A few weeks ago, Jason and I decided to move out to Park City, UT (I know!) Because of the pandemic, we’d been staying with my parents in Atlanta, and, eventually, we decided to break our lease in NYC. We also decided it would be fun to spend the rest of the summer and part of the fall in Park City, where there would be plenty of socially distant hiking available.

There was one problem I was worried about: in Atlanta, my wonderful mother had taken on all the cooking, so I had a ton more free time. I was able to work more (not only at my day job, but also this very blog!), and I was able to squeeze in a long workout and plenty of reading time.

Right after Jason and I got engaged, I moved to the Bay Area for a job while Jason stayed in NYC. We were long distance for over 1.5 years, and, during that time, we had a bunch of different discussions about where we wanted to permanently live - NYC, the Bay Area, or possibly, LA. After much debate, I ended up moving back to NYC, and, until the pandemic, we’d both planned to live there long-term. Since the pandemic started and I’ve been working remotely, however, Jason and I have started discussions about whether we’d ever want to move somewhere different.

In my previous post, I discussed the different financial advice men and women get and finding someone financially compatible was a high priority of mine when dating. I got more questions about how we thought about combining finances, and I wanted to share some thoughts. Especially once we began to talk about moving in together and getting engaged, a specific set of questions came up: how do you merge finances with someone else? How do you talk about money and make sure you’re on the same page financially? Here were a few pieces of advice that helped us in our financial discussions:

Something Jason and I often discuss is where unconscious biases about women come from. There are many, many sources, but something that stands out to me as infuriating is the advice men and women get about money.

When I first met Jason, he sent out his laundry and ordered takeout every night. My first thought was about how much money he could save if he just cooked a little and did his own laundry on weekends. I offered to show him some cheap and easy recipes. But Jason pointed out something that hadn’t really occurred to me - the value of his own time.

In my previous post, one of the things I discussed was acceptance and dating. I found that approaching dating with reasonable expectations has helped set the tone for acceptance throughout our relationship.

A few of my friends have asked for more details about intentional dating and how exactly it worked when I met Jason. A caveat beforehand: the approach below is what worked for me, but there are many, many ways to navigate dating successfully! Hopefully the below is helpful or maybe gives you a few new ideas to try.

This post will be a bit different. One of the best parts of writing this blog has been the conversations I’ve had with friends and family about how they’ve faced or dealt with these issues. I wanted to share a few takeaways from some of the conversations I’ve had and articles that have been generously sent my way: