Good morning, HTM Family!

“The day you plant the seed is not the day you get to eat the fruit”

A few quick reminders for today…

• Good things take time to grow.

• Just because you don’t see immediate results doesn’t mean you aren’t making progress!

• Patience is a high ROI skill. The more you practice it, the more you win in life.

• Focus on the stuff that’s inside your control (like planting more seeds!)

Cheers to staying patient and trusting the process. One day you’ll wake up inside a thriving forest bigger than you could ever dream. 🌳🌲🌳🌲

Alright, now let’s get to the money stuff! 👇👇👇

TO DO

Join us at FinCon, Oct 23-26 🍻

It's official. Matt and Joel will be speaking at FinCon this year in Atlanta! 🎉

FinCon is our favorite conference for money nerds and the only one we attend on repeat every single year.

If you're interested in joining the fun sign up via this link, and use the code HOWTOMONEY which will save you 50% on a conference pass for a limited time!

Don't worry, there will be time for beer hangs in addition to the money talk. 🍻

SAVING

Cheap Ways to Exercise 🏋️

Ever heard of “rucking”?… It’s basically wearing a really heavy backpack and carrying it around walking or hiking for exercise.

You can stack weights into a special rucksack or just put heavy books or household items into a regular backpack!

Here’s a pic of Joel and the 35lb weight he carries around for exercise when he’s walking to and from the office 👇👇👇

We’re huge fans of cheap and simple ways to stay fit. No need to spend big bucks on fancy equipment or expensive gadgets to exercise effectively — our ancient ancestors stayed in shape with none of the tools and tech we have available today. And you can too!

One of our buddies, Drew Howerton, writes a weekly fitness newsletter called Move To Improve. Here are a few of his suggestions to integrate free & cheap workouts into your daily routine:

• Exercise snacks: Short bursts of movement every couple of hours have serious short—term and long—term benefits. Take the stairs, a fast walk around the block, speed through some chores, or just do a quick stretch at your desk.

• Dance: Dancing can burn several hundred calories an hour and keep your heart rate in a great moderate-intensity zone! Try cranking the tunes while making dinner and get that body moving!

• Bodyweight strength exercises: Pushups, pull-ups, squats, lunges, hinges, rotations, etc. are all FREE workouts!

• Use what you have: Curl gallon jugs of water, do lateral raises with soup cans, try dips on a chair, or load up a book bag to ruck around the neighborhood! Get whacky and creative and use whatever is around you to add some resistance to your at-home exercise routine.

• Free apps, YouTube videos: Functional Bodybuilding, Yoga with Adrien, Nike Training Club, Caliber… We live in an awesome era of free online content, you just gotta search and find things that work for you!

• Active hobbies: Pickup basketball, backyard soccer, even pickleball counts! 🤣 The point is that if it’s fun you’ll do more of it - and you’ll probably end up working out harder without even thinking about it.

• Jump ropes & resistance bands: These magical tools take up minimal space, don’t cost much, and can get you in shape in no time. Check out @jimmysaysrelax and @lauren.jumps on Instagram for some jump roping inspiration.

Long story short: working out doesn’t have to be expensive. If you put in a little frugal intentionality you’ll find that there are many free and cheap ways to exercise and stay fit!

Related stuff:

• 🏃 Move to Improve: A free weekly (and very motivating) fitness newsletter by Drew Howerton!

• 🏋️ HTM Blog: 15+ Free and cheap ways to exercise (written by Drew!)

• 💻 Garage Gyms: 10 BEST free workout apps

TOGETHER WITH BETTERMENT*

Your money can help make a positive impact for people and for the world. Invest in companies that share your values with Socially Responsible Investing. Learn more.

REAL ESTATE

Changing Agent Commissions 🏡

Realtors in the USA are among the highest paid in the world... If you sell a house here in the US you’re usually on the hook for a ~6% commission of the sale price (whereas typical commissions in places like Australia and UK are in the 2% range).

But things might be changing this year, thanks to a big recent class action settlement & court ruling. Here are the deets…

Background info:
The issue has actually been brewing for decades… Multiple class action lawsuits including over 1 million claims have been in progress against the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and its members, related to unfair broker commissions.

Things finally came to a head late last year, when a federal jury in Missouri found the NAR (as well as a few huge brokerage firms like Keller Williams and HomeServices) guilty of conspiring to inflate or artificially support high commission rates.

A couple of weeks ago, the NAR agreed to pay a huge settlement and proposed to change some long-standing policies on how buyer/seller commissions work.

What’s changing exactly?
Currently, the person selling a house pays all the commissions, to both the selling agent AND the buying agent. They set the overall commission rate (usually 5-6% total), and the buyer-agent split is called out in the property listing.

But starting in July (pending court approval) the selling agent will only be setting their own commission, not the rate for the buyer. Basically, home-buyers will now sign separate contracts with their agents, and be forced to negotiate their own commissions.

What does this mean for homebuyers?
Shopping for real estate is obviously much easier now than it was decades ago, thanks to apps like Zillow and Redfin and publicly available data. So home buyers have less reliance on realtors because much of the research and shopping can be done on their own.

This doesn’t mean that buyer agents don’t provide value or shouldn’t get paid. But with “unbundled” commissions, it leaves more freedom to negotiate fees and opens the door for more healthy conversations around how much compensation everyone should get for their work.

How will this affect housing prices?
It’s way too soon to tell. In theory, with commissions being subject to negotiation, transaction costs to buy/sell a home would drop. This would allow sellers to lower their asking price and still walk away with the same net outcome. Many creative models are likely to spring up, but buyers agents might have to get used to paying their agent a flat-fee directly.

How will this affect real estate agents?
We’re likely to see an agent exodus as compensation changes take place. As the industry and pay rates get more competitive, low-performing brokers will be weeded out and high-performing brokers will shine more.

All in all, the real estate industry is ripe for a shake-up. We’re excited to see new and fair commission models be proposed, and hopefully they’ll make sense for all parties involved.

ICYMI

Newsy news news…

Underwater 🚗
A new report from Edmunds finds that half of new car purchases are done with a trade-in. And almost 20% of those traded in cars had a loan balance higher than the car’s actual worth. 😳 Get off the treadmill, folks!

Tradies 👷
NPR talks about America’s need for more skilled laborers. With fast-growing pay for blue-collar jobs, no degree needed, and growing demand, there’s a lot of opportunity out there for young folks!

Roth > 401k 💸
A new report from the American Accounting Association shows that Roth IRAs typically outlast 401k’s of a similar balance in retirement. (Why? —> Basically people underestimate fees/taxes they need to pay later)

Dysmorphia 🤷‍♂️
Nearly half of young adults have “money dysmorphia”, according to a recent survey. Glorified lifestyles flaunted on social media are making people feel inadequate (even though in reality they are doing quite well financially!)

Going Broke 😭
In honor of the upcoming April Fools Day, here’s a post on How To Go Broke in Less Than a Year.

COMMUNITY

How to feel happier in life… 🙏

@meganfornal

Gratitude. Is. Everything.

HTM Legend of the Week Award goes to @meganfornal.

Instead of being annoyed with your everyday expenses, be grateful that you GET to have these cool things in your life!!!

That’s it for now! Have a great week ahead, and remember keep planting those seeds!! 🌱🌱🌱

Best friends out! 🍻