Tag: Money

App of the Week: Acorns

 

By Investmentzen.com

Summary

If you have never heard of Acorns, that is about to change. To save you time from scouring the web for quality Acorns reviews, we went ahead and put together everything you need to know here.

Acorns uses the “micro investing” approach by allowing you to round to the nearest dollar for every purchase you make and investing the difference. All those pennies start to add up and compound over time, and best of all it happens automatically when you make purchases you would normally make anyways!

Account Minimum
$5
Fees
$1/month or 0.25% per year for accounts greater than $5000.

Expert Walkthrough

What is Acorns?
Saving money today can be difficult. That amount of people who are investing in their future is far lower than it should be. Nearly 7 in 10 Americans have less than $1,000 in savings. It doesn’t have to be this way!

It can be difficult to reach the goal of a comfortable emergency fund or even starting to save for retirement. It takes both time and attention. With how busy life gets, these two things are not always easy to find.

Now Acorns has entered the game and is helping people in this exact situation. This is a service that allows you to get your feet wet with investing with little to no knowledge required. With such an inventive idea, we’ve put together this Acorns review for you to see how they can help you start investing today.

Acorns is revolutionizing the way millennials invest. They are taking charge in a time when it is well known that most people are not saving nearly enough to guarantee a comfortable retirement. This is a problem! Retirement can be as long or longer than your working career, so you want to make sure you are planning for it.

This is why Acorns allows college students to pay absolutely no fees for four years. Once you provide a valid .edu email address, you won’t pay a dime to Acorns for the remainder of your four-year degree.

Acorns does an excellent job explaining the investing process to beginners. Throughout the experience of signing up and investing, key terms are defined in a digestible format. This way, you know the implications from every action you take within your investment portfolio.

 

 

How Does it Work?

Acorns enables you to round to the nearest dollar for every purchase you make and invests the difference automatically.

These pennies are invested in one of six asset allocations. Each portfolio is made up of different Exchange Traded Funds (ETF). These options allow you to decide how aggressive or conservative you want to be.

The portfolios that are available are:

Conservative
Moderately Conservative
Moderate
Moderately Aggressive

Each of these portfolios are balanced differently to aim for your desired level of risk.

It really is that easy.

In addition to “Rounding Up” you have the option of contributing lump sums on a weekly or even daily basis.

This method takes more effort because you have to go out of your way to send money initially, or regularly. While it is a great way to get in the habit of investing, Acorns mainly focuses on sending a few cents on each transaction you make. It is done in the background so you may even forget it is happening.

There is no cost to sign up, but a $5 deposit is required to begin investing.

It is easy to login and check your balances and performance of your investments. Acorns will automatically reallocate your funds to fit the asset class you have selected.

This way, if the small business cap stocks have a good month, you won’t have too much tied up in that sector after the rally. Your money will be redistributed to other asset classes, potentially limiting the risk of losing these gains.

Pros

Acorns has changed the game for millennial investors. Although those from all walks of life use the service, the younger generations are taking advantage of this micro investing approach more than others.

Acorns makes investing easy. With a “set it and forget it” methodology, in a way it forces you to begin investing by rolling in few cents for every purchase you make.

This is a great way for college students who may not have access to a 401k plan to build up a savings account. Acorn investments will grow just as if the funds were placed in an individual mutual fund with an investment bank.

They do all the work. When you sign up with Acorns, the hardest part of your job is initially deciding where you want your money and linking your cards (which is not difficult). After that, you are saving money.

Acorns also offers a mobile application for iOS and Android devices. Take a look at the Acorn app reviews in the app store to see what people are saying. The feedback is overwhelmingly positive. The app is helping so many people, there may be use of a full Acorns app review in a future article.

Acorns is very useful if you are just beginning to learn about investing. They make it very easy by doing virtually all of the work for you. Your everyday purchases contribute to your savings.

