This article is for you who want to start investing but don’t know a whole lot about how to get started. I will be writing about Nordnet’s “månedsopsparing” (monthly savings), where you can invest for free.
Disclaimer: I am not a certified financial advisor – I will not make recommendations on what to invest in and any examples I may give in this article should not be considered advice. I aspire to give internationals the knowledge they need to make informed financial decisions.
I could write about how this article will help you learn how to make your money work for you or how it’s automatic so you can set it and forget it. Instead, what I want you to take away more than anything, is that anyone can do this. It doesn’t require a huge starting sum, a lot of commitment from your side or even a lot of money to put into this monthly. Are you a student? You can do this. Are you unemployed? You can do this. Single parent? You can do this. Why? Because you can start with 100 kr./ month.
All you need is a desire to invest and minimum 100 kr./ month that you can spare.
What exactly is Månedsopsparing ?
Månedsopsparing on Nordnet is a service where you can invest in mutual funds and ETFs on a monthly basis, automatically, with no or very little kurtage (brokerage).
Should you invest through Månedsopsparing?
All investments come with a risk and while you can gain money, you can also lose some or all the money you invest, so that’s of course good to keep in mind. While some experts are good at analysing companies, nobody can foresee which stocks will increase or decrease in value in the future.
With that said, Nordnet’s månedsopsparing has some great advantages:
- 0 kr. kurtage (brokerage) – normally you pay minimum 27 kr. (or 15 kr. in the first 3 months) to buy stocks on Nordnet. So if you buy stocks worth 100 kr. outside of månedsopsparing, you also pay 27 kr. kurtage – this means that your stocks need to increase in value 27% just to be break even.
- Automatic – you first choose what you want to invest in and how much money you want to invest monthly. Then every month on the 8th, Nordnet buys the shares that you chose, as long as there’s enough money in your account. As it will rarely cost exactly the amount you chose, Nordnet will buy at maximum 10% more or less than the amount you chose (so if you choose 100 kr., Nordnet will buy for minimum 90 kr. and maximum 110 kr.)
- You can always change what you invest in – if after a few months (or less) you decide you want to change what you’re investing in, you can change it and it will be effective already at the next purchase. You can technically change what you invest in every month, if that’s part of your strategy.
- You can start with 100 kr./month – it’s a fairly low amount that a lot, if not most, people in Denmark can “spare”.
- You can invest up to 50.000 kr./month through månedsopsparing
Let’s walk through how you start
First you need an account on Nordnet (obviously). As an international, this might take a few weeks to set up (for me it took 3-4 weeks but it was also around Christmas and quite a few years ago, so they may have improved their approval time since then).
Once you are logged in, you find Månedsopsparing under “Mine sider”
Once you clicked Månedsopsparing in the menu, you go to “Ny Månedsopsparing”, where you’ll get these options:
Let’s talk about these options.
NB! Options 3 and 4 below will be the ones getting a fee of 10 kr. starting the 8th of October 2023. This means that every month Nordnet invests for you through månedsopsparing, you will pay 10 kr. if you have option 3 or 4.
- Option 1: Nordnet One (first one on the left side) – for this option, you choose the amount you want to invest and you are presented with 3 fund options that you can invest in (all money will be invested into 1 fund). They call it a “fund-in-fund-solution” as the Nordnet funds consist of underlying index funds. With this option, you can choose which day you want the investments to be made (not necessarily the 8th of each month).
- Option 2: Find funds yourself (second option from the left) – again, you start by choosing how much you want to invest pr. month. However, here you get to choose from more funds – “Nordnets index funds and other funds from the whole world”. You can choose to invest in more than 1 fund, but you have to invest minimum 100 kr./ fund – so if you only invest 100 kr., then you can only invest in 1 fund. Here you can also choose which date you want to invest on, so it doesn’t have to be the 8th.
- Option 3: Step-by-step (third option from the left) – this is a tailored Nordnet step-by-step guide to start your savings. First, you have to choose a goal (I don’t think it really matters, and I think it’s more to inspire you to save up). Goals include “dream vacation”, “financial independence” and “my children’s future”. Then you choose time horizon (short term, long term investment) and the amount you want to invest (important to note that for this option you need to invest MINIMUM 1000 kr./ month). Then you get a portfolio suggestion (% of Danish stocks, % global stocks), which you can adjust based on your preferences. Then you get to choose up to 3 criteria that are important for you (sustainability, popularity, profitability etc.) and based on this, you will get a suggestion of which funds to invest in. You can move on with the suggestion, or you can choose other funds yourself. This option buys shares on the 8th of each month.
