FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER | 2024: A Year for Asking Beautiful Questions
Hi friends,
In 2024, we’re inviting folks to ask: what if we shifted from questioning the individual cost of our money decisions to acting for the common benefit? This election year, we’ll be sharing our questions and actions to center the common good and support democracy.
One of our actions requires your help! We’re looking to work with a new pro bono client this year! Read more about who makes a great fit and invite your favorite radical changemaker to apply!
Yours in beautiful questions,
Georgia + Team Modernist
investment insights
On the blog, we take a look at how the market performed last quarter, and whether we’re in the economic soft landing our government…may have…landed?!?
We also kicked off the year by answering common questions about what 2024 could hold, touching on interest rates, the bond market, and the impact of an election year.
Structure Your Wealth Around Your Values: Tax Season Edition
Image credit: Chi Nwosu, @itschinwosu
Hey Oregonians, do you really need that state tax kicker? Or could it go to the collective benefit we intended to fund? Never fear, you can donate your kicker!
❤️ Click the checkbox on your tax return to give 100% to the Oregon State School Fund for K-12 public education. (Note: You must donate the entire amount; and yes, it’s permanent and can’t be undone.)
❤️ Donate any or all of your kicker to 29 charities approved by the Charitable Checkoff Commission using the Form OR-DONATE.
P.S. Tax Policy reform is a great talking point when you're hanging out with folks campaigning to be your next Oregon elected!
modernist TAKES it outside
Georgia is proud to have joined the Oregon Humanities board!
(OH for those in the know.)
Participants in a guided group session about Housing and Belonging as part of the Conversation Project.
OH’s essential work creates opportunities for folks to talk in thoughtful and inclusive ways about who we are and who we might become, so we can understand and bolster democracy in Oregon and beyond. Check out their good work by:
🤝 Signing up to attend a Conversation Project discussion with your neighbors on Belonging and Ending Violence (March 13) or Poverty and Addiction (April 3)
📚 Recommending a friend who loves the humanities (but hasn’t attended college) to get free Bard College credits for the semester-long Humanities in Perspective course
📖 Sign up for their award-winning magazine or submit your own work on the subject of “Fear” for the Spring 2024 edition.
If you’re a frequent newsletter reader (we ♥️ you!), you know we love cash flow.
💁 We’re helping many clients “refocus” their cash for the new year, so we’re repeating one of our favorite motto: Cash is Queen, so you better treat her right!
New to this idea? Georgia had the chance to share more about our approach to cash flow on the infamous Kitces’ Financial Advisor Success podcast, and it’s a great listen.
Georgia was featured in Charlotte Cowles’ article in The Cut, weighing in on No Spend January and why a more thoughtful, sustainable approach year-round could be an alternative habit to adopt.
FUND YOUR HEROES
Lunar New Year is in full bloom at Portland’s Lan Su Chinese Garden from now through March 2nd. Celebrate the Year of the Dragon with a festive Dragon + Lantern Viewing and dance procession or a gentle Tea + Lantern Viewing.
P.s. The newly opened Lan Su teahouse was recently reimagined with the help of our friends at Stockpot Collective, a badass-filled-woman-owned creative agency.
Georgia is proud as a peakcock that OH funded the curator (and working artist) Intisar Abioto’s initial research and now she’s curated a full floor exhibition at the Portland Arts Museum! Black Artists of Oregon builds upon her 2018 research exploring the lineage and legacy of Black artists in our home state. Grounded in Black American practices of listening, keeping, and passing on each others’ stories, visit the show before it closes on March 31st.
Song(s) That Are Really About Joy
20+ years into his career, and Usher is still an icon, and as stylish as ever. We love this joyful revisiting of his classics.
Spotlights (spotlights), big stage / Fifty thousand fans screamin' in a rage
Bodyguards (bodyguards) and limousines / This is the way I see you in my dreams
Paparazzi flash, a hundred pictures all of you / Hangin' on my bedroom wall