September 23, 2019 • 54 mins
Laura is joined today by the "Fairy Godmother of Divorce" Nicole Noonan of New Chapter Financial and “The Credit Queen,” Angela Setters Bessard of Conquer Credit Management. The three ladies discuss ways to finance your divorce, and how to rebuild your credit post-divorce. On the Sunny Side Up Report, Laura and Johnnie discuss the divorce news of the day.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you for listening to this podcast one production available
on Apple Podcasts and podcast one. Hi there, I'm Laura Wasser,
and if anyone knows how much divorce sucks, it's me.
I've been practicing family law for over twenty five years,
and I've worked on thousands of divorces from the top
of the food chain all the way down to my
(00:21):
very first case, which was my own divorce when I
was twenty five. It has become my life's mission to
destigmatize divorce and create a community around what is already
a difficult time. We call it the evolution of dissolution.
So welcome to the Divorce Sex Podcast. When we talked
about breaking up, getting divorced, and moving on good morning,
(00:45):
we talked a good morning, Good mornings, Good morning, and
welcome to the Sunny Set Up Report on the Divorce
Sex Podcast. I'm Laura Wasser and I'm Johnny Raines. If
you don't know yet, the Sunny Side Up Report is
where Johnny and I have called the Internet all week
(01:06):
to find good stories that you guys might like that
have to do with relationships, making up, breaking up, getting together,
raising kids, all that fun stuff. So and this week
I'm going to call this entire episode our fairy tale episode. Yes,
and I'll explain why in a moment. But the first one,
here's how sleep divorce can improve your relationship. That's like
(01:29):
a princess and a p type of thing. Johnny, Well,
you I suppose you could have a princess or a
p if you really want either. But the article written
by h TV National Desk, and that's h TV not
h P v um at the hour dot com talks
about the success of marriages and couples relationships when they
(01:49):
don't sleep in the same bit, I see again the
princess and the p Okay and m our next story
is is platonic parenting the relationship of the future. This
one I thought was so interesting. It's UM by Vittoria
Traverso and Jake Robbins the BBC, and it's news about
the growing trend of co parenting with someone with whom
(02:11):
you are not romantically involved. Yes, I have. What do
you think I think? It's yeah, well not personally, but
I support it. As you know, a very good friend
of mine UM has a situation like this where he
has now a second daughter with a woman he's not
romantically involved with. Um and they are co parenting, and
(02:32):
they he has a partner, she has, you know, a partner.
It's it's a very interesting modern way of doing family.
I like it. I mean, basically that's what I'm doing,
except I was at some point romantically involved with both
of the dads. But I will tell you it. You know,
if you can make it work like it works for us,
it really does work. Because these guys are really good friends.
(02:53):
We all have the same common interest, which is our kids.
And because we have different social lives, including our romantic lives,
there's not a lot of conflict in terms of like
I'm going away this weekend or I'm having a special
night with my boyfriend, and so usually they're around not
doing it at the same time. And if we coordinate,
well we're able to really, you know, make make it
(03:15):
work for our kids. And so I like it. I
don't know which fairy tale this one is, but you know,
I didn't have enough. It's a fairy tale. And for
anyone out there interested in checking this article out, it's
on the BBC dot com, but there's also a website
that is devoted to platonic parenting and connecting people who
are interested in preps creating that type of relationship. It's
(03:36):
called mo d Emily dot com. This is what I'll
call our Cinderella story. High class escort Samantha X reveals
the secret to getting your mojo back after divorce. You know,
here at the Divorce Sucks podcast we are very very
interested in next chapters and starting again. And who better
to tell us how to get back into the dating
(03:57):
game than a high class escort? Now what makes a
high class escort? Actually? I wonder maybe you don't stand
on the street corner. I guess. Okay, Well, the article
is nothing says nothing about that. But this one is
written by James Booth from DeMars dot com and it
shares a few tips for making it through post of
(04:18):
warce sexcapades escapade yes, what are they? Well? First of all,
if you're apprehensive about getting naked in front of someone new,
treat yourself to new launderie or new clothes, a wax,
a workout, and a haircut. She also recommends keeping your
heart closed for the first few sex escapades, and then
(04:39):
she recommends you fall in love with yourself. She says,
start loving yourself again before you even think about channeling
your energy and time on someone new. I also have
I like to surprise you, Johnny spring stuff in. There's
two stories from last week's New York Times Sunday Style section.
One of them by Jennifer Miller, is the Best Way
to Find Love not an app. At live events, young
(05:02):
people promote their single friends mayor it's like Carnival Barkers.
So this happened in Williamsburg a couple of weeks ago,
and it was a group of two and fifty men
and women in their twenties and thirties packed into a
Brooklyn bar without air conditioning to match make via power point.
Over two hours, a dozen presenters clicked through slides extrolling
the virtues, idiosyncrasies, and dating criteria of their best friends.
(05:24):
The event, called Date My Friend dot PPT, was sort
of like Tender meets the Office. Some power points were
heavy on startup jargon, with valuation graphs of suitors earning
potential or references to m and A deals a k a. Marriage.
Others had more of a class project by clip art
and embarrassing duck face selfies. I love this and I
think it is a good departure from just pure device
(05:47):
dating as but also you don't have to kind of
sift through every single blind date and go have a
piece of salmon and a glass of Stardenny or whatever.
So I like that. And then also this one by
Elis you know, I love that name. Elik Strauss tackling
wedding projects like a professional. Some couples are taking workshops
(06:08):
to help personalize their celebrations. So this is couples that
like do things to kind of get ready for their wedding.
Make your own wedding band, New York Flower Market tours
so you can pick your actual flowers at the flower market.
There's a flower crown class. I know. I've been to
weddings Embarmoss where there's a booth and they make you
a crown that so this teaches you how to do it.
(06:29):
I don't know that the bride and groom would want
to be sitting there doing that at their wedding. But
there's a cake decorating workshop, wedding val writing, and a
dance class, which I did before we got married. We
took a dance class to do our first dance to
Frank Sinatra's fly Me to the Moon, and look how
well that worked out. Fourteen months later, Bam done, Thank you,
al bow, but anyway, fabulously, thank you, thank you very much.
(06:51):
Moving on, speaking of Shang, this is a story we've
been following of Wendy Williams who had gotten divorced earlier
this year. Will apparently least she drops bombshell divorce admission
on the View. Oh yes, this is written by Lucille
Barilla in The Inquisitor. And you know how reliable they are.
What was the divorce? What was the bombshell? She's getting divorced. Yes,
(07:12):
she's getting divorced. That's not the bombshell. The bombshell is
that she you know, so the guy she divorced got
another woman pregnant as a baby um and she's another
bombshell that comes after that. Well, she says that she
doesn't want to change pamper. She wants to be pampered.
Big news on the View. And finally Brad Pitt opens
(07:34):
up about getting sober after Angelina Jolie divorce. This is
written by Erica Gonzalez from Harper's Bizarre. He talks about
his experience in rehab and doing group therapy and he
feels like a brand new man. Good good luck Brad Pitt.
Next up, It is the Divorce Sucks version of a
Disney movie when we are joined by the fairy Godmother
(07:57):
of Divorce and the Credit Queen. Stay tuned. If you're
contemplating the end of your marriage, you're probably asking yourself
when is the right time to do so? Notice I
say the right time, not a good time. There's really
no good time to get divorced. But there are some
relatively better moments than others. I mean, with the exception
(08:20):
of totally unacceptable behavior like he or she's beating the
ship out of you. You really should pick your moment.
Finding that moment will depend on a few factors, including
can you afford to dissolve your marriage. Divorce and personal
finances are inextricably intertwined. What each of you have, what
you owe, what you both earn, and what each of
(08:40):
you spend during your marriage is all disclosed in the process.
And if you're in a marriage where there is a
financial disparity between you and you're soon to be x,
the non earning or less moneyed spouse can find themselves
at a distinct disadvantage in the divorce process. But you
have options, which is what we're going to focus on today.
My first is the secret weapon of the Less Money Spouse.
(09:03):
She's a former matrimonial attorney and the founder and CEO
of New Chapter Capital, Inc. Which provides funding for legal
fees and living expenses during a dissolution. She's also a
nationally recognized divorce expert who has been featured on Good
Morning America, Forbes, and in The New York Times Welcome
to Divorce Sucks. Nicole Noonan, a squire of New Chapter Capital,
(09:24):
Thank you very much. I'm so excited to be here.
And it's gross in New York and beautiful here, so
we're glad that you came. Tell I mean, this is
like so many of our listeners listen to the podcast,
they go on it's over easy dot com. They read
the content. They know that it doesn't make sense to
hire a firm like Wasser Cooperman and Mandal's where I work,
because we're just prohibitively expensive and they frankly don't need it.
(09:45):
But some of them can't even get the funds together
to get started. That's where you come and tell us, Nicole,
what you do and what made you get your start,
because this is absolutely going to be fascinating for some
of our listeners. Thank you. Yes. So I used to
practice that tremonial law, as you said, um, And one
of the things that I saw in my own practice
(10:06):
is women and men coming into my office where they
had a great lifestyle until it came time for divorce,
and all of a sudden, the credit cards are taken
out from from them. Uh, they don't have friends or
family to go to. So how do they get the
funds to pay their legal fees, to pay their expert costs,
and even to live. For some clients, they need the
(10:29):
reasonable living expenses. So what we do is we provide
an alternative source of funding for clients going through those
divorces where we make an assessment of the total Marritorle
asset pool, and we fund based on that assessment a
percentage of what they're likely entitlement would be. That's so amazing.
(10:49):
So I mean, and again, people call my office all
the time and I said, you can't afford us, or
they say, I know I would be able to afford you,
but my husband or wife, whoever the breadwinn or whoever
the control break is, has turned off my credit cards
won't give me access. I can't even write you a
ten dollar check for your retainer. So you come in
and say, and I'm usually like, let me send you elsewhere.
(11:10):
I don't have time to deal with how to raise
your money to get divorced. But that's what you guys do,
and you and you assess it and that helps them
in the process, and then you loan them the money.
So we make an advance for them. Okay, so you
come into your office. Yes, the law firm shouldn't be
the bank, right, they have their thing to the law firm.
Shouldn't be the bank. Let the lawyers do what the
(11:34):
lawyers do best. Let them represent you. Let them not
have to worry about how you're going to pay for them. Certainly,
when you have one client that is paying you and
one client that isn't paying you or is behind in
there have high accounts receivable, you're not as incentivid exactly exactly.
So that's what we do. We have so many networking
(11:56):
events and bar events where we talk to other lawyers,
and we constantly said, like, we don't want to be
chasing the money. We don't want that to be our job.
We want somebody to come to us with the means
that they have, and so often that's not available even
though we know it's there. And again in California it's
community property state, so you know you're going to get
of whatever was you know, earned or created during the marriage.
(12:18):
But if you can't get access to it, it's so frustrating.
And yes, guys, I know, I tell you. Every week
judges frown on people who turn off the credit cards
or people who take all the money or take you
off accounts or freeze you up. That's not looked upon well.
But by the time you get to a judge, like,
how does that even happen? And it shouldn't. But that's
that's so helpful to know that you guys are available.
(12:39):
So we've heard that you're you've been crowned the fairy
Godmother of divorce by New York Post Julia Marsh And
you're an advocate for protection of women and men. But
people that don't have a level playing field, so to speak,
because that does that sum it up, right, We want
to level illegal playing field. We want them to have
the ability to have the equal representation that the money
(12:59):
it's Bess has And I love this because you actually
practiced family law, matrimonial law, so you saw the need
for this. Yes, right. Every day I would see a
client coming into my office. They would have this wonderful
lifestyle and until it came time for divorce, and it's
the most horrible time for a lot of people. And
it only adds to it not being able to have
(13:20):
the right representation, the right team behind them. And are
there certain law firms in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut
that you work with or does it not matter? So
it does matter. I mean one of the things that
we look in an underwriting process is to look at
the firms, uh and both sides who the representation is.
We don't take any proceeds or self representing clients. I
(13:42):
need this money so that I can go to a
spot and lack myself from my court appearance tomorrow, but
myself Okay. So there's certain firms with whom you like
to work and you know that their fees are generally
gonna be reasonable and necessary. And then what about forensic
accounting like it it doesn't just pay for the legal
it pays for anything that this litigant could need going
through the correct for their expert fee. So a lot
(14:02):
of clients, especially if it's a more complex case, we'll
need a forensic accountant. There's also times when we'll pay
for private investigation if that needs to be done. But
for the most part, um the forensic accountants or or something.
And and the clients also come through the forensic accountants
because they too want to be paid. They don't want
to work for free. Sure, if you have your house painted,
(14:23):
you're gonna pay your house painter right away. And how
do people usually find you, guys, So through word of mouth,
through we've had some media recognition, your times, Good Morning America.
Divorce sucks, it's um and you know through a lot
of their attorneys through their experts. The attorneys love it too,
(14:44):
because you know they're getting paid. But also, as you said,
if you go to a judge and you're making that
application for interm support, it costs money. There's no guarantee
that a judge is going to give you what you want.
If you get and you know the state of New York,
you gett of what you're asking for. Your luck, right.
I love this. In fact, I think that if I
were representing somebody that was kind of being a pig
(15:06):
and I heard that you and your company were involved,
I'd be like, oh, ship, we've better get real here,
We're not gonna be able to bully this litigan anymore
because now we've got they've got some money behind that said,
they have a war chest behind them, so they give
him the confidence to go in and sometimes it brings
them to that negotiation table. Right. So okay, telling back
up a little bit. You clerked with how do I
pronounce fasciality facial mentor just a wonderful judge who got
(15:33):
moved into family law and kicking and screaming and screaming
from criminal we thought we were going to practice criminal law.
You were already with him. I was interning with him
and was asked to be or received the honor of
being a clerk in criminal law and then got moved
to family law. I loved it, and he did not.
But judge for Sally is now sitting in a pellet
(15:55):
in New Jersey, Okay, And he swore you in he did.
And who held the Bible? My grandmother Alice pine Um.
She is another mentor for me, a very very strong
woman as well as my mother Um Alice and Noonan
who was a very very strong woman. And she was
the first in her family to go to college. Wow. Wow,
Alice or Allison. Alice was my grandmother and is my grandma,
(16:18):
and Alison it was my mom and she's the first
that went to college. Okay, Okay, So that's when one
of your proudest moments. And how long did you practice
before you decided to start new chapters? So, uh, two
thousand and six to about two thousand and eleven, so
five years and got it. Yeah, it was during you know,
(16:39):
the housing crisis. Are our clients. We would serve the
husband and he'd be living upstairs, the wife was living downstairs.
All their assets were tied up in one property and
they couldn't get divorced. But they needed funding, right all right?
So I want to I want to talk a little
bit because sometimes people say divorce funding or divorce planning
is like that's like a dirty word in our field,
(17:00):
you know, but divorce funding is often necessary. I want
our listeners to understand how they could go about, you know,
coming to a company like yours. Do you guys rely
on credit scores? I mean I know a lot. If
you want to get alan, most people are like looking
at your credit scores, and most people, particularly people that
have not been the moneyed spouses may not have a
good credit score, any credit score, because their spouse was
(17:20):
always the one that was developing the credit. So how
do you guys figure it out? So that's why we're different.
We get it. Divorce funding is based on what you're
likely entitlement is going to be, not necessarily your credit score,
while it is something that we look at to make
sure there's no red flags that you've been avoiding paying
creditors for years and years and years, if you haven't
(17:42):
built up any credit of your own because you were
the secondary um card holder during your marriage, we get it. Unfortunately,
for a lot of clients that try to take out
a home equity loan during a divorce, one side, certainly
the money spells is not going to sign, so you
can go out and hire or a while sort to
(18:03):
represent them, or if both sides would sign. A lot
of banks are not going to give you a loan
during the pendency of a divorce sure, And I mean
in most states, once you've filed for divorce, you've got
automatic temporary restraining order, so you really can't take that
money out. Wow. Okay, so now what about confidentiality? How
do you how do you apply for your services without
(18:25):
necessarily letting the other side know. So the way we
work UM, the attorney files an application with us on
the client's behalf and it's not public, just goes to
you confidentially within our within our in house UM operation.
Nothing that is going to be presented to us wouldn't
be discoverable otherwise. So whether it's a NETWORKT statement, a
(18:49):
real estate appraisal, a mortgage statement, it's things both sides
shouldn't know about anybody. Remember I tell you that guys
all the time. I mean, some people come to me
and they have no idea what they have or what
they spend. You're going to find out he or she's
not going to keep it from me any longer once
you're getting divorce. So this stuff will all at some point,
not necessarily would be made public, but certainly be made
(19:09):
discoverable by your spouse and his or her attorneys. Okay,
so that doesn't really compromise any confidentiality there. What what
do you take? What does NCC take as your chair
It's just a percentage and is that a sliding scale?
So no, it's the same for every client. What we
do is we fund UM. We work with the attorney
to provide or find out what the amount the maximum
(19:33):
amount they're going to need to get from point A
to point B to settlement. They may not need that
for the first six months, so they'll take out just
what they need for that first six months. So whatever
is the money and action, the money that's been funded
out is the money that we charge a fee on
and that is all rolled into the fee that's taken out,
so nothing has to be paid until settlement. Got it.
(19:56):
Do you think or have you been able to observe
if you have judicial officers taking into consideration the fact
that a you vetted this client and you found that
they or their estate was worth taking on, and be
the fact that now not only the attorneys are into this,
but now you guys are judges. Look at that. I
mean I would if I were a judge and go, oh, this,
(20:18):
this person needs to get paid because they've got their attorneys,
they've got NCC, they're really really looking at this. We
we got to help them this woman or man out right.
So if you take a loan, a gift from your parents,
from a friend, it's seen that as a gift. If
you take out funding with new Chapter capital, it's seen
(20:38):
as something you're gonna have to pay back. It's it's
not a gift. So judges certainly take that into consideration
as well as attorneys and judges taken to consideration. If
we're approving this client, we vetted it, We went through
our underwriting, which is we've been doing it for many,
many years, and our underwriters are the best in the business.
They know what they're looking at and if we're funding them,
(20:59):
there is something there. I love this so often I
say to clients, like, don't ever say fair. This is
not going to be fair. It seems like you make
it a little bit more fair. I like that, you know,
we level that playing field. Tell tell our listeners what
they can do now to prepare to fund their case.
If they're sitting there listening and they're going, this sounds
like something I'd really like to do. What would you
(21:21):
say to them, knowing that this is a little bit
in advance, what would you tell them? Knowledge is power,
So like a girl scout or boy scout, always be prepared,
so you've touched upon it earlier. Absolutely, know what your
tax returns are, nor your mortgage statements, know what you owe,
what your assets and liabilities. The more you know, the
more power you will have during that divorce. Financial freedom
(21:44):
includes your credit, not just good credit, but the existence
of a credit history, which less moneyed spouses may not
have thought about during their marriage. My next guest is
the expert on credit, so stay tuned. M get to
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(23:12):
listening to Divorce Sucks. I'm your host, Laura Wasser, and
today's show is about financing your divorce. And when we
think of financing, we must also consider the parameters most
lenders used to make the determination to lend. Unlike divorce
financing that my first guest, Nicole Newton's company, New Chapter Financial,
might provide to an aspiring divorce a traditional lenders have
(23:32):
different criteria and to explain the basics and some of
the finer points of how your credit impacts traditional financial
institutions decisions to lend or to approve new credit card
in your own name post divorce, allow me to introduce
you to my next guest, A k a. The Credit Queen.
She's the founder and CEO of Conquer Credit Management, Inc.
(23:53):
Which assists individuals and businesses in improving their credit and
FICO scores. We'll find out what those are, helps some
re established credit, and coaching clients to understand that their
credit is an investment and a tool to rebuild wealth.
She is the founder and CEO of Conquer Credit Management, Inc.
Which assists individuals and businesses in improving their credit and
(24:13):
FICO scores, re establishing credit, and coaching clients to understand
that their credit is an investment tool to rebuild wealth.
She also is the host of Your Credit Today podcast
on Apple Welcome to Divorce Sucks, Angela said, ers Bizarred,
thank you, thank you so much for having me. It's
truly a pleasure. Oh God, I'm so psyched that you're here.
And I'm so actually, like, you know, I can pretend
(24:35):
like I know all this stuff, but like talking to
in a call and particularly talking to you. I was
just explaining to somebody this morning my stepdaughter is visiting
and she's in her twenties, and I'm like, you need
a credit card, you need to start establishing credit. Don't
do it somebody else's. I have so many people that
come to me. Generally they are women and they and
they you know, they are the wealthiest, most sophisticated. They
go to the Paris fashion shows. They have you know,
(24:58):
cars and p personal shoppers and could get a restaurant
reservation anywhere. But they've never had their own credit card.
They just have a card issued in their spouses name
and one in their name and if it gets paid
through his office or business manager. Tell our listeners why
that's not a good idea? Well, I love that you're
actually bringing this up, because I think the best gift
that we can give our children is financial literacy. And
(25:21):
I think it's the biggest thing right now that's not
out there. And the reason for that is technology. Technology
is wonderful. I mean, it saves so much time. But
at the end of the day, I tell this funny
story about apps. So how easy it is to have
a coffee app? Right? And so one day my bookkeeper
comes into me and says, excuse me, who is spending
(25:44):
two hundred and fifty dollars on coffee? Jesus? And I
had to raise my hand. That was me. And it
was so easy because what happens is is that you
click a button on your phone and you buy your coffee.
But they don't tell you what your balance is, and
they don't tell you how much you spent. So this generation,
millennials generation acts they have no concept of what credit
(26:07):
really means and that it's a leverage tool. What's the
first thing you see when you walk into a college campus.
You see a lot of banks and financial institutions touting
credit cards. Well, when I'm eighteen years old and someone says, hey,
guess what, we're going to trust you. We want you
to have ten thousand dollars worth of credit, hallelujah, ten
(26:29):
thousand dollars drinks are on me, I'm not thinking about
the compound interest that's going to come with that credit card.
So I think it's wonderful that you are talking to
You said your niece, she's my stepdaughter, your stepdaughter. I
think it's wonderful that you're actually having this conversation because
I talked to so many people on a daily basis,
(26:49):
even adults that have no concept of what really credit
can do. We live in the US, and again I'm
going to go back and say, they have this policy
where they say, you know what, we're going to trust you.
You have really good credit. You want to buy that
million dollar house. We know you don't have a million
dollars in the bank. But you have really good credit,
and you can prove that you've worked with a job
(27:11):
for the last three years, go ahead and buy that house,
no problem. But what people don't realize is that what
comes after that is responsibility, and a lot of people
don't understand. Like you said in the beginning, what I
always say is that your credit is an investment tool
to build wealth. And you truly can build wealth, specifically
(27:33):
in real estate when you have a really good credit.
So explain it to me, like or to my listeners,
like or fourth graders. What is credit? Why is that
so important to have it? And why? I mean, you
gave us the example of why it's important. How do
we get it? How do we start building credit? How
can my twenty one year old step daughter begin to
be building her credit? I think it's a great question,
(27:55):
um the way that young adults can build their credit.
I would always tell parents that it's really important to
start your children when they're sixteen. Walk them into the bank.
This is what I did with my boy, and why sixteen,
just because because this is the starting of learning, this
is the starting of responsibility. Okay, you're in high school.
Things are different. You're preparing for college, you're living for
(28:18):
a car, right right? We hope right? You know. I
mean unfortunately, the same problem as the coffee right right.
And that's such another subject because I've talked to so
many young adults that don't want to have cars because
they'd rather take uber and lift and that's a whole
another story. But how you that's the transportation exactly. But
(28:40):
what I would say is to give young adults understanding
of how they can build their credit and why it's
so important because when you go out on your own,
you want to buy your car on your own. You
want to build up your credit because when you get
out of college, you want to be able to sustain
on yourself. You want to be able to buy the
essentials of life. So when you are sixteen, what I
(29:04):
say to parents is, walk your child into the bank.
Let's open up a bank account. Let's get them a
custodial credit card. Custodial. Why do I say that, Because
the parents know the transactions that are happening on a
daily or a monthly basis. They can sit down with
them and they can train them. Oops, you made a
mistake here? Hello? Yes? Hell are yes? So you can
(29:30):
actually train them at a young age, because what happens
traditionally right now is that people don't learn until they
start making mistakes. So I would say sixteen. But let's
just talk about your stepdaughter, who you said is twenty.
She's well, she's nineteen. She's about to be. Okay, she's nineteen.
So the best thing to do if you want to
start her off with a bang, and you want to
(29:50):
start things off really fast, is you can actually add
her as an authorized user to one of your credit cards. Now,
start listening. This is so not happening, but well, hang on,
hang on, let me let me just tell you why
it's a good idea and why you have nothing to fear. Okay,
because it built up my credit to have her buying
things doesn't do anything to your You're responsible for your
(30:13):
own credit, your credit card, it's your credit card. But
what's happening is is that she's piggybacking on your history.
So if you've had a credit card for twenty years
and you've done really well with that credit card, and
you've had good utilization, you've got good payment history. Now
that's going to report to her credit history as though
she's had that same history. And how many people can piggyback?
(30:36):
Is it like WiFi or there's only at a hotel,
there's only so many people. Can I add her and
my son when he gets old enough. Because I know
people that wanted specifically speaking about divorces. I have so
many people that come to me. I think that their
wives generally that have done that piggybacking thing. But do
they have their own credit or if it's why, why
don't these people have any of their own credit when
(30:57):
they come to me and they've been married twenty years
on the same card as their spouse. Yeah, that's a
that's a tough one. That's a tough one. But I
want to stay on the the credit card so that,
you know, for your step daughters, so she never has
to have the credit card, she never has to use
the credit card. It's literally what's called an authorized user.
(31:18):
So she came event you wanted to authorize her to
use that credit card. Let's say she's going to Europe
and you say, you know what, the next month, I
want you to have access to this credit card. So
I'm going to authorize you for the next thirty days
to use the credit card. Here it is, but you
have the credit card in your possession, so it's never
that she gets to use it at her leisure. She
(31:38):
uses it when you want her to use it. But
the cool thing is is that that particular credit card
is building her credit. So now she has that as
a foundation starting point, and then she can get a
secured credit card. Now, what is a secured credit card?
Secured credit card is where you're going to a bank
and you're putting on deposit, let's say to to a
(31:58):
thousand dollars, and then they're giving you credit on your
own money. Got it? So there's not a big risk
for them. Correct? And is there then what's like a
pr financing? Like do we have to then pay interest
on our own money? We'll still do okay, it's it's
a regular credit card. It's just less risk for the bank.
But it's all good for the client because it's helping
(32:21):
to build their credit. And if students UM and I
call students, whether you're young or old, whether you're you know,
starting over or just starting, it's important that you have
that cycle of using credit. Now, after a year of
having that secured card, then we can graduate to a
regular credit card and you can get your money back. Now,
(32:41):
let me ask you a question as a mom, not
so much about my stepdaughter or my kids, what about
the fact that I've got a credit card and I've
got an authorized user in household employees. If I've got
a housekeeper who uses it or a nanny who's are
we building their credit by having their names on the cards?
You are really absolutely that's good to know. And the
cool thing is is that let's just say you want
(33:03):
to automatically take them off. Okay, all you have to
do is call the credit card company and say I
want to take X, Y, and Z off the credit card.
They will no longer be an authorized user and it
will come off of their credit report. What are some
of the biggest credit mistakes pre impost marriage, So the
pre divorce plan of attack. Let's say you are starting
to think about this and you don't want to be
(33:24):
caught necessarily with your pants down, so to speak, give
us your six steps ANGELA to protect your credit profile.
So whenever I'm sitting down with a couple that is
going through a divorce, one of the things that I
say is is a important is to pull a copy
of your credit report. You want to see what's reporting?
Can we get those anywhere? I always see ads? How
(33:44):
can do it right on your phone? Are all of
those companies you know, they're good companies. They'll they'll give
you the accurate credit score accuracy. We're gonna just put
that on the side card. But anywhere you go online
there are hundreds of company needs that will give you
access to your credit reports. The cool thing is is
that you can get a free copy of all three
(34:06):
credit reports once a year by going to Annual Credit
Report dot com. Annual Credit Report dot com. Guys, and
there's three I remember this from when I bought my house.
What are the three different ones? Yes, there's Experience, which
you know for those older folks is formally known as TRWA.
There's TransUnion and then their cb I Equifax. These are
(34:26):
the three main repository companies that have your information and data.
And you want to have a copy of your credit
report because I can't tell you, and I'm sure you've
heard this before, how many times I'm sitting across the
table from someone and the spouse who is the housewife,
has never ever known the lines of credit that are
(34:47):
out there, anything that's reporting on their credit report? What
they are responsible for and so. And if you are
married to somebody and you are on his or her cards,
then you are going to be piggybacking, whether you like
it or not on some of the is credit reports. Well,
it would depend because there's two ways to be on
a credit card. You're either an authorized user where you
(35:07):
have no fiduciary responsibility, okay, or you are a joint
card holder. God. Now that's the first thing when I'm
sitting down with people pre marital conversations, is that what
you need to understand is that you have and maintain
your own separate credit identity and let's keep it that way.
(35:28):
And the reason for that is is in the event
something happens. You know, we're not going to talk about
divorce before you get married, right at the same time,
what if someone gets sick, what if something happens, You
want to make sure that you have the other one
to fall back on. And in this particular case, when
someone's going through divorce, if you did that from the beginning,
you wouldn't be worrying about some of these problems going
(35:49):
into the divorce. All right, So talk to us about
paying off the debt and that kind of stuff, So
paying off debt in the event that you're stuck holding
the bag. Number one, that's why it's important to pull
your credit report. So why we were talking about pulling
your credit report is having an understanding of what kind
of debt is out there and what you need to
plan for. Got it? Okay? So the number two is
(36:11):
separate your joint accounts. And why again we just talked
about the two different types of accounts that you can have.
You can have an authorized user credit card, which in
the event if you are an authorized user and that's
the only type of credit cards that you have, guess what,
you have no fiduciary responsibility to those credit cards, so
(36:31):
said spouse will be responsible for making those payments. But
if you are a joint card holder, then you have
just as much responsibility as they do. And if you
let things go into collections, you let them go to
charge off and eventually, if these banks or financial institutions
want to file a judgment against you, you will be
on the hook and be responsible for paying that. Got it.
(36:54):
So we said here during your divorce separation uh plan,
you can talk to your creditors about separating your credit cards.
That's a really good one and I love they will
let you do that. If I have a master card,
they will be cool and say, yes, you can separate this,
so listen. So if you've had a credit card, you've
been married for twenty years, and you've had a joint
credit card together, you just give your bank a call
(37:16):
and say, listen, I'm in the middle of a divorce.
I want to keep and maintain my relationship with your bank.
Can you give me my own credit card? You and
your soon to be ex spouse can figure out. You know,
I'm responsible for this much, you're responsible for this and miles.
You can figure all that out, guys, But make that
call absolutely. Yeah, yeah, you definitely want to ascertain what's
(37:39):
owed and what credit cards and what lines of credit
are out there before things get nasty. And then number three,
make sure any authorized user accounts are removed and updated. Again,
that's super important. Can't tell you how many times I
have conversations someone's been uh divorced for over ten years
(37:59):
and the other spouse never refinanced the house. Now they've
got late payments on the mortgage, and my poor sweetie
is crying because she's trying to buy a house and
there's nothing you can do right because you didn't take
care of that ten years ago, or his girlfriend is
now using the card that you're the it's you just
get it straight. I've I've got a lot of clients
(38:20):
who for whatever reason, had a lot of users on
their account, especially entertainment industry people. You've got all the
staff members, the assistant, the p A, all these things,
and now all of a sudden you're getting divorce and
his staff is still on your card. Separate them. This
is an important thing to look at, figure out, get
all of the answers that you need, and then start
attacking the questions. Yeah, it's super, super important. I can't
(38:44):
tell you how important that is. And again going back
to the pulling the credit report to find out where
they are. And number four, how will joint property affect
one's credit history for future buying power? Again, I just
made that for instance that my friend or my client
who ten years later is still on the home, so
it will affect it. Absolutely care of it. But here's
(39:05):
the thing. In the middle of the divorce or is
a part of the agreement that you have, what you
have to agree is okay, who's going to keep the
house whoever is keeping the house, you need to refinance
it out of said spouse's name and take them off title,
and now they own the home on their own. Now,
I've seen a lot of banks say that they don't
want to do that because they don't want to let
(39:26):
the deep pockets off the hook. What do you do
about that, Angela, Well, I don't know if it's the
deep pockets. I think a lot of it sometimes is
the fact that the other spouse has not built up
their credit history because they've never had a need to.
