How To Save and Invest with Qapital!

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What is Qapital?

Qapital is a budgeting app similar in nature to the Digit app that I’ve talked about previously. The Qapital app allows you to budget your money by connecting your bank accounts to it and setting up savings or investment goals in the app. After setting up your own specific goals the app will then take a certain amount of money that you set yourself to be taken out of your account and invested in one of their several managed investment portfolios.

The portfolios you can invest in are based on your preferred risk tolerances and include:

• Very Conservative: Invests in 90% fixed income bonds and 10% in stocks
• Conservative: Invests in 70% fixed income bonds and 30% in stocks
• Balanced: Invest in 50% fixed income bonds and 50% in stocks
• Aggressive: Invests in 30% fixed income bonds and 70% in stocks
• Very Aggressive: Invests in 10% fixed income bonds and 90% in stocks

Qapital automatically reinvests your dividends and rebalances your portfolio based on changing market conditions.

How to automate your investments in Qapital!

Similar to many other investment brokerages nowadays, Qapital offers people the option for people to automate their investments using “set-it-and-forget” rules. Qapital offers two different ways that you can use to automate your savings/investments. One way is through the service offered in the app called Payday Divvy. Payday Divvy allows you to pay yourself first whenever you regularly get paid. The other way that Qapital allows you to automate your savings is by using the “Savings Rules” features.

How to pay yourself first with “Payday Divvy”!

Payday Divvy is a feature on the Qapital app that allows you to automatically save and invest your money specifically on your paydays. Payday will ask you some specific questions about how you’re being paid. They will ask you about how often you get paid (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly). They will also ask you about what your average take-home pay is.

After asking you about your wages, Qapital will make a recommendation about what percentage of your paycheck you should set aside every paycheck in order to meet your savings/investment goals. It will also show you a list of goals that you can set aside money for. You can adjust the amount that will automatically be taken from your paycheck as well as how much of that money is set aside for each specific goal you have.

How to pay yourself first with “Savings Rules”!

Aside from Payday Divvy, Qapital also has the “Savings Rules” feature that allows you to automate your savings/investments by setting specific rules in the app that will trigger the app to automatically take money out of your account and save or invest it.

There are two different ways that you can set rules on the Qapital app in order to automate your savings. Qapital has its own list of “rules” that will trigger the app to take money out of your account and save/invest it for you.

• Round Up: Round Up is a feature that has grown to be popular with many investment apps, particularly like Acorn who really started and popularized the feature. This feature allows your to round up to a specific dollar amount ranging from $1-5 dollars every time you spend money with Qapital own debit card or another linked banks debit card. You can also choose which linked account you want the money taken from
• Spend Less: This rule allows you to automate your savings by making a specific rule about setting aside a certain amount of money that you would normally spend elsewhere. The app takes a look at your spending history ,and if there’s a certain store that you want to spend less money at you can select that store and make it a goal to spend less than a specific amount that you set there. You can choose to make the goal weekly or monthly and choose to set aside the money saved in a specific goal of yours. Every time you meet your savings goal, the money that you would have normally spent elsewhere will be invested inside the Qapital app.
• Guilty Pleasure: This rule is similar in nature to the “Spend Less” rule. It is just made for the purpose of saving money specifically on anything that your would normally spend money on as a “guilty pleasure”
• Set and Forget: This rule allows your to automate your savings/investments by setting aside a specific amount of money to be saved and invested. You can choose a specific amount of money, whether to save money daily, weekly, monthly. You can also choose to save the money towards a specific goal you have and which linked bank account it comes out of.
• Freelance: This rule is specifically for freelancers who don’t have a regular payday. The Qapital app will automatically detect when you get paid. You can choose how much you set aside on the days that you get paid. You can save a certain percentage ranging from 1-100% of your paycheck. You can choose to only save on deposits over a specific amount so you don’t automatically save money that you might need for things like bills. You can also choose to set the money aside for a specific goal that you have and which linked bank account the money comes from.
• 52 Week Rule: This rule allows you set an ascending or descending amount of money over time. You can select which week out of the 52 in a year that you can start saving from. The order for the number of weeks starts on the week that you set up the rule.
• Payday: This rule is similar in nature to the “Payday Divvy” feature mentioned above. The biggest difference between the two is that the “Payday” rule only allows you to set money aside for one goal at a time while the “Payday Divvy” feature allows you to automatically set money aside for multiple goals at once every time you get paid. You can choose what percentage of each paycheck you want to set aside ranging from 1-100%. You can also choose to only set aside money for deposits over a specific amount that you set and which linked bank account it comes out of.

You can also automate your savings using “IFTTT rules”. IFTTT stands for “If This Then That”. It is an online service that allows people to link a wide range of apps and services to their smart devices in order to perform a specific action when triggered by another action that the user does.

