A Surplus of Savings, Free Streaming Services, & Broke Billionaires 🤦‍♂️

May 31, 2022

Good morning, money tribe!

Imagine you have 2 buckets 🪣 🪣…

The first bucket is labeled “knowledge”, and every time you read a book, learn something new, or talk to a mentor, your knowledge bucket gets a tiny bit more filled.

The second bucket is labeled “action”. This one gets filled every time you take definitive steps towards a goal, test something new, or initiate *real* action in life.

Looking at your buckets right now… which one is more full? The knowledge bucket or action bucket?

Which one do you think might need some topping up soon? How can you balance these buckets out more so you are both equally gaining knowledge + taking action in life?

Just something to ponder this week as you’re out and about, trying to better your situation.

Knowledge + action = power 👊


TO DO

Money Move of the week…

Speaking of taking action, we’re gonna start including a quick “action of the week” segment in these emails. These will be small (but potentially powerful) money moves and reminders to help boost your savings and/or reap some immediate benefits.

Today’s Move:  Check if you have any Missing Money

MissingMoney.com is a website that searches for any refunds, credits, orphaned accounts, uncashed checks, or old property you may have forgotten about. You’d be surprised how common unclaimed funds are — like 1 in 10 people don’t know they have money waiting to be claimed!

All you do is head on over to MissingMoney, type in your name and state, and the search takes about 5 seconds. (If your state doesn’t participate, they’ll provide a link to where you can do a detailed search!)

It’s completely free, and you could be in for a pleasant surprise! 🤑


NET WORTH

Year to date loss: Only $69.1 Billion…

Tomorrow is June 1st, and many of you will be updating your Net Worth tracking sheets.

And since the stock market is down recently, there might be some considerable paper losses in your ledger. So to make you feel a bit better, here are some people who have definitely lost more money than you YTD…

  • Changpeng Zhao: Down $80.9 Billion 🔻
  • Elon Musk: Down $69.1 Billion 🔻
  • Jeff Bezos: Down $61.1 Billion 🔻
  • Bernard Arnault: Down $55.2 Billion 🔻
  • Mark Zuckerberg: Down $54.1 Billion 🔻

Ouch!

Jokes aside, tracking your net worth is an important practice while building wealth. It doesn’t matter if the market is up or down, consistency is key to tracking. Don’t worry about the final number in any given month — it’s the long term trends that are important.

Net Worth Tracking Resources:


SAVINGS

How much do Americans have in savings?

We’ve mentioned this a lot on the podcast — American’s are more cashed up than ever. Collectively we have like ~$11 trillion in savings (of which $2.5T has been saved since 2020 alone)!

At first glance, this is awesome news! The main reason people are saving is precautionary motives (aka growing their emergency fund).

But, this study by The Ascent paints a more interesting story. 👇

As you can see, about 35% of people have less than $1,000 in savings (this study doesn’t account for the ~5% of Americans that have no bank account at all). 😓

On the flip side, ~22% of people have more than $25k in their savings accounts. Whilst saving a lot is good, if you hold too much cash for too long, inflation eats away significantly at your war chest. 😬

What is the perfect amount to save? Well, everyone’s situation is different. But a good rule of thumb is 3-6 months of living expenses. Anything less and you might not be able to cover an emergency. Anything more and you might be missing potential investment growth.


ICYMI

News to strike up a convo…

Career 👩‍🔬
Looking for work and don’t mind moving cities? Here are the best cities to start a career in 2022, per WalletHub. **Spoiler Alert** — Salt Lake City has the best overall score, however it doesn’t rank as high for quality of life. 🤔

Housing 🏡
New reports from Redfin show the real estate market is softening a bit. Data shows increasing listings (more supply) and lower number of pending sales (less demand).

Crypto 💸
eBay launched it’s first “Genesis” collection of NFT’s in partnership with OneOf (and they sold out quickly!). While NFT technology is revolutionizing the collectables space for sports enthusiasts, other small NFT markets are getting obliterated due to recent crypto crashes.

Netflix n’ Chill 😘
While Netflix and Disney+ are planning to introduce ad-supported streaming tiers to their service, we want to remind everyone that there are already a ton of FREE streaming platforms available. Pluto (Live TV), Tubi (Movies + TV shows), Roku Channel (Live TV, movies, shows) to name a few.


COMMUNITY

Turo for the win!! 🚗

Awesome win from Sherryse this week…. Posted in the HTM facebook group. 👇👇👇

A great reminder to check peer-to-peer lending platforms for cheaper rental rates on housing and cars!  Toru is the world’s largest car sharing marketplace, available widely across the US, Canada and UK.

What other travel hacks are you using to reduce costs this summer? Sharing is caring! 🤗


Cheers to a great rest of the week, and a fun new month ahead!

Best friends out 🍻

Ps. We’re trying to think up an official name for this Newsletter. You got any suggestions? The “HTM Newsletter” is too boring — let’s snaz it up a bit, eh?

*****

* Advertiser Disclosure: How to Money has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. How to Money and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.
* User Generated Content Disclosure: Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

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