They've always depended on the other spouse because they were
the income driver. So again, ladies out there, listen to this.
(39:47):
It's very important to have your own credit identity. Okay,
super important. Okay, so number five removing my ex from
my credit profile completely. So when you look at your
credit history, there's many different factors that come up. You've
got addresses, A, K, A. S. And then of course
(40:07):
who you've been associated to. So anybody's credit card that
you've been an authorized user on or joint a joint
card holder, their name is going to show up on
your credit report. Now, buying the fact that you've actually
looked at a copy of your credit report and done
the homework that you need to do to take yourself
off of those credit cards. There's no need for that
expouse to be on your credit report any longer, and
(40:30):
you can get him or her off absolutely. Who do
you have to call to do that? You have to
contact all three agencies. So it's really important to also
maintain your personal data on all three credit agencies to
make sure that things are updated. Specifically, Again, if you're
going through divorce and now you haven't had to work
all of these years, now you have to go into
the professional industry, you know you need to have a
(40:51):
good credit report because if you plan to go in
the financial world, they're going to pull your credit history
and you need to make sure that everything is up
to date and on target. So what if we're in
a really volatile divorce, how do we protect our credit
and personal information from him or her doing that to us?
From her about to be x. So there's this wonderful
thing that's called freezing my credit report. So awesome, So
(41:14):
you can cut the outside world off from pulling your
credit history, seeing a copy of your history, doing anything
to it until you give someone authorization to do so. Wow,
how do you do that. Three companies that get do
it right online. You can freeze your credit. Now. The
pain in the ass, so to speak about that is
(41:35):
is that if you don't remember that credit on freeze
and go. You know, I have this whole story. I
actually went to go and buy a car. This was
a couple of years ago, and I walk in and
I'm sitting with the finance manager and he's like, Um,
your license plate, says credit queen. I'm assuming you do
something in credit. Yeah, I do, well you have no credit.
(41:55):
Oh my gosh, I forgot to unlock my credit. And
we just back out to the fact that your license late,
says credit Queen. I love that. So now does your company,
Angela all of this. You've made it really simple, bite
sized pieces, and that's what we're about at the Divorce
Sex podcast. However, if I am going through a divorce
and I am totally overwhelmed and I can't even begin
(42:16):
to remember what the second name of the company was,
I'm supposed to call and all that do. We call
you guys, and you help us out, You get in there,
you fix our credit, you get him off of it,
you maybe pay some of the bills for us. Now okay, okay,
I want you can help us clean that up? Absolutely,
And are you and come up with a plan of action. Yeah.
(42:37):
I think that's where people fail is they never act
and they never make a plan, says the woman whose
credit remained from right, don't they say the sound of
the company cobbler never wear shoes that, But don't forget
when he did pull my credit, it was okay, she
froze it right there. All right. Nicole's going to come
(43:00):
back in and join Angela and me for a little
round table discussion about gender finances and how men and
women think differently about credit and money. Crowned The Fairy
Godmother of Divorce by the New York Post Julia Marsh,
Nicole Noonan, who is an advocate for the protection of
women and men and their rights, is joining Angela's Setter's Bazard,
also known as the Credit Queen and I to discuss
(43:22):
the ways gender impacts financial decisions today. It's like a
Disney movie, The Fairy Godmother of Divorce and the Credit
Queen to both of you guys. With the evolving demographics
that define our new normal, stay at home dad, same
sex marriages, millennials who are more likely to cohabit than
they are to get married. What are some of the
gender specific trends you see as modern couples separate. We've both,
(43:46):
we've spoken today. I think a lot of our clients
are women, and sometimes it's the women that need a
little bit more help with this stuff. But tell us
what it's some of the trends that you've seen. Given
what we all see in terms of families and how
people deal with their money, I've seen a trend towards
more men actually coming to us, more of the stay
at home dad's uh that I get the calls from
(44:09):
where they are the ones that you know took a
leave of absence from their careers to raise the family,
and they're the ones that need the funding. They help
support their wives, which applause, But the wives cut them
off from their credit cards just like then. So you
can be a dick as long as you're making exactly
(44:29):
what gender you are. It doesn't matter if you have
a dick. Atha, what about you? What have you seen?
I'm sorry that was hilarious. Again, going back to making
sure that you have your own identity. I think that
what happens is in marriage, in relationship, no matter what
you're doing is when you're coming together, you're trying to
(44:52):
make an identity together, and doing that with credit is
such a mistake. So what I always tout is make
sure that you maintain your own financial stability. I'm not
saying that you have to keep it separate. Okay, you
can do it together, but know what's going on, you know,
don't be in the dark and put it all on
one person. That's another thing that I see all the
(45:13):
time is there's one person in the relationship that's handling
all money and the other person is like hands off
or I don't want to know about it. That's the
worst thing that you can do because then when it
comes time to call the piper, you're behind on the
learning curve. I mean, I speak on panels all the time,
and it was before always women's panels talking about why
(45:34):
women abdicate responsibility about money. But now I'm definitely finding
it's equaling out. And the point is, Hey, it's great,
gals that you're taking the power and you're making the
money and all that, but all people need to be
responsible for what's going on in their financial world. Yeah,
it's important to have agreement. Yes, that's the thing that's
at the end of the day. It's important in any relationship,
(45:55):
in any business to have agreement. And I'll tell you
this from where I it. It keeps relationships together. It's
only one person is worrying about the money and the
other person's outspending. That creates a problem. Was going to
be resentment there either one person's withholding money, one person
spending too much. If you're both in this together, you're
in a much better situation and you will probably be
(46:18):
able to work through any financial or otherwise problems that
you have. Now you will be able to work through
because you have that communication. You have an agreement set
in place. Yes, say, this is just very positive about
working through stuff. So what's the number one thing the
other side? Number one? Right, we totally are on this.
For some reason, she keeps is instructor that we're paying
(46:40):
to page our kids Tennis. Um, what would you say,
Angela is the one takeaway from today is from your perspective,
what's the one thing our listeners should take away? The
one thing that our listeners should take away is to
monitor their credit. Yes, to pull a copy of your
credit history, know what's going on. I'm like having a
hot flash right now, because I have no and I'm like,
(47:02):
how do I figure? How soon can I break away? Seriously,
it's one of the most important things because I get
calls on a daily basis with people that have been
a victim of identity theft, and it's because we're not
taking the responsibility. No one can protect you against identity theft.
There are apps and and companies out there that can
flash a light on it and say, hey, pay attention,
(47:23):
this is what's going on. But the only person that
knows about one's credit history is you. You know the
credit cards you've taken out, you know the lines of
credit you have, you know the mortgages, etcetera, etcetera. So
the one takeaway that I would say is, wake up, America.
You must monitor your credits so that you know what's
going on. You know what your PHYCO score is. And
(47:44):
for you that are going through divorce, it's important to
pull out that credit history so that you see what
you're responsible for. And for those that are married, now
do it now. Whether you're getting divorced or not. You're
not jinxing it. Just check it out. Acknowledge is our
one takeaway. I would say, I actually had a client
(48:04):
that I asked, what is your mortgage? And she said
to me, what is the mortgage? What is mortgage? I
love that, so I would just love to be that person.
How do you live? By the way back into my
Disney movie, there's little birds flying around. I have no mortgage.
