Saving money today offers a myriad of possibilities, especially in the age of digitalization and the Internet.
Whether you invest your assets in shares, deposit them in a call money account or save them in the classic way in a savings account, the choice is entirely up to you.
But also investing in an ETF savings plan offers a valid option to save and even increase your assets.
What is an ETF savings plan?
An ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) tracks a stock market index, such as the DAX or the S&P 500. This you can save with a savings plan.
The whole thing can be easily compared with a bank savings plan, although you can choose your investment instrument yourself.
You can also easily determine the savings period, the amount to be invested and the savings intervals yourself.
Let's take the example of the Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF, an index that tracks the global economy, which thus represents a broadly diversified investment option.
Of course, you can choose your own index based on your personal preference.
Now you can think about your target savings period, here of course the longer the better.
A typical duration of the savings phase is, for example, 20 years or longer.
Of course, you can also pay into your ETF for a shorter period of time, though many investors and experts recommend a duration of at least 20 years, since that's when compound interest starts to take effect, though more on that later.
In addition to the ETF and the savings period, you can also determine the amount to be saved and the intervals of the deposits.
Many of today's providers of ETF savings plans offer low entry limits, such as an initial investment of only 50 euros or less.
Your chosen amount to save, you can now pay every month, every quarter or every year, here the decision is entirely up to you.
For whom is the ETF savings plan suitable?
As you can already see from the above paragraph, such a savings plan is characterized by the high individuality and customization capabilities.
Basically, an ETF is suitable for anyone who wants to save money, secure and preserve their assets, as well as increase them.
Whether as the only savings measure, or another investment type of many, the ETF savings plan is suitable for every single person for the reasons mentioned above.
Advantages and disadvantages of ETF saving
If you are still undecided whether this is the right savings option for you personally, you can see from the following advantages and disadvantages whether you are making the right decision to create one or to leave it alone under certain circumstances.
An important advantage of ETF savings is the adaptability already described above, because the savings options can be customized to each individual person.
On the positive side, in addition to preserving your wealth, you can also participate in the world economy, respectively in the stock market, because: Who can invest here in the long term his money, protects his money not only against inflation, which eats up savings otherwise slowly but steadily, but which profits also still from rising market values.
It should be noted that inflation, especially in relation to cash, should not be underestimated. Here counts by the whole new printing of cash by the central banks not only the steady loss of value, but also the loss of purchasing power.
Means in the figurative sense that you get less for the same money, than for example 10 years ago.
Thus one protects oneself not only against the inflation, which lets the capital become slowly but constantly less worth, but profits also from the price gains of the index, thus a victory on whole distance.
The aforementioned price gains, however, offer another serious advantage, namely the compound interest effect.
In the case of long-term investments, the capital increases not only as a result of the steadily continuing payments, but also as a result of the price increases.
Here, a simple calculation example illustrates the importance of this phenomenon:
If you pay a monthly savings amount of 500 Euro for 30 years into a S&P 500 ETF, which had an average annual percentage of 10 percent increase in value in the last decades, you will get a final capital of 1 Euro after this savings period.130.244 euros.
Interesting to observe, however, is that the savings amount from this final sum is only a share of 180.000 Euro, the remaining amount of 950 Euro is the interest effect.244 euros results from interest payments.
A disadvantage, however, of ETF savings plans represent, among other things, the different providers.
These can determine namely at will the annual costs of it themselves, a good guideline for this would be not higher costs of 1 per cent per year to carry.
Another negative aspect against an ETF savings plan is the long commitment period of the capital.
Therefore, the most important rule to follow is, besides the constant payment into the ETF savings plan, do not invest capital that you can use elsewhere in the short term.
If you implement the above knowledge and tips, the ETF savings plan is one of the best investment opportunities that you can take advantage of and implement directly.