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If you are planning to buy your <keyword id="185442" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="dream-house">dream house</keyword> and the specifics of agreement seem scary, this is a must read for you. The very attractive opportunities, in fact, may turn out to be risky as even the most lucrative deals also come with hidden clauses which the buyer is unaware of. 
 
An Economic Times report talks about the pros and cons of buying a home, possibly your biggest investment. A number of people in the NCR region are hunting for a home, but they’re unable to understand the nitty-gritty details of schemes such as 20:80 or 8:92, or offer of lower interest rate of 7.99% for three years, guaranteed rentals for three years or a 100% buyback scheme, etc. 
 
Harendra Singh, a buyer who is looking for a home from past eight months, told ET that he had already approached a number of dealers and each of them is offering a new scheme. "I understand this is the best time to buy as prices are relatively low but just how do we trust these schemes?" asked Singh. After all, he has been hearing far too many horror stories of abandoned projects, much delayed homes and builders not honoring their commitments. 
 Not just the buyers but the brokers too understand the complexity of the deals. Sunil Kapur of Delhi-based property brokerage firm <keyword id="2942712" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="KK-Real-Estate">KK Real Estate</keyword> told ET, "They want to buy but find it difficult to understand these schemes. Once they realise the risks, many back out." 
 
Another homebuyer, who is currently fighting a legal battle with a builder for delaying his apartment by three years, asserted, "You are taking a financial risk based on a builder's guarantee. But who guarantees the guarantor?” 
 Referring to the EMIs taken by the buyers, Amit Kukreja, founder of <keyword id="25456" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="financial-planning">financial planning</keyword> firm <keyword id="2943496" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="WealthBeing">WealthBeing</keyword> Advisors, told the financial daily, "Since the EMIs are on account of the buyer, it is his credit history that is at stake if for some reasons the project is delayed way beyond scheduled date and additional cash outflow, due to EMIs, cause financial stress." 
 
Speaking about the reduced interest rates, Kukreja said, "Buyers need to carefully examine the interest rates applicable after the low interest rate period. The catch here is that the banks can move the buyer to prevailing market rates or even higher after the agreed period. The new EMI may hurt the buyer's financial goals and planning." 
 
The ET report also highlighted that another major concern for homebuyers could be the very striking deals which may fail for any unidentified reason. 
 <keyword id="2943495" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ashwin-Chawwla">Ashwin Chawwla</keyword>, chief executive officer of Gurgaon-based online property portal <keyword id="2728436" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="BigDeals">BigDeals</keyword>.in, explained, “To increase sales, builders offer 30:70 scheme. Under that, the buyer can make 30% down payment and is allowed to pay the rest at time of possession. The deal seems beneficial as the buyer does not even have to take a loan at the outset.” 
 
The risk in such a deal could be of builder ditching the buyers. "What if for some reason the builder does not construct? He probably needed funding for some other project and got it from buyers in this project,” concluded Chawwla. 
 
