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Hey Future Funders Family, happy Monday!

There is one school of thought that we shouldn’t put too much pressure on our kids. Then there is Deion Sanders.

Mr. Sanders, or “Coach Prime”, as he is lovingly called has led the Colorado Football team to an improbable start in his first year as a coach by expecting excellence and accountability from his players (including his sons). 

Consider us Buffs fans.

Ok, let’s get to it!

💬 Quote Of The Week

🍽️ The Main Course

Headlines That Matter

Real Wages Are Slowing (Again)

🚀 What’s happening: Real wage growth (what people earn above inflation) is trending in a bad direction again. This week we’ll zone in on what’s happening, why it’s happening, and what is likely to happen in the near future.

👪 Closer to home: Most experts will tell you to combat lower real wage growth by saving more and playing defense. We prefer to put you on offense instead by giving you a few ideas to increase your earnings power this week.

Dinner Discussion ❓

No peeking! Answer is below.

Dining Together With Mode Mobile

First Disruption to Smartphones in 15 Years🤳

Tech Startup With Traction: Turn your phone from a cost to an income source. Intriguing idea, isn't it? This is why, we have our eyes on the launch of Mode Mobile’s Pre-IPO Offering. It’s the latest in a series of impressive raises among smartphone innovators, likely spurred by Apple’s recent $3+ trillion valuation.

Mode saw 150x revenue growth from 2019 to 2022, a leap that has made them one of America’s fastest growing companies. Mode is on a mission to disrupt the entire industry with their "EarnPhone," a budget smartphone that’s helped consumers earn and save $150M+ for activities like listening to music, playing games, and ... even charging their devices?!

Over 11,000 investors already acquired shares — and with only days remaining prior to their bonus tier closing, allocations are limited.

📈 Claim Exclusive 110% Bonus: $0.16/Share*

*Disclosure: Please read the offering circular at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile’s Regulation CF Offering.

🥘 The Side Dishes

Money Trends To Know

🦾 A positive stock market signal. We highlighted the Arm IPO last week as a signal to watch for the broader stock market. And guess what? The stock came to market at a $51 price and is now trading at about $61. After over two yeas of limited IPOs it appears the floodgates are opening with companies now lining up to sell shares to the public (Instacart is the next big IPO to watch coming this week). Historically, this has been a good sign for broader stock market performance.

📱 TikTok fined $368 million. As if we need another reason to watch what our kids are doing on social media, TikTok was just fined $368 million by Irish privacy regulators for allegedly failing to protect children’s data in violation of European laws.

🚕 Lyft cares about who picks you up. For as long as she’s had ride sharing apps, my wife has used Danny (vs. Danielle) on her app profile to ward off any potential predators from picking her up. Well, Lyft may have solved this problem for her (and many other women) announcing this week a new program to match female riders with drivers.

🏠 Get a mortgage today for 3%. With actual 30 year mortgage rates sitting around 8% putting homeownership out of reach for many, new innovation is popping up to try and solve this problem. One company, Roam, is a new start-up that lets a buyer simply take over the seller’s mortgage when purchasing a home allowing them to carry over rates that are 3% or even lower.

🕵🏻‍♀️ Recommended reading. Turing Post goes beyond the trendy, clickbait AI news and dives deeper into the history and philosophy behind AI, presenting information as stories rather than bullet points. Far more engaging, far more thought-provoking, far more enjoyable ->sign up here!

💸 An 11% Investment return (with risks). With banks adopting stricter lending standards, business development companies (fancy term for lenders who are not banks) have stepped in. These companies are not a sure investment by any means, but investing in them can offer you an attractive return if you are comfortable with the risk (and we don’t see an economic recession).

📴 Get back at spam callers. If you’ve received a recorded telemarketing voice message on your cell phone recently that was intended for someone else, you might be able to join an ongoing federal lawsuit and get up to $500-$1,500 per violation.

💁🏼 Increase your earnings power.  Ever thought of being a career coach? This coach grew a $5 side gig into a big business (we also have some ideas for businesses you can start for under $1,000).

📖 It’s all for the kids. Prequel is a free newsletter with tips and tricks on how your children can get ahead in school and life. Check it out here!*

*this is a sponsored post

🗓️ The Week Ahead

Dates To Mark On Your Money Calendar…

September 19th

Today we’ll get the home builder confidence index. This is a monthly survey of homebuilders designed to take a pulse on the single-family housing market.

The survey is a great way to track current trends in the housing market as well as views on what the market could look like six months from now.

September 20th

Today the Fed meets to decide the next move on interest rates. We think they probably wont raise interest rates any higher but the bigger focus is their updated forecast on future interest rates.

Current Fed expectations from their last meeting are for interest rates to go down from 5.5% today to 4.6% at then end of 2024.

If you see this 4.6% estimate for the end of 2024 move higher (we think it will) it means that officials are now a bit worried that our current 3% to 4% inflation may stick around a bit longer than previously anticipated.

Dining Together With BookBub

BookBub helps millions of readers save up to 95% on bestselling ebooks. Join for free and get incredible ebook deals, straight to your inbox. Check us out here!*

*this is a sponsored post

🍨 Dessert

This Week’s Deals For Families

👕 Macy’s Last Act sale is offering 60-80% off for a limited time.

🪑 SureFit Home Decor is offering 15% off all dining chair covers for Dinner Table Discussion readers using the code HOST15 for a limited time.

🧃 Need a new school lunch box? Hydro Flask is offering one that we thought was cool for 25% off for a limited time. 

*our goal is to always keep this newsletter free. If you buy something through our listed deals we may earn a small commission, at no added charge to you, in order to help us keep the lights on

Dinner Discussion ❓

Answer: Social Security checks each year are adjusted for inflation (this is called a Cost-of-Living-Adjustment or COLA). The amount of the adjustment in any year is based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for July, August, and September the prior year. With one month to go yet to finalize 2024 adjustments, right now the COLA for 2024 is tracing to increase +3.2% from 2023 or about $60 a month. This is much lower than the 2023 increase which was +8.7% though it is still above the +2.6% average over the last 20 years.