Happy Tuesday, HTM family!

If you ask a toddler, “can you please put on your shoes?”… They will ignore you, kick, cry and scream, doing everything possible to *not* put on their shoes.

But if you ask them, “what are the fastest pair of shoes you have?”… They will happily grab their favorite shoes, quickly put them on and run out the door!

Making things fun = more progress.

But here’s a little secret most people don’t know…

This trick totally works with adults too! 🙋‍♂️

When you phrase things in a fun and cheery way, people are helpful and cooperative. At work, out with friends, or even with strangers you meet.

Humans gravitate towards fun things.

Give it a try this week. Before requesting something from someone, think, how can you make this more fun for them? 🙃 🤷‍♂️

OK let’s get to the money stuff… 👇👇👇

TO DO

Share Your 2024 Money Wins 💸

One of our fave end-of-year traditions is to feature your 🫵 biggest money wins on the podcast. Bragging about yourself and sharing your wins inspires and encourages your fellow listeners!

Did you pay off nefarious debt or cross a certain net worth threshold this year? Whether your win was big or small — we'd love for you to play a part in the show.

The ask: Record a quick voice memo with your win and send it to us at [email protected] (state your name at the beginning!).

We're pumped to hear and share a litany of financial goals y'all have been able to crush in 2024. Cheers! 🍻

CHARITY

Any Giving = Good Giving… 🤗

Today is #GivingTuesday!

It’s a global generosity holiday, where folks all around the world share random acts of kindness, giving their time, money, skills, or voice to support communities and causes.

Need some ideas of good stuff you can do today?…

Studies show that people greatly underestimate the happiness and positivity they spread by doing small acts of kindness.

We might think a nice act will cheer someone up for 30 seconds. But in reality it makes their entire day (or possibly changes their life!)

Generosity to effective non-profits is one of the best ways you to put your money to good use. Those dollars can go out into the world and do a lot of good. Plus, generosity impacts us as individuals far more than believe!

More resources:

• 👨‍💻 HTM Blog: Why giving money away makes you richer

• 📝 Budgeting: How to include charity in your budget (+ other ways to give)

• 💸 Donating: How to properly vet charities

TOGETHER WITH DAFFY*

A Better System for Giving 🙏

Since today is Giving Tuesday, now is the perfect time to rethink how you approach charitable giving–enter Daffy.

Daffy has a simple mission: To help people be more generous, more often.

They created a platform & iOS app that helps regular folks like you and me manage giving to the charities we care about more efficiently. (Both Joel and Matt have set up donor advised funds (DAF) with Daffy – and Joel wrote a review about it here!)

Daffy is the lowest cost DAF provider around and is FREE to get started. Whether you’re giving away $200 or $2 million, they make it easy to give and grow your donations via a simple mobile app.

Donor advised funds are awesome because they’re:

• Convenient 📲: All giving records & donation receipts are organized in a single place.

• Growing your giving  📈: With Daffy, your money doesn’t sit idle. Your contributions are invested tax-free in a portfolio of your choice, so you can send more money to your favorite charities.

• Tax efficient 💰: Donate appreciated assets like appreciated stock, mutual funds, ETFs, or crypto to get the tax deduction now and avoid capital gains taxes. Plus, if you donate before Dec 17, your contributions will count as an entry to win BIG prizes in the $20M #GainsforGood Charity Challenge.

• On auto-pilot! 🔁 : Daffy manages automatic contributions so that we hit our annual goal for giving.

If you want to give more regularly (even tiny amounts) and tax efficiently, or grow an investment account for charitable causes, check out Daffy. They’ll even throw in a $25 bonus to get you started 😉.

MINDSET

Success Means a $590k Salary?! 🤯

Last week Empower released a secret to success survey.

They asked people, “how much money would it take for you to be financially successful?”

Here are all the results, broken down by generation 👇👇👇

Gen Z are crazy.

It’s funny… I know hundreds of financially successful people. All who have achieved financial independence, quit their jobs, travel freely and are thriving in life.

And I don’t think any of them have a $9.5Mil net worth or a $590k salary.

Financial success can be achieved without a big time salary or massive net worth. Here are the more crucial factors for success:

• 👨‍🏫 Financial Literacy: Doesn’t matter how much you earn or have in the bank, if you don’t know how to manage wealth properly it will all slip away. I’m talking about simple budgeting, saving, investing, and continually learning how to make good financial decisions.

• 🎯 Setting Realistic Goals: Wealth is built slowly, brick upon brick. If you’re out there every day just trying to magically become a millionaire, you’ll waste time and effort on the wrong activities. This is why we made the 7 money gears. It’s a simple roadmap, helping you conquer finances stage by stage.

• 🔁 Building Good Financial Habits: Habits compound. Good ones strengthen you and your money situation — and bad ones deteriorate it! You salary matters less than you think. Looking at your current habits (spending, saving, avoiding unnecessary debt) will reveal your trajectory.

• 🧘‍♂️ Finding Contentment: Financial success is also about feeling secure and content with your financial situation. And that looks different for everybody! Working jobs you love, consuming less crap, and spending according to your values will work wonders on your financial stress levels.

Don’t get tricked into thinking that financial success is only achieved after hitting a specific massive “number”…

True financial well-being is living a balanced life, no matter your income or net worth. And as long as you’re following sound financial practices over the years, long-term financial stability is inevitable.

Related stuff:

• 💫 Ultimate success metric: Do it your way, via Morgan Housel (not money related, but an empowering read!)

• 🧑‍💻 More crazy stats: Full Empower survey results

• 💻 HTM Blog: How to build wealth with a small income

ICYMI

News From Around the Interwebs...

Catch-up contributions ⚖️
Remember the Secure Act 2.0 that was signed in a few years ago? It included provisions and changes that begin starting Jan 2025. Here’s an overview of these coming changes, the biggest for folks 60-63y/o is boosted catch-up contributions 💪

Simple life 😎
Just a cool post we came across recently: Living a Simple Life is Actually Cool, by Jack Waters. “The most difficult part for me, and most likely for you, will be working out your own definition of the word ‘essential’. That is something you can’t find the answer to on the internet.”

Pot Holes 🕳️
White Coat Investor shares the 10 biggest holes in your financial plan. (this site is primarily written for medical professionals, but you’ll find almost all the advice applies to the average household too!)

10-2 Challenge 💪
Here’s a trick to help build momentum and crush your long term goals: Try a 10-2 challenge: “Here’s how it works – You work on a long term project for 10 minutes a day – every day – for approximately 2 years.”

Reflection 🤷‍♂️
From one of the wisest and well-rounded dudes in personal finance, Ben Carlson: 20 lessons from 20 years of managing money.

ASK HTM

“Can I use HSA funds to pay for healthcare premiums?” 🤷‍♀️ 

The short answer: No, you can’t just pay regular health insurance premiums with HSA funds.

But there are a couple scenarios where a person could use those funds to offset premiums down the road for Medicare, or cover COBRA premiums in the case of job loss.

Here’s the longer answer, and a full rundown on maximizing HSA accounts!

Wishing you all a great week ahead. Whatever you get up to, remember to bring the FUN! 😎

Best friends out! 🍻