Together With

Hey Future Funders family,

Spring break. Two toddlers. No school. You understand.

Ok, let’s get to it.

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Headlines That Matter

🛒 Is the consumer ok? This past week showed the first concrete signs that the consumer is weakening. Lululemon caught investors off guard when they reported their earnings highlighting softness in their US market for the first time. Nike also reported earnings and shared expectations for the year ahead that were very…. underwhelming… noting that for the next six months they would actually see lower sales growth than last year due in part to a slower environment in the US (investors were expecting sales growth of around 5%). These latest results come on the back of weaker than expected February retail sales and credit scores that have weakened for the first time in a decade.

Our take: The US consumer has been remarkably strong despite high inflation and various other headwinds, so maybe, this is the start of a period of less stable consumer growth. What we likely will see as a result over the next 6 to 12 months will be higher discounts (so keep your eyes peeled), possibly a pullback in the stock market (we do think valuation is looking less and less appealing here), and more risk that some external unforeseen event can cause harm to the economy.

💑 Merging finances. Investor, Kevin O’Leary, went viral this week in a post on X forbidding couples (even married couples) from ever merging their finances. The Shark Tank star noted high divorce rates and possible death of a spouse as reasons for married couples to keep finances separate; for couples who are not married, he strongly encouraged investigating your potential partner’s financial situation as well as making sure that if it gets serious, to get a prenuptial agreement (among other precautions).

Our take: We’ll start by noting that this is a deeply personal decision, so everyone has the right to do what is best for them. While we do think Mr. O’Leary could work on his delivery, he is not wrong on the facts.

Our one pushback would be that we would argue married couples can simply create a plan in the event of an adverse event affecting the marriage vs. separating accounts forever (more about wills vs. living trusts to help you avoid probate court). In addition, we believe that talking to your kids about the importance of early financial planning can help them be more confident to engage in conversations with their partners. At least encouraging them to address these conversations with their partner prior to marriage can help to avoid a lot of potential issues later on.

Dining with BAXUS

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How to Outsmart a Scammer

🚀 What’s happening: Did you know that 1 in 3 Americans has been affected by online fraud or cybercrime? It’s a pretty eye-opening figure – and it doesn’t even account for all the times people don’t even bother reporting.

When it comes right down to it, the more you know, the better equipped you'll be to spot and avoid potential scams. To help you and your family battle back against scammers, we’re serving up Part 2 of our special info series. 

When dealing with scams, we’ve found it's better to prevent a crisis than to chase a fix. 

So, here are 5 simple but effective ways to protect yourself against fraud and scams.

Dinner Discussion ❓

See last week’s poll results below.

Deals, Reads, and Other Finds…

🧠 Man + machine = ?. Sometimes we shake our heads thinking about the world our kids are inheriting. But the fact that Neurolink just successfully merged a chip in a human’s brain allowing him to play chess with his mind is incredible.

💸 Make money at home. For anyone looking to make some money at home when the kids are at school, we came up with 25 ideas to get you started.

🏡 That hurts. While inflation is 10 times higher now than 60 years ago, home prices are 24 times more expensive, a new study found.

📜 Quote Of The Week

“Great parenting lies somewhere between ‘don’t do that’ and ‘ah, what the hell.’”

-Unknown

Dinner Discussion ❓

Last week’s question: Do you think scams will get better or worse with advancing A.I. technology?

Results: Most of you (74%) said that A.I. scams are going to get worse with advancing A.I. technology. The threat is certainly possible and that’s why we talked about how to outsmart a scammer in the second part of our scam series this week.

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