- Option 4: Find ETFs and mutual funds yourself (the last one on the right side) – minimum 500 kr., shares are bought on the 8th of every month. I would say that this is similar in terms of what you can buy to the previous option, just without all the questions (the “guide” side) and with a lower minimum amount.Optio
Once you choose one of the above explained options, you are pretty much set. Want to set it and forget it? You can make automatic transfers from your bank to Nordnet on the 1st of each month, so you are sure to have the money in your Nordnet account when shares are being bought. Alternatively and depending on your strategy, you can also use Månedsopsparing as a means to buy funds for free, and go in every month and adjust what you’ll be buying and for how much.
Now sure how to make a strategy? In one of my next blog posts I’ll share some common strategies so you can choose what fits your life best. Subscribe to my newsletter and be the first to read new blog posts as soon as they’re up.
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6 Responses
This article doesnt answer below questions;
How is this investment option profits comparing to other platforms.
How much profit we can make
Thank you for your comment and sorry for the late reply 🙂 I’m still figuring some things out with the website 🙂
Nobody can really tell you “how much profit you can make” because nobody can foresee the future. And while there are analysts out there, they can only make qualified guesses. Nobody saw the pandemic coming – which shook up the markets 🙂
As for how it compares to other platforms – depends. Would you buy the same fund through a different platform? Would you buy 1 or 5 funds? Would you buy them every month, just like Månedsopsparing? Or would you buy once for a larger amount of money?
I did write though: “0 kr. kurtage (brokerage) – normally you pay minimum 27 kr. (or 15 kr. in the first 3 months) to buy stocks on Nordnet. So if you buy stocks worth 100 kr. outside of månedsopsparing, you also pay 27 kr. kurtage – this means that your stocks need to increase in value 27% just to be break even.
NB! Starting with the 8th of October 2023, 2 of the 4 månedsopsparing solutions will get a fee of 10 kr. This is still significantly less than normal kurtage, as the price stays the same no matter how many funds you invest in at once (10 kr. kurtage whether you invest in 1, 4 or more funds – as opposed to 27 kr x 1, 4 or more).”
Hope this helps 🙂
Andreea
Hi Andreea,
Thank you for all the effort in your blog, I already find it very informative and helpful.
As a relatively “young” international in Denmark (I think I can speak for most), my “biggest fear / worst nightmare / biggest question mark” in regard to every single financial decision is these 4 letters: SKAT
Though it sounds funny, it really causes me an anxiety every single month in different situations, like:
– My salary increased by 2500 DKK. Am I setting the correct value in Skat or will I receive a 10,000 DKK fee next April?
– I sold my bicycle for 4000 DKK. OMG, what if Skat thinks that’s income and I’ll receive a 15,000 DKK fee next April?
– I earned 2$ on some American-Revolut-Petrol-Stock-Thing. OMG, will I receive a 3 billion DKK fee next April?
For me, what you wrote in this article was very clear, interesting and super exciting, but before I set up my account on Nordnet, I’d like to know what to do if I invest 300 DKK per month for a year and:
– I made a profit, so I have 12 * 300 + 1000 (let’s say) = 4600 DKK in Nordnet and I want to withdraw all of it
– I didn’t make a profit, I am where I started, I want to stop, and I want to withdraw 3600 DKK
– I lost 1000 DKK, I want to stop, I want to withdraw all 2600 DKK
In all cases, on my bank account, it will look like I received money from a “financial institution”, right? (I’m really asking because I don’t know. It’s not a sarcastic question. 😀 )
How do I notify SKAT properly so they will only tax my profit (if there’s any) and ensure that they won’t give me a 4 trillion DKK bill next April?
I completely understand your statement, that you are not a financial advisor and I understand that this is a free blog and I wouldn’t expect you to write a step-by-step, in-depth explanation of different SKAT setups with Apostille-stamped English translations. It’s already very nice of you to share it.
I’m asking, if you could share your own experience, a very basic how-to in regards to SKAT or possibly a place to get more information about Denmark’s regulations in regard to handling stock income, it would be really helpful, and I’d be on my way to Nordnet registration.