From the time you swipe your linked card, you will decide which asset allocation you want to invest in. Acorns puts your money in a well diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds.

 

 

Cons

Acorns isn’t perfect for everyone. This service is not a way to replace a 401k or Roth IRA. The lack of tax benefits may steer some away.

The fees to use the service can be rather high when combined with a low account balance.

If you take advantage of the Round-Up program that Acorns offers, the pennies you are contributing will add up over time. Depending on how much you spend, you could be hovering under $20 for quite some time.

A $1 fee on a $20 balance is a 5% fee. When compared to retirement accounts with other financial institutions, 5% would be extremely high.

You can of course lower the fee percentage by depositing a larger initial amount, which would dilute the $1 fee to a lower percentage of your total savings.

Limited investment options. Acorns does offer 6 different assets allocations that are well diversified. However, hundreds more options can be found by dealing with a commercial investment company like Wells Fargo or Fidelity.

 

 

Is Acorns Worth It?

Acorns is an amazing tool to get started with investing. If you do not have a company offered retirement account like a 401k, it allows you to put your money in the stock market with little barrier to entry.

It is not a way to replace a 401k or Roth IRA. Acorns does not provide a match like most companies, and the growth is not tax deferred or tax free.

The passive nature of using Acorns works well for investors who want a hands off approach. With reallocating and depositing done in the background, you have more time to focus on other things in your life.

If you would rather get a root canal than learn about investing, then Acorns could very well be the solution to your problem. Use this Acorn review and decide for yourself if this method of investing will be beneficial for you.

Download Acorns for iOS and Android

Do you have a favorite investment app? Tell us about it in the comments below?

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Tales from the Orchard: Lawsuit revived over Apple retail workers’ pay during security checks

 

 

By Dave Kravets of Arstechnica

Dispute has widespread ramifications about pay for time spent in security checks.

Should Apple retail workers in California be paid for time spent having their purses, backpacks and other belongings checked to make sure they didn’t steal any of Cupertino’s goods—after they have punched out?

Ruling in a class-action lawsuit brought by Apple retail workers, a federal judge answered “no”—California law doesn’t require Apple to pay for that time, even though it’s mandatory that employees who bring purses or other bags to work get them searched while they’re off the clock.

The worker-wage dispute with one of the world’s richest companies didn’t end there. Lawyers for the class-action lawsuit representing thousands of Apple retail workers in California appealed that 2015 decision to the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals. On Wednesday, the appeals court said it couldn’t come to any conclusion in a dispute that the court said had widespread ramifications for California workers who go through security checks at companies like Marshalls, Nordstrom, Federal Express, Best Buy, and other workplaces. The federal appeals court said the answer to whether California wage laws apply to time spent on security checks should be decided by the California Supreme Court.

So the appeals court on Wednesday asked the state Supreme Court to weigh in. It’s a rare practice for the nation’s appeals courts to request—in what is known as a certified question—that the top courts in states interpret controversial issues involving state law.

“The consequences of any interpretation,” the appeals court wrote
the California Supreme Court, (PDF) “will have significant legal, economic, and practical consequences for employers and employees throughout the state of California.”

In short, the suit claims that Apple retail employees spend as much as 20 minutes off the clock having their bags searched to combat employee theft every time they leave work. Apple claims that the searches only take seconds and that they are not “required” for workers who don’t bring purses, backpacks, briefcases, or other bags to work. Apple retail workers, in a 2012 letter to Apple chief Tim Cook, said the policy amounted to treating employees like “criminals.”

The appeals court said the issue was a close call and best left to the California Supreme Court.

The case at issue involves only those employees who voluntarily brought bags to work purely for personal convenience. It is thus certainly feasible for a person to avoid the search by leaving bags at home. But, as a practical matter, many persons routinely carry bags, purses, and satchels to work, for all sorts of reasons. Although not “required” in a strict, formal sense, many employees may feel that they have little true choice when it comes to the search policy, especially given that the policy applies day in and day out. Because we have little guidance on determining where to draw the line between purely voluntary actions and strictly mandatory actions, we are uncertain on which side of the line Plaintiffs’ claim falls.

