Hello everybody, it's Sam from the Financial Samurai podcast and in this episode I have a special guest with me, Emily Luck, co-founder and CEO of Plenty, a wealth platform for modern couples. She previously worked at Stripe and Even, which was acquired eventually by Walmart. Welcome to the show, Emily.

Thank you so much for having me, Sam. So in this episode, I'd love to talk about modern couples. What is the definition of a modern couple today and what are the challenges modern couples face? Great question there. So a lot of how we think about modern couples is really looking at the partnership structures that people in their 20s and 30s or 40s are now in.

And right now what we see is that one of the biggest things as defining modern couples is that unlike older generations, 80% of couples both work. And so there's this built-in independence that is just a natural part of the relationship. And so that's one of the things we think a lot about when we define modern couples.

So in terms of modern couples, 80% work. Do you remember what it was like, I guess, pre-70s, 1970s, 1980s, where was that inflection point? Yeah, it was actually below 50% and oftentimes also from a career perspective and from an income perspective, if both partners worked, there used to be a much bigger disparity between the incomes that it was really more of like a part-time role or a role that had fewer hours in order to support the partner.

I think both because people are more and more educated as well as people are also thinking more about cost of living being increasing, what they'd like to do with their families also requiring more, there's now more of a pressure need as well as more of a desire to build your own career and maintain that while also having a family.

Right. So I guess, as I think about it as a father, I would love for my son to work and my daughter to work and to have dual income, but at the same time, there definitely are challenges in place, especially if you want to have family. So what are some of the biggest problems modern couples face today that were different from in the past?

Yeah, well, I think actually this is something that we are seeing everywhere internationally right now, both within the US but also in other countries where one of the things that also marks this generation of modern couples is that very often they're moving away from home. And when they're moving further away from home, they really lose that community of family support and that is cited to be one of the most common reasons why also there is this decreasing birth rate because when you don't have as much support, many couples are now deciding to just have fewer kids to make it work, especially when daycare expenses are so high.

They might need to both juggle trying to have their own busy careers while also trying to figure out a way that they are able to be present. And oftentimes the decision is just we'll have one fewer or two fewer. Yeah, it's interesting about moving away. One of the things I was thinking about was, you know, there's like a statistic that says that 80% to 90% of the time you spend with your child is over by the time they turn 18 or 19.

And so one of my thoughts was, well, why don't I just move closer to where my children are? What are your thoughts about that strategy and why don't you think more parents – why don't they move closer? So, sure, like parents, they're set in their ways but after they retire, they have more freedom and they can follow along and go where their children are.

I mean, does that sound a little crazy or does that sound kind of logical if you want to spend more time with your children? It doesn't sound crazy to me at all. And I actually think that will be a really big trend that will only increase over the course of the next decade, especially as we look at the baby boomer generation and they're moving more solidly into retirement.

They also have the financial access in terms of being able to have the ability to move to different places. So I actually think that's going to be increasingly common over the course of the next 10 plus years. I think though there is some reality where if you built your life in the city, you have your friend group, you have your community, it can also be really difficult to uproot and move especially if it's to a new city where you don't know as many people, you don't have as much community and to do that in a way that's also healthy for your kids where there isn't a deep reliance there.

Yeah. I'm just thinking to myself, I know it'd be hard to move in the future but I mean, I think it's also fun to meet new people and watch them grow up and then just have no regrets. So yeah, the challenges of childcare I guess for modern couples is a big one.

What about the challenges of a dual career track where sometimes I see one spouse or one partner really rising up the ranks and then the other one might get maybe jealous of that success and maybe that's more of a male thing that I've seen, I've read where a man might feel intimidated or threatened by their partner who happens to be a woman climbing up the corporate career ladder or business ladder.

What are your thoughts about that dynamic? Yeah. So there was actually a great report that came out recently talking about also what happens in different partnerships where one individual is a higher earner and what are some of the dynamics that actually play out in terms of the amount of household chores that each person does.