image: indiatimes

Here’s what you should look for before finalizing your dream house

Jon Sebastiani saw fancy marshmallows for the first time in Paris, and thought they looked like money.A scion of a <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/spade-sparrows-enlists-don-sebastiani-sons-as-producer-and-north-american-sales-representatives-1031525004">big-deal winemaking family</a> from California, Sebastiani was already rich. He ran one of the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.winespectator.com/articles/sonomas-viansa-winery-changes-hands-2607">family wineries</a> for a while, but that wasn't his big hit. "When you grow up in a small town like Sonoma, in a notorious family business where everybody knows who you are — it was important to me to carve my own path," he says.That path led to snacks. In 2009, inspired by the offerings at a local butcher shop, Sebastiani founded an upscale beef-jerky business called Krave. Easier to chew and sweeter than convenience-store jerky, Krave got huge during <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-the-meat-protein-bar-2016-4">the paleo craze</a>. In 2015, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/krave-jerky-and-hershey-2015-1">Sebastiani sold the company</a> to Hershey, the chocolate-bar people, for $240 million.He ran the company for Hershey for a year, then left to found a food-focused investment firm. But Krave had been more than a financial success. It created a whole new category in the snack industry. And Sebastiani found himself jonesing for that high. In search of it, he went to Paris. There — in cute bakeries, in nice shops, on haute dessert menus — he discovered next-level marshmallows.These weren't the pot-bellied, chemical-laden puffballs that Americans roast on sticks and slap on s'mores. They were toothsome little pastel-shaded cubes, in a range of classy flavors that called to mind meringues and Michelin stars. "When you peel back the layers of a marshmallow, it's actually a better product for you, with less sugar, than most candies," Sebastiani realized. "We could be a less-guilty, better-for-you sweet indulgence."The plan: Create a premium snack by using (nominally) healthier ingredients than commodity marshmallows and smashing together flavors and colors inspired by Paris. That was the source of the new company's name: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/smashmallow-healthy-gourmet-marshmallow-review-2017-7">Smashmallow</a>. "I don't want to say it was the Krave playbook," Sebastiani says. "But it was my next concept that I believed was going to disrupt a category."Maybe you've heard of Smashmallow; maybe you even bought some. In the couple of years before the pandemic, they were everywhere. Now? Pfft. The problem wasn't the marshmallows — they were, by all accounts, delicious. The problem was scale. Smashmallows were designed to look like an artisanal, boutique product, but that wasn't enough for Sebastiani: He wanted to manufacture billions of them, to build a company that would bestride Candyland like a squishy colossus. That meant he had to grow fast and figure out the engineering on the fly — the classic entrepreneurial strategy of Silicon Valley. When it works, you get Tesla; when it doesn't, you get Theranos.This is the story of the Theranos of marshmallows.<div type="image" title="Square shape marshmallows falling" height="3983" width="2131" msid="108181707" hostid="261"></div>Like their denser cousins nougat and taffy, marshmallows are, formally, <a target="_blank" href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61742-8_11">aerated confections</a>. Dissolve sugar in water with a goo-like gelatin or egg white, then whip until tiny bubbles form. The gelatin locks the bubbles in place. Cook it gently and you get an airy bite of sweetness — a "foam made of finely dispersed air bubbles within a sugar candy matrix," as one candymaking textbook puts it.It wasn't hard to make a better version of store-bought marshmallows. Jens Hoj, a former chef at the renowned restaurant Chez Panisse, had figured out the cooking process that turned Krave into a giant of the jerky world. He was confident he could do the same for Smashmallow. "We wanted a marshmallow to have a little bite to it, not just be a foamy air," he says. First, he replaced the corn syrup in commercial marshmallows with tapioca syrup and invert sugar. Then he cooked the mixture at a slightly higher temperature, to give the marshmallow more texture than the basic Kraft offering.It took only a few months to get all that right. But then Hoj ran into a problem. He couldn't find anyone to make his marshmallow.Typically, when someone turns a food into a business — mom's chili, auntie's kimchi, whatever — they end up moving to an industrial-scale facility called a copacker. Copackers for meat are common; finding them for Krave had been simple. Locating one that could handle a delicate, airy confection proved a whole lot tougher. Which, in retrospect, should have served as a warning.Hoj's team eventually found a commercial bakery in Los Angeles that was willing to learn. Smashmallow bought big, commercial Hobart mixers to combine and whip the sugar and gelatin. They poured the mix onto huge cookie sheets, on top of starch to keep it from sticking — a process called "slabbing." They bought special cutters to slice the hardened marshmallow into cubes, and learned how to dust them with sugar and cinnamon to make a churro flavor, to blend in other flavors like strawberry and root beer, to include chocolate chips or coconut flakes, to pour out multiple layers to get two-color versions. "It was all hand-done, so it was extremely expensive," Hoj says. "Imagine 30 people making marshmallows every day, seven days a week."Sebastiani had the contacts to get the product into stores, where it proved even more popular than he'd hoped. "This wasn't a novelty purchase where they go 'Oh, that's cute' and then never buy it again," Sebastiani says. "Customers were actually buying it and then buying it again in different flavors. Retailers were clamoring for more seasonality, for smaller packages so moms could buy it for grab-and-go for their kids' lunchboxes." It had taken Krave five years to reach $5 million in annual revenue. Smashmallow got to $5 million in its first year. The next