Latest / The Smart Mom's Guide to Divorce / Overwhelmed by Divorce and Money? Here's Where to Start
Transcript
- Wendy: Regardless of if your marriage is great or not so great, you should know what your finances look like. I understand divorce is traumatizing, heartbreaking, emotionally draining, but you have to find the strength inside yourself to fight for what you deserve and fight for your financial future. Brooke: So anybody out there that's thinking, gosh, three to six months of liquid savings, how in the heck am I going to be able to do that when I'm now down to one income? Wendy: If you bought a house in 2020, let's say, your interest rate is probably two and a half, three percent. If you buy that house from your spouse, you're going to have to refinance at today's rates. Today's rates are six to seven percent. That makes that payment significantly more expensive. Brooke: What are some things that moms can do to help manage their debt situation? Wendy: Two things that I would recommend is number one. you Brooke: Hey, Wendy. Hi. Hi. Thanks so Wendy: Thank you. Brooke: much for coming. Thanks for having this with me. This is really awesome. So can you please introduce yourself and tell us who you are? Wendy: Sure, I am Wendy West. I am the owner of WW Financial Group. I've been in business for, I hate to say it, almost 30 years. I have an office out in DeKalb and I have an office in Willow Springs, but I have clients all over the country. I work with clients who are women in transition, so women who might be going through a divorce or a widowed. I work with small families and I work with small business owners for their retirement plans. So I've got kind of... three specialties that I work with. Nice Brooke: Okay. Callie wants to say hi. Wendy: to come in too. Brooke: She wants to say hi. okay, so when should someone in transition start to consider reaching out to a financial advisor like yourself? Wendy: I would say do it as one of the first things you think about because the financial picture is so important in the long run. It's so important because it can really make or break you for the rest of your life if you don't take care of that, as well as going through the divorce process. They kind of run hand in hand. Brooke: So what are some things that you work on then with clients? Wendy: Sure, great question. So we sit down and we do a budget primarily just to see your income, your expenses. A lot of times your income or expenses change through a divorce. So you have to see whether you can afford certain things like a house or you need to perhaps downsize, whatever that looks like. Expenses could be things like you have to pay for health insurance now or you need daycare or things like that that you might not have thought about before, but now are part of the picture. We sit and go through expenses, a budget, and we do a financial plan for clients to make sure that they're still on track once the divorce process is completed. Because that looks totally different. Your picture looks totally different once you've completed the divorce process. So we kind of start fresh and get you some projections of what your finances look like for the future. And I help you if you're not on track, I help you get on track. And if you're on track, I help keep you on track. Brooke: And I think there's a lot of moms, especially out there, that the maybe they weren't involved in the finances during the marriage. And so there might be some apprehension going to a financial advisor because it's just so very overwhelming. So have you worked with people like that? And can you tell me a little bit about your experience with that? Wendy: Yeah, so I've worked with people who have never worked with a financial advisor. I've had women come to me who say, I'm going through a divorce, we have a financial advisor, but I'm not comfortable working with him or her because I don't think they can be neutral in a situation. So I've had many situations like that. What I just try to tell them is it's your process, we will walk you through every step of the way. Brooke: So that leads me to mistakes then that that women make. And I'm sure men make them too, but let's talk about some of the most common mistakes that you see make. Wendy: Yeah, so one of the most common mistakes I see is that someone doesn't get their finances in order, meaning let's do a simple budget. Let's take a look at your budget and see are you going to have enough income coming in after you get divorced? Do we need to perhaps ask for more alimony or child support? Is your job going to be cutting it? We look at the income and then the expenses. Again, those unexpected expenses that you might not have before are coming into play. So we try to look at the whole picture. then from that, that is actually one of the most common things that is a mistake because people don't look at that or they don't know their expenses. So that can be a big problem. Brooke: Yeah, yeah. What about like stay-at-home moms, right? Like they didn't have any income and maybe there's some conflict and you know it's hard for them to gather the financial documents because they weren't they weren't in charge of it. So what advice would you have for women in that position? Wendy: So there's two things I would say about that. Number one is, regardless of if your marriage is great or not so great, you should know what your finances look like. So if you don't, I