It’s not fun trying to keep track of countless accounts, log-in details, and other administrative tasks when you have all of your financial services housed with different providers. It would be ideal for most people to do as much as possible with just one platform, helping to simplify keeping track of your money (and ideally, growing it too!). One solution that offers three services that should cover most of your bases is M1. A Chicago-based company under the umbrella of M1 Holdings, it has been in operation since 2015 and now holds more than $5 billion in assets under management.
Before going over the three M1 services that will keep you on track and put most of your money management needs in one place, let’s start with some of the basics about M1 and its core offering M1 Finance. Thankfully, because it has been around for a while and has attracted quite a following, it has been reviewed in quite a bit of detail before. That’s a great place to start getting your head around M1 and determining if it meets your needs. But on a more basic level, before picking a specific platform it’s a good idea to recognize that there are countless ways to make, invest and save money, and spend some time identifying the ones that may help you get ahead.
Is M1 Safe?
This is probably the question to answer first before determining if you want to use M1. No amount of convenient features and return-generating services will matter if your money is not safe. In the case of M1 and its various services that we are about to explore, the answer is really easy – yes, it’s definitely safe. It’s a legitimate platform with a history of successfully holding investor money – no red flags or scam alerts here.
Beyond that, there are a few specific techniques M1 uses that really demonstrate just how seriously they take safety and security. One is enabling something known as 2 Factor Authentication (2FA), which protects you if your password is guessed, hacked, or otherwise compromised. It allows verification of your identity through text message, email, or other means. M1 also deploys smart monitoring to protect your funds, looking out for suspicious login activity on your account and quickly shutting things down to more thoroughly investigate anything that raises alarms.
You should also know that your funds are insured. M1 is covered by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, which protects up to $500,000 per user. It is a robust and highly credible insurance offering, and if you have any doubts whatsoever reading about it in more depth will likely make you feel a lot better.
With an understanding of M1’s long track record and the many features that make it safe, it’s now time to examine more closely the three M1 services that you need.
M1 Finance
M1 Finance is the platform’s core offering – no fee, no commission investing. Despite sounding too good to be true, it is exactly as advertised! In some ways, M1 Finance offers the best of both worlds when it comes to managing your money – automation and customization. You can automate your investments through a feature known as M1 Pies, where you set an asset class (like stocks) as a ‘pie’ making up a certain amount of your portfolio. You can then customize the individual ‘slices’ of the pie, by picking stocks – or even fractional shares of larger companies that you may not have the cash to buy an entire share of. M1 also offers pre-designed pies if you want to leave the work to them.
M1 Spend
M1 Spend is a traditional checking service, a great place to put money that you can access with a debit card. One way to maximize your M1 Spend usage is through upgrading to M1’s premium service known as M1 Plus – sounds expensive, but it actually only clocks in at $125 per year. It gives you 1% interest on your cash balance and reimburses fees for up to 4 ATM withdrawals a month. Additionally, it gives you access to an exclusive Owners Reward Card that gives 10% cashback from affiliated retailers.
M1 Borrow
It’s not exactly rocket science to point out that many people become wealthy from leveraging existing assets by borrowing to take advantage of new opportunities. M1 Borrow is the third M1 service that users have access to, and it lets you borrow up to 35% of the value of your portfolio for 3.5%. Here too, M1 premium pays, lowering your borrowing cost to 2% – depending on the amount you borrow, this could cover the $125 annual M1 Plus fee alone.
Other Options To Reduce Investing Fees
If enjoying low to no fee investing is an important motivator for you, it is at least worth taking a look at Robinhood, one of the better-known no fee platforms. It’s probably not surprising that M1 Finance vs Robinhood has been analyzed elsewhere. I’ll let you read the whole breakdown, but M1 Finance is better for people looking to do more buy-and-hold investing with options to automate their portfolios. Robinhood, on the other hand, caters to active traders and offers opportunities to pursue more volatile investments such as crypto and IPOs.
M1: The Last Word
M1 is not a perfect service, but then again – perfect is hard to find! If you’re looking for exposure to the real estate sector, M1 Finance won’t be the way you do that. Even if you do pursue opening an M1 account it is a good idea to look at some of the different ways you can invest in real estate.
That said, if you want a solution that lets you manage most of your finances all in one place while enjoying low-to-no fees, M1 just might be the solution for you. The three M1 services that you need – investing (M1 Finance), checking (M1 Spend), and credit (M1 Borrow) – are right at your fingertips.
