Anyone know of any other product offer that will take excess after direct deposit and invest it for you?
I've called Fidelity and Betterment and both do not offer an automated way like wealthfront does. Really sad to see wealthfront being the only player in that space.
Edit: by automated I mean something like "everything over $10k after bills, invest". It takes a couple of clicks per month manually, but it's been pretty relieving not having to do that every month.
[Disclaimer] I'm the founder of farther finance (https://www.farther.com) - the first digital family office.
We offer this to our clients at farther - set a minimum amount to keep in your bank account, everything over set minimum gets swept to your investment accounts and invested based on how you set them up and any relevant regulatory stuff (like max IRA contribution amounts) or goal amounts.
Quick note - We focus on holistic management for pretty significant wealth (compared to the target client for most offerings) and all of the stuff that comes with that - more intricate planning around events, alts, families, collabs with CPAs, attorneys etc. That's best achieved with a hybrid approach - an advisory team boosted by tech - so advisors are part of the deal! If you're interested, feel free to PM me and I'll connect you with one of our advisors.
Betterment had that until a month ago: "Two-Way Cash Sweep", though that swept into their cash reserve account, not the investment accounts. They said that less than 1% of users had it enabled, and so discontinued it.
Is there really that much utility in automating that? It takes a few clicks to move money from a checking account in Schwab/Fidelity to a target date fund or index ETF.
There is. Logging into those accounts is a pain in the ass, and requires active effort to remember doing. Automating things like bill-pay, deposits, and other "set it and forget it" tech is the best thing since sliced bread.
Just to be clear, we are talking about clicking on a bookmark, letting the password manager fill in the login info, and the clicking login or pressing enter?
>requires active effort to remember doing
Checking up on one's assets is something that should be on a periodic to do list. We even have devices that can be scheduled to alert us when it is time.
You can try to argue that this is stuff that people _should_ be doing, but it's always nice to build technology that acknowledges the tendency for humans to avoid doing repetitive, boring, manual work, rather than pretend that not be the case.
> Just to be clear, we are talking about clicking on a bookmark, letting the password manager fill in the login info, and the clicking login or pressing enter?
Close, you forgot the part where you need to locate your 2FA device, possibly connect it to a charger and wait for it to boot if needed, and then of course actually get the 2FA code and type it into the website.
edit: Oh, and I forgot the part where if you need to boot the device, you probably have to type in the password.
Ah, that's nice, I hate sites that don't do that -- which includes the one I am currently forced to use. Hilariously, the mobile app allows using the fingerprint scanner instead of entering my password -- but still requires me to enter the 2FA code every time, which of course is on the same device, so it's not doing anything other than just wasting my time.
Should people not be remembering to login to their accounts on a monthly or at least bimonthly basis to save statements/verify transactions/check to make sure they are not being stolen from?
I glance at account balances about once a week just out of habit. More than that requires brain power that I either lack or am too lazy to use unless I plan ahead.
I have an easy setup that’s close to what you want. From fidelity I got my account and routing number. I took that to my payroll provider (ADP) and changed my direct deposit instructions to send a fixed amount per paycheck to my checking account, and everything over to my fidelity account. I still have to login every two weeks and buy shares with whatever was just deposited but it’s very easy with the app. It looks like that could also be automated, but only for automated buys of mutual funds. I only use ETFs so haven’t played with that portion. This setup works really well for me!
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but nearly every bank I've ever used offers this feature. I currently have auto-transfers and auto-investments set up in Fidelity. If you receive a paycheck, you can easily set up Fidelity so that it automatically transfers $xxxx dollars per month to whatever account you like. You can also set up each account to automatically purchase $xxxx dollars worth of whatever equity you want.
I have a brokerage account at Fidelity, which I can write checks on, but I only use the account for investing. I guess theoretically you could use it as a primary bank account? I have some auto-transfers into the account each month, that automatically get invested, and some auto-transfers out to non-Fidelity accounts so I can invest proceeds in things Fidelity doesn't offer.
If you pay for M1 pro ($125/year) you can set a "smart rule" to automatically transfer above $x from your spend (checking) account to an investment account, and automatically invest it.
I've called Fidelity and Betterment and both do not offer an automated way like wealthfront does. Really sad to see wealthfront being the only player in that space.
Edit: by automated I mean something like "everything over $10k after bills, invest". It takes a couple of clicks per month manually, but it's been pretty relieving not having to do that every month.