Fees:
Low Fee Exchange
0.075%
Fees: Volume-based trading fee
Crypto.com is the fastest growing crypto app in the world with over 50 million users. Here, you can track and trade over 250 crypto currencies using 20 fiat currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, etc.) with the lowest possible fees when you make transactions using your debit/credit cards or bank transfers.
The user-friendly app is protected by several layers of encryption and security standards, including SOC2 Type 1 Compliance, PCI: DSS 3.2.1 Level 1 compliance, and Singapore Data Protection Trust Mark.
Most interestingly, you can make your crypto holdings work for you by staking or locking up a portion of your holdings on the Crypto.com chain (CRO) for a stipulated period of time. By contributing to the blockchain network, you can earn up to 14.5 percent annually on the staked portion in the form of coins or tokens. The same applies for their credit feature that allows you to take out an instant loan of 50 percent of your deposits without a credit check at 12 percent interest rate per annum. You can pay for this at your own schedule without any late fees.
While crypto transfers to any Crypto.com user are completely free and seamless; you might incur a small, fixed fee when transferring to an external wallet address.
Businesses can benefit from sending invoices and receiving payments using the powerful merchant dashboard and reviewing business and customers metrics intuitively arranged in one place for driving incremental sales. There are no setup or transaction fees and businesses can save up to 80 percent on fees when settling in their preferred fiat currency. The merchant API can be integrated with popular e-commerce websites and online store management systems like Shopify, OpenCart, WooCommerce, nopCommerce, PrestaShop, and more.
Best Crypto.com Features
- 100 percent of cryptocurrencies in the exchange are sold in cold wallets fortified by hardware security modules (HSM) and multi-signature technologies.
- No-fee deposits or transfers between 50 million and growing users across 90 countries.
- Invest and track over 250 cryptocurrencies using a host of analytics tools.
- Integrate your business with Crypto.com Pay for transparency and safety in business transactions.
- Grow crypto assets by earning coins in rewards through staking your holdings or earning cashback in CRO tokens of up to five percent when using Crypto.com metal visa cards to pay for Netflix, Spotify, AirBnb, Amazon Prime, among other global brands.
Bitcoin IRA | Benefit From Tax Breaks on Your Crypto Holdings
Bitcoin IRA
Benefit From Tax Breaks on Your Crypto Holdings
Best For:
Trading Fees
Crypto IRA
2%
Fees: One-time fee based on Investment amount; minimal custodian and security fee.
Bitcoin IRA is the world’s first and largest full-service solution that allows you to invest in 60+ cryptocurrencies with your IRA, and is trusted by over 150,000 clients. IRAs are the best-suited retirement investment vehicle for those who don’t have an employee-sponsored 401(k) account. Bitcoin IRA offers a unique opportunity to introduce cryptocurrency into the volatile segment of your retirement portfolio and protect your capital gains from taxes in a self-directed IRA.
Bitcoin IRA specialists help set up your account, roll over your funds from an existing retirement fund like a traditional or Roth IRA to a new self-directed IRA with BitGo Trust, and move your coins securely into a digital wallet.
BitGo Trust, which is the largest processor of on-chain digital currency transactions with $2 billion worth of cryptocurrencies in their crypto wallet, will act as your IRA custodian to keep your assets safe.
Creating an account on Bitcoin IRA only takes minutes. Then, you can begin an IRA rollover by informing their dedicated team of the amount you want to invest and profile information. This typically takes three to five business days. Once your account is funded, you can trade and monitor crypto in your new tax-advantaged IRA account to reap capital gains in retirement.
The Bitcoin IRA self-directed IRA trading platform is protected with 256-bit encryption. All of your digital assets are stored offline at BitGo Trust, which uses multi-sig (P2SH) and HD (BIP32) industry-leading protocols for security and financial privacy. BitGo Trust and insurer Lloyd’s of London offer insurance for your digital assets up to $700 million.
Bitcoin IRA charges an initial one-time service fee that is proportional to your investment amount alongside a minimal custodian and security fee.
Asset allocation in any investment portfolio is based on your sensitivity to market risks and investment capacity. During early working years, many investors follow an aggressive approach that is more inclined toward volatile assets and less towards low-return, stable assets like bonds. This gradually changes to a more conservative approach as one nears retirement.
