We Almost Fell For A Financial Scam 🫠

Happy Saturday, and happy August 1st! 

We hope that you’re enjoying a slow summer weekend morning - we’re here to entertain you with another issue of Money Convos, and this month we have a few important - and a few fun - money topics to share. 

Here’s what’s up in this copy 🤑🗞 

• Financial scams to watch out for ⚠️

• A spending challenge update 💰

• We’ve started wedding planning 💒

• Could you actually win a 50/50 draw? 👀

• Did you know… ⁉️

Money Convo Of The Month

There’s A New Financial Scam In Town

The list of financial scams to keep an eye out for is growing… in fact, it feels like every time we scroll through the news there’s a new fraud headline. 

Financial scams have been around since the dawn of time, but technology has only made it easier for scammers to get to your hard earned money. I’m sure we’re preaching to the choir here - we’ve likely all heard stories about everyday people losing their life savings to an ‘innocent’ phone call, text message or email (not to mention the more systemic scams, where big corporations make it their business to steal from you in a slow and silent manner). 

What’s the common thread between all of the different financial scams that are out there? The level of vulnerability - and the urgency - that stands between you and the fraudster… and the best way to protect yourself is to stay up-to-date and educated on the types of scams that you may run into down the road when you yourself are in a more vulnerable position. 

And I may have almost (key word: almost) been scammed myself right after I graduated from university… I got a call from the ‘government’ telling me that I had a major error in my taxes, and that I needed to call them immediately before something bad happened. I panicked, and I called Steph - who calmly told me “Ya… that’s probably a scam!”. My post-grad, $50,000 in student loan debt self was just in a vulnerable state, and thankfully I had someone who wasn’t. 

Now it’s our turn to warn you - so let’s break down a few of them:

• Pig Butchering - This is one of the most well known financial scams that exists right now; it’s when fraudsters develop a relationship with their victim, gain their trust and steal their money. It’s particularly prevalent in the world of social media + cryptocurrency… Whether it’s playing into the loneliness epidemic, catching you in a vulnerable moment, or straight up getting you to dump your life savings into an untraceable currency, people are not only losing money, but they’re losing trust in themselves. For example, one woman reportedly received a message claiming to be her investment app, and over the course of two days, the fraudster not only gained her trust, but transferred her entire portfolio into another account. The key to this scam lies in the amount of time that’s spent developing a certain level of trust and rapport. 

• AI Sob Stories - This is a new scam that’s been very active on TikTok and Facebook over the past few weeks; it’s when fraudsters create videos that share a seemingly personal story that’s meant to prompt you to take out your credit card and make a purchase in order to show your support (think bullied teenagers who are selling online products, or a husband selling something to pay for his wife’s medical bills). The problem is that these videos are being created using AI - and in some cases, using altered images and videos of real people - selling a completely fake story. The key to this scam is emotional manipulation coupled with an ‘easy, direct solution’ to show your support… and AI is making these scams more accessible, affordable and profitable. 

• Education Savings - When it comes to large corporations, financial scams have been prevalent in a number of industries… including the education savings industry. Saving money for a child’s future education is usually seen as one of the best gifts you can give a child… but that doesn’t stop the sales tactics from scholarship trusts and pooled plan companies. They’ve been around for 50+ years, and have managed to make millions of dollars managing money for parents and loved ones. The scam? These products aren’t actually structured to be in the best interest of your child’s education… instead, they’re known to have high fees, limited access to investments, and unethical marketing practices. For example, in one case maternity records were actually sold to these companies in order to target new mothers in their most vulnerable state (and these companies are known to go to hospitals directly to target parents post-birth!). What’s important to note is that there are other options out there for anyone who’s interested in saving (and investing) for their child’s future education without being taken advantage of. 

If you want to hear more about this topic, check out this recent YouTube video that we shared…

…and if you’ve ever been a victim of a financial scam, know that you’re not alone.

$32,000 $35,000 Or Less Challenge 💰

I’m back with another $32,000 or less challenge update!

Except I made a decision - I’m revising the challenge to a $35,000 or less challenge. 

Not to be a broken record, but I’ve definitely been spending a bit too much to actually hit my $32,000 or less goal…

…but I’m still committed to sharing my spending totals, and to help me feel more motivated, I’m editing the goal. 