year, its revenue doubled. Retailers like Target and Walmart were clamoring for more, and Sebastiani was bringing outside investors on board. "We got extra excited," he says. "We weren't just premium. We were — I call it a usage occasion disruption." Smashmallow had a killer brand — but the product was still basically being made one batch at a time, on kitchen counters. To automate the assembly line, Hoj knew they'd need to switch from slabbing the marshmallows on cookie sheets to "extrusion," the conveyor-belt process used for mass-produced marshmallows. Extrusion is cheaper, faster, and less labor-intensive than slabbing. It's basically a marshmallow printer, and it's why American marshmallows are so ubiquitous. But when Hoj went to visit Doumak, the company in suburban Chicago that pioneered marshmallow extrusion, the experts just shook their heads. "We love your product," they told Hoj. "But it's too complex for our system." <div type="image" title="A hand picking up a melting smashmallow" height="2467" width="3427" msid="108181709" hostid="261"></div>The colors and flavors Smashmallow was using were too thick for Doumak's mixers. The tapioca syrup and invert sugar would have required new tanks. Oh, and nobody had ever made a square marshmallow on a commercial machine, much less a marshmallow that wanted to mimic the rough-cut straight edges of a slabbed one. And that doesn't even get into the coatings and inclusions, like chocolate chips. Doumak's engineers told the would-be Wonkas that it couldn't be done.Look: Nobody was forcing Sebastiani to turn Smashmallow into a national brand. The company was already generating nearly $15 million a year. It had dozens of employees. It was making a product that people loved and wanted to buy. Rather than trying to blow the company up into another Krave-size winner, Sebastiani could have just … stopped."It could have been a boutique regional brand," Sebastiani acknowledges. "And there's something authentic and noble in not having to be defined by your revenue, or millions of customers, or the retailers you have. But for me, I'm driven by growing things — not to infinity, but to a high ceiling." He didn't just want to make marshmallows. Sebastiani wanted to change our eating habits.But if Theranos taught us anything, it's that a business model won't work if it hinges on a technology that doesn't exist. Sebastiani wasn't an Elizabeth Holmes-style grifter. Marshmallows are real! But he did ignore the experts, and proceeded without having the necessary technology in place. If there wasn't a machine that could mass-produce his marshmallows, he would just build one. How hard could it be? In Silicon Valley parlance, he would fake it until he could make it.At a Las Vegas trade show for food-equipment suppliers, Hoj saw a booth for Tanis Food Tec. Based in the Netherlands, Tanis was an internationally respected builder of candymaking machines, and it specialized in marshmallows. So Hoj walked over and broke open a bag of Smashmallows. "This is what we need," he told them. It wasn't the kind of confection the Tanis people were used to making, but they were willing to give it a shot.Hoj went to the Netherlands to see the Tanis facilities. The company even mailed samples of marshmallows it had produced to Smashmallow's specs. "Those met all the requirements," Hoj says. It was going to cost a lot. But that was fine — maybe even good! The new technology would be a trade secret that could protect Smashmallow from aspiring competitors. So Sebastiani agreed to buy a brand-new system from Tanis for $3 million, with a two-year exclusive on the unique, customized parts used for adding inclusions like chocolate chips.Tanis put Smashmallow in touch with a copacker in Pennsylvania called Wolfgang Confectioners, which agreed to build a whole new facility to accommodate the machine. It would be the size of two tennis courts: kitchen, mixers and aerators, heating system, extruder, and 100 feet of conveyor belts. But copackers hate new machines. They're expensive to install and maintain, and they're basically useless if the company using them fails. So Wolfgang's facility came with a condition. "We needed to make 1,200 to 2,000 pounds an hour," Hoj says. A ton of marshmallows every hour, all day long — otherwise Smashmallow would be required to pay penalties.<div type="image" title="A large steel machine, two big tanks and lots of ducts, in an all-white facility" height="480" width="640" msid="108181711" hostid="261"></div>Smashmallow fired the teams who had been slabbing its product. But when the Tanis machine finally arrived at the Wolfgang facility in August 2019 and Hoj's team spun it up, the marshmallow printer failed to print. "They couldn't get the kitchen to make a marshmallow for quite some time," Hoj says. "And we couldn't get the product onto the belt for another 2 ½ weeks. And then the belt wasn't functioning correctly, and pounds per hour were less than stated." The whole thing was a disaster, but Hoj was undeterred. "We were thinking, this is just startup," he recalls.Even more alarming, the coat of starch that was supposed to coat the extruded marshmallows went airborne, filling the facility with starch dust. Aerosolized dust isn't just an inconvenience. If a single particle catches fire, it can set all the particles nearby on fire as well, creating a rapidly expanding, three-dimensional zone of combustion. This is what's known, in technical terms, as an "explosion." An inspector, hired by Wolfgang, shut the whole thing down. "They were hesitant to produce product until it was fixed, which of course we hated hearing, because we needed the pounds," Hoj says. To get up and running again, Smashmallow was forced to bring in an all-new dust-handling system.The problems cascaded, one sugar-coated disaster after another. The conveyor belt that carried individual marshmallows to the bagging station turned out to be too short, so they didn't have time to dry, which caused the marshmallows to stick together in the bag. The machine's die and cutting blade couldn't replicate Smashmallow's handmade irregularity; it could only turn out perfect, identical-size marshmallows. When the machine tried to re-create Smashmallow's most popular flavor, churro, the cinnamon coating didn't stick and blew into the air. Workers had trouble breathing through