At Ellevest, we’re here to help you reach your money goals. That’s why our investing platform is built to help you aim directly at those goals, with specific recommendations for how much you might invest, and for how long, in order to give you the best chance of hitting them.
Here’s how we come up with those recommendations.
Build Wealth
This is a gift to “Future You.” We’ll recommend deposit amounts you might start with, based on how much other people like you — with a similar age, income, and number of children — decided to start with. Then we’ll forecast those deposits over 20 years.
Retirement on My Terms
This is where we do so many calculations that the computers can start to smoke (OK, not literally). We calculate your pre-retirement salary, which is your estimated salary in the year before you retire. It's based on factors like your gender and your education level, which affect your anticipated salary curve.
We then target getting you to 90% of that pre-retirement income. We estimate you’ll spend less than you do before you retire (no more costs of commuting, no more work clothes!), but not as much less as other firms (after all, many of you tell us you plan on traveling like a nomad when you retire).
We also factor in average lifespans, based on gender-specific1 mortality tables. That's important, because on average, women live six to eight years longer than men.
A Place to Call Home
For your “home goal,” we help you invest for a down payment on a home. You tell us about your dream house, and we’ll use live Zillow data to estimate how much a house like that might cost. We then help you invest enough to have 20% of that as a down payment in six years.
Kids are Awesome
Our “kids” goal is for the extra expenses that come with raising a child; think summer camp, additional educational expenses, weddings.2 We calculate 9 months of take-home pay, getting you to this amount in 6 years.
Start a Business
Most experts say to give a new business two years to see if it can work. So the Start a Business goal is built to help you build up 2 years’ worth of take-home pay to give you a cushion while you’re building your business up. The goal starts with a default timeline of 5 years. If your business will have revenues immediately, or if you are freelancing, you may want to save less.
Big Splurge
Over to you on this one. You tell us how much you need, and we work to get you there.
These are our starting points, but they're totally flexible, and there's no minimum to get started.3 You can customize each goal’s amount and timeline — and make it fit your real life.
“Non-binary person” is an option for your gender identity when you sign up for Ellevest, because nobody should feel forced to misgender themself to use our product. We don’t yet have a lot of data on the financial realities of non-binary and gender non-conforming people’s lives ... but we know they don’t usually experience the same privileges that cisgender men do. So for non-binary people, we rely on our portfolios that use data on cis women’s lifespans, career breaks, and salaries. (For now.)
Good to know: Our “Kids are Awesome” goal is not a 529 college savings account. Here is more information about the types of accounts that can help you save for education.
Account Requirements
Ellevest Digital doesn’t require you to maintain a minimum account balance. However, there are portfolio-specific minimums (ranging from $1 to approximately $240). You may not receive the entire recommended portfolio until your account balance meets the respective portfolio minimum.
Rebalancing and Ongoing Management
Ellevest will not rebalance a portfolio until it meets the respective account balance minimum necessary to generate the required shares. This minimum is a function of portfolio allocation and the share price of individual holdings, which will vary.
© 2023 Ellevest, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
All opinions and views expressed by Ellevest are current as of the date of this writing, are for informational purposes only, and do not constitute or imply an endorsement of any third party’s products or services.
Information was obtained from third-party sources, which we believe to be reliable but are not guaranteed for accuracy or completeness.
The information provided should not be relied upon as investment advice or recommendations, does not constitute a solicitation to buy or sell securities, and should not be considered specific legal, investment, or tax advice.
The information provided does not take into account the specific objectives, financial situation, or particular needs of any specific person.
Investing entails risk, including the possible loss of principal, and past performance is not predictive of future results. Ellevest, Inc. is an SEC-registered investment adviser.
Ellevest fees and additional information can be found at www.ellevest.com.
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Sallie Krawcheck
Sallie Krawcheck is the founder of Ellevest. In a sea of financial services sameness, Ellevest manages more than $2 billion in assets, and stands apart with its mission to get more money in the hands of women. Prior to Ellevest, Krawcheck was one of the only financial executives of her generation to have held C-suite roles at the largest global banks — as CEO of Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney, US Trust, and Sanford Bernstein and as CFO of Citi. Today, as a venture-funded entrepreneur, she’s beat impossibly long odds to raise $144 million in venture capital funding. Fortune Magazine has called Krawcheck “The Last Honest Analyst,” Barron’s considers her one of the “Most Influential Women in US Finance,” and Vanity Fair has named her to their “New Establishment List.”