Best Bitcoin IRA Features
- Investors can roll over funds from an existing Roth IRA, SEP IRA, SIMPLE IRA, 403b, or 401k into a self-directed Bitcoin IRA account.
- Grow financial awareness and explore investment opportunities through a collection of educational resources, articles, and videos.
- Bitcoin IRA only works with US-based custodians and exchanges that strictly follow US security protocols.
- Trade cryptocurrencies 24/7 safely and review wealth growth and crypto markets on their secure web app.
- BitGo digital wallets have both SOC 1 and SOC2, Type I and II security certifications.
Bear in mind that BitcoinIRA is a platform that connects users to custodians, digital wallets, and cryptocurrency exchanges.
Coinbase | Best Crypto Exchange for High-Volume Traders
Coinbase
Self-Directed IRA for Ultra Portfolio Diversification
Best For:
Trading Fees:
Beginners
$0.05- $0.60
Fees: Inversely proportional to trading volume
Coinbase is one of the leading crypto exchanges in the world with 84 million verified users spread across 100 countries. While 98 percent of all crypto holdings on the Coinbase exchange are stored offline, investors can also benefit from a self-custody Coinbase wallet where the private keys to access holdings are only available to you and not the crypto exchange. This gives you complete control over your crypto investments.
In addition to having industry-leading security protocols in place, Coinbase conducts a rigorous security review of all tokens before they go live on their platform. This ensures that a particular token can be reliably stored, bought, and sold within the Coinbase framework.
On the other hand, Coinbase verifies new investor profiles against government IDs before they can fund their accounts. Deposits can be done via bank transfer, debit/credit cards, Google Pay, or Apple Pay in order to start trading hundreds of crypto tokens.
There are no fees on crypto transfers between Coinbase users, but a fee might be applicable when sending to an external wallet address. Moreover, transaction fees vary based on order volume, payment method, and market liquidity and volatility. These are disclosed at the time of the transaction, though.
You may also stake a portion of your holdings in third-party blockchains provided by Coinbase and earn rewards in tokens based on the size of the staked holdings and network protocols. Coinbase transfers your rewards directly to your asset balance after deducting a 25 percent commission.
Coinbase offers more ways to earn rewards with a Visa card powered by Marqeta and issued by MetaBank, N.A., Member FDIC that will convert your crypto holdings to U.S. dollars when making everyday purchases like filling up gas or withdrawing money at an ATM (up to $1,000 a day) without any transaction fees.
Businesses can improve lead generation and introduce fluidity and transparency in operations and business transactions using the self-managed commerce merchant account from Coinbase.
If you are a business owner running an e-commerce store or multiple stores, you can swiftly integrate with 12 popular e-commerce platforms. A flexible API is also available for those who need advanced functionality like transaction and reporting features for accounting purposes. Business owners can receive payments from all over the world with full control of their funds and currency conversions.
Best Coinbase Features
- Buy, sell, and store hundreds of cryptocurrencies at true costs and fees inversely proportional to order volume.
- Grow your crypto assets through staking and several other rewards options.
- Layered security system for both investors and crypto listings to maintain the integrity of the blockchain network.
- Business merchant account for tracking and analyzing business progress and easy invoicing and payment receipts from across the globe.
- Prompt 24/7 customer support through email or live chat.
Alternative Assets
Global investors’ sentiment have generally indicated a traditional approach into wealth growth through stocks, bonds, mutual funds or ETFs. However, the pandemic-induced recession has encouraged masses to explore investment avenues in alternative assets that offer a hedge against inflation, share no correlation with stocks, and offer consistent and steady returns over time.
Rocket Dollar | Self-Directed IRA for Ultra Portfolio Diversification
Rocket Dollar
Self-Directed IRA for Ultra Portfolio Diversification
Best For:
Minimum Investment:
Diverse Investment
$0
Fees: $15 – $30 monthly; $360 – $600 one-time setup for Silver and Gold plan, respectively.
Rocket Dollar allows you to invest in nearly any asset allowed by the IRS in a retirement account through a self-directed IRA (SDIRA) or a solo 401(k). You can add assets like real estate, cryptocurrency, startups, livestock, crop, foreign currency, promissory notes, mineral right, commodities, precious metals, tax lien certificates, and private debt with ease.
Self-employed individuals with no full-time employees are eligible to open solo 401(k) accounts.
Rocket Dollar sets up an LLC for IRAs or a trust for 401(k)s so you can hold any investment asset legally allowed in a retirement plan. The IRA LLC or 401(k) trust is the legal owner of your asset. You will have checkbook control to buy assets using the LLC bank account’s checkbook and bank account opened at a Rocket Dollar partner bank.The IRA owner has complete signing authority over the LLC funds. All transactions, expenses and income received are conducted and held in the LLC, and the LLC is the only asset held by the SDIRA. This model ensures easy record-keeping for both the investor and Rocket Dollar.
When you own an alternative asset in a traditional IRA or SDIRA, it must be held with a non-bank trustee or custodian. They will only hold assets if approved by their investment team, hence limiting your investment options and also put the burden of due diligence on your shoulders. With a LLC model, you can invest in any assets not prohibited by the IRS.
Rocket Dollar has already partnered with reputable dealers in diverse industries such as cryptocurrency, energy, farmland, rental properties, consumer goods and inventory, precious metals, private debt and equity, franchises, and pre-IPO startups and unicorns that you can use to buy specific assets.
Rocket Dollar claims that you can create an account within five minutes and start funding your new solo 401(k) or SDIRA once it’s ready in a few business days.
The Rocket Dollar Silver plan costs $15 per month for account management and $360 towards a one-time account setup fee. The Silver plan requires no minimum deposit, offers secure online document storage, an intuitive investment dashboard, email support, and the option to bring your own deal (BYOD).
The Gold plan costs $30 per month and $600 towards a one-time account setup fee for the same features in the Silver plan alongside priority support, expedited service, tax filing assistance, Roth IRA rollover walkthrough, and four free wire transfers per year.
Best Rocket Dollar Features
- Rocket Dollar allows you to bring your own deal (BYOD) of unique IRS-eligible asset classes for investment through SDIRA for ultra portfolio diversification.
- Rocket Dollar is a SOC-2 certified company with industry-leading security protocols that offer a secure way to handle transactions and manage and track assets using their IRA as a Service (IRaaS) platform.
- Dedicated account service team resolves queries, helps you in selecting the right account type for you, and assists in funding your account.
- An SDIRA LLC ensures complete control over your assets and opens the gateway to introduce assets in a portfolio that is not always possible with most IRA custodians.
HardAssets Alliance | Gold Buying Online Platform Best Suited for Beginners
Hard Asset Alliance
Gold Buying Online Platform Best Suited for Beginners
Best For:
Minimum Investment:
Metal Exchange
$5000
Fees: Volume-based transaction fee, 0.7 percent p.a. storage fees
Gold is one of the few time-tested tangible assets that beat other asset classes over the last century with consistent growth in value and demand. As a precious metal with universal demand, high exchangeability, and easy access; gold offers a hedge against recession, inflation, and stock volatility.
Interestingly, gold prices have surged to record highs during major recessions in the last 50 years, making it a recession-proof asset that reduces exposure to stock fluctuations.
Today, buying gold online is easy. However, investors should still conduct their due diligence in regards to how their information is stored in online gold exchanges, fees, reliability of trade executions, asset storage, and liquidity.
Hard Assets Alliance (HAA) is a popular metals exchange for high-quality insured gold products. They are stored in state-of-the-art vaults in New York, Zurich, London, and Singapore; and managed by top security providers like Brinks, Malca-Amit, and Loomis.
For a small fee, investors also have the option to get their holdings shipped to their home with transit insurance. New users can download the app, create a new account, link a bank account, and fund the HAA account to experience a seamless gold-buying experience during market hours.
Transaction fees depend on the size of the order, whereas storage fees start from 0.7 percent annually for assets up to $100,000. This goes down to 0.5% if the value of account holdings exceed $1 million.
Furthermore, you can opt in for automatic monthly investments beginning at $25 per month or open a gold IRA with Equity Trust. This top US-based custodian manages over $25 billion in alternative assets for IRA investors.
Best HardAsset Alliance Features
- Dynamic storage fees and transparent transaction fees.
All holdings are insured against theft, loss, and misplacements. - The vaults are under 24-hour surveillance that are frequently audited, ensuring peace of mind.
- The METALSTREAM feature allows you to automate gold investing for a minimum of $25/month so you can feasibly grow wealth and benefit from the dollar-cost averaging strategy.
- A tax-advantaged Gold IRA with a reputed U.S. trust company gives a comparatively safer kickstart to retirement goals.
- User-friendly app to invest in gold instantaneously and monitor investments and gold markets in one place.
HAA is currently managing over $2.5 billion worth of precious metals for over 30,000 clients, including wealth managers and individual investors.
Vinovest | Invest in Fine Wine and Outperform the Volatile Stock Market
Vinovest
Invest in Fine Wine and Outperform the Volatile Stock Market
Best For:
Minimum Investment:
Wine Investment
$0
Fees: Starting 2.85% Annual Fee for Managed accounts
Minimum Investment: $1,000 for managed accounts; no minimum for trading accounts
Vinovest is an online wine investing platform that allows you to invest in institutional-grade wine starting at $1,000 for managed accounts. With the help of world-class sommeliers and proprietary financial models based on big data, the firm analyzes millions of historical data points to evaluate and list wine poised to grow in value over time. This includes critic scores, current age, liquidity, producer’s brand equity, and risk-to-return ratio.
Vinovest uses its global connections to purchase wine at competitive prices, which positively impacts your potential returns on investments. The California-based firm authenticates, stores, and secures your wine assets with the option of doorstep wine delivery so you can reap profits and enjoy them as well.
On the other hand, a trading account offers you complete control over how many bottles of wine you want to buy or sell through a transparent pricing system.
Fine wine has returned 10.6 percent per year over the last three decades, outperforming global stock markets in the same tenure. The value of institutional-grade wine appreciates over time due to low availability, aging, and producer’s brand equity.
When you sign up on Vinovest, you can fund your account through ACH transfer, wire transfer, check, cryptocurrency, or BitPay. After completing a one-minute questionnaire about your investing goals, Vinovest will create a personalized wine portfolio based on your responses and you will have 100 percent ownership of all assets.
Best Vinovest Features
- Schedule a virtual tete-a-tete with a Vinovest advisor to explore wine brands and investing strategies.
- High liquidity means you can sell your wine bottles any time you want.
- AI-based managed account for long-term investors and a no-minimum trading account for global access and more flexibility on wine quantity.
- Vinovest stores wine in bonded warehouses, eliminating additional tariffs and excise duty taxes for buying and selling wine.
Credit and Financial Security
If you have poor credit health and no backup plan for your family in a digitized world, all of your efforts in building wealth could be in vain. Hence, protecting your credit profile, managing your debts wisely, and having a backup plan are essential to safeguard your overall financial interests.
If you have heard of credit scores, then you should at least have a vague idea that it affects your ability to secure loans, credit cards, and insurance policies at low interest rates. In fact, 90 percent of lenders check credit scores before anything to determine the fate of loan applications.
Your credit score could also affect your daily life if you are looking for a job or a house to rent since landlords and employers check credit scores during background checks to determine your creditworthiness and money-managing experience.
If you have ever taken out or applied for a loan, mortgage or insurance policy; there’s a good chance you have a credit profile with a credit score. You can access yours from major credit bureaus like TransUnion, Experian, or Equifax. Credit scores generally range from 300 to 850, and are based on the globally-accepted FICO scoring model. A high credit score portrays you as a low-risk borrower, enabling loan approvals at feasible interest rates.
A credit report shows your credit score, loan accounts, repayment history, credit limit, and utilization as per details provided to credit bureaus by your lenders. Late payments, debt settlements, a high frequency of credit applications, and incorrect entries are some of the factors that negatively affect your credit score. More dangerously, report after report showed an exponential rise in identity theft cases where miscreants illegitimately use government IDs or documents of others to secure credit products. This could severely damage credit health as well. The worst part is that victims might not even know about it unless they check their credit report or get contacted by a lender regarding a loan or credit card you never applied for.
Hence, it stands to reason that it has become more than necessary to check your credit report at least once a month. If you notice any suspicious entries, you can dispute and get them removed. If you suspect a case of identity theft, you can approach the local police department to contain the damage and avoid any situation that could cost you time and money.
For the backup plan, you need to secure the financial future of your family in case of your untimely demise. A recent Forbes Advisor survey revealed that more than 70 percent of the 2,000 U.S. adult respondents between ages of 18 to 41 created a will due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Their top reason was not having enough assets to leave behind for children. In addition, 46 percent have thought of taking out life insurance or improving coverage of existing policies.
A life insurance policy is one of the most affordable and easiest ways to protect your loved ones with a lump sum payout for college tuition, bills, loans, and regular spending in case you aren’t around anymore. While a permanent or whole life insurance policy offers coverage for as long as you pay premiums, a term-life insurance may work best for breadwinners who want their children financially protected until they finish college, or those planning to have kids or buy a home.
Term-life insurance policies offer coverage for a stipulated period of time and usually come with cheaper premiums than permanent life insurance. Your premiums will depend on your general health, credit score, and your life insurance application and policy history.
myFICO | Stay on Top of Your Credit Reports With Cutting-Edge Credit Monitoring and Identity Restoration Services
myFico
Stay on Top of Your Credit Reports With Cutting-Edge Credit Monitoring and Identity Restoration Services
Best For:
Pricing:
Credit Information
$19.95 – $39.95
Fees: Starting from $19.95 per month
myFICO is one of the leading platforms when it comes to accessing credit scores and reports from TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. Bundled with credit monitoring, identity monitoring and restoration services; you can stay on top of any changes to your credit profile or credit score.
myFICO’s credit monitoring system constantly monitors your credit files at the three credit bureaus and alerts you immediately of any changes like new credit or collection accounts, loan inquiries, address changes, credit limit and account status changes, and modifications to public record and collection accounts. This feature on the intuitive app could also help you track your score history graph and any factors affecting your credit score so you can work intelligently towards your credit score goals.
In addition, myFICO’s advanced identity monitoring and restoration services scan countless websites, Internet databases, public chat rooms, and new names or addresses linked to your Social Security number to check if anyone is trading your personal information. In case of any unusual activity, myFICO alerts you immediately so you can take appropriate action.
In case of any foul play, myFICO’s identity theft restoration feature connects you with their identity theft experts who are available 24/7. They can help you restore your identity or recover money from a lost wallet.
myFICO’s basic plan starting at $19.95 per month. This includes all features except identity monitoring and comes with quarterly updated credit reports from Experian. The advanced membership offers a more impactful service with monthly updated credit reports from all of the three bureaus and all features, including identity monitoring services.
Best myFICO Features
- Identity theft insurance up to $1 million against data breaches and identity fraud underwritten by American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida, an assurant company.
- Comprehensive credit report alert system for any changes in personal details to credit or collection accounts.
- In-built dispute system with identity theft experts on standby to act swiftly and prevent further damage done to your credit profile.
Bestow | Online Term-Life Insurance Coverage Up to $1.5 million Within Minutes Starting at $10 a Month
Bestow
Online Term-Life Insurance Coverage Up to $1.5 million Within Minutes Starting at $10 a Month
Best For:
Pricing:
Term Life Insurance
Starts at $11 / month
Fees: $0
Bestow is a leading insuretech firm that solves one of the biggest problems in securing term-life insurance policies with no-exam applications and approvals.
The fintech company runs AI-based proprietary tech against your online insurance application to give you an instant quote. You can customize coverage, premiums, and policy tenure. Upon application submission, Bestow will access your medical record with your consent and run complex algorithms before approving coverage completely online if you are eligible, usually within minutes,
Enrolling for a life insurance policy has always required doctor visits, medical tests, and dealing with insurance agents. This can be incredibly time-consuming. Bestow is revolutionizing policy-buying with the help of big data and AI to enable no-exam, online insurance approvals to offer your family instant term-life insurance coverage underwritten by the North American Company for Life and Health Insurance, an A-plus rated carrier as per AM Best.
The Texas-based company has received over $130 million in investor funding since 2016 to develop a robust, transparent, and lightning-fast term-life insurance approval system. They offer term-life insurance policies to 18- to 60-year-olds who are in good health with tenures ranging from 10 to 30 years. Coverage ranges from $50,000 all the way up to $1.5 million with premiums starting at a feasible $10 a month.
Just like any other life insurance provider, Bestow asks for your Social Security Number to verify your identity and prevent fraud. However, you can rest easy knowing that any information exchanged on the Bestow website is protected by 256-bit encryption protocols.
Best Bestow Features
- No-exam term-life insurance policies starting at $10 a month.
- Coverage up to $1.5 million.
- Even though policies are available to those aged between 18 to 60 years old, a policy underwritten for an individual at the age of 55 will expire at the end of its term, ensuring coverage till 65.
- Secure platform and a transparent claims processing workflow.