- The Finance Gourmet

SoFi Review – Legit, Scam, Worth It?

January 4, 2024November 11, 2023 by Finance Gourmet

What Is SoFi? In this SoFi review we will take a look at what SoFi offers and the pros and cons of SoFi. We’ll see is SoFi legit, or is is SoFia scam? SoFi, like most other niche financial services companies, is expanding. It turns out that once you get a foothold, and a few developers working full-time for you, cranking out “disruptive” finance services is easy. SoFi has a wide array of financial products including loans, banking, investing, and more. Most of SoFi money is legit, but whether it’s better than others is the key. SoFi Loans First, SoFi was a lender. If you scroll to the bottom of their webpage, you’ll see in the fine print that officially, SoFi (the lending part) is SoFi Lending Corp. NMLS #1121636. You see, lending corporations are real things that exist and are also heavily regulated. Believe it or not, there is no need, nor requirement to be a bank to give out loans. It just means you have to get the money you are going to lend out to people from somewhere besides customer bank deposits. In this case, SoFi investors supply the money the company lends out. At this stage, …

It Takes Money To Make Money Webull Example

November 11, 2024June 20, 2023 by Finance Gourmet

I’m writing up a comprehensive Webull review as part of my ongoing series of brokerage app reviews where I do comparisons like Webull vs Robinhood, look at is Webull legit, and my personal finance apps reviews. My hands-on Webull review includes actually depositing money and using the Webull app to buy and sell stocks, cryptos, and options. I feel like a real review of Webull or any other finance app requires putting your money where your mouth is, so to speak. Of course, for the purpose of writing a personal finance review of Webull, I’m not going to drop thousands of dollars into a new app I have no experience with just to try it out. My freelance financial writing business does pretty well, but maybe not THAT well. This article is not a recommendation to buy or sell any securities mentioned below. Some of the links below are referral links and may result in compensation to myself or Finance Gourmet. Invest In Webull Make Money Percentages Alright some context before we take a look at the screenshot. First, Webull gave me a single share of stock free in Genworth Financial for signing up for an account. In other words, …

Making Money with Cryptocurrency

December 6, 2022 by Finance Gourmet

Okay! I get it. You are interested in investing in cryptocurrency. As the recent cratering of bitcoin prices, along with others, at least I won’t have to fight you on the it never comes down thing like I spent the last years of my financial planner days about real estate. So, making money with cryptocurrency is easy or hard, depending on your situation. How To Make Money with Cryptocurrency Alright. I’m going to start kind of from the beginning, but if you are looking for a cryptocurrency explained or cryptocurrency for beginners’ type of information, you’ll have to find that elsewhere. There are a few ways to make money with cryptocurrency. One way is to buy and hold the cryptocurrency, hoping that it will increase in value over time. This is similar to investing in stocks or other assets. Another way is to trade cryptocurrency on an exchange. This involves buying and selling different cryptocurrencies in an attempt to make a profit from the fluctuations in their prices. This is similar to short-term trading in stocks and bonds. Theoretically, you could try and buy cryptocurrency for less on one exchange and sell it for more on another, but this tactic …

Is Bitcoin Better Than Gold?

February 9, 2023January 19, 2022 by Finance Gourmet

Bitcoin was once a joke. Then, Bitcoin was a fad. These days, after proving some staying power beyond being the new tulips, Bitcoin gets respect. Bitcoin has become mainstream with financial publications publishing predictions and analysis without accountability, just like it does with more traditional types of investing. Articles breathlessly ask how high can bitcoin go. But is bitcoin better than gold, especially after the bitcoin crash? Is Bitcoin a Good Investment? As a former financial advisor, I’m always cautious about telling people what is or is not a “good investment.” The better option is often to present the realities of any investment and allow investors to draw their own conclusion. Why Invest in Gold? Of course, to understand whether bitcoin is the new gold, you have to know why people invest in gold in the first place. There are several reasons people invest in gold. One of the most well-known is as an inflation hedge. While governments can print money, and inflation can take off with, or without, monetary policy failures, gold prices are tied to a physical commodity whose supply cannot be manipulated by the stroke of a pen. You can really get cash back with Rakuten This …

How High Will Bitcoin Go?