the thick clouds of spice. Once they figured out how to get the cinnamon settled onto the belt, it turned out to be heavier than starch, and the motors couldn't handle the extra weight. They replaced the motors, but then the cut ends of the marshmallows didn't get as much cinnamon coating. So they had to take the cinnamon and sugar off the line and put it into a drum that could toss the marshmallows in the mixture. "It took about six or seven months to come up with that," Hoj says. And even that didn't work, because the cinnamon — heavier than starch, but lighter than sugar — prevented the sugar from sticking to the marshmallows. <div type="image" title="A conveyor belt with workers dodging from flying marshmallows" height="3724" width="3999" msid="108181713" hostid="261"></div>Then COVID hit, slowing things down even more. The production line wasn't fully "commissioned" — able to make things that could be sold — until 2021, nearly two years after it was delivered. Even then, Hoj says, it didn't produce the amounts Wolfgang was demanding: "Sometimes we hit 1,400 pounds. But the average, if you looked at a whole month, was about 850 pounds."Wolfgang's quotas weren't the only problem. The sales team had gotten Smashmallows into 15,000 stores, and those retailers were signing agreements for product up to 18 months in advance. Sebastiani had made a deal for coveted end-aisle displays for Halloween — "Malloween!" — in every Target store in America. "We were expecting a significant growth curve," Sebastiani says. "We were taking on investment dollars, not only from my firm, Sonoma Capital, but from limited partners and endowments. My reputation was on the line."The manufacturing team started hand-tossing marshmallows in the cinnamon-sugar mix. QA teams inspected every run, hoping for a salvageable product. "We had to deliver something," Hoj says. But customers could tell that the machine-produced marshmallows weren't as good as the originals. Sales declined. Stores cut back on their orders. "We were producing four days a week, and then we were down to three days," Hoj says. The relationship between Smashmallow and Tanis finally broke. Smashmallow threatened to withhold payment until repairs were made, and canceled the installation of the experimental component designed to improve the addition of inclusions. Tanis responded by ceasing tech support. An acrimonious meeting aimed at resolving the issues ended with the establishment of a payment plan tied to production levels. If Smashmallow couldn't produce enough marshmallows, Tanis wouldn't get its dough.In the end, Smashmallow couldn't keep up with its obligations to investors, retailers, and the copacker. Sebastiani's dream of candy dominance was dead. Wolfgang sued to recover the nearly half a million dollars it said Smashmallow owed for not keeping up with sugar quotas; Sebastiani settled by giving them components from the machine. He, in turn, sued Tanis to recover not only the costs of the entire fiasco but the potential value of the company, had it been a success. In 2022, Smashmallow shut down for good.In court, Tanis insisted that the machine had, at times, gotten up to full speed and satisfied the terms of the contract. It accused Smashmallow of slowing the assembly line's output by switching up the flavors too often, requiring time-consuming cleanup. But at trial, a Tanis engineer admitted that the samples Tanis had sent to Smashmallow to prove it could produce the product were actually made, in part, by hand. Apparently Tanis, too, had faked it to make it.Everyone agrees that it ought to have been possible, engineering-wise, to make a machine that made Smashmallows. Everyone also agrees that, in the end, no one was able to. "The fact that Tanis said they could do it was interesting," says Richard Hartel, a food engineer who leads the candymaking program at the University of Wisconsin. "Their engineers must have said, 'Well, this shouldn't be a problem.' They probably figured this was going to be easy, and it turned out to be harder than they thought." The jury agreed, awarding Smashmallow $20 million in damages. After some legal back-and-forth, the parties settled for an undisclosed amount. (Tanis and Wolfgang declined to comment for this story.)Sebastiani says he can imagine bringing Smashmallow back someday. Meanwhile his investment company is still running the premium-product-at-blitzscale playbook. Bachan's Japanese-style barbecue sauce is one of theirs. Guayakí yerba maté, too. The thing is, even though Smashmallow failed, Sebastiani didn't. During trial prep, his lawyers had a fun idea. They thought they might bring a bag of Smashmallows to trial, to show the judge and jury what they were talking about. One of the attorneys, David Kwasniewski, called a bunch of Bay Area stores, and a clerk at an REI in Santa Rosa said they had a bag in stock. "Come on by," he said.Kwasniewski hopped in a car and drove up from San Francisco — it takes about an hour. He walked into the store and found the clerk, who went behind the counter and handed him a bag of gourmet marshmallows. But they weren't Smashmallows. These were made by a small Colorado company called Hammond's, which sells cube-shaped premium marshmallows in toasted coconut, chocolate chip, and a two-layer strawberry créme, among other flavors. The lawyer was gobsmacked. Smashmallow had crossed over into that rarest of territories — a brand that's become synonymous with its product. "In that industry, a snackable marshmallow is a Smashmallow, like a copy machine is a Xerox," says Kwasniewski. Smashmallows don't exist anymore, "but the brand is still out there."Sebastiani really did disrupt people's usage occasions. He created a whole new category of snack, and changed people's eating habits. When he created Smashmallow, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/north-america-marshmallow-market-105434">annual market for marshmallows in North America</a> was about $250 million. By 2028, it's projected to hit $535 million. Sebastiani won't see a dime of that money, because his business plan required a technology that didn't — and maybe couldn't — exist. He built a sweet brand. But the product was mostly hot air.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/adam-rogers">Adam Rogers</a> is a senior correspondent at Business Insider.

