Our 5 Favorite Platforms for Building Wealth

If you’re looking to build wealth, it's likely that you're looking for ways to make well informed decisions about your investments. However, it's equally as important to make sure that you are staying on track with your financial goals so that you can adjust your strategy as your financial situation ebbs and flows.

That being said, platforms for building wealth aren't necessarily just investment apps and stock advisor sites. You'll also need to track your wealth closely if you intend to build it along the way.

Here, you’ll learn about five platforms that have the potential to take your net worth to the next level.

Keep in mind that investing, including the options featured here, will inevitably involve risk. You’ll need to do your own due diligence and as always you'll need to avoid the temptation to invest money that you can’t afford to lose.

At Think Save Retire, we look at many investment options, platforms, and apps. These are our 5 favorite options for building wealth and meeting financial goals.

1. The Motley Fool

The Motley Fool has been around since 1993 when it was founded by brothers Tom and David Gardner. Their website is a vast source of free information for folks to learn more about investing and building wealth.

However, for those who want more assistance with their investing, Motley Fool Stock Advisor offers subscribers stock recommendations every month.

The cost of Motley Fool Stock Advisor is $99 per year, which is considerably lower than most stock picking services. Subscribers benefit from having a team of experts dedicated to finding the best stocks that are poised for success.

Unlike many other stock picking services, Stock Advisor is not intended for day traders (buying and quickly selling). Instead, they take a long-term approach. Each month they recommend two stocks and provide detailed reports that can help you determine if it’s a stock you want to invest in.

According to their website, at the time of this writing the average stock pick inside Stock Advisor is up 558%. However, it’s important to keep in mind that your returns won’t necessarily be the same. As a long-term investor, you won’t be investing in every stock they recommend, so your results will depend on the success of the investments you choose.

2. Mindful Trader

Mindful Trader isn't your typical "stock pick" site.

Utilizing complex statistical research, Eric Ferguson has developed verifiable trading strategies that produce results. You can rest assured that the information the platform provides isn't based on gut instinct or conjecture. The methods that Mindful Trader employs are teachable, and have been back tested to verify efficacy.

Picks are posted in real time and a watch list is posted each day for subscribers. Whether you're looking to just follow an experts picks, or learn his methods to make your own, The Mindful Trader is a solid investment at $47 a month.

3. DiversyFund

By this point, you’re probably well aware that investing in real estate is one of the most common strategies for building wealth. A common misconception is that you have to already be wealthy in order to invest in real estate. This is absolutely false!

DiversyFund is a real estate investment platform that allows everyday investors to get into real estate investing for as little as $500.

DiversyFund offers a variety of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) that build wealth by investing in multi-family properties like apartment complexes—which typically perform well during a recession.

4. Personal Capital

While Personal Capital isn’t an investment platform in itself, it offers a variety of useful resources to help you with building wealth. Personal Capital offers wealth management services, but they also offer some amazing free tools. You don’t need to use their wealth management services in order to take advantage of these tools, you simply need to create a free account.

The free tools include:

• Net worth calculation and tracking
• Savings planner
• Retirement planner
• Investment checkup
• Fee analyzer

Personal Capital is probably known best for its net worth tool. You can link it to your financial accounts (bank accounts, investments, credit cards, etc.) and it will automatically calculate your net worth for you. You can also enter details manually for any accounts or assets that can’t be synched so they will still be factored into the calculation. The software will also track the fluctuations as your account balances change.

Aside from the net worth tracking, you’ll also get access to some other very useful tools and reports. The retirement planner can be used to find out if you’re on track to meet your retirement goals which is crucial so that you can make adjustments to your strategy as needed. You can run different scenarios (like retiring at different ages), anticipate large expenses, and add sources of income to see how those changes impact your ability to retire comfortably.

The fee analyzer is another interesting tool that is definitely worth checking out. It’s no secret that investment fees can really add up, but for the typical investor, it’s hard to know exactly how the fees are impacting your investments. The fee analyzer provides a lot of clarity by showing how much you’re paying in fees and how it impacts your long-term results.

5. Robinhood

Very few companies have been able to impact industries the way that Robinhood has in just a few short years. This investing app was one of the first to offer commission-free trades, and many others have followed suit.

Robinhood has made investing accessible and possible for the average person through:

• No minimums
• Commission-free trades of stocks, ETFs, and options
• Investing in fractional shares

Traditionally, investing in the stock market has seemed out of reach for a large portion of the population. If you’d like to invest in Amazon, the $3,000+ value for one share of stock is unaffordable to many new investors. Thanks to Robinhood and the option to invest in fractional shares, anyone can invest in Amazon (or other companies) with just a few dollars. In short, Robinhood has broken down many of the barriers that have prevented people from investing in the past.

Robinhood users benefit from having a simple, user-friendly app on their mobile device that allows them to buy or sell at any time. Of course, a desktop version is also available. Thanks to that accessibility, Robinhood has become extremely popular with millennials and others who were not previously investing in the stock market.

Another feature that will be of interest to many readers is the ability to invest in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Etherium, Dogecoin, and others.

New users will get a free share of stock when signing up for Robinhood. Once your account is created, you can also share Robinhood with your friends and earn another free stock for each friend that signs up.

A Final Word on Building Wealth

All five of these platforms have plenty to offer. Consider your personal goals and the types of investments that you’re comfortable with, and see if you could benefit from any of these options.

The opinions expressed in this article are for general information purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations about any investment product or security. This information is provided strictly as a means of education regarding the financial industry.