Status Quo
sta·tus quo /ˌstādəs ˈkwō/
noun
the existing state of affairs, especially regarding social or political issues.
Naturally, I've been reading a lot about the way people recommend couples to manage their expenses or merge their finances while dating, engaged or newly married. Almost every piece of tribal knowledge from the "experts" relates to the status quo.
This is how things have been done... this is how you should do them too.
To highlight the ever changing status quo when it comes to relationships, here's a little story about my family.
My grandparents were married in 1958 when they were both in their early 20's and started having children almost immediately after their wedding.
After completing his G.I. Bill and serving in the Army, my grandfather worked for U.S. Steel which at the time was one of the best and biggest companies in the country. Despite that he decided to move his family from Ohio to Rhode Island and pursue an entrepreneurial venture, building a real estate firm somewhere he found safer to raise his family.
At the time this move was very extreme... to throw away a stable and strong role at an outstanding company with a great reputation. In the 60's entrepreneurship was not glorified like it is today.
Nevertheless, without getting in to the details, after years of challenges to get things off the ground, lots of hard work and a little luck the real estate business ended up flourishing
While he was building his business, my Grandmother was mostly a stay at home mother and spent her time raising their five children. This was my mother and aunts and uncles.
My Grandfather's hard work went towards supporting the family financially and that was the ~status quo~ of the time; the men worked, and the women took care of the home and children.
Fast forward a few decades and my parents got married in the early 90's while they were both in their late 20's - I was born shortly thereafter.
Throughout my childhood, my father held various sales leadership roles at footwear and apparel companies like Timberland, Reebok and New Balance, and my mother was a flight attendant for over 30 years.
My mom shifted to part time while we were younger but for the majority of those 3+ decades she worked full time.
That being said, both of them were contributing to family from a financial standpoint but my dad was out-earning my mother so the lion-share of the financial burden still fell on his shoulders.
This was the ~status quo~ of the time; in most families, both parents worked, but men generally out earned women.
Fast forward another few decades and it's 2022.
My fiancé and I met by the time my grandparents would have had all five of their children, and by the time my parents had met, married, bought a house together and had me...
Anyone else noticing a trend here?
Both of us were working full time when we met making reasonably strong salaries and as our relationship blossomed and we moved in together that has stayed the same.
We're getting married later in life than our parents and grandparents, in our early 30's, and have both accumulated personal wealth while building independent careers and have grown accustomed to financial independence.
This is the ~status quo~ today; both partners are working by the time they get married and in more and more cases women are out earning men.
The generational story of my family, is not isolated to just my family. These are big picture trends taking place in families all over the country. Couples are getting married at an older age their parents and grandparents did. Women and men are finally starting to earn the same amount of money throughout their careers.
This fundamental shift in how relationships are starting and growing together that has taken place over the past half century is long overdue for a financial solution that reflects these changes.
This story is meant to highlight the rationale for why we're building Smoov and make the underlying macro trends a little more personable and obvious.
The early feedback from couples on our beta is humbling, "It feels like we are early adopters in the biggest fintech innovation since Stripe."
Our goal is to provide a modern solution for modern relationships to ease the pressure and tension that finances can put on them.
And if you don't believe that splitting expenses with your partner is a thing, don't take my word for it, check out the survey results from a question I asked on LinkedIn this week.
Couples are sharing the financial load equitably now more than ever and we're here for it.
If this resonates with you, sign up for our waitlist so we can invite you to the beta.
Don't forget to shop around the merch and take our survey if you haven't already.
Until next time - take it easy and keep it Smoov.
💰🤝❤️
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