So that was a fascinating study but I think one of the things that is almost just at the core of any healthy relationship is – and the way we see it and Channing and I talk about this too – is at the core of one person being able to do what they do, oftentimes that's as a result of the support of the partner.

I think a lot of times it can be a very healthy practice and gratitude to your partner and also reinforcing. It's like, "Hey, I'm able to do this because of the support that you're able to give and so this is us winning, this is us really achieving together and it's not really as much of like you're off on your own and you did this completely independently and it wasn't like you had a whole family of support behind you as well." I actually think that's a lot of ways like relationship best practice.

But I do think about it. So if you have two highly motivated individuals trying to grow their careers, sometimes their careers oftentimes are highly demanding and they might pull one partner to a different location, to a different office, more hours and then ultimately something has to give. How do modern couples manage that where both are super high career oriented, they're working so many hours and they have to travel?

Any thoughts and tips on that? Well, I think it's definitely a tricky dynamic. It's one where it usually what we've seen from a lot of relationships is first and foremost it starts off with open communication and also just making sure that both partners are aligned on the value behind why that role or that job or that progression is so important and making sure that they both feel comfortable with it.

I think where we've seen actually the most friction and there's a fantastic book that I'll send you a link for so you can share with everyone where it's a book written about relationship principles by a divorce lawyer. And one of the things he talks about is one of the first things that breaks down is really the ability to and desire to communicate about what's important.

Is this like, how do we think about this? Making sure we're on the same page, that we're acting as a team, even if one person is really the one going out to take that work trip internationally, for example. Starting off with communication. But I think one of the things that is also helpful is, and I think this is actually where in the '50s and '60s and '70s, this conversation didn't even exist, where there is some more of this concept of taking turns and I support you, you support me, instead of it just being unilaterally in one direction.

And I think that's also something that we're increasingly hearing and seeing in modern couples relationships, which is more of this, "Hey, it's not just that one person is forever going to support the other person, it's, "Hey, maybe this time it's your turn. And maybe next time when there's an opportunity, it's my turn." And I think that's actually so important in having that balance.

Right. Taking turns is a big one. Yeah. I just remember hearing so many stories about, "It's your turn for the next five to 10 years to see how high you can climb in your career." And then, "Okay, now I'm done. Maybe it's time to be a stay-at-home parent. It's your turn for the next five to 10 years." And that concept is quite interesting.

I do wonder, today's modern couple, how do couples now view divorce? Is it less taboo now than it was back in the day? I think people, our generation also uniquely grew up as the generation of, as kids who in the parents' generation, 50% of parents had a divorce. And so I think there's actually a much greater awareness.

One thing that's actually fascinating is that if you look at divorce rates currently in the country and you start to look at it by age, there hasn't been a dramatic change in the rate of divorce for people who are getting married in their late teens and early 20s. But if you look at individuals who are getting married more in their late 20s and 30s, currently at least they're trending towards a much lower divorce rate than our parents' generation.

My theory behind that is having grown up in that dynamic, I think people are more intentional. I think there's much healthier conversations about what it takes to build a partnership and a relationship, what's required. Even the concept of being vulnerable, being open, having conversations about topics that are hard, having the set of things you should talk about before marriage, these are just becoming increasingly more common conversations and topics that really were more on the fringe of what society was really thinking about 30 years ago or 40 years ago.

And so with Plenty, I decided to build Plenty as a wealth platform for modern couples. What does that mean exactly and how does Plenty differentiate itself from other platforms? Yeah. Great question. First and foremost, we're the first wealth platform to really be focused on building for couples. As we think about our product functionality, every single product feature and product we offer is really built from that perspective of how do we support these couples who either want to work towards their goals together by actively saving and investing.

That can be a goal for a home renovation, that can be a goal for buying a home, that can be having a kid, or you can also share information about where you are and what's currently happening by flexibly connecting your accounts, setting some accounts to be private or saying, "Hey, some of these accounts, I'd like to share the information with my partner." So we can have more open conversation, understanding where are we today, what's happening with our money today from a spend perspective, our saving and an investing perspective, and then just making it really easy to say, "Hey, we want to work towards these things together.

