Published May 18, 2023, 11:20 p.m. by Violet Harris
M1 Finance is a great platform for anyone looking to get into the world of online investing. The platform is extremely user-friendly and offers a wide range of features that make it a great option for both beginners and experienced investors alike. One of the best things about M1 Finance is that it offers a 2-year review, which gives you a chance to see how the platform has performed over time.
M1 Finance is a great platform for anyone looking to get into the world of online investing. The platform is extremely user-friendly and offers a wide range of features that make it a great option for both beginners and experienced investors alike. One of the best things about M1 Finance is that it offers a 2-year review, which gives you a chance to see how the platform has performed over time.
There are a few things that I don't like about M1 Finance, such as the fact that there is no customer service phone number and the fact that the platform doesn't offer a lot of guidance for beginners. However, these are relatively minor complaints and overall I think M1 Finance is a great platform.
I would give M1 Finance a 4 out of 5 stars. It's a great platform with a lot to offer, but there are a few areas where it could be improved.
You may also like to read about:
m1 finance just might be the underdog of
investing apps
people talk a lot about robinhood weeble
acorns
public and a bunch of others while m1
finance quietly
offers amazing features no fees and
great
design let's talk about what it's been
like to use for the last two years and
what i think about it a lot of things
about the upper positive but i also have
some frustrations so stick around till
the end to see those
first let's start with the good the
design not only does it have great color
tones
it's attractive it's simple and it helps
you think long term with your investing
it actually takes a little bit of an
extra step to see
like a really short window of time like
what's happened today or in the last
week or so so i think that helps us to
make better decisions long term because
we're thinking more long term
and we're not buying and selling all the
time because statistically the people
that trade more often
most of the time do worse than the
people who trade less often and that's
just the math so don't get mad at me if
you've made a bunch of money this year
because of day trading good for you
but overall the statistics don't lie the
second positive thing
is ease of use once you get acclimated
to where everything is located in the
app it is really really easy to use
i personally think that one good test of
a user interface is if you can open an
app get done the task that you want to
get done
and then be out of the app all in a
short period of time not a lot of
distractions not a lot of wandering and
m1 finance is good for that let's try it
right now oh i got low battery let's
open it up let's pretend like i wanted
to
check my activity no let's open it up
and pretend like i wanted to invest some
more money auto invest
is turned off i'll deposit let's say 100
bucks
from my bank account and let's invest it
right now boom transfer
the money's coming in hot like that new
la cray song i don't even think it's
that new
done actually since i have auto invest
turned off let's turn it back on and
there we go so now first thing tomorrow
that money's gonna be invested thanks
for helping me invest an extra hundred
bucks by making this video with you i
also like that in that whole process
that you just saw in that screen
recording there's no distractions
there's no headlines there's no big
flashy like notification things to
distract you
it just lets you do what you want unlike
some of the other options
cough weeble cough robin hood cough
public
i'm not trying to spend all day on these
apps i'm trying to invest and move on
with my life third positive thing
no fees or commissions this is a huge
deal and there are still some people out
there today who are paying for trades
who are paying fees
and i just don't think we need to
anymore like there are some really great
premium services out there
maybe you love them maybe they help you
invest by all means keep doing what
you're doing but
if you're gonna choose between the same
features that either cost you money or
don't
it's pretty hard to justify paying money
for something the other investing app
that i've recommended the most
is called acorns and that charges
between one and five dollars per month
but it's a much more
sort of helpful design because they've
tailored everything to make things super
easy to explain it all for you
and i think it's actually worth it i
still pay the one dollar per month to
use the app myself
even though i have m1 finance and other
apps that are totally free so
don't feel bad if you're using acorns
because i still think it's a good app
but it's more like these apps that
charge you fees or charge you a
percentage of assets under management if
you've got like an
active manager working on your stuff
that's the kind of thing that makes no
sense to me the fourth good feature easy
to share pies and no this isn't
strawberry rhubarb unfortunately also
leave a comment below what's better
pies or cakes there's one right answer
here and
let's see if you get it right because