With that being said, in July I spent $2,891.80, and here’s how it was split out -

That means that I have $13,689.22 left in my annual total to spend for the next 5 months of 2026 (after upping the goal to $35,000!). 

I would now need to spend an average of $2,737.84/month for the next 5 months in order to hit my new goal. 

If you want to see us ‘compare’ our spending for July, keep an eye on our Instagram next week!

Planning Our Dream Wedding With A Budget 💒

We have news… We finally started wedding planning (I think saying finally is appropriate since we got engaged ~11 months ago… oops!). 

In all seriousness, we technically started wedding planning back in February, but after getting a little bit overwhelmed (in an information overload kind of way), we hit pause for a while.

We really wanted to take some time to reflect on what we actually wanted to do as a couple, and what made the most sense for us at this point in our lives. 

Starting with decision #1… Do we even want to have a wedding? 

We personally don’t need anything special (like a traditional wedding) to feel excited about getting married - but, as we’re both the oldest siblings / first born kids, our families and community do have a lot of excitement and anticipation around celebrating us (and we genuinely want to and value the ability to celebrate with them). 

So, we landed on yes - we do want to have a wedding. 

Then it was on to decision #2… What are our priorities for the wedding? 

You’ll see more of what those priorities are over the next year, but - from a high level - we’re going for a venue that includes pretty much everything (the ceremony space and set up, food and drinks, decor, etc), and (other than a photographer/videographer) our other expenses will all be as low cost as possible (or straight up cut out of the budget altogether). 

Speaking of budget… We'll be sharing our budget (and wedding budget tips and tricks in general) in our new series called Planning Our Dream Wedding With A Budget. Episode 1 and episode 2 are already out!

Odds Of Winning A 50/50 Draw 👀🎫

Steph and I were at an event last month where they were selling 50/50 tickets, and it got us thinking… what are your odds of winning??

Well, we did some research - and it turns out that you are more likely to win a 50/50 draw than your typical Lotto Max or Powerball lottery, because with the 50/50, someone does have to win… and your odds are literally 1-in-however many tickets were sold. 

With other draws, the winning numbers are randomly drawn, meaning that technically no one could win (or there could in theory be a lot of winners). 

Either way, at the end of the day, buying lottery tickets or 50/50 tickets is gambling (seriously, by definition!). 

If you’re consistently buying these tickets, you’re way more likely to end up losing all of that money than you are to make any money… 

…but, when you invest on the other hand (like in the stock market), you’re putting your money behind things that are creating real value, as opposed to paying a fee for a losing service. 

There’s also the argument that 50/50 draws are often used to fundraise for different organizations - so, buying a ticket is effectively just donating money. Our thoughts? Fair enough! As long as you’re actually doing it to donate to the cause, not because you think you’ll win it big. 

Now, we did end up buying a 50/50 ticket at that event (for research purposes 🤪)...

…and no, we didn’t win! 

You can hear more of our thoughts on this topic in this video.

Did You Know? 🤔

Did you know… that over the past 100 years, a small group of stocks were responsible for almost all of investor profits? 

There’s a study that was recently released by Hendrik Bessembinder (he’s a finance professor at Arizona State University) that showed that from 1926 to now, out of ~30,000 stocks, the median stock returned -6.9% (yes, that’s a negative sign). 

In fact, only 46 stocks accounted for over half of all wealth created in the stock market. 

That means that 96%+ of the stock market did basically nothing for investors over the long-term, but the ~4% that did drove massive returns. 

One of the conclusions from the study was that - over the long-term - investing in the stock market has historically been worth the short-term risks. Despite the median stock return, the stock market overall generated $91 trillion in wealth for investors. 

TLDR? In the short-term, the stock market is volatile, moving up and down consistently. However, over the long-term, the stock market has historically been a huge wealth builder. 

Our takeaway? Investing in single stocks is risky (and the odds that you’ll pick the ‘right’ handful of stocks consistently over multiple decades is very low). But, investing in the stock market overall (for example, by purchasing globally diversified, passive ETFs that contain thousands of stocks), is less risky, and allows you to benefit from those winning stocks. 

We plan on sharing a full video on this topic, but in the meantime, you can read more here.