From December 18-21, 2022, we held our first Marriage Summit, traveling from New Orleans to Navarre, FL and St. Augustine, FL. On Day 1, we held an orientation over Sazaracs and identified a schedule for the following days, which included prioritizing allowance for dreams that might not align with current life choices (such as traveling every month AND not needing to make a 6-figure salary). On Day 2, we went through a specific checklist of Areas of Life (such as Family, Work, Travel/Adventure, and Friendship) and identified goals for each of us in these areas. We identified a Roadmap for the future, realizing that many of our future decisions will be dependent on decisions made in the next 7 months, leading up to a possible pregnancy. On Day 3, we deep dove into finances using Mint to facilitate our understanding of each other’s finances and financial goals. We also settled outstanding costs related to our Wedding and revisited our Roadmap. On Day 4, we created our Summit Summary.

The following bullet points summarize the conclusions at which we arrived after 4 days of research and discussion:

  1. The next 7 months are high priority on our roadmap and will determine further roadmap points. The next 7 months include prioritizing conversations and decisions around Children, Housing, and Jobs.
  2. We identified areas of our life together and have made notes on our dreams and goals within those areas as of now. See Dreams
  3. A comprehensive financial review has been completed with the following major outcomes:
    1. Grace and Blake have opened a joint savings account into which will be deposited $1500/each per month. Based on our current calculations, this is almost exactly our current average shared monthly costs.
    2. We have outlined our finances in the event that we purchase a house. See Maintain Fiscal Responsibility
    3. We will use Mint to document and track our financial partnership
  4. We will hold a Marriage Check-in in April and a second Marriage Summit in June/July.
  5. We will never again hold a Marriage Summit in the state of Flori-DA-DA. We look forward to our next summit in a place where everyone’s standard of taste is slightly higher than our own. We are snobs. 😎