Workers in California enjoy more employee-friendly regulations than those of the federal government or many other states. The US Supreme Court, for example,ruled in 2014 that warehouse workers for Amazon.com in Nevada could be forced to spend as much as 25 minutes off the clock to undergo security screenings at the end of their shift.

The wage dispute is on hold pending an answer from California’s top court.

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Tales From The Orchard: What Happened to Apple’s Moral Backbone?

 

 

By Joseph Holt of Fortune.com

Last year, Apple was on a moral high in its defiant standoff with the FBI over whether the company would help the agency unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters. The company was hailed as a hero in the fight against government intrusion.

But the company is no longer being hailed as a privacy rights hero. In January 2017, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information adopted a new regulation requiring virtual private network (VPN) developers to obtain a license from the government. VPN apps are one of the few ways that someone living in or visiting China can bypass the “Great Firewall” that restricts access to foreign websites—including perennial favorites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. In response, on July 29, Apple announced that it was removing all major VPN apps—which help Internet users circumvent censorship systems—from its App Store in China (the apps remain available in all other markets).

I can personally attest to the effect of this change. I am writing this piece from a hotel room in Beijing, where I was unable to access my Gmail account for the first two days here, even with a VPN connection. I eventually found a work-around, but the experience has left me sensitive to the importance of readily available means for getting around laws that unduly restrict the availability and flow of information.

Apple has explained that it is legally required to remove some of the VPN apps that do not meet this new regulation. But critics charge that Apple’s removal of many VPN apps from the App Store in China is inconsistent with its defiant stance against the FBI last year. On Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook responded to this critique. He correctly explained that the two situations are not the same, because, “ In the case of the U.S., the law in the U . S . supported us. It was very clear.”

But Apple’s argument—that submission to censorship laws in China is necessary and that the company has to follow local law wherever it operates—is flawed.

The argument is presented as if a company has no choice but to follow local law. History shows that not to be true.

During the apartheid regime in South Africa, for instance, some U.S. companies committed to the Sullivan Principles—corporate codes of conduct developed by Rev. Leon Sullivan that became a framework for dismantling apartheid—and engaged in what Sullivan called corporate civil disobedience.

These companies integrated their workforces and appointed blacks to supervisory positions in a way that defied apartheid laws. And as Sullivan explained, “Once we changed the practices in the workplace, then changes in the laws followed.”

Corporate civil disobedience is probably not the right way for Apple to go in China now, but it remains a viable option should the privacy situation worsen.

Similarly, Yahoo lost a great deal of respect from human rights groups, news organizations, and American political leaders—and its stock shares plunged—when it offered the same defense for providing Chinese government authorities information that was used in a legal case against Chinese journalist Shi Tao in 2005.

Shi was convicted of sending to a Chinese-language website based in New York a message from Chinese censorship authorities warning Chinese journalists not to report on pro-democracy demonstrations on anniversary of the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Yahoo Co-Founder Jerry Yang sounded very much like Cook in explaining that his company had no choice but to comply with Chinese law: “To be doing business in China, or anywhere else in the world, we have to comply with local law.”

I am not equating Yahoo’s actions in China in 2005 with Apple’s recent VPN app removal. But I am saying that there are times when the legal argument is morally inadequate.

How do you feel about American Tech companies compromising American beliefs in order to sell more of their products? Let us know in the comments below.

