Top Financial Products

Dear Readers,

The following are the top financial products I use or have used to help me achieve financial freedom. Each product provides an actionable solution that is synergistic to the advice I provide in my articles.

There are literally thousands of products to choose from and I’ve discarded 99.9% of them. Let me help you cut through the clutter by highlighting only the best after hundreds of hours of research. I’ve met with with the senior management from most of these companies given I live in San Francisco and travel to conferences several times a year. I believe in looking into the whites of each CEO’s eyes before making any recommendation.

Full disclosure: all products are affiliate partners of Financial Samurai. With every sign up, Financial Samurai may be paid a referral fee.

Most Attractive Investment Opportunity 2019

Fundrise – Fundrise, founded in 2012, is one the best platforms for investors who wish to diversify their real estate exposure. Instead of concentrating your risk and money in one property, with Fundrise you can surgically invest smaller amounts of money (as little as $1,000) in several properties with potentially higher returns across the entire country. The average historical range is between 8% – 15%, and unlike P2P lending, there’s a physical asset that actually has value.

After selling my rental house in San Francisco for 30X annual gross rent, I reinvested $500,000 over the $1,788,000 proceeds in real estate crowdfunding in the heartland of America. It makes a lot of sense to arbitrage the valuation and net rental yield differentials between expensive coastal city real estate and inexpensive heartland real estate. Fundrise is free to sign up and is available for all investors – accredited and non-accredited.

Best Free Wealth Management Tool 2019

Personal Capital – Personal Capital has the best financial tools for investors and people who are the most serious about planning for a healthy retirement. You can easily x-ray your portfolio for excessive fees, get a snapshot of your asset allocation by portfolio, track your net worth and plan for your retirement. Think about Personal Capital as a sophisticated version of Mint. I spent almost two years consulting for them in their San Francisco and Redwood City offices and have sat down with all senior management.

Here’s my comprehensive Personal Capital review.

Best Digital Wealth Advisor (Robo-Advisor) 2019

Wealthfront – Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Wealthfront is the original robo-advisor and launched in 2011. Its board includes Dr. Burton Malkiel, professor of economics, emeritus and senior economist at Princeton University. He is most known for authoring the classic finance book, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, now in its 12th edition. Wealthfront remains as a pure robo-advisor with no human advisory component.

Here’s my comprehensive Wealthfront review. They just raised another $75 million in 2018 now that they have almost $10 billion under management.

Best Online Savings Bank

CIT Bank is currently my favorite online bank where you can earn maximum interest in a money market account or 12-month CD. Because they are an online bank, they don’t have expensive physical store overhead. As a result, they can pass on their savings to you.

My favorite product of theirs is their savings builder account. They are paying a very healthy 2.45% APY if you maintain a $25K balance or deposit $100 a month. 2.45% is huge because their rate was just 1.85% in 4Q2018 and the 10-year bond yield is only ~2.6%.

You can finally take advantage of higher interest rates by making a higher rate of return on your money. It feels great to earn a risk-free rate of return after such a strong bull market since 2009.

Here’s my comprehensive CIT Bank review.

Best Mortgage Lender 2019

LendingTree – LendingTree was founded over 20 years ago and is a publicly traded company with a market capitalization of over $2 billion. It has one of the largest online mortgage marketplaces where lenders compete for your business. Every time you are looking for a new mortgage or want to refinance, it behooves you to first get free quotes so you can use the quotes as leverage to get the best rate possible from potential lenders. Get something in writing is very powerful for negotiations.

Here’s my comprehensive LendingTree review. Their stock was up over 200% in 2017 alone.

Best Car Insurance Provider 2019

Esurance – Esurance is known for its user-friendly website, interactive tools and top-notch mobile apps. It’s best used by people who like to manage their own policies, have straightforward insurance needs and prefer to get quotes online. Esurance is owned by industry giant Allstate and provides for free some of the most competitive rates online.

Here’s my comprehensive Esurance review.

Best Life Insurance Finder 2019

PolicyGenius – In the past, you’d have to call a life insurance carrier one by one, fill out an application form, wait for a while, and not know whether the quote you received is any good or not. PolicyGenius helps you see multiple quotes at once so you can make a more informed decision. I recently had dinner with both founders, Jen and Francois in San Francisco, and they are experiencing explosive growth.

Here’s my comprehensive PolicyGenius review.

Best Career Advice Book 2019

How To Engineer Your Layoff – I have spent seven years crafting this 150-page ebook that teaches employees how to negotiate a severance and be free. Not only can you receive a severance, you may also get healthcare benefits, keep all your deferred compensation based on the regular vesting schedule, and be eligible for unemployment benefits. Having a nice financial runway to move on to the next career, start a company, retire early, take care of a family, or simply travel the world is priceless. I personally negotiated over a $500,000 severance package that paid out every year from 2012 – 2017 so I could comfortable work on this site.

About the Author: Sam began investing in 1995 when he opened his first online brokerage account while at The College of William & Mary. After graduating, he spent the next 13 years after college working at two of the leading financial service firms in the world. During this time, he also received his MBA from UC Berkeley with a focus on finance and real estate.

In 2012, Sam was able to retire at the age of 34 largely due to his investments that now generate roughly $220,000 a year in passive income. He spends his time playing tennis and softball, taking care of his family, consulting with various fintech companies, and writing online to help others achieve financial freedom.

About Financial Samurai: Financial Samurai was started in 2009 and is now one of the most trusted personal finance sites today with roughly 1.3 million organic pageviews a month. Everything is written based off first hand experience because money is too important to be left up to pontification.