Together With

Hey Future Funders family,

As winter break comes to a close (hallelujah), now is a really good time to talk about (and model) goal setting with your kids. Not sure where to start? Here are a few tips.

Okay let’s get to it…

💬 Quote Of The Week

*Stock data as of 1/5 market close, bitcoin as of 4pm 1/5. Here is what these numbers mean.

🚀 What’s happening: Markets started off 2024 down with virtually every stock index in the red for the first four days.

Bitcoin rose on the week though as investors are hopeful that the SEC will allow a Bitcoin ETF with a ruling likely to come out around January 10th. The idea is that if the SEC allows this, then the owners of the ETFs will have to go into the market and buy bitcoin (thus pushing up the price).

We also wanted to include Conagra’s (Ticker: CAG) stock price on this week’s recap as one worth noticing. Conagra is a packaged food company (their big brands are Bird’s Eye, Duncan Hines, and Healthy Choice) and they were one of the first companies to report their quarterly earnings this past week (earnings season officially starts 1/11 so they are early).

What’s notable is that they came out and acknowledged that they are having to lower prices as inflation continues to come down. We would expect to hear a similar trend when more companies report starting later this week.

👪 Closer to home: We don’t think the markets being down this past week is much to worry about. The stock market had a very strong December and as we noted last week, we think a 1-3% pullback would be expected (we still think the S&P 500 will hit 5,000 by the end of summer if not sooner).

We are keenly focused on the start of company earnings reports and anticipate more companies to sing the same tune as Conagra (i.e. can’t raise prices and are starting to cut costs more to maintain profits).

🍽️ Main Course

Your Money And Your Kids

Just Get Started

🚀 What’s happening: According to a new study by GoBanking Rates, nearly half of all Americans have considered starting a business. The reasons vary from those looking to make it big, or others who are just looking for a way to earn some extra income.

As we almost approach our one year anniversary since launching our media company Future Funders and our flagship newsletter, Dinner Table Discussions, here are a few tips on how to get started:

Solve a problem.

If you’re asking yourself, where do I start? We say, start with what you know. For us, our founder has extensive knowledge of the financial industry having worked at prominent banks and hedge funds for over the last 15 years. So teaching and making complex topics ‘not so complicated’ comes easy. And we just so happen to also be (very tired) parents to young children.

But what really started us down this road were the countless financial questions from our friends and family (also very tired parents of young children), and the realization that parenthood is the time where people really start paying attention to their finances… but who is breaking down all of the mumbo jumbo coming from mainstream financial news sources for what is actually important?

There we had an idea that was born out of necessity. A problem to solve. And the cherry on top? We really love doing it.

If you want to get started but don’t know how, what worked for us was just writing down everything we thought we were good at AND enjoyed doing, and what problem we could solve by doing it.

Then brainstorm with people that you know and trust. Once you have that list, ask yourself… would people pay me money to solve this problem?

Work with what you have.

There will always be a tradeoff when it comes to “sweat equity” (your own unpaid time and effort) and money invested in outsourcing.

What we mean by that is you need to realize where your strengths are and use what you have. If you don’t have a lot of start up funds, you will likely need to spend more “sweat equity” and use your own effort and creativity to grow.

If you have some funding, you may be able to delegate and have others help with the caveat that you will instead be managing people while learning how to allocate your time efficiently.

Focus on one thing.

As the saying goes, “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years,” which is something that perfectly applies to anyone starting a business.

If you focus on one thing and learn the industry as best as you can, your only variable to success is time. Just focus on continuing to solve one small problem after the next, and it’s incredible what you can accomplish.

In our case, while there is still no telling where this company goes, in less than a year we have grown to over 50,000 loyal subscribers (our goal was 5,000-10,000).

You can do it too.

👪 Closer to home: Starting a business is hard and there is obviously no guarantee of success. But if it’s something that you want to do or think that it might be for you, don’t let anyone stop you. We wouldn’t be here without our readers, so hopefully this small insight can help to return the favor.

Lastly, if you still aren’t sure where to start, we have a couple resources we hope can help.

• Finding Your Perfect Gig Opportunity: A Step-by-Step Guide

• 11 Cheap Businesses Parents Can Start For Under $1,000

 Dining With The Flyover

A massive shift is happening in the American Media. The corporate elite news media has lost the trust of the American people. Half the American people believe national news organizations intend to mislead, misinform, and push their bias. THERE IS A BETTER WAY!

Sign up today for a FREE newsletter called The Flyover. Without the hidden agenda, slant, or bias, our talented team of editors dig through hundreds of sources and pull out the most important news of the day! Don’t miss this EXCLUSIVE opportunity to SIGN UP WITH ONE CLICK FOR FREE HERE!

Dinner Discussion ❓

Headlines That Matter

👷 The U.S. economy added 216,000 new jobs in December, higher than many were expecting (expectations were for around 170,000) with wages rising 4.1% vs. 4.0% in November. The knee jerk conclusion from this from the markets (shown above) was negative as the assumption was the economy is stronger than expected and so the Fed won’t cut interest rates (bad news = good right now for the stock market which is strange).

🏭 We got a look at data from the service sector (this sector is almost 70% of the U.S. economy) and manufacturing sector (this is about 20%) with both showing that they are paying less for goods they need to create their product or service. This is a positive for us families as it means companies paying less for goods are more likely to lower prices on consumers next.

📈 An interesting study from the Wall Street Journal for anyone with a 401k. The study noted that if you rebalanced your investments to sectors with strong momentum (i.e. rebalancing at the start of 2024 for sectors that did well in 2023) the strategy would have beat just letting your money sit in an S&P 500 index over the last several years.

📋 Retirement planning usually focuses on some combination of your nest egg (i.e. savings) vs. your costs. One point few consider on the cost front is where you live, which is why we thought this study was interesting on what states $1m goes the farthest in retirement. For more on planning your own retirement (or lecturing your kids about planning theirs) we have a handy short guide here.  

🏎️ Last week we touched on general new tax changes to be aware of, but another worth pointing out is that anyone in the market for an EV car will get an instant $7,500 rebate (vs. having to wait until the following year’s taxes). The downside is that the list of qualifying cars this year is shorter. We also find it quite interesting that the government created a new technicality that snubbed Elon Musk’s company, Tesla, despite outproducing all other EVs. Hmm.

💸 If you work for an employer, most of us are having compensation conversations this time of year. That’s why we wrote a short article on 5 essential steps to successfully negotiate a raise with your boss. 

🆘 Many of us want help in the financial world but the titles of professionals are confusing (who does what?!). We got you with this reference that breaks down a list of 15 financial professionals that can help you make better money decisions.  

🍨 Dessert

Deals, Reads, And Other Finds

✈️ Several airlines are starting off 2024 with travel discounts so if you are thinking about a trip, now might be the time to act (or we can show you how to set up a price tracker).

📱 If you are a Verizon Wireless customer you may be entitled up to $100 from a recent class-action settlement. Here is how to collect.

🍟 If you’ve pledged to eating healthy in 2024, do not read any further because… McDonalds just announced free medium fries every Friday with a $1 purchase through the app.

🧠 Your mindset = your business. The 1 Minute Question gives you proven mindset hacks to monetize & grow your business faster. Practice motivation, productivity, and problem solving. Subscribe here!

We like to celebrate positive Future Funders family news, whether it’s the big stuff or the small stuff. Reply to this email with anything exciting going on in your family and we will share it with our community. 

Mark A. from Madison, WI just paid his last and final student loan.

In a time where very few seem to take responsibility for paying off student debt, Mark just sent off his last check. Congrats to Mark!

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