recommend that you have that conversation with your spouse to get that rolling. If you're in a situation where you're going through a divorce and you don't, I've helped several clients locate some of those items. We use a tax return a lot of times to kind of walk clients through what might exist as far as retirement plans, investment accounts, bank accounts, those kind of things. So I help a client, you know, I help clients do that. Especially I had a client who was a stay-at-home mom and she wasn't really involved with the finances. And when it came to the divorce part of it, she didn't want to get messy with it. So she decided not to go after her husband's retirement plan. She had very little savings and she She got a job after she got divorced, so she'd been saving, but it's a little late. It's not quite enough. But she now is 65, and she can't retire for quite some time because she didn't fight for those assets when she was in the divorce. She just wanted to get it over with. In the meantime, her ex-husband is retired, traveling, and enjoying life. So... It really upsets her when she sees this because it should have been, some of that money should have been hers. And now she realizes it was a very costly mistake. Brooke: Yeah, I mean that's a massive mistake. And there are, I think, a lot of women out there, I actually know of women out there that just wanted to get it over with. Right. You know, they didn't, they just didn't want to deal with it. There was conflict. And they just said, okay, whatever he wants, I'm fine. I'm just gonna sign. I just want to get it over with. And they don't have the foresight to see what they're actually doing and how that's going to Bite them in the butt later. Wendy: Absolutely. It can ruin you financially. know, if you always thought I want to retire when I'm 60 or 65, but you don't have the funds to back it, you're stuck. You're basically stuck. So I understand divorce is a horrible thing to go through. I've been through divorce myself and it is traumatizing, heartbreaking, emotionally draining, all those things. But you have to find a strength inside yourself. to fight for what you deserve and fight for your financial future, especially when it comes to those kind of things. Brooke: Talk about people that are still relatively happy in their marriages and they aren't sure about their financial picture, like the what their spouse is bringing in, incomes, expenses, retirement accounts, things like that. Is there like a list of things that a quick list that you could give to people to say, here are some things that you need to be aware of right now? Because when the marriage breaks down, it might be more difficult to get that information. Wendy: Absolutely. So I always say that the tax return tells the tale. So in the tax return, if there's any accounts that are just investment accounts that are producing any type of income for you, it's going to show on your tax return. So that's one way to check things out. It'll say the name of the company and the dividends that were paid. So that's one way to find some of that stuff. The other thing is most people have a 401k. Most people have a retirement plan of any sort, whether it's a a teacher, a businessman, most of them have some type of retirement account. So those are the big things. What does the retirement account look like or where is the retirement account at? Do you have a pension? Does somebody have, are they a teacher or a police officer or a nurse or a doctor? Do they have pensions? Do they have regular investment accounts that maybe money is going into every month? Bank accounts, simple bank accounts. Do we have CDs? Do we have savings? liquid money in there that if I need to get at, I can get at. Those are some of the basic things. You might have a health savings account that you participate with through work that would have money in it. So that's just some of the basic stuff that you can look for. Brooke: So is there any money advice or money assumptions that you hear on occasion or even a lot that is just not accurate? Wendy: One of the biggest things and we've discussed this is assuming that the spouse, most likely the wife, will keep the house. That's not always the case. Sometimes they can afford it, sometimes they can't. What you have to look at is if you bought a house in 2020, let's say, your interest rate is probably, I don't know, two and a half, three percent on the real good side. If you need to buy that house from your spouse. If you need to put it into your name, you're gonna have to refinance at today's rates. Today's rates are six to 7 % ish. That makes that payment significantly more expensive. So that's something you need to look at. You need to look at taxes and insurance. You need to look at maintenance and upkeep on the house. So all those things have to come into play for you to know whether you can afford the house. You don't want to get divorced and all of a sudden you can't make a tax payment or you can't make the house payment because you didn't think about going back to doing the expenses and income, doing your budget. If you do that, you're going to be in a good place. You're going to know where you're at. But if you don't, I've seen several people caught in the, don't have enough money to make my mortgage payment, which is a terrible feeling, terrible feeling. Brooke: Absolutely. And I was in that situation recently where my air