Originally posted on June 6, 2022 @ 1:24 pm
Users of Stash’s tools save an average of $1,4329 per year, according to the company. But how much money you can make with Stash depends on how much money you invest and how well your portfolio does over time. No matter what kind of investments you make, there is always some risk.
This is an interesting tool that lets you start investing with as little as $5. But can the Stash app really help you make money?
Since it showed up in my Verizon rewards section, I downloaded it and decided to give it a quick look to try to answer your question.
What is Stash?
Stash is an app that lets you invest the money you save and check every day. It’s a simple investment app that anyone can use to learn how stocks work and start investing $1 a month to get the hang of things.
Stash turns small trades into investments that grow over time, and it can help you make money by buying and selling stocks over time. But how does it really work? Here’s how to use Stash to make money if you’re looking for smart ways to make money with your phone or online.
Stash wants to make investing easy for people who are just starting out. The service doesn’t have a minimum account size but managed Smart Portfolios cost $5 to get started. Monthly fees range from $1 to $9, depending on the services and account types you want. Stash might be a good choice if you want a little help putting together a portfolio of stocks and ETFs. If you just want management to be done automatically, you might want to look elsewhere.
Pros & Cons
Pros
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Cons
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6 Ways You Can Start Earning More With Stash
Most of us need our paychecks to pay rent, buy food, or put gas in our Toyota Tercel. And it’s not always easy to save and invest extra money.
There are ways to add more money to your Stash account that doesn’t involve transferring money from your linked bank account.
1. Refer your friends!
You can make money by telling people about Stash, whether they are your friends, enemies, frenemies, or anyone else. Get up to $500 in bonus money to invest for each friend who joins.
2. Let your investments earn you money
You can get more money from your investments, which you can then invest again.
How? By getting money from dividends and interest. As a share of a company’s profits, stockholders may get dividends, and bondholders may get interest payments on their debt securities.
3. Win contests!
Stash sometimes has contests and sweepstakes that users can win to add to their accounts. For example, in 2018, Stash ran a contest called “The Vault“. Try to win by participating.
4. Turn on Round-Ups
The new version of Auto-Stash has a feature called “Round-Ups,” which lets you “round up” your transactions to the nearest dollar and put the difference into your Stash account. This is money that comes from your bank account, but it’s a simple way to invest small amounts more effectively.
Your Round-Ups could add up over time!
5. Sign up for Stock-Back
One of the best ways to earn Stock-Back(r) rewards is to spend money on a particular business. Most people associate this type of reward with a stock market investment. However, this is not the case. By making purchases in a business’s online store, you can earn points towards your next purchase. In addition, Stock-Back(r) rewards are applicable for investments made in publicly traded companies. Moreover, Stash allows you to make money on investments every time you spend money in the company.
With the Stash debit card, you can earn Stock-Back rewards at over 11 million places worldwide. You can earn up to 5% back at some stores. What’s more, you can also earn additional Stock-Back rewards when you spend money at participating merchants. You can even invest the cash you earn on your purchases in an ETF, which is invested in a diversified ETF fund. The only drawback of using the card is that it does not come with fraud protection programs.
When you buy a product with your Stash Stock-Back(r) card, you will earn a small fractional share of the company. By using the card for purchases at these establishments, you will earn up to 0.25% in the stock. With that, you’ll get a fractional share of a publicly-traded company. With this, you can diversify your portfolio while building a small percentage of it.
The Stash Stock-Back Card offers a high return on small amounts. If you use your card to buy McDonald’s stock, you’ll be given $0.013 worth of the company’s stock in return for your purchase. However, this is not a significant amount. For a single purchase, it’s not worth it. And if you use your Stash to make an everyday purchase, this is a much better option than a credit card with no stock-back rewards program.
6. Get Stock-Back Bonuses
We’ll do you one better with Stock-Back bonuses. We’ll pick stores like Netflix, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Starbucks where you can get extra Stock-Back for a limited time7. All of your purchases, like lattes from Starbucks, munchkins from Dunkin, and even your monthly Netflix subscription, could be eligible for a Stock-Back bonus of between 1% and 5% of your purchase, depending on the rules.
All you have to do is sign up for Stock-Back and use your Stash debit card when you buy something at a store that gives bonuses. We’ll put the bonus in your Invest account. For the Stock-Back bonuses, you don’t need to sign up for anything extra. This is another benefit of the Stock-Back program.
How to Make Money With Stash?