one dessert is definitely better than
the other but m1 finance isn't talking
about dessert
it's talking about the way they display
your portfolio so whenever you pull up
your account with m1 finance what they
do is they
show you how much of each thing you're
invested in in that account in
a percentage format just in a big pie
chart so if you were invested in two
things of equal quantity 50 50
it would just be a pie chart with a line
down the middle if you're invested in a
bunch of stuff like i am
it's going to be all fractured out and
kind of show you the percentage of each
thing
and it helps you to sort of stick to
that plan if you will long term so it's
not just like weeble
or robin hood or some other apps where
it's like a big list of your investments
without any regard to like the
proportion of each one this is sort of
assuming that you like have a plan in
mind what you want your portfolio to be
made up of
and they make these pies really easy to
share so if you want to
you can use expert pies from their
people but you can also just use pies
from somebody else so for example i'll
put the pie that i'm using right now
for my sep ira in the description
actually better than that i'll put it in
the top comment i'll pin the top comment
say this is my current pie for my sep
ira and you can click on it right there
see what i'm investing in right now in
my latest account and you can even start
investing in the same things if you
wanted to this is not financial advice
this is just for funsies from one friend
to another sharing you what i'm doing
but it makes that process super easy the
next good thing about m1 finance
is called a money weighted return a lot
of investing services show you what's
called a time
weighted return what that means is it's
a very simple version of showing you
your return
divided by the total amount you have
invested m1 finance is the only
investing service that i know of and
currently use that does something
different than that and what it does
differently
is show you your return with every
individual movement sort of frozen in
time to show you the significance of
that instead of just
overall that sounded confusing so let's
go over an example let's say
you invest a thousand dollars at the
beginning of the year over the course of
the year it grows ten percent
and now you have one thousand one
hundred dollars so now let's say you
wanna invest more and you send in
another thousand dollars at the
beginning of the next year now the total
you've invested is two thousand dollars
but your return is still that same one
hundred dollars from before
other investing apps would now say that
your return went from a ten percent
return down to a 5
return but instead of saying that m1
finance would still say
you made a 10 return so what it's doing
is kind of locking in the truth of what
your percentage was
at that time and showing you that
despite what your current overall
balance is
i'm obviously not a statistical genius
or savant or
great explaining this but to me that
makes more sense because i really did
make the 10
return even though i invested more money
now it shouldn't cut into my return
when i really think about it that's not
helping me to understand how good my
investments are doing
so all that to say i just prefer the way
that m1
communicates that another positive
feature of m1 is called spend and this
is their like checking account and debit
card that they offer
and i've been using it for a little
while now and i really like it it's
shockingly good as far as banks in 2021
go
whenever you use the m1 finance debit
card you get one percent cash back and
the balance that you have in the
checking account also gets one percent
cash back which is actually really good
for a debit card and it's not like it's
my primary form of payment or anything
but i like having it and i like having
that cash earn a higher balance than i
do at our normal bank another positive
trait is just how easy it is to open
accounts with m1 finance and i recently
tested that out by opening an sep ira
i knew i wanted to open an sap ira and
when i looked through my phone and i had
all the options of investing apps to
choose
i went right to m1 i just knew it was
going to be the easiest and smoothest
process
and it was just as easy as starting any
other account with m1 you literally just
click add account
choose an scp ira and you're off to the
races it is super fast and if you're not
familiar with an sap ira i'll go over it
really quickly it's a specific
retirement account that your employer
can contribute money to and because i'm
technically self-employed here on
youtube
i can contribute money for myself and
the whole system works so the benefit of
the scp really is that you can send in a
lot more money than you can with a
normal ira
a normal ira is limited to six thousand
dollars per year which is good but if
you really want to get serious about
retiring early or building wealth you
need to send in more than that so an
sep ira lets you contribute the lesser
of either 25
of your total income or 58 000
that's pretty amazing the next two
features are potentially positive for
you
if you're looking for it i don't think
they're mandatory i think that they're
handy if you really are looking for it
but they're completely easy to pass on
if not
the first is called borrow and it's
