Together With

Happy Labor Day Future Funders Family!

We wanted to give a shout out this week to one of our readers, Dr. Lauran Kerr-Heraly.

After last week’s discussion on creative ways to earn, Dr. Kerr-Heraly, a history professor in Houston, shared with us that in addition to her teaching role she also created a series of workshops and courses focusing on executive function, essential skills, and emotional awareness for college success (you can check it out here).

If you have a business or method of earning creatively, feel free to share it with us and we will try to highlight at least one a month to our audience.

Okay, let’s get to it!

💬 Quote Of The Week

🍽️ The Main Course

Headlines That Matter

Cryptocurrency

Crypto Investing Will Get Easier Soon

🚀 The quick version: Cryptocurrency was once again trending in the news this week as we are getting closer to a solution for everyday investors to easily invest in the asset class.

Let us explain:

The problem: cryptocurrency is complicated to invest in.

There is currently no easy way to directly invest in cryptocurrency. To do it yourself you need to first find a platform that allows you to trade it, explore storage and digital wallet options, and then hope that when you buy it from someone, you get a fair price.

The only other way to invest in the space right now is to do it indirectly by investing in stocks of companies that are related to crypto (think Robinhood or Coinbase) or investing in more complex financial instruments like futures contracts (term: this means exactly like it sounds and a futures contract is a product that allows you to bet on the future price of an underlying asset like the S&P 500 or Bitcoin).

The solution: enter ETFs. ETFs, or exchange traded funds, are basically like stocks trading freely up and down each day for people to buy and sell as they choose in virtually any investment account. But instead of buying one stock, the ETF you are buying will represent ownership in a lot of different assets (kinda like buying a seat at an all you can eat buffet, it gives you a little bit of everything). So if you buy one ETF for technology stocks, for example, that one ETF will own shares of a bunch of different technology companies.

The advantage of an ETF is that it gives investors immediate diversification vs. having to go out and buy all the individual assets yourself.

The timeline: within the next few months. The hold up for any cryptocurrency ETF has always been that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has to approve it first; until now, the SEC has been reluctant to do this for anyone who has tried.

However, the dominos are lining up as large financial firms like Blackrock recently applied to the agency to create one (BlackRock ETF applications have a 99.8% success rate with the SEC); in addition, a U.S. court this past week ruled in favor of another firm putting more pressure on the agency to approve one soon.

👪 How it affects your family: As a result of all of the above, we think it’s a matter of months at most before your current brokerage account is able to actively trade a cryptocurrency ETF with ease.

That said, when it comes to investing in cryptocurrency in general, we tend to lean a bit more skeptical and don’t invest in the asset class ourselves at the moment (we have more thoughts here); and while this is our current opinion, we also to are open to the idea that we could be totally wrong, too.

However, if you want to explore some of the topics above in more detail, here are some guides to help:

• More on ETFs. If you hear “ETF” and think “huh?”, start here. We will take you in simple language through what an ETF is, the good and bad, and some alternatives to an ETF.

• Cryptocurrency simplified. We wrote about this one a few weeks ago but for any parent who want’s a simple explanation about what is crypto and how to teach your kids, we have a guide here.

• Breakdown of terms. Forget ETFs and Crypto mumbo jumbo, do you just want someone to breakdown some common investing terms to help you or to teach your kids? We tried to do that for you here. 

Together with Little Sleepies

Turning everyday moments into magical memories.

At Little Sleepies, our lives are the sum of a million little moments, and we believe every single one has the potential to be extraordinary. That’s why we design high-quality products that spark smiles and inspire togetherness. Responsibly made, with mom at the helm, our products are designed to laugh, bond, and snuggle in — with craftsmanship and community at the heart of everything we do.

Personal Finance

A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

🚀 The quick version: Hawaii State Attorney General, Anne Lopez, is warning people to take caution when considering who you are donating to when it comes to the devastating wildfires. Officials in Florida are making the same warnings about fraudsters ready to capitalize on Hurricane Idalia.

Unfortunately, these warnings are nothing new.  

With the Better Business Bureau reporting over 40,000 scam reports in 2022, predatory tactics are getting more and more sophisticated.

Scams can be direct calls to your phone, erroneous links in your emails, or even AI voices that can be made to sound like your kids (this is why every family needs a safe word). None of us is safe and the tools scammers use are only getting more complex.

👪 How it affects your family: If you are thinking of giving a donation to a charity or helping some cause or person, thats great… but do some homework first.