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Weekly Round Up 8/11

 

 

I’m gonna file this under “Doh!”
How to get fired in the tech industry


And the backlash continues…
Tech leaders must stop treating humanity like computer code

 


I’m ashamed to admit to owning most of the items on this list.
9 tech crazes that made us lose our minds in the ’90s

 


Everything old is new again.
3 Things Women in Tech Must Do to Get Ahead

 


Why didn’t they just buy Netflix?
Disney bought baseball’s tech team to take on Netflix

 


Shouldn’t this guy be in jail already?
Martin Shkreli’s ‘stealthy’ tech start-up has a website and says it’s starting to test products

 


What the WHAT?!
Wild new microchip tech could grow brain cells on your skin

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WIT: Meet the Wonderfully Nerdy CEO Who Is Now America’s Richest Self-Made Woman in Tech

 

Judy Faulkner, founder and CEO of Epic; courtesy of HIMSS Media

 

 

by Rob Wile of Time

Judy Faulkner hates high heels.

Stockings too.

“High heels hurt,” she told The Capital Times. “Stockings — stockings are probably like ties. They constrain your thinking.”

Faulkner discussed the issue during a long interview in April at the headquarters of Epic Systems, the Wisconsin-based electronic healthcare records management company she founded in 1979 when she was in her mid-30s.

Today, Epic has 9,000 employees and annual revenues of $1.75 billion, and the 73-year-old Faulkner is worth $2.6 billion according to Forbes. That makes her one of the top 10 richest self-made women in the U.S. Though she’s hardly a household name, Faulkner is America’s wealthiest self-made woman in tech, with a net worth slightly higher than Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman ($2.5 billion).

Why has Faulkner remained fairly unknown? Until recently, she rarely granted interviews, preferring to focus on building Epic. But lately, healthcare becomes politicized, and control of the marketplace has been increasingly being fought in public, so Faulkner has felt compelled to talk more to the media.

“It has to do with our growth in the industry,” she told HealthcareITNews last fall. “When we were smaller, it was fairly easy just to stay below the radar and concentrate simply on ‘Are we developing good software? And are we doing a good job with our customers?’ That’s how life was.”

Now, healthcare has become “more of a media battle than a quality-of-products and quality-of-services and support battle,” Faulkner told HealthcareITNews, and she understands she must discuss a wide range of issues in public, sometimes even including how she thinks uncomfortable office attire can affect workplace productivity.

A New Jersey native, Faulkner has spent her entire adult life in Wisconsin after enrolling at the University of Wisconsin to pursue a master’s degree in computer science. She and her husband have lived the same Madison subdivision for the better part of three decades, and she drives around in a five-year-old Audi. She recently joined wealthy philanthropists like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett by signing the Giving Pledge and promising to bequeath her assets to foundations upon her death.

Faulkner got her start after taking what she says was one of the country’s first-ever computers-in-medicine courses at UW. The decision reflected her interest in both medicine — her mother was a co-winner of the Nobel Prize Peace Prize for her work with the Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, and her father was a pharmacist — and tech.

“Math is truth and computer science is what works. It’s great to put them together because you need both,” she told The Capital Times.

Faulkner says she grew up as a “nerd,” and credits the advent of Microsoft for making life for people like her easier.

“It was painful to be nerdy when I was growing up and I clearly was nerdy,” she told The Capital Times. “But I think it became a perfectly fine thing to be nerdy after Bill Gates.”

Faulkner founded what was then called Human Services Computing, in 1979. At launch, the only employees were two assistants, in addition to the founders.

For a tech company based in the Midwest, growth was initially modest. Eleven years after its founding, the company, which by then had changed its name to Epic, still only had 30 employees, according to the International Directory of Company Histories. But it had already captured some major clients, including the Harvard Community Health Plan, the Ontario (Canada) Ministry of Health, and a 490-bed hospital constructed by the Sultan of Brunei. Epic’s bookkeeping software was being used by approximately 100 hospitals in Asia, Canada, and the United States.