Silicon Valley tried to mass produce fancy marshmallows. It got messy, fast.

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Robyn Beck/Getty ImagesMillennials are waiting longer to get married, and it's helping lower the divorce rate.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/money-problems-millennials-facing-student-loan-debt-homeownership-2019-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Millennials</a> are driving a declining divorce rate, <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a27457578/millennial-divorce-rate-in-america/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported Hannah Smothers for Cosmopolitan</a>.</li><li>Often children of divorce themselves, many <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/millennial-trends" target="_blank" rel="noopener">millennials</a> fear breakups - so they're taking more time to find the right partner and get their financial act together first.</li><li>More <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-wiping-out-starter-homes-real-estate-2019-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">millennials</a> are also signing <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/surprising-prenup-clauses-marriage-divorce-2019-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">prenups</a> as part of their attempt to create a successful marriage.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories</a>.</li></ul>The divorce rate may be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-flaunt-wealth-status-dating-apps-tinder-bumble-hinge-2019-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">millennials</a>' most important casualty to date. The generation is fueling a 24% decline in divorce rates since 1981 - a decrease experts predict to continue over the coming decades, <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a27457578/millennial-divorce-rate-in-america/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported Hannah Smothers for Cosmopolitan</a>.Millennials are being driven by their fear of divorce - many have or know of divorced parents and are doing what they can to avoid an unstable marriage, according to Smothers. "Behaviors that may look erratic or cynical - delaying marriage, avoiding exclusivity - are actually protective measures against the drama of a big-deal split," she wrote.To ensure they find the right partner, millennials are taking the fast-track to hooking up, but the slow lane to tying the knot, <a href="http://www.helenfisher.com/" data-vars-ga-outbound-link="http://www.helenfisher.com/">Helen Fisher</a>, PhD, a biological anthropologist and senior research fellow at <a href="https://kinseyinstitute.org/" data-vars-ga-outbound-link="https://kinseyinstitute.org/">The Kinsey Institute</a> told Smothers: "Marriage used to be the beginning of a relationship - now, it's the finale."As a result, millennials are waiting longer in their relationships to get married - 4.9 years on average, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/people-dating-longer-than-ever-before-getting-married-2017-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported Kristin Salaky for INSIDER</a>, citing a <a href="https://bridebook.co.uk/article/bridebook-co-uk-marriage-report-2017" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bridebook</a> study. They're also getting married at a later age, <a href="https://www.insider.com/millennial-marriage-divorce-rate-2016-09" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to INSIDER's Kim Renfro</a>. The median age of first marriage in the U.S. is 27 for millennial women and 29 for millennial men, and <a href="https://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2041&amp;context=ublr">an estimated</a> 25% of the cohort will never marry. The number of couples cohabitating before getting engaged has increased, a move that Renfro said is <a href="https://www.insider.com/millennial-marriage-divorce-rate-2016-09" target="_blank" rel="noopener">protecting them from divorce</a>. A <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2007.00392.x/abstract" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family</a> asserted that living together "has become part of the pathway towards marriage."Source: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-sign-a-prenup-marriage-divorce-2018-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Prenups aren't just for the rich or famous - more millennials are signing them before getting married, and you probably should too</a><h2>Millennials want to get their financial act together first</h2>But divorce doesn't just take an emotion toll - it also takes a financial one. With a traditional divorce averaging $15,000, millennials also don't want face its expenses, according to Smothers. They're prioritizing financial success before getting hitched - like establishing a career and paying off student loan debt - which allows them to enter marriage with less stress and less fights over things like debt, she wrote. It's a strategic move considering money is a common cause of divorce, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-people-get-divorced-2017-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported Business Insider's Shana Lebowitz</a>, and one of the main reasons couples seek <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-couples-go-to-marriage-counseling-2017-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">marriage counseling</a>. Indeed, marriage itself is <a href="https://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2041&amp;context=ublr">more popular</a> among wealthier millennials, meaning that it too is a symptom of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-last-graduating-class-affordability-crisis-student-loans-housing-2019-5">affordability crisis</a>. A delay in marriage also gives couples more time to acquire their own assets - as a result, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-sign-a-prenup-marriage-divorce-2018-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more couples are signing prenups</a> before marriage to protect these assets in the event of a divorce. It's just another sign of how they're doing everything possible to create a successful marriage.<h2><a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a27457578/millennial-divorce-rate-in-america/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read the full story on Cosmopolitan »</a></h2> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/beyonce-jay-z-net-worth-music-first-billionaire-couple-money-billion-2019-4">Beyoncé and Jay-Z have a combined net-worth of $1.26 billion. See how 'music's first billionaire couple' spends their money.</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

