The Best Financial Products of 2025 and Investing in Collectibles
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What financial tools can change your life?
Hey, Sean, when's the last time a financial product changed your financial life?
Well, last summer, I used credit card points from a sign-up bonus to pay for the flights of my summer vacation. Not sure that was life-changing, but it did save me several hundred dollars, which was pretty sweet.
Well, I'm always a fan of doing that. In this episode, we'll talk about how using the right financial tool can help you meet your money and life goals.
I'm Sean Piles.
And I'm Sarah Rathner. This episode, I'm joined by our co-host, Elizabeth Iola, to answer one of your money questions about, shall we say, misguided investing strategy? And then we help you understand what kinds of investments might be better suited for the average investor. Before we get into all of that, I have to know, Sean, where did you travel to with all those points?
I went to Chicago to meet up with my twin sister for a little belated birthday celebration. We happened to be there during Pride Week, which was super fun. And I enjoyed it all the more because I wasn't paying some $700 in flights, and my sign-up bonus covered that. So it felt pretty great.
Well, that's awesome. And Chicago is one of my favorite cities.
Especially in June. It is basically a beach town, which people do not appreciate. So I'm here to spread the gospel. Chicago's great in the summertime.
Yes, that is the time to go. Huge fan.
But to your question earlier, the credit card that I had at the time made the vacation all the more feasible, which is why we're going to talk about why having the right financial product for you is really important and why it's so important to shop around for the right tool to help you meet your goals.
Which financial products won NerdWallet's Best of Awards for 2025?
And NerdWallet's Best of Awards for 2025 just dropped. So now is a great time to shop around for that right financial product for your needs. Every year, NerdWallet announces the Best of Awards, which is kind of like a shortcut for you to find the top financial tools across a huge range of products like travel credit cards, insurance providers, robo-advisors, and more. And you can see the full list of winners at NerdWallet.com.
To give you a shortcut to that shortcut, we are joined by investing nerd Sam Taub and mortgage nerd Holden Lewis to share what they chose as the best product in their areas of expertise and why. And Sarah, who writes about credit cards, will talk with us about what makes a travel credit card the best this year. And a quick heads up that we'll talk about some NerdWallet partners in this conversation, but that does not influence how we discuss them. So Holden, Sam, welcome back to Smart Money. Hey, it's great to be here. Good to be back.
Sam, let's start with you. Let's not waste any time here. What is the best app for investing in 2025?
That would be Fidelity. And they've gotten the highest score among brokers we review for several years in a row now. A lot of people are familiar with Fidelity. I use the Fidelity app and I like that it just works. You know, it's not fussy or trying to push some newfangled features on me. What makes Fidelity the best for you? And what was the process for deciding that Fidelity is better than another similar product? As you said, Fidelity just works. It's really streamlined and it's really easy to use for beginners. And it's great for passive, long-term investors who want to keep things simple. But that doesn't mean it skimps on features for advanced traders. Our methodology for these awards looks at a lot of different variables.
Some of those, like educational resources or mutual fund selection, are really geared toward beginners and passive investors. Others, like the interest rates on margin loans and the execution quality of trades, those are geared more toward active investors and experienced day traders. Fidelity does really well across the board, which is kind of unusual. Most of the brokers we review are kind of specialized for either day traders or passive investors, but Fidelity bridges the gap in a way that very few other brokers do.
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