Let's just take action," and you can just directly save and invest with Plenty. Right. You know, what's interesting is how there's like this, what is it called, bimodal or multiplayer function where you see your own accounts and your joint accounts. Tell me a little bit more about that private setting.

In what instances would a couple want to share accounts but keep some of the accounts private? Yeah. Great question. So this is something we hear a lot from our couples, which is in many relationships nowadays, even if they decide to both deposit their paychecks into the same joint account, it's very common to have some amount of money that is pushed into your own personal accounts, and there might even be a credit card that's attached to it so you can spend out of it.

But oftentimes, we hear couples say, "Hey, it actually feels like more freedom for me to have some credit card or some amount of money where I can just do whatever I want. We don't need to check with each other. Maybe if it's over a certain dollar amount, then we'll just run it by each other, but hey, there's still like some freedom and it's not fully like each person has to monitor what's going on.

Each person has a say over every single dollar that's spent." We've seen that and increasingly do believe that that is a relationship best practice where, yeah, there is some transparency, but going from 80% transparency and openness to 100%, that's a big difference. For a lot of couples, especially when you're so used to managing your own money, you've been independent for so many years, then that's usually that happy media where you're like, "Hey, I still feel like we're still doing most, if not the majority of our financial decisions together, but I still have my freedom.

You still have your freedom." Whether you want to go invest that yourself, you can do that. Whether that is you want to go buy a surprise gift for your partner, you want to go on a trip with your sibling, any of these, that's all open. Got it. No, that makes a lot of sense.

What's interesting is there's this term called financial infidelity where I guess that one person or one partner cheats in terms of spending money where he or she shouldn't have or there was no discussions. What are your thoughts on the concept of financial infidelity and as it pertains to private versus joint and looking at everything?

I think financial infidelity, there's a few layers there where it is the most common reason for divorce nowadays. I think largely that comes out of a few places. One, when couples don't have a place to understand where they are together and they don't have a practice of looking at that together, it becomes much easier for one person to be in the know and the other person to really not have an understanding of what's happening.

We oftentimes, the way we think about this is there's first that layer of deception, which can be intentional or unintentional. One of the things is by having a place where you can go reliably to actually see and understand where things are, that's a really important first step to prevent going down that path.

The other thing that we also think about is there is that act of trying to deceive or to hide or actively lying and as part of that, that's usually, and the way we see it is usually those are conversations that just weren't had. Whether it is an investment decision, whether that is a spend decision, there is probably before you get to that point of actually having an event that people would consider to be it cheating there, there's many, many years of built-up practice of not knowing how to talk about money together, not feeling like you can easily share with your partner about an investment or a spend decision, which are the two most common times when that happens.

It ends up just being a lot of complication built up over time, where then you get to this point where the mistakes, the hiding becomes more common and bigger. Then usually the thing that's really tough is one person is blindsided by the truth. All of that has to play out, but it doesn't just happen overnight.

I think for many relationships, this is something where they could have had great intentions going in, but this could even have been one person feeling like, "Oh, I want to take care of my family. My partner just doesn't quite know and gets overwhelmed with financial information. Maybe I'll just do this," and then they try to do what's best for the family and maybe they make an investment decision that's a little bit riskier.

Maybe they'd purchase something for the family, like a whole life insurance plan, for example, where they think it's the right thing and they end up not consulting their partner, their partner not really understanding what's going on or being brought along for the journey. Then they end up in this situation where maybe there's a negative consequence.

It was much more expensive. It was a bad investment and that shocks the other person who thought everything was okay because they just defaulted to one person taking care of everything. It can be much more common and it can be also out of the best intentions, but oftentimes it roots from not having a built-in practice of talking about money together and open.

Right. Switching topics a little bit in terms of getting married, do you see more and more of your colleagues getting married much later and do you have friends or colleagues who actually regret getting married later because they're too focused on their careers? Yeah. It's an interesting time. Many of the people in my life right now, they're in their 30s and 40s.

