Dear Plenty Community,

The Plenty team would like to thank you for being part of our journey to build the future of everyday family wealth.

We have some big announcements and we remain dedicated to building products designed around your relationship.

We’ll continue building out our Plenty blog with fresh, non-ChatGPT content. Wherever you are on love’s journey, we look forward to guiding your partnership toward growth, joy, and beyond.

Sincerely,

Emily

Do you remember that first moment, when you met your partner?

It turns out, where couples first meet has significantly changed over the decades. Take a look at this fascinating chart by Stanford researchers Rosenfeld, Thomas, and Hausen.

Meeting online now dominates, accounting for almost 60% of how couples first connect. The next most common ways partners meet are through friends and work, but each represents only about 7% currently.

Bars do still play a role, but peaked back in 1983 when they accounted for 22% of new couples meeting. Today that figure is down to just 4% for bars. Those bar pickup scenes in movies are going stale, fast.

What’s most surprising is the stark drop-off for meeting through friends, beginning around 2003. This coincides with the rising popularity of online dating sites like OKCupid and Plenty of Fish that year.

A decade ago, people were a lot more shy about admitting they met online. But the data speaks. For those questioning the health of online-sparked relationships: the research indicates couples who meet online are no more likely to split up than those who meet offline.

Additionally, the rise of online dating has broadened the diversity of couplings across racial, religious, and educational differences. There are notably more interracial marriages thanks to the larger breadth of people you can meet through dating sites and apps.

Here you have it - dating apps are breaking down barriers. Cheers to a more diverse and integrated world. You can read more of their research here.

How we met our partners at Plenty

Emily (Cofounder and CEO)
Growing up, I loved hearing the stories of how my parents met. They met at work, at Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong, and their relationship started during the lunch breaks their friend group would take together. As I got older, I remember feeling increasingly skeptical that meeting irl was going to be how I met someone.

There was the inner romantic in me - sometimes, it’d come up in conversation and I’d talk with friends about how we each might meet someone. My answer was always a bookstore. Then reality would crowd in, when my friends would inevitably ask: how many minutes have you spent in a bookstore, in the past year? 70 minutes in a year is an uninspiring low number of opportunities to meet one’s life partner.

Fate conspired unexpectedly, and Channing and I met at work. We had both chosen to join a 30 person startup with a mission to end the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. Months in, we had a chance to work together directly on a product team, and we rapidly became good friends who eventually fell in love.

Sam (Content)
My wife and I met when I was a senior at The College of William & Mary while she was a freshman. I was taking a Japanese 101 class to try and get an easy A. However, I ended up getting my first D on a test, so I dropped the course after only a couple of weeks. But at least Japanese 101 was where I met my future wife.

At the time, I wasn’t focusing on getting a long-term relationship. Instead, I was focused on getting my first job after graduation. When I went away to NYC to work in finance, my then girlfriend and I stayed in touch. Ultimately, she joined me in San Francisco in 2001 and we got married in 2008.

Matt (Engineer)
Erica & I met at the student union at the University of Wisconsin in 2006. She was reading a book and I was walking with a friend who stopped to ask what she was reading. We chatted for a bit, and after we continued on, she found a computer in the student union and tracked me down on Facebook based on the shirt I was wearing that day (Engineers Without Borders). A few days later, we met up at a bar in Madison and we've been together ever since.

Engagement ring shopping and budgeting tips

According to The Knot, most people compare about 10 rings before making a final decision and spend around $6,000 on average in the US. Curiously, the average engagement ring cost is actually trending downwards.

For example, the average cost of an engagement ring was $7,750 in 2019, or $1,750 higher than today. And a survey of over 1,000 people by CreditDonkey reported that over 80% of Americans feel a ring budget should be under $5,000. Perhaps the popularity of lab-grown diamonds has helped bring down the cost.

We’ll help you understand what the “four Cs” are when choosing a diamond and ring styles.

The smart way to financially plan for your wedding

It’s important to budget accordingly for your big day. Ideally, you want to spend enough to make your wedding unforgettable, but not so much that it puts a financial strain on your marriage.

According to CNN, the national average wedding cost in 2023 is $29,000. It’s even higher in major cities like New York ($43,000+) and San Francisco ($37,000+). With such a large amount of money at stake, we offer a way to financially plan for your wedding in the most responsible way possible.

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.

Plenty Financial RIA, LLC is an SEC-Registered Investment Advisor. All investments made are legally owned by you. Investing is inherently risky and Plenty does not guarantee positive performance. Investments are held in accounts at BNY Mellon | Pershings, the world’s largest securities servicing company and are SIPC insured. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal, and there is no assurance that the investment will provide positive performance over any period of time. Please see Plenty Financial’s general disclosures. Brokerage services are provided by Atomic Brokerage LLC "Atomic Brokerage", member FINRA and SIPC. Clearing and custody services are provided by Brokerage firm BNY Mellon Pershing, member SIPC. Plenty Financial RIA, LLC has a relationship with Atomic Brokerage to manage and execute investments on behalf of customers. Subadvisory services are offered through Atomic Invest LLC ("Atomic Invest"), an SEC-registered investment advisor, member SIPC. Atomic Invest was formerly known as Helium Advisors LLC. Registration as an investment adviser does not imply a particular level of skill or training.