August 14, 2023November 18, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

Wondering how high bitcoin will go? One analyst says $55,000+ by end of year 2021. Let’s keep an eye on him. Update: Analyst accountability is a big thing at Finance Gourmet. Sometimes, I wish watching, rewarding, and outing analysts was a full-time job I could get somewhere. Until then, it’s time to give out some credit, where credit is due for bitcoin analyst Michael Novogratz and his November 2020 call, as bitcoin prices hit 40,000, just below his bitcoin prediction of $55,000 by EOY 2021. Originally published 11/18/2020. Michael Novogratz – November 18, 2020: Some recent bitcoin buzz comes courtesy of Michael Novogratz who is out saying that bitcoin prices could rise to $55,000 or $60,000 by the end of 2021. With bitcoin trading near $18,000 that’s more than just being bullish. Is he right, and just how high will bitcoin go? Good Bitcoin Analysis? Unlike most financial publications, I believe in financial analyst accountability. Anyone can blurt out a prediction, hope to be right, and then go around telling people that you called it, while failing to mention any other “calls” that weren’t so good. So, let’s take a look at Mr. Novogratz’s track record as a bitcoin predictor. …

What Is The Flippening?

November 1, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

What is the Flippening? What does Flippening mean? When you get a word like that, you know it comes from the “new school” investors. Maybe it’s the meme-investors. Maybe it’s a new retire early term. When Is The Flippening Going to Happen? You just knew something like the Flippening would be about crypto. Is Acorns a scam? Now, I don’t usually do a lot of crypto advice here because, honestly, I think everyone is still figuring it out, and I’m not trying to build a cutting edge crypto reputation or anything like that. However, I cannot resist a good acronym or term, and the Flippening is just too good to pass up. The Flippening sounds sort of horror movie-ish, and you aren’t wrong, per se. The Flippening refers to the potential future event when another cryptocurrency, likely ether, overtakes bitcoin in market capitalization. In other words, when bitcoin and ether “flip” places as the #1 and #2 cryptocurrencies. Why Is There a Flippening? You have to really dig into cryptonetworks and how they work to get a full answer, but the short-version is that a recent upgrade to the ethereum network makes it more likely that ether, ethereum’s native token, …

Bitcoin Hits 20,000

December 16, 2020 by Finance Gourmet

If you’re a bitcoin fan, or if you just follow along, you know that today bitcoin hit 20,000. Meaning you can turn one bitcoin into $20,000. Is Bitcoin A Good Investment? Bitcoin, like the dollar, and Google stock, has no intrinsic value beyond the fact that people decided it is worth something, and there is a limited supply of it. Unlike the dollar, gold, and Google stock, bitcoin doesn’t have a history, or set of like assets that it can be compared against to determine its theoretical value. In short, bitcoin is so new, nobody really knows what makes it tick, although there are many people out there who claim to know. So, is bitcoin a good investment? It depends on what you are investing for, and what money you are using. Some bitcoin analysts are calling for much higher bitcoin prices than 20,000. Before you get caught up in bitcoin euphoria, don’t forget the previous high for bitcoin was set three years ago in December of 2017. That green arrow is very real, but that red arrow is very real too. If you invested your kid’s college fun in bitcoin in September of 2017, you were a genius, provided …

Is Bitcoin For Real?

June 28, 2017 by Finance Gourmet

Recent headlines have started getting people to come out of the woodwork about bitcoin. Go to Market Watch today, and one whole side above the fold is bitcoin articles including one with the headline: “What delivered the best return of 2017’s first half?” – The answer is bitcoin (and ethereum, another digital cryptocurrency). How Is Bitcoin Worth Anything? Alright, this is a little complicated, so stay with me here. First, although you may have stopped thinking about it long ago, American dollars aren’t “real.” In reality, all a dollar bill is, is a special, paper-like fabric, printed with an intricate design in green and black. That’s it. You can’t eat it. You can’t use it as transportation, or for housing, or for anything really. It’s not even good as paper since there is almost no blank space. Dollars exist as currency, only because we as a society agree they represent value. That value is created by a limited supply regulated by the Federal Reserve, for something we give value. In other words, the only thing that makes money valuable is a limited supply that can be exchanged for goods and services. Bitcoin, works in pretty much the same way. Bitcoin …

What Is Bitcoin Is It Worth It?

January 5, 2021January 22, 2015 by Finance Gourmet

Bitcoin is a topic that pops up in the news every now and then. It’s also the kind of thing a freelance writer with ADD might get distracted by when he was supposed to be rebuilding the content on an old website. In fact, he might feel guilty for spending so much time looking into it that he would have to write several articles about Bitcoin as a way to make it seem more like work. * Ahem. * What Is Bitcoin? Explaining Bitcoin is a little bit tricky. In essence, Bitcoin is a digital currency. There are no actual coins, only computer data. In many ways, this is not unlike most of the US currency, which exists electronically on bank computers and balance sheets, not in stacks of hundred dollar bills in the basement of GE headquarters. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. That is, that there is no organization or group that gives it a value. Instead, it is simply a means by which bitcoins are generated in a limited supply. Like anything else, supply and demand can set a price for Bitcoins in other currency, including US Dollars. How you convert Bitcoins to Dollars is that you find …