I’m a huge fan on SoFi. For those of you that haven’t heard of the company, it’s called Social Finance and started out as a student loan refinancing firm for students from specific schools. I don’t know all of the details on how it worked; however I know that I happened to graduate from one of the schools they had funding for and SoFi provided some great student loan options for me while I was paying off those debts.

If you are interested in using SoFi’s services I have a few referral links. Each one of them gives you a nice little bonus when you open an account. Here are my links for SoFi Money, Invest, and Loans.

SoFi offers a range of products, most of which I’ve found to be very good. They also continue to invest in those products and seem to be making them materially better on an ongoing basis.

Sofi Money – this is probably my favorite of the SoFi services. It’s a really unique checking/savings type of account that spans 6 different FDIC insured banks providing 1.5MM of protection on your cash. The account is super liquid, and pays an extremely competitive interest rate vs. major banks. As I write this article it’s 1.6% APY on cash in the account.

The cool thing about Sofi Money is that you can basically ditch your traditional savings accounts and just park your money in this account instead. You of course need the disincline to not just spend it because it’s there! For those of you who are financially responsible, Sofi Money can really help minimize the amount of accounts you have to manage.

Sofi Money isn’t perfect though! I’ve found a few times when keeping my traditional checking account at a major well known bank was super helpful. Sofi Money (as of this writing) doesn’t support wire transfers. So if you happen to re-finance and need to wire money (even to/from a Sofi loan….) you will need a different bank to get that cash moved quickly. They do offer standard ACH, bill pay, debit card, checks etc…

Sofi Invest – if you aren’t a super active trader, but want to participate in the market Sofi Invest is a really great offering. I use most of the Sofi Invest tools for different parts of my investing portfolio management. They offer some really nice, extremely low fee, managed accounts that have solid ETF’s and low cost products. The active invest account is nice for a moderately active stock trader. You can place basic orders (market, limit etc…) and purchase individual stocks, they also offer a fractional share purchase option which is nice for someone who wants to be an Amazon shareholder but doesn’t have a couple grand sitting around.

Sofi Invest also provides crypto options. If you happen to be interested in bitcoin and the like, it’s a super easy way to participate in that market as a speculator.

I’d be lying to you if I said that most of my investments are at Sofi Invest. I have my large dollar accounts at other firms. My 401(k) is managed through the financial institution my employer has authorized, and my active trading is mostly through Tastyworks and Thinkorswim. I have a few passive investing accounts that money is simply deposited to at Sofi and they have performed quite nicely. I also use these for some investing programs I have in place for my kids.

Like I said earlier, if you are a passive style investor; this is a great place to park your money!

Sofi Lending – if you must take out a loan; you need a great lender. I’ve had wonderful experiences with Sofi Lending. I have used them to bridge funds during construction and refinancing of mortgages; to refinance my student loans and for home mortgages. My experience is that they are very easy to work with, quick to fund, reasonably priced and have competitive rates.

Once you are a “member” of Sofi by using their products, they also offer a bunch of interesting content and meetups to enhance your financial life.

Overall, I’m a huge fan of Sofi and suggest that if you haven’t tried them out you certainly should! I’d love it if you click my referral links: SoFi Money, Invest, and Loans as it works out nicely for both of us. However, if you’d prefer to not do that simply go to http://www.sofi.com and check it out yourself!