InvestEd

Inspiration

Most students want to manage their money better, but personal finance feels overwhelming, fragmented, and full of jargon. Traditional budgeting apps show where your money went, but not what to do next. Investing platforms assume you already understand emergency funds, APY, ETFs, Roth IRAs, and compound interest, which most students were never taught.

We built InvestEd to change that. Our goal is simple: help students go from confused to confident, using AI, clear steps, live financial tools, and education written in human language.

Inspiration

We built InvestEd to change that. Our goal is simple: help students go from confused to confident, using AI, clear steps, live financial tools, and education written in human language.

What it does

InvestEd is a smart, AI-powered student budgeting & investing hub that personalizes financial guidance based on your real numbers.

Key Features:

Smart HYSA Finder Ranks high-yield savings accounts by APY, fees, and user-friendliness, and explains why HYSAs with 4.00% APY are a smarter choice compared to traditional savings accounts with 0.01% APY.

Investment Analytics Dashboard • Explains why investing matters: DCA, compound interest, and time-in-market vs timing-the-market.

• Lets users compare S&P 500, ETFs, index funds, crypto, and tech stocks.

• Shows 3 / 5 / 10-year returns, volatility, and risk rating.

• Includes a compound interest calculator and a Coast FIRE / retirement timeline estimator.

• Provides guidance on opening a brokerage, Roth IRA, Traditional IRA, or 401k.

Education Hub • Beginner-friendly financial concepts.

• Each topic starts simple, then expands into deeper detail when clicked.

• Links to trending financial literacy articles.

Profile Link Your Stats for Personalized Planning. InvestEd then creates a personalized financial profile and suggests: • How "aggressive" to invest

• Whether to prioritize emergency saving, debt reduction, or portfolio growth

AI ChatBot • Integrated a chatbot which can be accessed on all pages

• Can be used to explain complex financial topics in a simpler way so the user can understand

How we built it

Frontend: Next.js (App Router), TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui for fully customizable components

AI Chatbot: Gemini 2.5 Flash API

State & Logic: Zustand for persistent financial stats and user state

Calculators: Custom-built compounding, risk scoring, emergency fund, and savings projections

Architecture: Privacy-first, we store only derived financial insights, not raw transaction-level data

Challenges we ran into

• Aligning card layouts to remain responsive and equal-height across all screen sizes

• Creating a risk profile that is both transparent and user-friendly

• Ensuring the platform provides guidance, not just dashboards

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• The Smart HYSA Finder with meaningful ranking factors (APY, fees, usability)

• A clean, modern UI that students actually would want to use

• Turning complex terms (Roth IRA, Coast FIRE, drawdown, DCA) into plain language

• Making financial literacy feel approachable, personalized, and empowering

What we learned

We learned how to integrate AI into a web application for the first time. We also learned about and utilized shadCN components, which saved us lots of time.