money that you can essentially borrow
from m1 to do whatever you want with it
doesn't have to just be investing
it could be to go start a business or
buy a really snazzy new camera or
refrigerator or whatever you need
it's just a line of credit from them to
do whatever you want with to be eligible
to access it you have to have at least
five thousand dollars invested with m1
because they kind of use that as
collateral for what you're borrowing
then you can borrow up to 35 of whatever
you do have invested and
use it for whatever you want pay down
that debt buy yourself a steak dinner do
whatever you like and
m1's website claims there is no extra
application
no payment schedule and it's only three
clicks to activate and since i had to
try it out for the sake of this video
it really was it was very easy to set up
i will give them that it was super quick
super easy because i already had other
accounts with them they already had all
my info
it was super simple the next feature
that's potentially positive is m1's
premium account it's called
m1 plus and it basically just gives you
a handful of more features
over and above m1 basic which is free so
you can use m1 finance
do your investing do your trading do
whatever all for free unless you want
these specific things in which case
you'd pay 125
a year but at least for right now the
first year is free so if you're like me
you're gonna take free stuff if it's
given to you hey you can even try all
these out for free to compare what you
get between the free account and the
paid account i'll put both up on the
screen right now so you can see so m1
basic is the free one
and you get zero trading commissions you
can invest you can use borrow their line
of credit thing but it's at a higher
rate it's at 3.5 percent you got to have
the 5 000
invested like i said and you can use
spend so you get a free digital checking
account
atm fee reimbursement i don't know who
uses atms anymore yadda yadda m1 plus
is here on the right side of the screen
and this is the additional features that
you get with that you get an extra trade
window which is am
or pm now you get smart transfers
custodial accounts for kids if you like
that
a cheaper borrow rate at only two
percent and with spend
you earn the one percent interest on the
money you have deposited
you get one percent cash back and you
get some fees and things reimbursed and
a cool card design
so it's not a ton of features you'd
probably have to really care about that
stuff to end up paying for it but like i
said
you get the first year for free so may
as well try it out if you have an m1
account
right now overall there are a lot of
really good things about m1 finance
but now it's time for the not so good
things for me oddly enough
the application process to get a spend
account was kind of a headache it was
not very streamlined and it actually
took me a couple of weeks to get
approved
somehow there was a problem with my
social security number and the only way
that they could verify it was with
verification of a w-2
with my full social security number on
it or a picture of my social security
card so i don't even know where my
social security card is
it's probably here somewhere and i
looked on my most recent w-2s and there
was just a partial number so it took me
a long time to track down
a really old w-2 that still had my name
on it and my full
entire social so i could send it to them
and get it approved i actually went back
and forth with customer service a little
bit on this
and they didn't budge there's no other
way for them to do this allegedly but
through one of those two forms so that
was a little frustrating especially
because i already had three accounts
with them so how do they not know who i
am like what difference does it make if
i'm investing with you versus if i want
this spend account apparently there's a
difference apparently banking and
investing have different regulations so
i accept that but the whole process was
a little bit clunky
speaking of clunky and speaking of their
spend they don't have a digital wallet
so in your phone nowadays you can have
a lot of like credit cards and stuff
just in there they can be stored and you
can do shopping without the physical
card it's super handy i like a digital
wallet i don't use it all the time but
every now and then i do
so i had recently gotten this m1 debit
card i wanted to order some pizza to
pick up on the way home full disclosure
and i couldn't there was no way for me
to use the card without physically
having the card i couldn't look up the
card numbers anywhere and it seems like
a really easy thing to just like add a
feature where you could say click
show card numbers but apparently it's
not a thing i also contacted m1 to ask
about this
and they confirmed yes there is no
digital wallet and they didn't mention
any possibility of in the future so
it's kind of odd because why wouldn't
you have that in 2021 but they also did
something else really
kind of odd to me recently which was
adding a send check
feature so if you're if you're in 2021
you have an m1 account and you've been
going man you know what i really want to
do
send a check to somebody well now you
can like as of today the day i'm filming
this june 7th
you can just send a check from your
account who was asking for this
i don't know but now you have it another