One of the company’s biggest turning points was when it rolled out a Windows-based electronic medical record (EMR) product called EpicCare. Through word of mouth, and thanks to the growth of Windows itself, the product became the industry standard. By 1997, according to the Directory, Epic had net income of $6.6 million on sales of $30.9 million, and EpicCare was officially the nation’s largest electronic medical records system, with some 18,000 licenses sold. Epic attributed more than half of its revenues to EpicCare in 1997, the Directory says. As it expanded into more and more hospitals, revenue hit $162 million in 2003, the year Epic “stunned the industry,” in the words of the according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, by landing the Kaiser Permanente contract.

Even as Epic’s value soared, Faulkner steadfastly refused to take the company public or accept a buyout. She has also become known for creating an atmosphere that combines grueling hours with unabashed geekiness. Today, the Epic campus in Verona, Wisc., contains a Harry Potter-themed buildings, an Indiana Jones-styled hallway, and a treehouse. For the company’s annual client meeting group, Faulkner is known for dressing in costumes — including Supergirl, the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland, and a Harley-Davidson biker.

At the same time, there have been grumbles about Epic’s corporate culture. These have manifested themselves in a series of class-action lawsuits challenging the company’s overtime pay rules. In fact, one of these suits will soon be heard by the Supreme Court.

The overtime disputes are perhaps the outgrowth of Faulkner’s own extreme work ethic. Employees say that Faulkner is always willing to stay up and work all night to get tasks completed, and she expected others to do the same.

“There may be some people who work as hard as Judy,” Epic co-founder John Greist told The Capital Times. “But I’m pretty sure there’s nobody who’s worked harder.”

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App of the Week: Truebill

The App That Will Save You Hundreds Of Dollars

 

 

By Brian Rashid of Forbes

Sadly, some companies do not have your financial best interest in mind.
Companies that operate with the popular subscription-based model may be charging you money without you knowing. This could be in the form of hidden fees, by making it difficult for you to cancel a subscription, or even by signing you up for recurring payments when you make a one-time purchase.

Yahya Mokhtarzada realized the prominence of this problem when he was charged sneaky fees for in-flight wifi he had signed up for months ago. Annoyed, he did his homework and found that this situation is very common.

 

He teamed up with his brother, Idris, and founded Truebill, an app that detects and monitors recurring subscriptions.

Not only does Truebill identify these payments, but it allows users to cancel unwanted ones with a single click. The app goes a step further to ensure that the subscription is canceled by monitoring the user’s bank account the following month. In the event that the company did not follow through on the cancellation, Truebill will contact them and give the user a refund. Best of all, this service is completely free – an incredible price considering the average Truebill user saves $512 a year.

Let’s look at a real life example of their service. Imagine a user signed up for a gym membership in a city she no longer lives in. She realizes that she still being charged and wants to cancel. She calls the gym and finds out that the gym requires her to cancel in person. If not, she will have to mail a Certified Letter. With Truebill, she can easily cancel with one click on the app. Then, Truebill ensures her subscription is canceled by monitoring her bank account for charges the following month. If the gym charges her again, Truebill will automatically contact the gym to get her a refund.

In addition to saving users money, peace of mind is of the utmost importance to the Truebill team. They understand the reluctance of giving a stranger access to your financial data and use only the strongest security protocol. They do not share user data with other companies and use read-only algorithms when scanning user information.

Truebill is not anti-subscription. In fact, they educate the user on popular subscriptions with reviews on their website and recommend new ones that will increase the user experience. Truebill is, however, anti-subscription mismanagement. They believe that as payments become more automated with subscriptions, the user’s way of managing them should also become more automated.

Further, Truebill continues to increase the user experience by creating more features. They recently launched a tool that monitors subscriptions and warns the user if a price goes up. As the list of features continues to grow, the real value of TrueBill will remain, the awareness of where your money is going and what to do if you are not happy with that figure.

With our world moving toward automating, it is likely that the subscription-based model will continue to be popular. Brothers, Yahya and Idris, envision that everyone has complete control of their finances in this digital world. At just over a year old with over 150,000 users signed up, they are off to a great start.

What’s your favorite money management app? Tell us about it in the comments below!

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