One of the things that we're seeing a lot is both, especially in the urban cities and if you look at a lot of the data, you'll see that the average age for marriage has just consistently gone up. Right now we're in urban centers. More people are generally getting married in their early 30s and some of the other areas too and more diverse areas around the country that tends to be more your late 20s.

What we're also seeing is that there is also an increase in the average age where people are starting to have their first child. The reality is, is unfortunately our biological clocks have not changed that much. There's a lot more technology in terms of being able to have fertility treatments, but what actually becomes a much more common conversation in your 30s is also just the cost of fertility treatments and sometimes that also becomes something that is so prohibitive that maybe people decide to have fewer kids or are not able to have kids and it was an unexpected consequence of kind of everything, you know, spending more time working, getting married later, potentially meeting your partner later and then you end up in this situation where it's, you know, there are some things that unfortunately you just can't control.

Right, right. Do you know the cost of one IUI and one IVF cycle nowadays? So right now what we've seen is for an egg freezing cycle, it depends on the city and I think there's now great programs that have financing, but usually it is between that $12,000 to $25,000 for an egg freezing cycle.

Wow. For many couples that are, you know, and many ladies who are let's say in their mid 30s when they do that cycle, usually they need to do multiple rounds. Sometimes you'll get this covered by insurance, but oftentimes very little of it is actually covered by insurance. And then what we've also seen from quotes is that the actual IVF treatment is another 25 to 50,000 depending on where you're located.

And again, one round might not be enough. You might have to do multiple rounds. And so it's not uncommon where if you do need support, you're looking at, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars because you need so many rounds of egg freezing, so many rounds of IVF and hopefully you're able to have a child.

But for so many couples that prices them out in terms of what's reasonable, what's affordable or people end up, you know, taking a second mortgage on their home because that's the only way that's possible. I mean, that sounds like a lot. So there's egg freezing and there's the IVF cycle.

I didn't think about the double impact. So that could be 20 to 50,000 per cycle and there's no guarantee that that cycle will retrieve an egg and implant and, you know, have a successful pregnancy. So for listeners out there, 20 to $50,000 is a lot of money. So I would say, I would think strategically maybe one is to look at your company benefits and see if they provide that.

You've heard places like Google and Facebook do that, but you know, those places are tough to get jobs. What are some other strategies couples can think about so they don't have to spend all that money and that time? Yeah. So one tip that I wish more people talked about and it's something where after I saw the data, it was shocking to me was one of the very common, if you look at the statistics, if you're by the time you're in your late twenties and early thirties, if you were to try to donate your eggs, you're actually considered to be an older donor and they actually don't try to get donations for eggs at that point.

So they really are focusing for a lot of these fertility clinics, they really focus on getting egg donors who are in their early to mid twenties because that's usually when the quality of the eggs are the highest. Paradoxically though, the egg freezing industry and a lot of fertility industry focuses on ladies in their thirties and especially the egg freezing.

It's almost like this strange, you know, reality where it seems like from a business perspective, they're focusing on the people who are most likely to want to do it quickly, as well as be able to afford it. One thing that you can do is over the course of your twenties and your thirties, there usually is a decrease in both quality as well as the quantity of eggs that each woman will have.

And so one thing that you can do as a financial planning decision is actually, I would even think of this potentially like even earlier that you're thinking really about life insurance and all that is you can do your egg freezing at an earlier age, and you're more likely to not need as many cycles to still get more eggs.

And they're also usually a higher quality of eggs is something, you know, that I ended up being very lucky. I talked to a lot of people who had unfortunately been through very hard fertility cycles and treatments, some of which were successful, some of which were. And because of that, I ended up making the decision to actually freeze my eggs when I was 27, and it was a financial decision.

I did think of this as an investment, but I also realized and knew that it would actually give me the ability and give me the reassurance to really control a little bit more of the timing for when I might want to have kids. And a little bit too was like, it's less, you know, the timing for maybe the first child, but really if we were thinking of having more than one child, having that is almost the insurance policy.