We suggest following these key steps:

• Investigate. The BBB Wise Giving Alliance monitors and evaluates charities and other watchdogs worth checking out are the American Institute of Philanthropy’s Charity Watch, Charity Navigator, and GuideStar. 

• Watch out for signs. If someone calls you and is pushy, asks you to wire money (vs. giving through a check or credit card), is unwilling to confirm their identity, or is mimicking the name of a well known brand, these are all tell tale signs of a scam. Especially when it comes to phone calls, if you do not want them make sure you are registered on The National Do Not Call Registry.  

• Confirm the donation is tax-deductible. Only gifts to charities with 501(c)(3) status are potentially tax-deductible. Some organizations will say that they are, but have not registered with the IRS (you can check here).

• Beware of online donation platforms. Money given to a personal GoFundMe fundraiser is considered a personal gift, not a donation (so it is not tax exempt). If you are considering donating to any of these sites scrutinize them carefully and know exactly where the funding is going.

If you want to take it a step further, we would also encourage you to involve your kids as you go about the above.

The power of giving is still something to be admired and teaching your kids to adopt a spirit of generosity early may help them wind up finding their own purpose in life.

Here are some resources to help:

• Some suggestions. If you need some tips for how to get your kids going learning to give some of their hard earned money (as well as a few suggested causes) check out our handy free guide here.

• Watch out for false advertising. In line with the above, teaching our kids early to spot suspicious advertising is vital in a world where we all get bombarded by more and more technology. Here are some steps you can take to help them identify false ads.

Lastly, should you feel moved to give to an organization that is supporting victims of the Maui Fires or Hurricane Idalia, we recommend the American Red Cross.

Dinner Discussion ❓

🥘 The Side Dishes

A few things to know…

💊 Maybe some drugs will get cheaper…in 2026. The government unveiled a list of 10 drugs this week as part of the medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program. They will reportedly aim to negotiate better prices for them to take effect in 2026. Need help lowering health care costs? We have some tips.

👵🏻 Retirement planning. Not sure where to start with retirement planning? We have some quick thoughts to get you going.

�� Best age to make financial decisions. Haha’ing over new research showing when in your life you make the best financial decisions (hint: it’s not when you are young).

🗒️ Creative ways to earn cash. Being alive right now is still very expensive but did you know you can make $500 a month just hosting trivia night?

💪 Learn more about side hustles. Side Hustle Central is a free weekly newsletter for W2 earners and entrepreneurs who want to learn about different ways to earn some extra income. Subscribe for free here!*

🏡 Zillow to the rescue on home buying? Zillow is offering certain homebuyers a chance to put down only 1% of a home’s purchase price through their lending arm. While they are only now offering this in Arizona they plan on offering it nationwide. We like the idea of trying to get more people into homes struggling to own, but something about this reminds us too much of 2008.

🛫 Get smarter about travel. If you are planning a trip or have some upcoming flights Google will now tell you when the best time to book may be.

📚 Listen up Doc. Dr. Seuss’s kids books are getting podcast with Amazon’s Wondery podcast studio aimed at families with kids 3-12.

📖 Get some freelance help. For any freelancer (and aspiring freelancers) in web development, design, or other tech roles, we loved reading FreelanceGPS. Every week you'll get 1 actionable tip to escape the grind and grow your freelance business on your terms. Subscribe here!*

*this is a sponsored post

🗓️ The Week Ahead

September 4th

Today is Labor Day where we celebrate the contributions and achievements of the 155 million men and women who are in the U.S. workforce. If that is not enough, here are some fun facts about the holiday we bet you didn’t know.

September 6th

Today we get the Services ISM for August. The Services ISM represents a temperature check on the U.S. Services Industry and will be closely watched for continued signs that the economy is slowing down (the service sector represents about 75% of the U.S. Economy).

🍨 Dessert

This Week’s Deals For Families

Help your family save and spend smarter*

🧘 Athleta women’s clothing is offering up to 60% off for an end of summer sale through September 4rd.

👞 Need some casual items? Men’s Warehouse is offering 25% off casual shirts, polos, and T-shirts in a flash sale from September 1st through 6th.  

🚰 And because my wife seems to never have enough water bottles. Hydro Flask is offering 25% off through September 5th.

*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: An IPO stands for Initial Public Offering and represents the first time a private company sells stock to the public. Historically, this was the main purpose for Wall Street to exist as a facilitation of this process. Companies seek to sell stock to the public for a variety of reasons although the main one is usually to raise more money (ex. a company wants to grow by building more factories but needs money to build them so they decide to do an IPO).