
In a Nutshell: If managing your finances, making productive investments, and increasing your income and assets were easy, everybody would do it. It turns out that investing is like everything else: Those who apply the most dedication increase their chances of rewards. In a world where financial education usually comes in bits and pieces, The Smart Investor is a comprehensive resource that helps people expand their knowledge to advance their goals. The Smart Investor combines banking and credit card news, insights, and comparison tools to guide users toward a brighter financial future.
Ever wonder how some people seem to know exactly what to do with their money? They show discipline in avoiding unnecessary spending and focus on the future in deploying and investing assets for long-term growth.
News flash: These uber-investors weren’t born that way. Instead, at some point, they invariably put their noses to the grindstone, learned a few things, and took control of their financial destiny.
You can do that too. Putting your nose to the grindstone doesn’t mean that learning has to be drudgery. Discovering how to manage your finances better can be fun because the results provide ongoing positive reinforcement.
Money isn’t everything, but increasing your financial flexibility opens you up to more life choices. Armed with knowledge, confidence, and a sense of possibility, anyone can remake themselves financially by forging a plan and sticking to it.

That’s the message at The Smart Investor, a site devoted to helping millions make better financial decisions. Our Summer 2024 conversation with Baruch Silvermann, the experienced analyst who founded the site, gave us fresh financial insights and more confidence in our ability to apply them. So strap on your thinking cap.
“Financial literacy is often lacking among many people, and choosing between financial products can be overwhelming for most consumers,” Silvermann said (and I agree). “However, it is one of the most important aspects of life.”
Most people like to find a good reason to do things. That may be why the content at The Smart Investor resonates so strongly with so many people.
The site combines expert advice, guides, and reviews with sophisticated yet easy-to-use tools for comparing and evaluating banks, credit cards, investment apps and products, and personal loans. It’s a one-stop shop for financial improvement.
“When it comes to finance, we often face life-changing decisions, whether saving for retirement or getting a mortgage,” Silvermann said. “With this in mind, we created The Smart Investor to provide transparent, reliable, and expert knowledge to our readers to simplify financial decisions.”
Data-Driven Approach Simplifies Decision-Making
Making counterproductive financial decisions is like choosing to eat ice cream after resolving to get healthy. It’s almost always best to keep your spoon in the drawer and your credit cards in your wallet.
The key to that analogy is that the consequences of financial overindulgence are as well-known as those caused by consuming too many sugary calories. Numbers don’t lie.
That’s why Silvermann and his team of experts at The Smart Investor prioritize objectivity in their work. The team produces original content but backs its opinions with current data to ensure readers have a solid foundation for making financial decisions worth living with.
The team strives to present information throughout the site to simplify decision-making. Its comparison pages rank dozens of brands using regularly updated data.
“As an experienced analyst, one of the most important aspects for me is to make data-driven decisions,” Silvermann said. “We put significant effort into gathering extensive data, whether interest rates, reward comparisons, fees, or any other factor.”

One of the greatest advantages of using data is that consumers know it’s not a point of view but a number they can easily compare. The Smart Investor’s side-by-side comparisons show how data can cut through the clutter to provide unambiguous conclusions.
The Smart Investor provides many user-friendly ways to analyze the data. Users may filter tools to compare banks, savings accounts, CD rates, checking accounts, credit cards, and personal loans according to product and account type.
Reviews provide a product overview, discuss the pros and cons, and answer frequently asked questions. Searchable guides provide tutorials, address common pain points, offer tips and tricks for success, and discuss industry trends.
That allows The Smart Investor to pinpoint the best online banks, savings accounts, credit cards, and many other categories, always focusing on usability, simplicity, and relevance to the reader’s needs.
“We also want our readers to feel the product — whether it’s a bank account, credit card, or investing app,” Silvermann said. “Our team works hard to provide authentic images from real users so readers can truly understand how to use the products.”
Tools, Reviews, and Comparisons Strive for Impartiality
Silvermann said consumers know the necessity of making wise financial decisions and appreciate quality content written by experts, not by machines, as on many other websites. The team filters the human element through the data to acknowledge the need for flexibility and various use cases.

It starts with weighing the pros and cons of each product. The Smart Investor compares available features to assess which types of people are a good fit. Data compares rates, fees, rewards, service options, and other variables for optimal product use cases.
Still, The Smart Investor goes to great lengths to avoid bias, stressing impartiality in everything it does. Although the site explicitly acknowledges that it earns revenue from affiliate relationships, the team always seeks to present ideas from a neutral point of view.
Additionally, the experts at The Smart Investor seek to explain the rationale behind every opinion they share. For example, if the team thinks that credit card A is better than credit card B for those looking for everyday spending rewards, it explains why, including data that supports its view.
Silvermann said this eliminates as much subjectivity as possible. Of course, affiliate partnerships never impact product rankings or reviews in any way.
The site clarifies this on its How We Make Money page, explaining how advertising pays for a full-time editorial staff of finance experts readers know and trust.
Editorial Guidelines reinforce that position, spelling out the relationship between advertisers, readers, and the team to dispel any notions of favoritism. The guidelines also describe the unambiguous methodologies the team uses to make data comparisons across the site.
“The main point in everything we do, including reviews of financial brands or comparisons between them, is to go beyond simple recommendations of good or bad,” he said. “There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, and solutions vary for different people.”
Options for Consumers to Choose Smartly and Easily
Managing money with skill starts with using what you have as productively as possible. Growing your money to achieve lasting financial independence is the next logical step.
Not surprisingly, given its name, The Smart Investor provides a dedicated section on investing with tools and insights for investors at all levels.
Beginner’s guides provide in-depth information on stocks, retirement planning, bonds, gold investing, and the best brokers. From mutual funds to robo-investors and micro-investing, The Smart Investor covers everything from tried-and-true fundamentals to the latest strategies.
It’s a combination of approaches that puts more people in a position to succeed financially. Reviews highlight leading investment apps, including Wealthfront, Acorns, Empower, M1 Finance, and Vanguard.
A section on how to invest assesses the best online brokers for beginners and the best investing robo-advisors while providing helpful how-tos on robo-advisors, opening a brokerage account, and choosing the best broker.

Meanwhile, The Smart Investor never rests on its laurels. The team prides itself on staying abreast of the latest financial data, news, and trends and remains dedicated to incorporating user feedback in the site and product iteration.
User feedback directs the team to incorporate new data sources and features. Users also contact the team with requests for further consultations or just quick comments.
The team drills down into the use patterns to measure the effectiveness of the content, analyzing which reviews and comparison types are the most interesting, tracking which buttons users click, and monitoring what they search for in the search box.
Those methods help the team understand whether the site’s content satisfies readers. The Smart Investor also maintains an email list to keep in touch with its audience.
Silvermann said that means continued innovation at The Smart Investor, always keeping the value of data at the forefront.
“Our motto is to provide information and tools to make smart money decisions,” Silvermann said. “One of the greatest advantages of using data is that consumers know it’s not a point of view but a number they can easily compare.”