Thank you for the blog, once again. 🙂
Haha I love this 😀
I can absolutely understand how overwhelming it is with SKAT and just trying to choose the best account type and everything – especially if you’re not fluent in Danish, that’s why I started this project. So to answer you’re questions:
When you invest through a Danish bank (that can be Danske Bank, Nordea, Spar Nord, Lunar, anything), Nordnet or Saxo, they automatically report everything to SKAT. So SKAT will know for how much money you bought a specific stock and how much you sold it for. When you buy something (ETF, stocks, funds and so on), these are called “værdipapirer” in Danish, roughly translates to “value papers” (I still have a hard time with English terms sometimes as I learned them in Danish). It’s called like this because I think back in the day when you bought a stock, you basically bought a paper, but now all of that is digital. That “paper”, which in your case would be a transaction in Nordnet, has a date of purchase and a value that you purchased for, among other things – so if something happens and the numbers in SKAT F up, that’s your proof.
In this case “– I made a profit, so I have 12 * 300 + 1000 (let’s say) = 4600 DKK in Nordnet and I want to withdraw all of it”, you just withdraw it and in next year’s årsopgørelse you pay tax on 1000 dkk (if that’s all you sold that year, tax will be 27%)
In this case “– I didn’t make a profit, I am where I started, I want to stop, and I want to withdraw 3600 DKK”, you don’t pay any tax as you neither made or lost money. You just withdraw your money and that’s that.
In this case “– I lost 1000 DKK, I want to stop, I want to withdraw all 2600 DKK”, you lost 1000 dkk, so now you get tax deductions (fradrag) for 1000 dkk. That doesn’t mean that you will get your money back, but I think you get roughly 30% or so back.
With that being said, when you invest in funds (whether it’s through månedsopsparing or not), you will likely get dividends. 27% tax is automatically paid on dividends. If you get dividends worth more than 58.900 dkk/ year, then you have to pay 42% of the amount that exceeds 58.900 dkk. So let’s say you get dividends worth 60.000 dkk. Nordnet automatically pays 27%, but you’re supposed to have paid 42% of 1100 dkk. As Nordnet already paid 27%, you will have to pay 15% more (of 1100 dkk) in next year’s årsopgørelse.
I hope this makes sense and I didn’t confuse you further 😀 I wrote several posts on my Instagram @moneylikealocal.dk about tax and I’m also in the process of writing a big tax guide for investments so maybe keep an eye out for that 🙂
Hi Andrea,
Thanks for sharing this great advice. A few questions:
When you open the account with Nordnet, should it be a aktiedepot or a aktiesparekonto?
I started the process of opening an account and after affirming I have a non-Danish citizenship, got sent to a separate page. There was a warning that individuals can only have a single aktiesparekonto in Denmark and any other one at another bank will be closed and a penalty will be charged. I have a savings account already at another Danish bank, but I’m not sure if it counts as a “aktiesparekonto” and don’t want to accidentally mess it up.
There is another warning that if my Danish residence address ceases, the account will be terminated. Does this mean all money in the account would be forfeited with no possibility of transfer?
I appreciate any light you could shed on these questions.
Hi Nick,
Thanks for your comment! 🙂
So Aktiesparekonto is a special type of account where you are only taxed 17% off your profits. I wrote about Aktiesparekonto on my Instagram account @moneylikealocal.dk but in short, you can only deposit 106.600 dkk (2023), only taxed 17% rather than 27/42%, tax is “lagerbeskatning” meaning you pay tax every year instead of when you sell (also wrote more about this on my Instagram account) and you can’t have a månedsopsparing on your Aktiesparekonto. That’s why you can only have one aktiesparekonto – because of the limit and the lower tax rule. So unless you asked your bank to open an Aktiesparekonto, you don’t have one.
Aktiedepot however is just a regular account where you can buy stocks, funds etc. and also have månedsopsparing. This is taxed regularly though and you can have as many aktiedepots as you want 🙂
As for the residence thing, I think it might be a problem if you leave Denmark – in this case you would have to sell your assets before you move, or ask Nordnet for alternatives. If you move to another adress in Denmark, it shouldn’t be a problem – just change your address in your Nordnet account as well.
Hope this answers your questions 🙂
Andreea