I just walk outside and sing in the morning with
the Okay, we carved out the last few minutes so
(48:27):
I can swear you both in for the divorce sex interrogatories.
Are you ready? Do you swear to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Okay? So um, Nicole, first,
what is your relationship status? I am happily married and
I just celebrated my seventh anniversary in my world. That's good,
I know, and I have a feeling we're going to
have more though. Over here, Angela, how long have you
(48:49):
been married. I've been married for twenty four years. Damn girl,
that's how many three kids? I have three kids. We've
got together for thirty years, and he is my partner
also in business, so we eat, sleep, and drink each other. Gross. Okay, alright, Angela,
what's your favorite breakup song? Oh? See, she's been married
(49:10):
to where she doesn't even have a favor breakup. Oh
my gosh, I don't even know. Gosh we got you
could have borrowed one and many that I had to
narrow it down, all right, So Katie Perry's wore Yes,
No Power, Mint Casey musk Graves High Horse. Okay, And
(49:39):
what's love got to do with Tina turned very Queen
of Breakups? Angela? How about just a man at the
husband for the weekend song? Oh that would have to
be ice cube? Like you know, I'm in my car
and I'm like wrapping, you know, like we won't say
(50:04):
the words I'm using because yeah, even though I've been
married all those years, doesn't mean we don't have problems.
But we just we just a little because you get
right through it. Okay. So Angela, what would you say
to cheer up a friend going through a breakup? Check
your credit score? What would I say to a friend
(50:24):
that's going through a breakup? And let me tell you I? Um,
oh absolutely yeah. I've I've done a lot of life
coaching in my life. So life coaching in my life. Um.
But the thing that I tell people that are going
through a breakup is, you know, try to look at
what your life is going to be like without this person,
And don't go into that deep dark place. You know,
(50:45):
You've really got to empower yourself. Look yourself in the mirror,
tell yourself you're going to be okay. And it's hard
for I think a lot of women at least to
see themselves without their partner, you know. And I think
that's why it's important that when you are married or
in any relationship, that you take inventory to work on yourself.
(51:06):
And so now this is just an opportunity for you
to work on you. So maintain your financial identity, your
credit identity, and your true self identity. Absolutely. Yeah, Like
the rest will fall in place once you have this
under control. Mind, by the way, because you can't head
what would you say? So I'd say the same thing
I said to my clients in my own practice. Don't
(51:27):
disparage your ex, especially if you have children. Um makes
you look bad, is you know? Not just them? Um?
And confidence is key, So hold your head up high,
be the bigger person and move on with your life.
That's right, Okay? And on that note, which rom com
could you watch on repeat again? I had a bunch
of them, but my favorite in Tolerable cruelty. I just
(51:51):
watched that the other night. I thought it was so funny.
The guy that's down in his office hooked up to
all the two and it's the thing. The numbers, George
heat George, their own credit, you know, exactly amazing. Okay,
what about you? Well, are you talking about movies? Because
my favorite movie is The Notebook? Yes, that is a
good rom com. So Learn the Rain. Oh my gosh, yeah, okay, alright,
(52:16):
good okay. Nicole, thank you for flying all the way
from New York City to join us today. Service your company,
New Chapter Capital provides less moneyed spouses makes such a
profound difference in their dissolutions, and I'm so happy our
listeners know about you. I would love you to join
us on the It's Over Easy Index. And Angela, thank
(52:40):
you for joining us and for your company, Conquer Credit
Management being a part of our index already, where listeners
can find you to help them build or rebuild their
credit scores during and after a breakup or divorce. We
salute you both. Tell our listeners where they can find
more information about your company's Nicole ww dot New Chapter
Bittle dot com, or on our Twitter at Nicole nowon
(53:04):
in five and Nicole is n I C O L
E N O O N A N five in our
Instagram at divorce Funding. That's It Awesome. Angela Conquered Credit
dot Com is our website. Um I also do a
weekly podcast which is called Your Credit Today, which is
on iTunes. Tune in and learn more about what you
(53:26):
can do to maintain a high FICO score. It is
precisely and indisputably inevitable that the more relationships there are,
the more relationship dissolutions there will be. I'm Laura Wasser,
the host of Divorce Sucks, and together with the community
at It's Over Easy, we're making the legal part of
divorce suck a little bit less. Thanks for listening. Get
(53:53):
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and licensed
Thank you for listening to this podcast one production available
on Apple Podcasts and podcast one. Hi there, I'm Laura Wasser,
and if anyone knows how much divorce sucks, it's me.
I've been practicing family law for over twenty five years,
and I've worked on thousands of divorces from the top
of the food chain all the way down to my
(00:21):
very first case, which was my own divorce when I
was twenty five. It has become my life's mission to
destigmatize divorce and create a community around what is already
a difficult time. We call it the evolution of dissolution.
So welcome to the Divorce Sex Podcast. When we talked
about breaking up, getting divorced, and moving on good morning,
(00:45):
we talked a good morning, Good mornings, Good morning, and
welcome to the Sunny Set Up Report on the Divorce
Sex Podcast. I'm Laura Wasser and I'm Johnny Raines. If
you don't know yet, the Sunny Side Up Report is
where Johnny and I have called the Internet all week
(01:06):
to find good stories that you guys might like that
have to do with relationships, making up, breaking up, getting together,
raising kids, all that fun stuff. So and this week
I'm going to call this entire episode our fairy tale episode. Yes,
and I'll explain why in a moment. But the first one,
here's how sleep divorce can improve your relationship. That's like
(01:29):
a princess and a p type of thing. Johnny, Well,
you I suppose you could have a princess or a
p if you really want either. But the article written
by h TV National Desk, and that's h TV not
h P v um at the hour dot com talks
about the success of marriages and couples relationships when they
(01:49):
don't sleep in the same bit, I see again the
princess and the p Okay and m our next story
is is platonic parenting the relationship of the future. This
one I thought was so interesting. It's UM by Vittoria
Traverso and Jake Robbins the BBC, and it's news about
the growing trend of co parenting with someone with whom
(02:11):
you are not romantically involved. Yes, I have. What do
you think I think? It's yeah, well not personally, but
I support it. As you know, a very good friend
of mine UM has a situation like this where he
has now a second daughter with a woman he's not
romantically involved with. Um and they are co parenting, and
(02:32):
they he has a partner, she has, you know, a partner.
It's it's a very interesting modern way of doing family.
I like it. I mean, basically that's what I'm doing,
except I was at some point romantically involved with both
of the dads. But I will tell you it. You know,
if you can make it work like it works for us,
it really does work. Because these guys are really good friends.
(02:53):
We all have the same common interest, which is our kids.
And because we have different social lives, including our romantic lives,
there's not a lot of conflict in terms of like
I'm going away this weekend or I'm having a special
night with my boyfriend, and so usually they're around not
doing it at the same time. And if we coordinate,
well we're able to really, you know, make make it
(03:15):
work for our kids. And so I like it. I
don't know which fairy tale this one is, but you know,
I didn't have enough. It's a fairy tale. And for
anyone out there interested in checking this article out, it's
on the BBC dot com, but there's also a website
that is devoted to platonic parenting and connecting people who
are interested in preps creating that type of relationship. It's
(03:36):
called mo d Emily dot com. This is what I'll
call our Cinderella story. High class escort Samantha X reveals
the secret to getting your mojo back after divorce. You know,
here at the Divorce Sucks podcast we are very very
interested in next chapters and starting again. And who better
to tell us how to get back into the dating
(03:57):
game than a high class escort? Now what makes a
high class escort? Actually? I wonder maybe you don't stand
on the street corner. I guess. Okay, Well, the article
is nothing says nothing about that. But this one is
written by James Booth from DeMars dot com and it
shares a few tips for making it through post of
(04:18):
warce sexcapades escapade yes, what are they? Well? First of all,
if you're apprehensive about getting naked in front of someone new,
treat yourself to new launderie or new clothes, a wax,
a workout, and a haircut. She also recommends keeping your
heart closed for the first few sex escapades, and then
(04:39):
she recommends you fall in love with yourself. She says,
start loving yourself again before you even think about channeling
your energy and time on someone new. I also have
I like to surprise you, Johnny spring stuff in. There's
two stories from last week's New York Times Sunday Style section.