Now it's something very lucky, but there's also lots of ways to do your egg freezing cycle in more cost-effective ways, especially if you're willing to go internationally. Got it. You know, it's interesting because I think it's hard enough for people to save for retirement when they see retirement so far away.

I wonder if it's even harder for a woman to decide to freeze her eggs if they don't even see someone in their lives yet. I mean, what do you think is a harder decision deciding to pay money to freeze your eggs for family planning purposes and cost-saving purposes or to save for retirement?

Yeah. I mean, I think if you are an individual who you feel pretty sure and you're pretty calm and central about you want to have kids, it could be one, especially if you haven't met your partner yet. That's actually when we've seen most people actually go through an egg freezing cycle.

It gives you more time. It makes you also not feel like as pressured to meet someone quickly because you have a little bit more control and freedom there. That was actually one of the things that I completely underestimated was I kind of rationally was like, "Okay, I'll have this insurance policy." What I underestimated was psychologically how much relief I would feel from feeling like, "Oh, I actually do have this, so whether or not we want to take more time, we want to wait a little bit more, I'd like to invest in my career a little bit more," whatever that is, and we make the decision to start trying to have kids later, I still have something covered and it's not like at that time that we need to potentially be thinking about fertility treatments right off the bat.

Right. What do you think about the loneliness situation in America in terms of meeting people post-pandemic? Do you feel that people need to spend less time focusing on their careers and making money and saving for retirement and more time focusing on meeting people? Why is it so hard nowadays, especially with all the online ways to meet?

Yeah. Zeezan Sari has this book called Modern Love and there's this one part that he talks about that I absolutely love and I agree with so completely. There's this concept that when you have more choice, you're actually strangely less likely to be happy with the choice that you make.

I think unfortunately with these apps and I've been on them and I've experienced them, you get such a high volume of people that both it takes time to interact and engage and be witty and funny and then actually go out on that first date. But also when you have that first date, you're also more likely to be like, "That was good.

Is there more? Oh, it's such a low friction to being like, "Oh, I'm just going to keep looking." I think one of the things that he talks about in the book that I appreciated a lot was you can go to a really great Italian restaurant, right? You pull up Yelp or OpenTable and you go to this fantastic Italian restaurant, maybe it's even the best one that you've been to and are you likely to go back or are you more likely to be like, "I want the next best Italian restaurant next time I'm going out for dinner.

I want variety. I want to go somewhere else." I think especially in a place where decades ago there wasn't really the availability of apps in the same way. You really had to meet people. You actually were spending more time with an individual getting to know them. I actually created a little bit of this rule actually after reading this book, which was even if it was someone where I was like, "Okay, I think this is interesting," at what scale of good or great, I still commit to a second date.

I really give and invest the time to get to know someone a little bit more and oftentimes it was actually surprising. I realized like first impressions and first dates weren't necessarily predictive. I think that's something too where when you have so many choices, you're also less likely to invest that time and are you really going to be able to deeply get to know someone over an hour and a half?

I think everyone has their own way of doing it, but that's some of the things I'm even thinking about. There's also a really great book called The Paradox of Choice written by a psychologist about exactly this and so I would also highly recommend that as a read because I think it helps frame up the reality that when you have so much choice, it's not always a better thing for people.

Right. Do you think on the dating app or even in your professional LinkedIn profile, it's better to have a better looking picture of yourself than in reality or as close as possible or slightly worse looking picture of yourself than reality in terms of managing expectations? Well, I think there is some combination of putting your best foot forward and so I think actually the best profiles, you have pictures of you doing the things that you most enjoy, the hobbies, really feeling like you can actually give people a sense of who you are.

I do think that if you're editing the photo, that's probably not a great idea because you don't want someone to meet and then you're like, "Oh, that was completely different from what I thought." I think there's also the stereotypical photos that are fairly overdone, which are like the "I pet the tiger in Thailand" photo and that was very common for a long time and I think still is, less in touch with that at this point but I think there is the ability to use the photos to really convey parts of who you are, like maybe you love travel, you love cooking and I think that's actually helpful and important because it just gives people insight very quickly, it's like photos worth a thousand words, like very, very quick essays.