conditioning went out and then there were other issues that I discovered in my attic that needed to be taken care of. And then come to find out it's like $20,000, right? So can you talk about the importance of an emergency fund? And is that something that you build into the plans that you're creating with your clients? Absolutely. Wendy: Absolutely. So really what I say is we need three to six months. Actually, I pushed now to 12 months worth of income in a liquid savings account. So a liquid savings account means savings, checking. I don't recommend always that it's in checking because you're not making any money on it. But a CD, things like that, that are out there. There's accounts out there that are high interest paying accounts versus the local account of the bank that's paying 0.01%. There's a lot of online banks that are paying higher investment amounts. think locally, there's CD rates of 4 % of online banks are paying 3.8 to 4%. So that's where you should keep that money for those emergencies and three to six to 12 months worth of liquid savings. Brooke: So anybody out there that's thinking, gosh, three to six months of liquid savings, how in the heck am I going to be able to do that when I'm now down to one income and you know I my kids have things and I'm splitting 50-50 and all of that stuff. So where can moms start? Like I like, is it okay if they don't have much of an emergency fund in the beginning? Wendy: Everybody starts somewhere. So you gotta start somewhere. So I always go back to the budget. The budget is the most important thing. That's gonna be your map every month and you can see how much you have or how much you do not have. So that's where you can go line by line and decide, maybe we ate out too much this month. Maybe we should pull back on that a little bit. So that's gonna give me an extra 100 or $200 a month that can sweep into savings. You know, we went shopping for the kids for school. Maybe we spent a little bit more money than we should have on that. Maybe next time that comes around, we want to spend a little bit less. So what I suggest is just go line by line through your budget every month and see where you might be able to cut some of those expenses so that you can sweep more into savings. Brooke: Yeah, yeah. And maybe you have to go without Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Prime and all of those things. I I Wendy: call it wants and needs. The wants are obviously what we would love to have. I would love to have Amazon Prime and Netflix and all that, but do I need it? Not really. Do I need my membership to the country club? Not really. So do I need my membership to the gym? Maybe I can work out at home or outside and save that money every month versus spending it at the gym. Brooke: Is there a good percentage that people, you know, because again, this can seem overwhelming, especially to people who haven't dealt with the finances. So so when you have income coming in, is there like a standard percentage that people should consider putting into a savings, like a high yield savings account or a money market or something just to help build that account? Wendy: Well, usually I say try to put 10 to 20 % of your income into a savings account. And then in addition, try to put 10 to 20 % into your 401k or retirement plan. I know that's a lot of money to be saving, but the first thing you want to do is get that liquid savings account built up because like you said, something's wrong with your attic or something's wrong. You need a new roof or something like that. You got to have that money ready and available for those things. Yeah. Brooke: So if you don't have that money ready and you maybe you've already kept the home and you are living off of credit cards, what are some things that moms can do to help manage their debt situation? Wendy: Good question. So two things that I would recommend is number one, consolidate your debt as much as you can. Perhaps you have equity in the house, you could get a home equity loan. That's always an option. Usually that makes the payment a little bit lower. If you consolidate, let's say you have three credit cards that have balances of, I don't know, $7,000, $8,000 on them. I'm just throwing out numbers. Consolidate into that, into a home equity loan that usually brings that payment down versus the credit cards, which are at 20 to 29 %-ish. It's ridiculous. So, consolidate, consolidate, consolidate. If you have to, if you can't do a home equity loan, there are consolidation companies that will work with you. They're gonna have a higher interest rate, but it's still better than paying the 29 % on your credit card. But the most important thing about that is, if you do that, you have to cut the credit cards up. Because if you continue to put... money on the credit cards, it's just a moot point. You're just moving from one place to the other and you still got the debt and you're swimming in that basically. It just makes it worse. Brooke: Yeah. So then perhaps there are some other things that they need to consider, like lowering their expenses. Wendy: That's where it all comes down to is budget. Gotta go through those line items one by one and see where you can cut. I mean, I've seen it where, even with my own budget, I think, I don't really need that Amazon package this month. So next month I'm not gonna buy whatever's coming out with the next influencer, you know, what they want me to