Why are millennials abandoning divorce? Sex, money, and their parents

Courtesy of Jessica MilicevicJessica Milicevic.<ul class="summary-list"><li>Jessica Milicevic was a journalist for nearly 10 years and now owns a boutique branding and marketing agency. She, her husband, and her three sons live in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she is active in the women's business community and speaks often on maternal mental health.</li><li>Three years ago, Milicevic found herself reentering the working world. She felt the pressure to thrive at work, be the perfect mother, and live the picture-perfect life she saw on Instagram.</li><li>When her good life fell apart, Milicevic was overwhelmed by feelings of failure and inadequacy.</li><li>Milicevic was involuntarily checked into an inpatient mental-health facility and found her time there life-changing as she refocused on what authentically brought her joy.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul>As little girls, we are told we can be whatever we want to be. As women, we are told to be everything everyone else wants us to be: attentive mother, dedicated employee, ladder-climber, shatterer of glass ceilings, loving partner, engaged community member, selfless friend, and tower of strength. We are expected to appear as if we've got this whole thing locked down, making sure to Instagram our casual #bossbabe pose as we hold our venti Starbucks coffee.Women - particularly working moms - are expected to master their careers and achieve new heights. <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/famee.pdf">According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics</a>, in 2018, 71.5% of mothers with children under the age of 18 were employed or seeking employment.But - and this is a big but - we are also expected to maintain our domestic responsibilities without missing a step. Culture tells us the penance we have to pay for rocking our careers is making sure we don't forget our most basic female duties: wife, mother, domestic goddess. The <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/why-we-still-struggle-with-work-home-conflict-in-women-and-men/">World Economic Forum said</a> that in 2019, women were still bearing the brunt of household chores and childcare needs.So sure, we can have aspirations and lofty career goals, but erasing hundreds of years of the "women's work" mentality isn't happening anytime soon.We can be stellar at our careers, but we must also be the <a href="https://magnolia.com/blog/">Joanna Gaines</a> of homemaking - otherwise, we are achieving only partial rock-star status.And this message is constantly echoed on social media. Look no further than Clickin Moms, a <a href="https://www.owler.com/company/clickinmoms">$4.7 million DIY-photography business</a> created to teach women how to take perfectly staged photos of life with their families. Why does a business like this exist and thrive? Because we are all desperate to live the image of perfection we are shown every day on social media.At 31 years old, after being a stay-at-home mom for two years, I decided to make a career shift from journalism to corporate marketing. I had spent those two years at home watching other women on social media becoming what I desperately wanted to be: stylish homemakers, big-deal executives, and excellent mothers to well-dressed, cultured children. I had convinced myself that these images were reality - and I was going to do everything I could to be one of them.For six months, I put everything I had into becoming this ideal. I got a corporate marketing position with a global company. I enrolled my kids in a local Montessori school and hired a nanny to help with the kids and the house. I bought a new wardrobe. I rocked a pixie cut and spent hundreds on makeup. I spoke up in meetings and was praised for my good ideas and innovative thought process. My husband and I took a trip for our anniversary, and we lived like we didn't have a care in the world. I was living the good life, just like the influencers I looked up to.I lived the good life - until the good life completely fell apart.I got a new boss at work who despised me and made me feel belittled and incompetent. Suddenly, I wasn't perfect at my job anymore.My youngest son struggled with special needs. The nanny we hired was mean and intolerant of him. Suddenly, I wasn't the perfect mother anymore.I was engaged outside the home with activism and community work, and I was home less than I should have been. Suddenly, I wasn't the perfect homemaker anymore.For months, I would wake up every day wondering who I would fail and how badly. Why couldn't I do it all perfectly when so many others could? What was wrong with me?I woke up one morning dreading going to work and wishing I didn't have to get out of bed. I didn't want to get my two older sons ready for school and get myself all dolled up just to face a day where I was letting everyone around me down. I faced another day of failure, and I knew I couldn't do it anymore.In bed, I instinctively scrolled through social media. The influencers I would never be stared back at me, judging me for not being worthy. I knew I had to get out of bed and get on with my day, but a deep black cloud hung around me like a weighted shroud.I took my kids to school. As we drove, the shroud became heavier and heavier. A loop kept running through my mind: "You're a failure. You are letting everyone down. You aren't smart enough to have this job. You aren't a good enough mother to have these kids. You are not worthy."I barely remember dropping my kids off. I hardly remember saying goodbye, or making the decision to drive into oncoming traffic. I do remember deciding not to kill someone else in a horrible traffic accident but to simply walk into speeding traffic once I got to work.Clearly, I didn't go through with it. I spent more than an hour on the phone with my pastor, who convinced me not to kill myself. I don't even remember driving home, or my friend driving me to the mental-health ER, or my husband crying, or being involuntarily checked into an inpatient mental-health facility. The next clear memory I have is of the next morning, waking up on a plastic mattress in a bare room, sobbing uncontrollably in absolute despair and remorse.The next four days in the hospital were life-changing for me. I didn't have to make anyone's dinner, help with anyone's homework, answer any emails, or even talk to anyone if I didn't want to. I was able to reset, to take a break from life, to just breathe without feeling guilty. I hit a wall, but it forced me to stop and reevaluate what I wanted my life to be. No one else could make the decision for me, or influence me, or make me feel bad for my choices. I was free.I decided to leave my job, cut out those who didn't bring joy to my life, and simplify to the greatest degree. I knew it wouldn't be easy, especially financially, but I needed to build myself back up in a healthier way that didn't include high-end clothing and makeup, executive suites, or followers and likes. I needed to be able to love myself again for who I was, not who I thought I should be.I started by removing social-media apps from my phone. The instant access only tempted me to fall back into old habits. I stopped defining happiness by the material items we owned (and that I needed to share on social media) and scaled back on the events I attended, going only to ones that made me happy, not to ones that I attended just to be seen. I tried to identify (with a therapist) what brought me joy and focused on bringing those things back into my life in my own time.Take a look at how you define happiness in your own life. Is it defined by social-media likes and follows, by your job, by your homemaking skills? Or does it come from a place of authenticity, of knowing who you are, of being content with the wins and the mistakes? Working moms need to be able to move through our lives on our own terms, in the way that works best for us and our families. When we seek validation from others to know we're happy, we aren't truly happy.Can we really run the world? Of course we can! But let's do it in a healthier way that accepts flaws and acknowledges how hard this whole thing is.If you or someone you know is struggling with depression or has had thoughts of harming themselves or taking their own life, get help. <a href="https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/">The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline</a> (1-800-273-8255) provides 24/7, free, confidential support for people in distress, as well as best practices for professionals and resources to aid in prevention and crisis situations. <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/adam-grant-on-narcissism-happiness-leadership-careers-at-davos-2020-1">Leading behavioral psychologist reveals how to be a successful narcissist and why you should stop trying to be happy</a></h3>

I was a type-A mom trying to 'have it all.' Then I had a mental breakdown.

