Betterment is a 1 stop shop for investing. How good is it really? Let’s break down the many aspects of Betterment, what I use it for and what I do NOT use it for.
Over the next few articles we will cover the good, the bad and the ugly of Betterment
- App / Website
- Investing
- Retirement
- Savings
- Checking account
My Accounts
I have the following accounts / buckets setup in Betterment.
- Checking Account
- Savings Buckets
- Roth IRA
- Emergency fund
- Brokerage account
My partner also has a Traditional IRA and a Roth IRA under a different account.
I use the following accounts outside of Betterment
- Vanguard Brokerage account –
- Coinbase – For purchasing Crypto
- HBTC – For purchasing crypto not on Coinbase (Such as WOZX)
- Capital one checking account
My Setup
Whilst i use the betterment checking account as my primary source for bill payments it doesn’t support Apple pay or join accounts yet. Which is why I have a Capital one checking account. Betterment have promised both are coming. I have 90% of my salary deposited to Betterment checking account and then the other 10% split between Capital One and Vanguard.
Whilst I can choose some of my index funds in Betterment I cannot choose individual stocks, so for this I have a Vanguard account. I could choose Robinhood or others, the reason I choose Vanguard was that they have a Money Market account linked to it allowing me to automatically have part of my paycheck sent to Vanguard, this allows me to invest so I am not tempted to spend the money.
Below is how I have my Betterment account set up. As you will see I have created multiple savings “Buckets”. You can add / delete as many as you need and choose if you want the Savings APY or put them into investments (NOTE: If you put them into investments there might be tax implications when you remove them). You can move funds between any of these.

My Flow

I have my salary paid into 4 different places , Betterment checking, Capital one, Vanguard and my 401k.
Then within Betterment I have auto deposits to my Roth IRA (until it’s maxed for the year) more details on this on this post. My savings buckets and my brokerage account are as follows;
- My emergency fund is set to 30% stocks and 70% bonds
- Betterment brokerage account 83% stocks
- Savings buckets are not invested and pay 0.4% APY.
I found this like a gold piece!. Thanks for sharing. I’ll get some ideas to improve my money management.