buy. I'm not gonna buy that. So you can go line by line through your budget. That tells the tale. The budget tells the tale every month of how much you're spending. Brooke: Are there any good budget apps for people or is it is there something that like you create a budget with them? How do we make it manageable for people where this is just again overwhelming, unfamiliar territory? Wendy: So a lot of the banks have budget apps along with their app so they can tell you month to month what you're spending it on and you can kind of tweak that when you go in there. The other one is I believe it's I need a budget. I think it's called I need a budget. Don't quote me on that but I think it's called I need a budget. The other way is an old-fashioned spreadsheet. I know that's not as glamorous but it really You can save it month to month. It's going to calculate the numbers for you and it's right there on your computer. Brooke: And I would imagine too that if you are going that route, you wanna really get into the weeds about the money that you're spending down to like like you said, takeout meals, haircuts, movies, you know, cloth clothing, manicures, like Wendy: all that stuff. We just spent $20 on McDonald's for lunch. Did we really need to do that when we have we can have sandwiches from the fridge? Yeah. You know, I know the McDonald's tastes good. Especially for the kids. It's a good Brooke: Especially for the kids. Wendy: bribe tool, but yeah. Brooke: No, totally, totally. Let's talk a little bit more about some of the situations. I I'm sure that you've had clients come to you where either they're divorced or maybe their spouse passed away and they are completely in the dark. Can you can you share a story about that and how you were able to call them? Wendy: Sure, sure. I've had several clients that that's happened to. I have a client that they're going through, she's going through a divorce. found out her husband was cheating on her, going through a divorce. She has no idea where anything is. So what I said is check the mail, that's important. Check the tax return and then, you know, If there's any access you have to bank accounts or anything like that, check in there. Just get things started. A lot of times, especially if someone passes away, you might not know about an account for quite a while, but there's usually a statement that ends up going out at some point in time. It might be a year later, but that's how you kind of find, it's kind of being forensic about it. You're kind of digging in and trying to find those items. really it's kind of old fashioned hunting down. things, tax return again tells the tale and the snail mail will tell you where some of that stuff is located. Brooke: So you brought up something interesting about the forensic accounting. And I know that there are probably women out there that are afraid that their spouses are hiding money. What do you have to say about that? Wendy: Happens all the time. Happens all the time. In a divorce situation, at least my experience is, it's usually found. If you can hire a forensic accountant to actually help you out with this stuff, but usually if a judge says, Mr. So-and-so, we think that there's more to the tale than this, and we would like you to disclose your assets, usually at some point they come clean with it. At least in my experience. Or the spouse is able to find something. Maybe it happened because of a fluke, but they're able to find something that says, a Charles Schwab statement. I didn't even know what this was. Let me look into it. Make a call to Charles Schwab, and sometimes they'll give you information, sometimes they won't. Sometimes you gotta be your own sleuth and you gotta be, you have your own back. So there's, it's unfortunate, but it does happen quite a bit. And if the money is found later, that person can be in really hot water with the judge. Brooke: Okay. Yeah, definitely don't want that. What about business owners? Like what if your spouse is a business owner? Does that change how you work with your client in terms of like helping them know what they should be looking for as they're gathering all of these things? Wendy: So usually there's a tax return every year for the business and occasionally there's a business valuation. So you know approximately what the business is worth. So those are the two things that I ask for when I'm working with clients who own a business. A lot of times they have to disclose that. A lot of times all the time they have to disclose it when they go to court. So that's kind of how we get to know how much it's worth. Again, that's an attorney thing to kind of dig into that a little bit more, but if I have a value that helps me kind of going back into the expenses and income, helps kind of plan some of that stuff when we know how much of the business is worth. Brooke: What about like debt? Like say you and your spouse have collective debt. How is I mean, that could also be an an attorney question, right? Yeah. Is there anything that you would factor in as you're doing any forecasting or things like that with the debt? Wendy: Sure, we can look at the debt and I can say, you cannot afford to take this debt on, period, flat out. Like when we're doing the budgeting, if we see there's a debt and there's a payment of let's say $1,000 a month, and you're short $1,000 every month, that's gonna be a problem. So that's how I kind of help people determine