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDEZYeSvKz8">YouTube/USA Food &amp; Vacation</a></div></div></div>Investors are going wild for El Pollo Loco, a chicken restaurant chain that debuted on the public market Friday.
The company's shares surged an eye-popping 55% from its IPO price of $15 on the first day of trading. So what's so great about this chain that's been around for more than two decades? 
For many investors, it resembles the massively successful Chipotle. 
Like Chipotle, it's a fast casual chain that serves Mexican-style food in large portions. Its same-store sales growth rate is comparable to Chipotle's, and actually surpassed Chipotle's in 2012 and 2013, according to <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/07/09/relax-chipotle-investors-el-pollo-loco-is-not-the.aspx">The Motley Fool</a>'s Nickey Friedman. 
El Pollo Loco, which translates to "the crazy chicken," is also extremely popular. It recently won second place for best-tasting fast food chicken restaurant in the country behind Chick-fil-A in a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-fast-food-chains-ranked-2014-7">Consumer Reports</a> survey.
The restaurant's first U.S. location opened in Los Angeles in 1980. It now has 401 restaurants, more than half of which are franchised. Most of the locations are in California and the rest are in Nevada, Texas, Arizona, and Utah. 
The chain is known for its citrus flavored fire-grilled chicken, which is served in family-sized portions or as part of individual dishes such as burritos, bowls, salads and tortas. Appetizers include chicken nachos and chicken tortilla soup and there are more than a half dozen sides, such as refried beans, corn, broccoli, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, french fries, and rice.
The chicken is cooked over an open flame for about an hour, like in the photo below. 
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ElPolloLoco/photos/pb.84772351477.-2207520000.1406315702./10152126849506478/?type=3&amp;theater">Facebook/El Pollo Loco</a></div></div></div>At the self-serve salsa bar, customers can ladle unlimited amounts of salsa, jalapenos and cilantro onto their dishes.
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/drtran/2579083223/in/photolist-4VYJqh-4VUtA8-4VYJiE-6bpzxi-47m4jf-fpe3Kg-hTLPiR-3Qjh1-3Qjom-69JhKW-fGNCGj-fGw3s8-7saLX2-23VgfC-23QQxg-7seKrd-u6HLY-7ZsfPd-oAQ1i-a1ZXgR-7VUJaR-ncXzvA-nf1kaV-ncXxwe-ncXCVw-nf144D-nf1nDT-ncXyFi-ncXBkN-nf3jDG-ncXCyQ-ncXCpL-ncXSDU-ncY546-ncXVCt-nf1ghX-ncXECu-nf3CU9-ncXT2b-nf1xAg-nf3qwo-ncXNt9-nf3vSy-ncYedd-nf1snT-ncY8bU-ncXSK4-ncXVfp-nf1t2r-nf1pkF">Flickr/Al Pavangkanan</a></div></div></div>
The avocado salsa, pictured on top of the Carne Asada Tostada below, is a customer favorite. 
<div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ElPolloLoco/photos/pb.84772351477.-2207520000.1406315702./10152111217316478/?type=3&amp;theater">Facebook/El Pollo Loco</a></div></div> 
El Pollo Loco says 47% of their sales come from bone-in chicken meals (like the one pictured below) while the rest come from their Mexican offerings, such as burritos and tostadas. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/closeup?src=hash">#closeup</a> of <a href="https://twitter.com/ElPolloLoco">@ElPolloLoco</a> in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/dtla?src=hash">#dtla</a> for lunch earlier! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/scbd?src=hash">#scbd</a> <a href="http://t.co/2fo2Mz015L">pic.twitter.com/2fo2Mz015L</a>
- SmallChick BigDeals (@smchickbigdeals) <a href="https://twitter.com/smchickbigdeals/statuses/428306438172450816">January 28, 2014</a></blockquote>

Investors Think El Pollo Loco Could Be The Next Chipotle

<div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image">HBO/"Entourage"HBO's "Entourage" explored the topic of paid friendships, which Polone says are most common in the entertainment industry.</div></div>
Hollywood <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0689780/" target="_blank">producer Gavin Polone</a> is behind successful TV shows like "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Gilmore Girls," and movies such as "Zombieland."
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image">Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesProducer Gavin Polone, right, with director Ruben Fleischer at the "Zombieland" premiere.</div></div></div>
After over 15 years in the 'biz, Polone has come to realize that, "While I'm sure that paid friends exist in many walks of life, I doubt they are as common anywhere else as they are in the entertainment industry."
In a new <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/polone-on-paid-friends-in-hollywood.html" target="_blank">essay on the topic for Vulture</a>, Polone says, "I've encountered many big-deal stars and directors with an entourage of assistants and development executives who have crossed the business-­personal line. Some were friends before they were employees. Others drifted the other direction."
Polone explains 6 reasons why paid friendships work:
1. "It's isolating being famous or powerful."
2. "Many of the people you would otherwise naturally like are trying to get you to do them a favor, or increase their status through association with you, so it becomes difficult to trust them or enjoy their company."
3. "You fall out of the practice of cultivating friendships; the larger your fame, the smaller your world becomes."
4. "Things are clearer with friends who are on your payroll. From the payee's perspective, there is the obvious validation about being important to someone who is important."
5. "Some might be looking to score financially through the connection, but most respected their prospective employer in the first place and welcome the chance for a more personal relationship."
6. "When other important people have entourages, you want one, too."
But a paid friendship can often end badly.
Polone goes on to tell the stories of two anonymous Hollywood assistants who gave up their own lives to cater to every whim of their famous or powerful bosses. Both were eventually fired because jealous spouses, male and female, were intimidated by the close working relationships.
The topic of paid friendships has become so prevalent that it was the subject of HBO's "Entourage" and the network's new show, "<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/07/hbo-s-doll-em-is-the-female-curb-your-enthusiasm.html" target="_blank">Doll &amp; Em,"</a> about a famous actress who hires her childhood best friend as her assistant.
At the end of the day, Polone says it's a tricky situation. "The employee never knows when she'll be fired, but the employer never knows whether their relationship is ever emotionally real."
But the key to a genuine friendship, he adds, is "A real friend has to be allowed to confront you with an uncomfortable truth without fearing she'll lose her job."
Read Polone's full story on <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/polone-on-paid-friends-in-hollywood.html" target="_blank">Vulture &gt;</a>