The rules that IFTTT allows you to do in order to trigger the Qapital app to save money for you include:

• Fitbit: You can use IFTTT to link your Fitbit to Qapital. When you reach your daily step goal IFTTT tells the Qapital app to save and invest money for you. You can choose to set a specific amount to save every time you reach your goal. You can choose which goal to set aside the money for and which linked bank account it comes from.
• Strava: Strava is an exercise activity tracking app. Whenever you complete a workout in the Strava app, IFTTT will trigger the Qapital app to save and invest money for you. You can select how much you want to set aside each time you complete a workout. You can also choose which of your specific goals that you want to set aside the money for and which linked bank account it comes from.
• Amazon Alexa: You can even use your very own Amazon Alexa with IFTTT to automate your savings by telling Alexa a specific phrase. Once you tell your Alexa assistant the phrase that triggers IFTTT to make the Qapital app to set aside some money for you. You can customize the specific phrase that Alexa will use and choose how much you want to set aside whenever you say the phrase. You can also choose to set aside the money for any specific goal that you have and which linked bank account it comes out of.
• Google Assistant: This rule is basically the same as the “Amazon Alexa” rule but uses the Google Assistant instead.
• Uber: You can also use IFTTT to link your Uber and Qapital accounts. Whenever you take an Uber you can choose a specific amount of money to be saved and invested towards one of your specific goals. You can also choose which linked bank account the money comes out of.
• YouTube: You can use use IFTTT to save money every time that you like a video on YouTube. You can choose the specific amount that gets set aside whenever you like a video. You can also choose which of your specific goals that your money goes towards and from which linked bank account the money comes out of.
• Facebook: You can use IFTTT to save money for you whenever you post on Facebook. You can choose the specific amount that gets set aside whenever you post on Facebook. You can also choose which of your specific goals that your money goes towards and from which linked bank account the money comes out of.
• Finance: You can use IFTTT to save money whenever the S&P 500 drops. This rule could be good for buying whenever the whole market dips. You can choose to save and invest a specific amount of your money when the S&P 500 drops a specific set by you, ranging from 0.1%-5.0%. You can choose to set aside the money for one of your specific goal and from which bank account the money comes out of.
• Square: You can use IFTTT to link your Qapital and Square accounts so that every time that you make a sale Qapital saves and invest a specific amount of your money for you. You can choose to only set aside money when making sales over a specific amount. You can choose which specific goal want the money to go towards and from which linked bank account it comes out of.

You can also transfer money to your Qapital account by manually transferring the money once or using recurring transfers.

How to bank with Qapital Spending!

Qapital spending also offers its own checking account that works closely in conjunction with your investment account. With Qapital Spending, the Qapital app can more easily keep track of all your purchases and will save money automatically for you every time you swipe your card, particularly when using the “Round-Up” rule. The app will notify you every time you make a purchase and will tell you how much money it has set aside for one of your goals.

The Qapital Spending account also helps you better budget your money through the “Sweet Spending Spot” service it offers. It helps you keep track of your total spending for the week and how close you are to reaching your spending limit. The Qapital Spending accounts are also FDIC insured up to $250,000.

One other nice thing about banking with the Qapital Spending account is that it has few fees and great features. Whenever you sign up for their Spending account it normally takes 6-8 days for your card to arrive in the mail.

Some of the benefits of using the Qapital Spending accounts are:

• There are no monthly or overdraft fees
• Similar to Sofi’s own checking accounts, you can send money to other people with Qapital Spending accounts instantly.
• You can set and reset your pin in the app.
• You can temporarily lock your debit card in the app
• You can also send e-checks (similar to M1 Finance’s spend/checking account) and pay bills in the app

How much does Qapital cost?

Qapital has three plans that offer different features. They have a “basic” plan, a “complete” plan, and a “master” plan.

• Basic plan: $3/month with participants saving an average of $1500/yr.
  • Offers savings and investments with goals in mind
    • Create unlimited personalized savings goals
    • Make specific rules in the app to trigger automatic savings
    • You can transfer money between goals easily
    • FDIC insured up to $250,000

• Complete plan: $6/month with participants saving an average of $4,300/yr.
  • Offers savings and investments with goals in mind
    • Create unlimited personalized savings goals
    • Make specific rules in the app to trigger automatic savings
    • You can transfer money between goals easily
    • FDIC insured up to $250,000
  • Smarter spending
    • Qapital checking account with a debit card that you can use to swipe and save
    • Pay yourself first with Payday Divvy
    • Track cash weekly with “Spending Sweet Spot”
  • Invest for big goals
    • Set timelines and amounts for your specific investing goals
    • Select a portfolio based on your risk tolerance
    • Stay diversified with low cost funds

• Master plan: $12/month with participants saving an average of $5000/yr.
  • Offers savings and investments with goals in mind
    • Create unlimited personalized savings goals
    • Make specific rules in the app to trigger automatic savings
    • You can transfer money between goals easily
    • FDIC insured up to $250,000
  • Smarter spending
    • Qapital checking account with a debit card that you can use to swipe and save
    • Pay yourself first with Payday Divvy
    • Track cash weekly with “Spending Sweet Spot”
  • Invest for big goals
    • Set timelines and amounts for your specific investing goals
    • Select a portfolio based on your risk tolerance
    • Stay diversified with low cost funds
  • Share finances with a partner
    • “Dream Team” access for two people
    • First look at new features

Disclaimer: I am not any sort of investment or financial professional giving any sort of legal advice. I’m just some guy trying to teach other people about how they might navigate the financial world.

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