slightly negative thing about m1 is
initially just getting used to the
design because for me somehow i was
thinking that whenever you open an
account
that all of the sort of actions you
would take in that account would be on
that primary screen but what you have to
do is click on that kind of hamburger on
the top left corner and go back to
portfolio
activity holdings or funding history to
be able to get into some of some of
those other actions and so to me that
was a little bit illogical at first
because i kept thinking well i'm in the
account
why am i clicking manage pi and i can't
find the things that i'm trying to look
for here so
that's just me that was a problem that i
had that took me some getting used to oh
yeah i have to go back to that little
hamburger kind of settings thing and
find what i'm looking for there
not a huge deal but initially because m1
is so unique in the way they've designed
their pies and the app in general it
does take some getting used to another
quirk that i know a lot of people really
don't like because i've had people
comment hey i really don't like this
about m1 finance is those trade windows
so i mentioned that before
what this means is that you're under no
illusions that whenever you hit buy
it's actually going to do that right now
it's only during a little portion of
time that they actually do your trades
so it kind of reminds me like whenever
you go to the post office and there's
like the little sticker that says when
they come and pick up the mail
it's sort of like that with m1 you say
like hey i want to invest this like put
your envelope in the slot and then
they're going to come by tomorrow
morning and they're going to pick up the
mail and they're gonna go invest it for
you it's like it's not as immediate as
some of the other apps so i assume
some other people think like they're
missing out somehow because they really
wanted to invest right now like now is
the perfect time i've decided i want to
do it lock it in baby and they just
don't lock it in
they're a little more relaxed about it i
think more than anything it's just sort
of annoying and it shouldn't impact your
overall investment strategy
because if you're day trading this is
not the app for you this is a long-term
perspective
much more mellow kind of styled app and
so day trading belongs elsewhere so it
really shouldn't matter to us
but if i'm honest i'm a little annoyed
by it too if i hit by
just buy it just do it right now but it
doesn't really work like that so i'm
okay with it i'm gonna still use it it's
just a little bit annoying i was
inspired in making this video to kind of
create a spreadsheet where i assess
an investing app and i have these
different categories to tell whether or
not i think it's good
and kind of give it an overall score i
do this with a buddy right now whenever
we go to a bagel place and we
literally rate bagels in a spreadsheet
based on like the cream cheese texture
and
how good the bite on the outside of the
bagel is and stuff like that doug demuro
does it here on youtube whenever he
assesses a car he gives it a dug score
so i'm a nerd like that i like an extra
spreadsheet so i made kind of a brendon
score
for m1 finance and the categories that
i'll use to kind of assess
the app are cost ease of use features
and services
thoughtful or helpful design beauty
extra or paid services
i'll deduct points for any glaring
faults or negativities
and then finally an overall score so
let's rate m1 finance
on this new app rating spreadsheet that
i made i've used it now for two years
for cost i gave it a 20 out of 20
because it's free
and even their paid service is free for
the first year so there's nothing to pay
for here for at least a year of use
which is great
for ease of use i gave it a 17 out of
20. for features and services i gave it
a 19 out of 20. it's almost perfect
i don't have anything else i'm looking
for that i would like to have here
personally thoughtful or helpful design
is a 7 out of 10. very good for beauty i
gave it an 8 out of 10. i really love
the color tones of this app and the way
that the kind of animations work it
looks really nice
for extra or paid services over and
above anything for free i gave it an 8
because it's got some decent features
here that i could see being really
appealing they're competitively priced
overall
it's very good i don't see any big
glaring terrible faults here to give any
negative scores and overall
i gave the app an 8 out of 10. and the
total is an 87. so with a lot of time
spent with a lot of different apps
two years spent with m1 over 30 000
invested
is m1 number one yes thank you so much
for being here
thanks to all my new subscribers if
you're not yet subscribed
please do me a favor and hit that
subscribe button so you don't miss
future uploads that helps me out a ton
along with the like button so i
appreciate
that so much if you want to get started
with m1 today i've got links in the
description for that and i've also got a
link to a video right here all about
acorns so if you just watch this about
m1 and you want to see the differences
and kind of compare my review
with acorns here it is and also here's
another video that youtube thinks you
would like alright see you guys thanks
for watching
bye
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