what percentage of that debt they can take on. Keep in mind, I went through a situation. with a former client where the ex-wife took on the debt from the marriage, which is very unusual. She took on the debt, but she didn't pay it. She didn't pay the debt. The bank didn't care that it was the divorce decree said it was hers. It was originally in both of their names. So it ruined my client's credit rating. because she skipped out on the payments and just let it go into default. Never told him. Brooke: Did he take his name off of the credit card? Wendy: It was actually a home equity loan. She refinanced the house into her name, but the home equity line, wouldn't allow that. They wouldn't allow him to take his name off of it. So she defaulted on a loan, never told him. I was helping him. I couldn't figure out why his credit score was so low. And I'm looking at his credit report. Again, that tells the tale. Looking at his credit report and I said, well, you defaulted on a loan here. whatever year, he's like, I've never defaulted on a loan ever in my life. I said, well, there's something here. So we called the bank and they said, yes, she defaulted on it. We don't care because we sent them the divorce decree saying this is her debt. They don't care. They kept it on there. And really, to change that, it's a click of a button. The bank just has to click a button and undo it. And they wouldn't change it. my gosh. Yeah. Brooke: That is crazy. So then he's like kind of at her mercy, right? I mean, if she doesn't ever repay it, then that's gonna ding him for years. Yeah. Wendy: it did for five years it was on his credit report. Was it five or seven? Either five or seven it was on his credit report. Unbelievable. Brooke: Yeah. Wendy: I was furious for him. I really was. just thought, how can you... I understand there's different people in the world, but I would never consider even thinking about doing that. Brooke: Yeah. yeah. But that's I mean, it's a similar thing too with credit cards. If you are going to separate, don't you want to make sure that your name is off of those credit cards or off of the the bank accounts? Because if somebody drains it, absolutely you know, you can be liable. Wendy: Absolutely. Yeah, you don't want... Me personally, I don't put credit cards in my husband and my name just because I've always had my own business. I've always done my own thing. And I trust my husband implicitly. No problem with that. I just have never done it because I hear horror stories. Brooke: Well, I will caveat this that while it is beneficial to remove your names, there could be some legal Wendy: Yeah. Brooke: ramifications to this. So anybody listening, please talk to your attorney before you make any Wendy: Exactly, exactly. Always check with the attorney. Brooke: right? You don't wanna make a decision that oop, I shouldn't have done that. Wendy: Exactly. I'm not giving any legal advice. Legal or tax advice is my disclosure. Brooke: Yeah. How often do you see people come to you and unload to you like they would a therapist and spend up a lot of those billable hours on emotion and things like that? Wendy: So it's interesting you ask that because my job is emotion. Money is emotion. So whenever we're talking about there's always reasons for people who spend money, who save money, have anything to do with money. There's always an emotion behind it. So a lot of times what I do is we have the emotional talk. I don't bill them for all that time because I'm talking to them too and that's not fair. So we get through, we talk about everything and then I let them know like, now's the time when we're talking facts here and we need to get down to the business of things. And this is where kind of the meter turns on as far as, you know, charging you. Brooke: Well, that seems very generous because I'm sure there are financial advisors out there who are like the moment that you get on the call or step in the office, you're on the clock and you're billing. And it, you know, similarly with attorneys who, you know, may joke that they're the most expensive therapist that their client will ever have. Yeah. Right. I mean, financial adv advisors, you are trained to help with the finances. Right. Right. So Wendy: We usually get down to business fairly quickly. if there's, you know, a lot of my clients, if they've gone through a divorce, there's always a story that comes with the start of the conversation. So we talk about that and then we kind of get down to business. Brooke: Do you ever find that clients are their emotions can get in the way of the Wendy: that you do 120%. Yeah. Because if you let your emotions rule the decisions that you're making, you're never gonna win. So, and I think we've talked about this. For example, if you're fighting for the house and there's stuff in the house that you're fighting for and it's costing you an attorney bill of three or four or $500 per hour and you're fighting over a table. kitchen table, why? Either let it go or buy yourself your own kitchen table. There's no point in wasting money like that. Honestly, when I went through my divorce, my attorney was fantastic. He said, there's no point in me charging you to go through some of these assets. If you guys can sit down and do this together, whether it's with mediation or on your own and divide up your assets. your bill's gonna be much cheaper and your life's gonna be much better because you're not