Stash makes money by investing the money that you spend. To get started with Stash, you can sign up for a low-cost monthly subscription plan that costs less than $5/month. You can also get a Stash debit card for extra rewards. How do you make money with Stash? First of all, your subscription fee is invested instead of being kept, and it won’t be long before it starts making money back.
| $1 Monthly Investment | When you sign up for Stash, the first level costs $1 a month. Stash will use this money to teach you how to invest. Stash shows people who are new to investing in stocks how to do it so they can make money without losing money. The hands-on experience you get with penny stocks will help you understand how the market works as a whole. As you get more comfortable, you can switch to the $3/month account or move up to Stash + to make more advanced investments and build your portfolio. |
| Fractional Shares | One interesting thing about Stash is that they let you buy fractional shares. This lets you buy stocks in companies that are worth more than you can afford with your current funds. |
| Round-Up Investment | Round-up investments use the same “keep the change” strategy as round-up savings. When you use your Stash-connected account to buy something, the amount will be rounded up to the next dollar and added to your investment funds. |
| Automated Investments | Stash makes it easy to stick to an investment goal by automating and scheduling transfers to your investment funds. Then, they’ll either take care of your portfolio for you or help you keep a good mix of stocks. |
Who Can Use Stash?
Anyone with a US bank account and social security number can use Stash.
- US bank account with a US bank
- United States social security number
- Citizen of US
- Green card with the US
- Certain types of approved visa
What are the downsides to Stash?
Even though I think the Stash fees are very fair, especially for what you get, I will say that 0.25 percent of much larger accounts could add up to a lot over time. Let’s say you do really well and end up with $10,000 at some point. This would cost about $25 a year in fees.
This doesn’t seem like too much of a problem to me.
I also think that Stash could start to be hard to use if you learned a lot about investing.
If, for example, you wanted more control over specific investments, you might eventually outgrow this app. However, it’s great for people who are just starting out or don’t want to deal with the tedious details of investments right away.
The second problem is that you need money to invest. A lot of people want to find ways to actually “make” money, like an online job. You’ll have to look elsewhere if you want to make money.
5 Tips for Using Stash to Make Money Effortlessly
You may have read a review of Stash and wondered if this app can help you make money. Like any other investment, it has risks, but if you use it right, you can make money with little or no work.
1. Start with a balance that has low risk.
Investors who fail to make money do not follow the advice in traditional personal finance books to start investing in small steps.
When you first start investing, you should only put in a small amount until you understand how everything works.
One of the best robo-advisors for this is Stash, which has a minimum account balance of $0. Its cheapest account costs just $1 a month, so you can put in a few hundred dollars and start building your portfolio right away.
2. Learn about how your money is invested
Not everyone wants to be as rich as Warren Buffet right away. If you want to be a good investor, you don’t have to. You can learn about hot stocks and how the market works in different ways.
For example, you could look at the stock picks of the Motley Fool to get some ideas. They have done well in the past. If they say that social media stocks are about to take off, Stash will show you how to invest in that market.
All you have to do is be interested and know what you’re doing on a basic level. Your money and your future are at stake.
3. Look for good educational tools
You can’t just listen to other people talk about how to make money online and make money on Stash. It’s about getting better at what you already know.
Members of Stash can use a variety of educational resources and get help from other members. It’s a group of people you can get to know. Over time, you’ll learn how the market works and how to get ready for the ups and downs of the investment scene.
Stash changes the resources it has available all the time, so it’s always a good idea to check back.
4. Use fractional shares to invest your pennies
One thing that makes Stash stand out is that you can buy fractional shares. This is one of the best apps for investing because of the way it works with fractional shares.
With a traditional brokerage, you have to buy the whole stock. So, if you wanted to buy a share of Amazon in the first quarter of 2021, it would cost you about $3,000. You might not have enough money right now to buy even one share of Amazon.
With Stash, you can buy shares in small amounts. Stash buys the stock and then gives a piece of it to each of its investors. You can own whole stocks, but having only $1,000 won’t keep you from profiting from Amazon’s growth.
This is also a great way to diversify your portfolio without spending a lot of money. You can invest in many different things and make money from stocks with high dividends and stocks that have a lot of room to grow without going bankrupt.
5. Save money on everything you buy
If you read old books on personal finance, you’ll learn that you need to be disciplined. They will also tell you that most people don’t have this basic discipline, which means they miss out on big portfolio gains.
Americans have a lot of trouble with budgeting, and 32% of American households don’t even have a budget. Even worse, most Americans couldn’t pay for a basic emergency or even make enough money to get ahead.
You can save money automatically with Stash. If you turn on the automatic saving feature in Stash, a portion of every purchase you make will be sent to your investment account.
For example, they can round up every purchase to the nearest dollar and put that amount in your account. Maybe you want all of your purchases to be rounded up to the nearest five or ten dollars. It’s a cool, easy, and automatic way to save money either way.
My Final Thoughts on Stash
With Stash, you’ll need money to make money. If you don’t have a lot of money to put into this right now, it won’t make you any money. There’s nothing wrong with the app, but I’d rather use that money to build a business that can make me money.
