The Easiest Stocks And Shares Investing With Moneybox

Investing with Moneybox is a savings option I have been using for about 18 month’s now. The only thing I used it for was their Stocks & Shares ISA which is the easiest way get stocks and shares. Especially if like me you don’t understand it all that much. And you don’t want to put yourself at risk of losing money.

How does investing with Moneybox work?

When you set up your account you can choose from some expertly-selected started options including a Stocks & Shares ISA, Lifetime ISA (useful if you’re buying your first home) or a regular Investment Account (this is taxable).

I’m not going to pretend to understand exactly how it works but the most important thing for me was the risk. I didn’t want to be risking my money and be in a position where I could lose it. There are three choices, the cautious, the balanced and the adventurous fund so you can see what your choices are. I believe I chose the lowest risk option. But if you have a bit more disposable money, or are just happy taking the risk you can do so and it may work in your favour.

Moneybox will take money out of your bank account or card and automatically invest it in tracker funds. This way you should hopefully get a better return on your money than you would in a regular savings accouhnt.

You can choose to do weekly deposits which are collected every Wednesday at midday. This is usally physically debited from your bank account the following Monday. Then this most is invested alongside your previously saved money. You can also deposit lump sums into the account if you’d rather do this whenever you have some spare money.

How easy is it to set up an investment with Moneybox?

This was one of the things which impressed me when I first started up as once you’ve downloaded the app you can be up and running in minutes. You can choose from their starting options, what risk you want to take etc. And then you connect your bank card and you’re good to go. You can also choose how your stocks & shares are split out. I never changed mine from what they recommended as I didn’t feel I knew enough to make an informed decision on what to change it to.

I started off with weekly deposits as I thought this was the easiest thing to do. When you get into routines you get used to money coming out of your account if it’s regular. I started off doing about £20 a week as I had other savings and just wanted a top up. Although when I changed the way I saved I did change it to just £5 so I had a little something extra.

Round-ups with Moneybox

I started doing round-ups when investing with Moneybox before I opened my Monzo account. The idea of saving that extra money and saving round numbers in my account made me very happy. But unlike Monzo who take the extra money straight away, moneybox does it all in one go once a week. And for me this wasn’t great as it was sometimes as much as £20-30 in one go.

I know the amount of money is exactly the same, but you don’t notice 30p and 5op go out of your account here and there. But larger amonts are just not working for me so I only did this for a few months. I much prefer the roundup options with Monzo, you can find out more about how I save and budget with Monzo here.

Withdrawing money from your account

You can withdraw funds from your account using the app, but it’s not recommended to do too often. The money does take two to three weeks to reach your bank account so it’s not a super quick thing.

As I’ve only been saving £5 a week I’ve made the decision to turn off my investing with Moneybox saving just until we get our house. If you’re looking at doing the same it’s best to turn off the weekly payments, wait for your final payment to come out and then request to withdraw. As I found I requested a withdrawal, but by the time my final payment had been taken out I hadn’t withdrawn all the money.

Main pro’s of Moneybox

The things I liked most about Moneybox

• It was so simple to set up and was done in minutes
• There was no physical paperwork to do or things to print and post
• You can change your weekly payments really easily
• It makes investing in stocks & shares super easy as they do all the hard work for you

Main con’s of Moneybox

The things I didn’t like as much about Moneybox:

• Automatic round-ups coming out as a lump sum as opposed to as you’re going
• The length of time it takes to withdraw (although I understand why this is)
• The fee’s can be quite high for small investments (£1 a month aftee your first 3 months, a platform fee and fund fees)

Overall Moneybox worked well for me when I used it for the weekly deposits and I began to not even realise money is coming out. But I looked at it as more of a regular savings than massive investments as I didn’t have a lot of risk. So I wouldn’t really make too much.

Do you invest in stocks & shares at all? Or make regular savings?

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