angry and fighting and doing all those kind of things. So if you let emotion rule everything, it's gonna be very expensive for you and you're gonna be very unhappy. Yeah. Even though it gets in the way sometimes. I understand that. Brooke: Yes. And that's where emotional regulation comes into play, right? being able to to rein those in because divorce is a is an emotional experience, right? It is a it's a death of a future. Yeah, the death of your marriage, the death of the future that you thought you'd have, and how you wanted to raise your children and all of those things. Absolutely. And so, you know, if you put that over here and focus on it with a therapist or a coach and then you know then take the emotion out of it and it's like okay now we have to focus on the business of divorce. Yeah. Wendy: Just the facts. Brooke: Yeah. Absolutely. Which can be hard but very beneficial. Wendy: do that. Brooke: Yeah. QD RO. Wendy: Quadros, yeah. Brooke: Quadros. What is that and why should women care about that? Why do Wendy: you need to know about that. Great. So it's a qualified divorce relations order, is a quadro. That's what it stands for. And it's just a way for a spouse to receive their former spouse's 401k, 403b, 457 plan. All those 401k, 403b, those are all tax codes. That's just a way to tax defer money with your employer. So it's a way to save money. A quadro happens when Let's say I'm married and I have a million dollars in my 401k and my ex-husband, soon to be ex-husband gets half of it. A quadro says to the company, okay, we can now move this money from Wendy's 401k to his own 401k, to her former spouse's 401k with no tax consequence. And it's instructions to the company that that's legal to do, to split that account up. So that's really all that that is. Brooke: Okay. And so how do they do they get one of those through a financial advisor? Wendy: No, that's illegal. attorney will do that for Brooke: An attorney. Okay. We touched on this a little bit about spousal support, child support, and all of that stuff. How does that factor into the broader financial picture when you're working with clients? Wendy: So when we're looking at spousal support or child support, that goes back into the doing the budget. So when I'm working with a client to say, are you going to have enough income after you're divorced? That's where that comes in. And we can work with the attorney to say, we need more or we're doing OK. Because we don't certainly want to get in a position where they agree on a number. And then all of a sudden afterwards, it's like, yeah, that's not enough. So we want to run the scenarios where we can figure out how much is going to be enough to support the spouse after divorce. Brooke: Yeah. And the other thing too is that it doesn't always last forever, right? Because your kids turn eighteen. Yes. They graduate from high school. So the child support typically goes away. Yes. and then alimony or in Illinois we call it spousal support, right? maintenance. Wendy: And I don't use the term maintenance because nobody knows what it is. always say Elimony because people understand what it is. But that goes away too at some points. It depends on what your agreement is. That can go away if you got remarried or if you're living with someone. That can go away right then. Or it can go away after 10 years or whatever it is. So we've got to kind of run those numbers to make sure that it's going to make sense. Brooke: Yeah. I mean, I've seen moms feel like I'm in the money, you know, like they they get the support and they're going on trips that they couldn't do and they're just living their best lives, going to spas and all this stuff, and then they don't realize or don't want to realize that in four years or five years that money is going to be gone. So what are what are things that moms should be considering doing with that money that they're getting. Wendy: So definitely look at the budget and figure out how much you need for long term, long term, whether it's retirement or long term goals, like let's say they wanted to buy another house. I've had clients do that. They want to buy another house. If you want to send your kids to college or you are obligated to send your kids to college, you need to be able to save some money for that. So we have to look at what the goals are and what your income is and what that looks like long term. Brooke: Okay. So I want to wrap this up with just kind of a overall like do's and don'ts list. Like if you had, you know, a couple minutes with someone and you wanted to make sure that they really understood the nuts and bolts of this and just really wanted the top line, what would you say would be the Wendy: I would say for sure you need to do a budget. That's number one. Whether you do it on your own or with a financial advisor, you need to do a budget. The second one is really consider whether or not you should be keeping the house. That's a big one. I know it's a little more in the weeds, but that can make or break you. The third one is don't just settle because you want to get out of the ickiness and the messiness of the doors. Don't just agree to a number. because that sounds good and I'm sick and tired of doing this. You should also know where your assets are, whether you're in a great position financially, or I'm sorry, if you're in a great position with your spouse, everything's great, or if you're going through a divorce, you