Dear Plenty Community,

Welcome back! We’re back with our 2-1-1 format, and just in the nick of time to talk about the week we’ve all just shared.

We’ve all heard the news: Biden stepped down. What you may not have seen, is the donation drama that’s been brewing and why it matters for you. Crowdstrike just issued a $10 payment offer to those impacted by the largest global IT outage ever recorded; we dig into how it happened. 

And hot off the press:

 85% of surveyed couples have 1 or more private accounts or credit cards. 

We surveyed 160 couples between the ages of 25 - 40 years old to learn how they manage money with a partner. Interestingly 16% of couples who keep private accounts, still view all of their money as “theirs together”. We did the research and went to relationship + financial therapy experts to see why the science back this up as a healthy way to money together. More on that in our deep dive.

On this week’s podcast, we welcome the founder of Ours, a couples therapy platform that brings affordable access to therapy and premarital counseling. Listen in for tips on why he built Ours and free tips for strengthening your relationship. As always, if you have ideas or questions you’d like us to answer, write in to [email protected] - I’d love to hear from you.

Cheers,

Emily

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For those that are new: 2 x 1 x 1 means

• 2 news moments in business / finance to keep you in the loop

• 1 deep dive to help you and your partner with money

• 1 tidbit for your relationship

The donation war coming to your phone soon

President Biden announced he would not seek re-election and endorsed Kamala Harris. Within 3 days, the newly named ‘Harris for President’ campaign raised an additional $126M. This came at a time when $52M in donations had surged after Trump’s felony charges and the RNC campaign had outraised the Biden campaign by almost $67M from April - June 2024. Kamala’s campaign has filed to take over the $96M that Biden’s campaign had previously raised; though the Trump campaign has filed a complaint to seek to block that.

And why do donations matter? Because there’s not a clear winner and it’s going to be a tight race: this election will likely be determined by the moderates… those that may have historically voted for both republicans and democrats. Reaching them will increasingly be a battle for their attention: billboards, tiktok ads, instagram reels, tv, radio, newspaper… you name it, the goal is to be compellingly front and center.

The wreckage of the record-setting IT outage

A software update pushed live to Crowdstrike customer took down 8.5M windows machines last Friday. Nearly 25% of Fortune 500 companies had outages freezing hospitals, airports, factories, offices and more. Crowdstrike’s company valuation dropped 26%, losing over $20B in value as loss estimates are starting to roll in. Global estimates are ticking up and estimating that companies lost upwards of $15B in financial losses… of which potentially only $3B are covered by insurance companies (source: reuters). 

Is this usual? Definitely not. Within an hour of the outage, the twitterverse exploded with intern jokes. Ordinarily, when an engineer is building something new or making an update, they review and test what they’ve done. They then pass it along to other engineers to review and test what they’ve done. There can be manual tests and automated tests. Then after all of those steps, major updates get rolled out to small parts of the customer base at a time. With an outage of this scale, it was likely many layers of mistakes that toppled this tower.

Private matters: how private accounts build trust and fund

I still remember one of my first conversations with a couple. 

“We, er… we keep our bank accounts and credit cards private.”

Their voice was sheepish, as if they were embarrassed to admit it. As if they were doing something naughty or wrong. But in the age of dual-income couples and later-than-ever marriages, private accounts are increasingly seen as a sign of relationship strength. 

We explore the research on why it works and when it’s healthy (and not healthy).

A question for your date…

What are my most painful and joyful memories about money?

Inspired by Dr.Brad Klontz: a financial psychologist who has a great money personality quiz to help couples understand each other quickly (we’re bringing it to you, soon)!

On this week’s episode

In this podcast episode, Adam Putterman talks about the little moments that can make or break a relationship, like “micro bids” for attention we give and receive daily. He shares how a marriage conference opened his eyes to the science behind happy relationships, leading him to start Ours, a company focused on relationship health. He also talks about the benefits of premarital counseling and how to keep things fresh with novelty.

Plenty is a wealth platform helping modern couples invest and plan for their future together. We bring the investment strategies and products of the wealthy to the everyday household. For more information, visit withplenty.com. If you ever have any feedback or questions, please do reach out to us at [email protected].

At Plenty, no financial topic is off-limits for modern couples. We offer straight talk and judgment-free guidance to help modern couples navigate the tricky and important intersection of money and relationships. Join thousands of couples who’ve signed up for our free newsletter today.

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