Real World Betterment Results

Just about one year ago, I sold my company. Because I believe in the product, and the future growth, I rolled a lot of the value over into the new company. To be wise, I did take some chips off the table as well.

A dad sleeps better at night when debt is gone, the rainy day account is funded, and you take an opportunity to help others.

When all of those items were checked off, I looked around for a new way to invest wisely.

I have been trading stocks in Robinhood for some time. I enjoy trading stocks, and I still think this is the easiest way to do that, but I needed something more automatic.

After doing some research, I ended up going with Betterment. The app and service is a robo-investor. You commit money to the service, set your risk levels and goals, and the computer algorithms will do all the work of buying, selling, and holding. In many ways, it’s a modern take on an Index Fund where you ride the whole economy instead of living and dying on specific stocks. 

I also appreciate the Tax Loss Harvesting, which was useful at tax time this year.

Overall, I highly recommend the service to investors of all level. In addition to general investing, they also offer IRA accounts to save for retirement.

I also created a small investment account for each of my kids. They love to open the app and see how the investment has grown. I have a standing offer to them: for every dollar they invest, I will match it. It’s been a fun lesson in patience and waiting.

At the time I started with Betterment, I wondered about real world results. I wasn’t able to find much out there so I thought I’d chronicle my own experience here each year to help others.

Dark Blue is investment total, Light Blue is total value with earnings

April 2017 (One year): Earnings Percentage 12.2%

November 2017 (1.5 years): Earnings Percentage 17.4%

May 2018 (Two years): Earnings Percentage 20.1%

December 2018 (2.5 years): Earnings Percentage 24.9%

April 2019 (3 years): Earnings Percentage 18.7%