should know where your assets are because it's very, very important. I always say for that, if you don't know where your assets are and something happened to your spouse tomorrow, what are you gonna do? So that's super, super, super important. And I would say finally, if you can afford it, work with a financial advisor. And that's something that I certainly say when I meet with prospective clients, we sit down, I am a fiduciary, so clients are always gonna know how much I cost. They're not gonna get a surprise bill. They're not gonna all of a sudden say, my gosh, we owe her X amount of dollars. We're gonna know ahead of time. And I give them an estimate of how much time it's gonna take me to do like a financial plan. And then finally, when you're working with a financial advisor, do a financial plan so that you can. continue to make the right financial choices for your future. Brooke: Yeah, and I wanted to ask you that too, as part of what you do, help women understand investments and things like that. So maybe they never really did that in the marriage and they're they are starting to think more about the long term. How can you help them just with like the investing part? Wendy: So my job is to educate. So we go over what they have, what their goals and objectives are, and then we put the pieces in place. So it's, you don't want to put the cart before the horse. You have to figure out what you want to do and where you want to go in order to put those pieces in place. Yeah. Brooke: But so you could help them if they wanted to start a Vanguard account. Wendy: absolutely. Yes. Yeah. So we do in my office, we do financial plans. We do investments, whether that's an IRA or a retirement plan of some sort for a small business. Just savings, investing savings. We do all of that in our office. We do college savings plans. So basically the whole gamut of it, I can help somebody kind of get that going. I also do 401k analysis. So if you have a 401k at your job, A lot of times they don't give you a lot of help with that. You know, they kind of leave you in the dark. So I'm always happy to, if you want to bring me a statement, happy to look at your investments and give you some advice on that as well. Brooke: So, Wendy: Yeah. One last thing I wanted to add. you go through a divorce, you want to make sure you change your beneficiaries, update your beneficiaries. Years ago, I read an article about a husband and wife. They lived in New York. She was a school teacher. I don't remember what he did. She passed away, but she never updated her beneficiary to a husband after they got married. Now in Illinois, that should go to the spouse, but in New York it's different. The beneficiary was her sister. And shockingly, her sister would not give the money to the husband. So avoid any of those conflicts and the grief that goes with it and make sure you update your beneficiaries. Very important. Brooke: Now, if you have children, can you name your children as beneficiaries? Wendy: You can name your children, but you want to have a custodian that will help them work through the process via your will or your trust that will take care of your kids. So you can put your children down as beneficiaries, but you want to have a custodian that will help them. Brooke: Yeah. And you just brought up something very important, a trust. Who should consider Wendy: Everybody should consider a trust. Now again, this is an attorney thing, but a trust avoids probate, is multiple reasons why that's good. But like, for example, I have a trust. We put our house in trust, things like that. So a trust doesn't necessarily protect you from creditors, but a trust will pass on to your beneficiaries in a much more efficient manner than a will would. Brooke: I think a lot of people make this assumption that you have to be a millionaire to have a trust. Wendy: A lot of people do that and that is not the case at all. can have a hundred bucks and you can put in a trust. It'll cost you more to establish the trust than your hundred dollars, but you could do that. Brooke: Yeah, but it just streams the process later on. Yes. Wendy: Correct. Makes it much, much easier. I've been through settling estates with a will and with a trust. I've done it both ways with family members and clients. And the trust is seamless. It is seamless. It makes life so much easier. And your beneficiaries are private. Even better. Yeah. Brooke: And these days there's so many online places where you can get trust. So it's like it doesn't have to cost you $10,000 to go through an attorney to get a trust. There are more affordable options out there. Absolutely. Wendy: Absolutely. Brooke: Just wanted to say that. Yeah. Wendy, thank you so much. Treats Wendy: Thank you so much. Brooke: with you. It's been wonderful to learn. Wendy: to know you and I'm excited for all of your followers. They're going to be, you know, they've got a great thing going with you. thank you. Brooke: Yeah. Well, and they've learned so much from you too. So if they want to reach out, because I know you work throughout the the country, right? You can help people anywhere. So if they're interested in engaging you, how do they do that? Wendy: So you can go to my website, www.financialgroup.com. It's www.financialgroup.com is the name of my group. Or our phone number is 815-762-5500. Brooke: Okay. Awesome. Well thank you so much. Wendy: Thank you so much. Appreciate your time.