Right, right. It's kind of a chicken or the egg because if you don't have a great photo, that might make you look better than you really are, you might not get any leads. But if you have a really great photo and then you meet the person in person, then you might be shocked on the downside.

So that is an interesting dilemma. Personally, I would shoot for more realistic as possible or even below expectations because if you never get the leads, you never know what you're missing, so it's okay. And then you can surprise on the upside in person. Yeah. And I also think one of the things that I appreciate, I would say there's all these different apps and they're structured a little bit differently in terms of how you might meet and how you might interact but I do think the ones that really focus on being able to actually put some text that you're answering some questions, there's a little bit of an opportunity, again, to show who you are without using just photos.

When you interact, the number of people I've met who talk about how ineffective apps are for meeting people and then when you dig into it, it's like, "Oh, what's the first message you're sending?" And they're like, "Hey." It's like, "Okay." That wasn't a ton of effort that you put into writing a witty response.

It's like you got to give someone something to engage with and I think that's also a part of being interested, being willing to invest the time and energy to be like, "Hey, I came across an individual that I actually think is really interesting. I see all these different facets of them.

Let me actually spend the time to now think about a way to actually engage with them instead of doing like, how do I send 60 Hayes in one night and see if one person gets back to me?" Got it. Well, let's talk about Plenty a little bit. What type of couple should sign up for Plenty?

How can Plenty help them? We typically meet couples at all different stages of their relationship and so really where it starts to make sense is at a time when you're starting to combine your finances. So where we most commonly see that for a lot of couples is they're really at a point where maybe they're engaged and they're tired of doing the Venmo split-wise, per-transaction splitting and they're really thinking about, "Okay, we're building a life together.

We are actively working towards these big goals." Maybe they're thinking about paying for a wedding, they're thinking about saving towards a house and that's where we often start meeting a lot of couples. Another moment that we start to hear a lot of times is at a moment right around when people are getting married, there's much more of a focus on, "Hey, I really want to make sure that you're able to have some visibility into our finances, my finances." So that's another moment where once sharing visibility also becomes important, whether that's over spending, other accounts we have, 401(k)s, investment accounts, that's another moment where there's incremental steps taken to combine finances more and more.

What we're also seeing a lot of times is when you enter these life moments and chapters where you're really tied together in terms of doing things financially, most commonly when you are thinking about buying a house together, when you are thinking about or having a kid together, those are then the other steps.

I think of it almost as increasingly in our parents' generation, what's very common is you get married usually in your early, mid-20s, and just combine everything day one and everything is fully joint. Usually you're only at one or two banks. What we're seeing a lot of times for couples is that's not the reality and combining finances is actually a set of incremental steps.

It's almost like going up the staircase, like first staircase is, "Hey, let's start saving and investing together," second staircase is, "We're going to start sharing some visibility in addition to the goals that we have," and then the next step tends to be, "Oh, maybe there's this big life milestone, like buying a house or having a kid," where we're really starting to think, and we have more reassurance because we've been together for so many years, we've been combining our finances for so many years, where now we're thinking about reducing some of the complexity to maybe cut down on the number of accounts we have and start to consolidate a little bit more of what we're doing and what we have.

Got it. No, I mean it definitely sounds like a great wealth platform to use. Where can people sign up? Yeah, great question. Our website is www.withplenty.com and right now we have a waitlist but are excitedly bringing people on and we are working towards fully launching the product in the first half of the year.

All right, Emily. Well, it was great talking to you. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and we'd love to have you on again. Thank you so much, Sam. Appreciate you having me here. This was a great conversation. All right, everyone. If you enjoyed this podcast, I'd love a share, subscribe, and a positive review.

It helps keep me going. Every single episode takes hours and hours to produce and if you want to keep in touch, check out the Financial Samurai newsletter at financialsamurai.com/news. Talk to you all later. you