One of them by Jennifer Miller, is the Best Way
to Find Love not an app. At live events, young
(05:02):
people promote their single friends mayor it's like Carnival Barkers.
So this happened in Williamsburg a couple of weeks ago,
and it was a group of two and fifty men
and women in their twenties and thirties packed into a
Brooklyn bar without air conditioning to match make via power point.
Over two hours, a dozen presenters clicked through slides extrolling
the virtues, idiosyncrasies, and dating criteria of their best friends.
(05:24):
The event, called Date My Friend dot PPT, was sort
of like Tender meets the Office. Some power points were
heavy on startup jargon, with valuation graphs of suitors earning
potential or references to m and A deals a k a. Marriage.
Others had more of a class project by clip art
and embarrassing duck face selfies. I love this and I
think it is a good departure from just pure device
(05:47):
dating as but also you don't have to kind of
sift through every single blind date and go have a
piece of salmon and a glass of Stardenny or whatever.
So I like that. And then also this one by
Elis you know, I love that name. Elik Strauss tackling
wedding projects like a professional. Some couples are taking workshops
(06:08):
to help personalize their celebrations. So this is couples that
like do things to kind of get ready for their wedding.
Make your own wedding band, New York Flower Market tours
so you can pick your actual flowers at the flower market.
There's a flower crown class. I know. I've been to
weddings Embarmoss where there's a booth and they make you
a crown that so this teaches you how to do it.
(06:29):
I don't know that the bride and groom would want
to be sitting there doing that at their wedding. But
there's a cake decorating workshop, wedding val writing, and a
dance class, which I did before we got married. We
took a dance class to do our first dance to
Frank Sinatra's fly Me to the Moon, and look how
well that worked out. Fourteen months later, Bam done, Thank you,
al bow, but anyway, fabulously, thank you, thank you very much.
(06:51):
Moving on, speaking of Shang, this is a story we've
been following of Wendy Williams who had gotten divorced earlier
this year. Will apparently least she drops bombshell divorce admission
on the View. Oh yes, this is written by Lucille
Barilla in The Inquisitor. And you know how reliable they are.
What was the divorce? What was the bombshell? She's getting divorced. Yes,
(07:12):
she's getting divorced. That's not the bombshell. The bombshell is
that she you know, so the guy she divorced got
another woman pregnant as a baby um and she's another
bombshell that comes after that. Well, she says that she
doesn't want to change pamper. She wants to be pampered.
Big news on the View. And finally Brad Pitt opens
(07:34):
up about getting sober after Angelina Jolie divorce. This is
written by Erica Gonzalez from Harper's Bizarre. He talks about
his experience in rehab and doing group therapy and he
feels like a brand new man. Good good luck Brad Pitt.
Next up, It is the Divorce Sucks version of a
Disney movie when we are joined by the fairy Godmother
(07:57):
of Divorce and the Credit Queen. Stay tuned. If you're
contemplating the end of your marriage, you're probably asking yourself
when is the right time to do so? Notice I
say the right time, not a good time. There's really
no good time to get divorced. But there are some
relatively better moments than others. I mean, with the exception
(08:20):
of totally unacceptable behavior like he or she's beating the
ship out of you. You really should pick your moment.
Finding that moment will depend on a few factors, including
can you afford to dissolve your marriage. Divorce and personal
finances are inextricably intertwined. What each of you have, what
you owe, what you both earn, and what each of
(08:40):
you spend during your marriage is all disclosed in the process.
And if you're in a marriage where there is a
financial disparity between you and you're soon to be x,
the non earning or less moneyed spouse can find themselves
at a distinct disadvantage in the divorce process. But you
have options, which is what we're going to focus on today.
My first is the secret weapon of the Less Money Spouse.
(09:03):
She's a former matrimonial attorney and the founder and CEO
of New Chapter Capital, Inc. Which provides funding for legal
fees and living expenses during a dissolution. She's also a
nationally recognized divorce expert who has been featured on Good
Morning America, Forbes, and in The New York Times Welcome
to Divorce Sucks. Nicole Noonan, a squire of New Chapter Capital,
(09:24):
Thank you very much. I'm so excited to be here.
And it's gross in New York and beautiful here, so
we're glad that you came. Tell I mean, this is
like so many of our listeners listen to the podcast,
they go on it's over easy dot com. They read
the content. They know that it doesn't make sense to
hire a firm like Wasser Cooperman and Mandal's where I work,
because we're just prohibitively expensive and they frankly don't need it.
(09:45):
But some of them can't even get the funds together
to get started. That's where you come and tell us, Nicole,
what you do and what made you get your start,
because this is absolutely going to be fascinating for some
of our listeners. Thank you. Yes. So I used to
practice that tremonial law, as you said, um, And one
of the things that I saw in my own practice
(10:06):
is women and men coming into my office where they
had a great lifestyle until it came time for divorce,
and all of a sudden, the credit cards are taken
out from from them. Uh, they don't have friends or
family to go to. So how do they get the
funds to pay their legal fees, to pay their expert costs,
and even to live. For some clients, they need the
(10:29):
reasonable living expenses. So what we do is we provide
an alternative source of funding for clients going through those
divorces where we make an assessment of the total Marritorle
asset pool, and we fund based on that assessment a
percentage of what they're likely entitlement would be. That's so amazing.
(10:49):
So I mean, and again, people call my office all
the time and I said, you can't afford us, or
they say, I know I would be able to afford you,
but my husband or wife, whoever the breadwinn or whoever
the control break is, has turned off my credit cards
won't give me access. I can't even write you a
ten dollar check for your retainer. So you come in
and say, and I'm usually like, let me send you elsewhere.
(11:10):
I don't have time to deal with how to raise
your money to get divorced. But that's what you guys do,
and you and you assess it and that helps them
in the process, and then you loan them the money.
So we make an advance for them. Okay, so you
come into your office. Yes, the law firm shouldn't be
the bank, right, they have their thing to the law firm.
Shouldn't be the bank. Let the lawyers do what the
(11:34):
lawyers do best. Let them represent you. Let them not
have to worry about how you're going to pay for them. Certainly,
when you have one client that is paying you and
one client that isn't paying you or is behind in
there have high accounts receivable, you're not as incentivid exactly exactly.
So that's what we do. We have so many networking
(11:56):
events and bar events where we talk to other lawyers,
and we constantly said, like, we don't want to be
chasing the money. We don't want that to be our job.
We want somebody to come to us with the means
that they have, and so often that's not available even
though we know it's there. And again in California it's
community property state, so you know you're going to get
of whatever was you know, earned or created during the marriage.
(12:18):
But if you can't get access to it, it's so frustrating.
And yes, guys, I know, I tell you. Every week
judges frown on people who turn off the credit cards
or people who take all the money or take you
off accounts or freeze you up. That's not looked upon well.
But by the time you get to a judge, like,
how does that even happen? And it shouldn't. But that's
that's so helpful to know that you guys are available.
(12:39):
So we've heard that you're you've been crowned the fairy
Godmother of divorce by New York Post Julia Marsh And
you're an advocate for protection of women and men. But
people that don't have a level playing field, so to speak,
because that does that sum it up, right, We want
to level illegal playing field. We want them to have
the ability to have the equal representation that the money
(12:59):
it's Bess has And I love this because you actually
practiced family law, matrimonial law, so you saw the need
for this. Yes, right. Every day I would see a
client coming into my office. They would have this wonderful
lifestyle and until it came time for divorce, and it's
the most horrible time for a lot of people. And
it only adds to it not being able to have
(13:20):
the right representation, the right team behind them. And are
there certain law firms in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut
that you work with or does it not matter? So
it does matter. I mean one of the things that
we look in an underwriting process is to look at
the firms, uh and both sides who the representation is.