Movie Producer Explains The Complex Relationship Of 'Paid Friends' In Hollywood

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NSACareers">NSA Facebook </a></div></div></div>Thomas Hales, a professor of mathematics at the University of Pittsburgh, calls himself a "mathematician who's upset about what's going on," <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/05/mathematicians-urge-colleagues-to-refuse-to-work-for-the-nsa/">reports Forbes</a>.
Edward Snowden's whistle-blowing on PRISM, the NSA's domestic spying program, left Hales uneasy about the fact that the agency employs <a href="http://www.nsa.gov/research/tech_transfer/advanced_math/">as many mathematicians as it does.</a> It is likely the largest employer for mathematicians in the world. Hales put his money where his mouth is and offered up a grant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization concerned with civil rights in the digital world.
The EFF used the money to send an employee named Yan Zhu to the <a href="http://jointmathematicsmeetings.org/jmm">Joint Mathematics Meeting</a>, a big-deal event in the math world that was held this year in Baltimore, Maryland. It's a place where math-inclined folks come to discuss the latest in their respective fields and to hustle for jobs. Zhu's only charge from the EFF: to discourage people from taking jobs at the NSA.
"The NSA is illegally mass-spying on people. I realize that people who have done pure math probably don't have a lot of other career options, but I encouraged those who wanted to talk to learn to code or program, and pointed out that EFF has hired a lot of mathematicians," <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/05/mathematicians-urge-colleagues-to-refuse-to-work-for-the-nsa/">she told Forbes</a>. "We weren't doing recruiting, just trying to inform them that there are people who are very against the NSA."
Hales and the EFF aren't alone here. Consider <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/08/nsa_domestic_spying_mathematicians_should_speak_out.html">this open letter</a> from former NSA worker Charles Seife. He worked for the agency as part of its <a href="http://www.nsa.gov/careers/opportunities_4_u/students/undergraduate/dsp.shtml">Director's Summer Program</a>, which he likens to "indoctrination." He says math-minded people are drawn to the agency's work because "the math was sexy. This might sound bizarre to a non-mathematician, but certain mathematical problems just exude a certain something - a feeling of importance, of gravity, along with a sense that the solution is not far outside of your grasp [...] The other thing that drew us - or so I thought - was an idealistic vision that we were doing something to help our country."
Here's where Seife reads his riot act:
We now know that every <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order" target="_blank">Verizon customer</a> in the United States has had his telephony records turned over to the very agency that supposedly has no jurisdiction over calls originating and ending in the United States. On Wednesday more evidence emerged that the agency collected tens of thousands of "<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-gathered-thousands-of-americans-e-mails-before-court-struck-down-program/2013/08/21/146ba4b6-0a90-11e3-b87c-476db8ac34cd_story.html" target="_blank">wholly domestic</a>" emails. We know that the agency has extensive capabilities to <a href="http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/nsa-report-on-privacy-violations-in-the-first-quarter-of-2012/395/" target="_blank">snoop on U.S. citizens</a> and regularly does so accidentally. And we have credible allegations that the agency sometimes uses that information <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/05/secret-dea-unit-surveillance-authorities" target="_blank">quite on purpose</a>. If the agency's tools truly are used only against the enemy, it seems that ordinary citizens are now being counted among them.
Thomas Hales, the "mathematician who's upset about what's going on," points out that "mathematicians aiding in national defense goes all the way back to Archimedes, defending against the Roman siege and designing the catapult. Many mathematicians work for the NSA or organizations with ties to it. They're involved in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/us/nsa-collecting-millions-of-faces-from-web-images.html?_r=0">facial recognition development</a> and big data aspects of mass surveillance. If privacy disappears from the face of the Earth, mathematicians will be some of the primary culprits."
Mathematician Tom Leinster <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2014/04/mathematicians_at_the_nsa_and_gchq_is_it_ethical_to_work_for_spy_agencies.html">writes on Slate</a> that people in his field rarely face questions of ethics, but this is changing rapidly - does a talented mathematician help facilitate what many decry as the worst in governmental behavior, or does he go his own way? He writes:
Our work, then, can be used for both good and ill. Unfortunately for us, it is the latter that is in the public eye. Already unpopular for our role in the banking crash, we now have our largest employer running a system of whole population surveillance that even a judge appointed by George W. Bush called "almost Orwellian."
So mathematicians must decide: Do we cooperate with the intelligence services or not?

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