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Has anyone here used or knows if Money Box is reliable?

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Money Box has a really interesting concept to save up money to use on stocks and ISA and from what I read, it seems pretty good but has anyone here used them before?

It's unfortunate that Money Box is only available through iOS/Android and not on a normal web browser which I'd wholeheartedly prefer (big screen and safer, imo).

PhilipMarc
over a year ago
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Tom
Founder

I love the idea of saving money every time you pay with contactless by Moneybox rounding up to the next pound and then saving the difference.

For example, if a coffee is £2.49, you pay with your phone and it'll take £3 from your account, putting the 51p difference into a savings pot. I think this part is brilliant.

What I'm uncomfortable with is what they do with that savings pot: invest it into 3 off-the-shelf tracker funds.

They don't explain upfront what those funds are nor who manages them. Their fees are 1.28% which is 50% more than if you did it yourself through Hargreaves Lansdowne (just set up a direct debit to Vanguard LifeStrategy) and more than Nutmeg, which is also a friendly to use (web-based) platform.

That the company hasn't been around for long is also high-risk. While I'm sure Moneybox is good, and that the team is great, it is still high-risk for an individual to invest their money into a company without administrative track record.

In my book Money's Big Secret, I explain how to automate your finances so that you can achieve something similar: a direct debit into diversified index funds. It works just in the same way as a gym membership: sign-up, put £50 a month in (or more), and let it grow.

I love the first part of Moneybox: save as you spend, I'm uncomfortable with them managing the second part. A better solution maybe would be if they allowed you to sync that money to a savings account (from which you can invest automatically) or partnered with a more long-standing investment company. Apologies in advance if I have not spotted you can do this already.

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PhilipMarc

Thanks so much for that informative post, Tom . I've just checked out Nutmeg's page and they seem to provide a much better service than Moneybox does and plus, a web-browser version.

P.S. What do you think of Scottish Friendly?

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Tom
Founder

Rockman afraid I don't know them

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