The following is not financial advice, but an overview of what is possible with the M1 Finance platform and how I’ve setup an account that meets my goals.
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What were my automatic investment plan goals?
No matter what investment platform you choose, you should always define your investment goals. The below were the six platform features that were important to me for this account.
- Could work with only $100. I wanted this account to be something that I could start with only $100.
- Scheduled and manual deposits. I wanted the ability to schedule deposits of $100 once a month, but also have the option to make direct one-off deposits when I received bonuses or extra income from unexpected sources.
- Fraction shares. I needed a platform that supported fractional shares as I didn’t have the ability to buy multiple shares of stocks like Amazon at $3,400+ a share.
- Dividend Reinvestment. I wanted my investments to build and dividends should be reinvested back into purchasing more of the stock (DRIP – dividend reinvestment plan).
- Create my own “pie” or bundle of stocks instead of picking predetermined ETFs or Mutual funds. My 401k and SEP IRA have a funds allocated into ETFs and Mutual funds. They are diversified and “safe”. They also offered a steady growth rate, but I wanted this investment account to be focused on dividends with potential growth, as well as I wanted direct control over all individual asset allocation.
- Social sharing and viewing capabilities. I wanted to be able to see what other investors were doing and leverage their research and market knowledge. I also wanted to be able to share my portfolio with friends and family who are interested in learning about my investment strategies.
That brings us to the ONLY platform that provides all of the above. M1 Finance. No really, M1 Finance is the only platform that allows fractional sharing AND creating your own custom investment pie. Robinhood, WeBull, eTrade and Fidelity’s auto-investments limit you to ETFs and Mutual Funds or a single stock purchase.
How my automatic investment plan allocations were diversified.
I wanted to focus on a handful of stocks that would be relatively stable; meaning that they would fare well during a recession as well as provide steady income through dividends with some potential growth.
View my “pie” and see how my diversified automatic investment plan has performed.
| Ticker | Company | My Reason |
| F | Ford | I really like the Mach E and Lightning and they aspire to be the second largest EV maker in the US behind Tesla, which I think it reasonable. |
| KO | Coca-Cola | Besides the named soda, they own many of the popular juice and water drinks in the market. |
| MCD | McDonalds | During every recession the one place that is always open and people eat at regardless of class is this place. |
| AAPL | Apple | Cult following that has very emotionally charged influencers and ownership is often seen as a status symbol. |
| SBUX | Starbucks | Same reasoning as McDonalds. |
I had also considered 10 stocks that I felt had not just potential for growth, but also some stability and would be, or continue to be major market players in 30 years when I plan to retire. As such I don’t think I could have gone wrong with the below, but I only wanted to start with deposits of $100 a month for a year and this was too fractional for me. SPCE was the only odd ball out in this group and that is because I wanted some space representation, however it could be swapped with something more stable such as AT&T or Facebook/Meta.
| Ticker | Company |
| AAPL | Apple |
| MS | Microsoft |
| TSLA | Tesla |
| GOOGL | |
| AMZN | Amazon |
| SQ | Square |
| SPCE | Virgin Galactic |
| NOK | Nokia |
| F | Ford |
| MCD | McDonalds |