Dating a personal finance reporter must really suck sometimes.
That’s all I could think as my boyfriend and I sloshed our way through the rainy streets of Boston last weekend. It was the kind of night better spent with a bottle of wine and Netflix. And yet, there I was, dragging him out in the pouring rain, hundreds of miles from our cozy apartment in Queens, to sit through a 90-minute financial planning workshop for couples.
To be honest, we needed a financial intervention. A year ago, we decided to move in together — just another pair of 20-somethings who would rather build our careers and face our student debt demons than rush into marriage.
Most of the time, we’re killing it on the money front. We use an income-based split for our rent. He covers the electric bill. I handle Internet and cable. We share a cashback credit card for groceries and pay it off every month.
But sometimes we hit a wall trying to figure out how to balance our individual financial priorities (he’s working off about $20,000 worth of debt from graduate school; I’m slightly obsessed with padding my emergency fund) and the goals we both share (saving up for a mortgage, finding an apartment that has a dishwasher, and yes, some day, a wedding).
Which brings us back to that rainy night in Boston and the workshop. It's run by a startup called Society of Grownups, an independent subsidiary of insurance company MassMutual (although you'd hardly be able to tell, since they don't sell any of their products). SoG is the latest in a wave of startups targeting millennials with affordable, accessible financial services — Learnvest, Personal Capital, Wealthfront, Betterment, NextAdvisor, the list goes on.
Compared to most of their competitors, however, SoG is pretty old school. Rather than emphasize virutal advisors and fancy online tools, SoG offers low-key supper clubs that double as financial workshops and one-on-one meetings with a small staff of financial advisors. Classes range from free to $40 and one-on-one planning sessions start at $20 for 20 minutes; $100 buys you an hour and a half. Topics run the gamut from student loan debt and budget travel to planning for retirement and buying a house.
“We wanted a place where people could have that face-to-face interaction and create a community,” says Nondini Naqui, CEO of Society of Grownups, who I spoke with after Saturday’s class. “Yes, this is a generation that does engage digitally a lot but they’re not in that one mindset all the time.”
“I hope you don’t mind if I drink.”
When the class started, I looked around the room and felt more like I had walked into a swank coffee house than the kind of place one might go to discuss, say, a 401(k) or an estate plan. Baristas stood in front of a large menu that listed the day’s offerings on one side — coffee, tea, donuts, the usual — and a list of the Society’s a la carte financial services on the other.
The class we attended, which cost $40 a pop and included dinner and drinks, was tiny. Including us, there were six couples in attendance (most workshops are capped at 12 attendees). Our instructor, a financial planner named Jena, stood in front of a projection screen, one hand on a beer, the other on a tiny remote control.
“I hope you don’t mind if I drink,” she said, taking a swig. The message was clear: this is not your momma's financial planning firm.
Throughout the class, Jena would prompt us to answer a series of questions either individually or together with our partners. The questions were divided into five categories: individual financial values; determining your financial personality type (i.e.: spender vs. saver); early money conversations to have; setting joint goals; and structuring financial accounts. The questions included zingers like “If you didn’t have to work anymore what would you do all day?” and “Could your partner access your accounts/pay the bills if anything happened to you?”
I could tell 10 minutes in that something was different. First of all, my boyfriend was laughing. Not at me, but at something one of the other guys in the class said. His girlfriend had just called him out for being an extravagant spender and he was defending his desire to take a six-month wine-tasting tour. Maybe it was the fact that we’d all indulged in a drink or two by then, but seeing other couples stumbling through the same awkward questions about their finances as us was incredibly comforting.
The Breakthrough
Later in the class, we were asked if we knew our partner’s credit scores. I steeled myself. I was secretly desperate to know my boyfriend’s score. I knew plenty already — how much debt he has, how much he earns and what his budget is like — but this was the last piece of the puzzle. For some reason, he had always held that card close to his chest. I was ready to get stonewalled again. But there he was, writing it down and sharing it with me for the first time. Call me a nerd, but I’d take that over a bouquet of flowers any day.
By the end of the class, I could see why we'd been struggling to find common ground before. We did a great job telling one another what our individual financial goals were, but we hadn't really talked about how we could help one another achieve them...to treat them not as "his goal" or "her goal" but our goals. I will take on more of the household expenses if that means he can pay off his student debt faster and put aside some money for savings. And by relieving him of that extra pressure, he will be more open to the idea of planning for the stuff that keeps me up at night (retirement, emergency funds, taking a much-needed vacation).
We didn't get a "Grownup" certificate or anything, but this was probably the best $80 date we've ever had.
Check out more from Mandi:
What happens if you miss a student loan payment?