We don't take any proceeds or self representing clients. I
(13:42):
need this money so that I can go to a
spot and lack myself from my court appearance tomorrow, but
myself Okay. So there's certain firms with whom you like
to work and you know that their fees are generally
gonna be reasonable and necessary. And then what about forensic
accounting like it it doesn't just pay for the legal
it pays for anything that this litigant could need going
through the correct for their expert fee. So a lot
(14:02):
of clients, especially if it's a more complex case, we'll
need a forensic accountant. There's also times when we'll pay
for private investigation if that needs to be done. But
for the most part, um the forensic accountants or or something.
And and the clients also come through the forensic accountants
because they too want to be paid. They don't want
to work for free. Sure, if you have your house painted,
(14:23):
you're gonna pay your house painter right away. And how
do people usually find you, guys, So through word of mouth,
through we've had some media recognition, your times, Good Morning America.
Divorce sucks, it's um and you know through a lot
of their attorneys through their experts. The attorneys love it too,
(14:44):
because you know they're getting paid. But also, as you said,
if you go to a judge and you're making that
application for interm support, it costs money. There's no guarantee
that a judge is going to give you what you want.
If you get and you know the state of New York,
you gett of what you're asking for. Your luck, right.
I love this. In fact, I think that if I
were representing somebody that was kind of being a pig
(15:06):
and I heard that you and your company were involved,
I'd be like, oh, ship, we've better get real here,
We're not gonna be able to bully this litigan anymore
because now we've got they've got some money behind that said,
they have a war chest behind them, so they give
him the confidence to go in and sometimes it brings
them to that negotiation table. Right. So okay, telling back
up a little bit. You clerked with how do I
pronounce fasciality facial mentor just a wonderful judge who got
(15:33):
moved into family law and kicking and screaming and screaming
from criminal we thought we were going to practice criminal law.
You were already with him. I was interning with him
and was asked to be or received the honor of
being a clerk in criminal law and then got moved
to family law. I loved it, and he did not.
But judge for Sally is now sitting in a pellet
(15:55):
in New Jersey, Okay, And he swore you in he did.
And who held the Bible? My grandmother Alice pine Um.
She is another mentor for me, a very very strong
woman as well as my mother Um Alice and Noonan
who was a very very strong woman. And she was
the first in her family to go to college. Wow. Wow,
Alice or Allison. Alice was my grandmother and is my grandma,
(16:18):
and Alison it was my mom and she's the first
that went to college. Okay, Okay, So that's when one
of your proudest moments. And how long did you practice
before you decided to start new chapters? So, uh, two
thousand and six to about two thousand and eleven, so
five years and got it. Yeah, it was during you know,
(16:39):
the housing crisis. Are our clients. We would serve the
husband and he'd be living upstairs, the wife was living downstairs.
All their assets were tied up in one property and
they couldn't get divorced. But they needed funding, right all right?
So I want to I want to talk a little
bit because sometimes people say divorce funding or divorce planning
is like that's like a dirty word in our field,
(17:00):
you know, but divorce funding is often necessary. I want
our listeners to understand how they could go about, you know,
coming to a company like yours. Do you guys rely
on credit scores? I mean I know a lot. If
you want to get alan, most people are like looking
at your credit scores, and most people, particularly people that
have not been the moneyed spouses may not have a
good credit score, any credit score, because their spouse was
(17:20):
always the one that was developing the credit. So how
do you guys figure it out? So that's why we're different.
We get it. Divorce funding is based on what you're
likely entitlement is going to be, not necessarily your credit score,
while it is something that we look at to make
sure there's no red flags that you've been avoiding paying
creditors for years and years and years, if you haven't
(17:42):
built up any credit of your own because you were
the secondary um card holder during your marriage, we get it. Unfortunately,
for a lot of clients that try to take out
a home equity loan during a divorce, one side, certainly
the money spells is not going to sign, so you
can go out and hire or a while sort to
(18:03):
represent them, or if both sides would sign. A lot
of banks are not going to give you a loan
during the pendency of a divorce sure, And I mean
in most states, once you've filed for divorce, you've got
automatic temporary restraining order, so you really can't take that
money out. Wow. Okay, so now what about confidentiality? How
do you how do you apply for your services without
(18:25):
necessarily letting the other side know. So the way we
work UM, the attorney files an application with us on
the client's behalf and it's not public, just goes to
you confidentially within our within our in house UM operation.
Nothing that is going to be presented to us wouldn't
be discoverable otherwise. So whether it's a NETWORKT statement, a
(18:49):
real estate appraisal, a mortgage statement, it's things both sides
shouldn't know about anybody. Remember I tell you that guys
all the time. I mean, some people come to me
and they have no idea what they have or what
they spend. You're going to find out he or she's
not going to keep it from me any longer once
you're getting divorce. So this stuff will all at some point,
not necessarily would be made public, but certainly be made
(19:09):
discoverable by your spouse and his or her attorneys. Okay,
so that doesn't really compromise any confidentiality there. What what
do you take? What does NCC take as your chair
It's just a percentage and is that a sliding scale?
So no, it's the same for every client. What we
do is we fund UM. We work with the attorney
to provide or find out what the amount the maximum
(19:33):
amount they're going to need to get from point A
to point B to settlement. They may not need that
for the first six months, so they'll take out just
what they need for that first six months. So whatever
is the money and action, the money that's been funded
out is the money that we charge a fee on
and that is all rolled into the fee that's taken out,
so nothing has to be paid until settlement. Got it.
(19:56):
Do you think or have you been able to observe
if you have judicial officers taking into consideration the fact
that a you vetted this client and you found that
they or their estate was worth taking on, and be
the fact that now not only the attorneys are into this,
but now you guys are judges. Look at that. I
mean I would if I were a judge and go, oh, this,
(20:18):
this person needs to get paid because they've got their attorneys,
they've got NCC, they're really really looking at this. We
we got to help them this woman or man out right.
So if you take a loan, a gift from your parents,
from a friend, it's seen that as a gift. If
you take out funding with new Chapter capital, it's seen
(20:38):
as something you're gonna have to pay back. It's it's
not a gift. So judges certainly take that into consideration
as well as attorneys and judges taken to consideration. If
we're approving this client, we vetted it, We went through
our underwriting, which is we've been doing it for many,
many years, and our underwriters are the best in the business.
They know what they're looking at and if we're funding them,
(20:59):
there is something there. I love this so often I
say to clients, like, don't ever say fair. This is
not going to be fair. It seems like you make
it a little bit more fair. I like that, you know,
we level that playing field. Tell tell our listeners what
they can do now to prepare to fund their case.
If they're sitting there listening and they're going, this sounds
like something I'd really like to do. What would you
(21:21):
say to them, knowing that this is a little bit
in advance, what would you tell them? Knowledge is power,
So like a girl scout or boy scout, always be prepared,
so you've touched upon it earlier. Absolutely, know what your
tax returns are, nor your mortgage statements, know what you owe,
what your assets and liabilities. The more you know, the
more power you will have during that divorce. Financial freedom
(21:44):
includes your credit, not just good credit, but the existence
of a credit history, which less moneyed spouses may not
have thought about during their marriage. My next guest is
the expert on credit, so stay tuned. M get to
Old Maybe Saturday for off all sweatshirts, frost free, puffer
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(22:07):
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(22:27):
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(22:48):
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(23:12):
listening to Divorce Sucks. I'm your host, Laura Wasser, and
today's show is about financing your divorce. And when we
think of financing, we must also consider the parameters most
lenders used to make the determination to lend. Unlike divorce
financing that my first guest, Nicole Newton's company, New Chapter Financial,
might provide to an aspiring divorce a traditional lenders have
(23:32):
different criteria and to explain the basics and some of
the finer points of how your credit impacts traditional financial
institutions decisions to lend or to approve new credit card
in your own name post divorce, allow me to introduce
you to my next guest, A k a. The Credit Queen.
She's the founder and CEO of Conquer Credit Management, Inc.
(23:53):
Which assists individuals and businesses in improving their credit and
FICO scores. We'll find out what those are, helps some
re established credit, and coaching clients to understand that their
credit is an investment and a tool to rebuild wealth.
She is the founder and CEO of Conquer Credit Management, Inc.
Which assists individuals and businesses in improving their credit and
(24:13):
FICO scores, re establishing credit, and coaching clients to understand
that their credit is an investment tool to rebuild wealth.
She also is the host of Your Credit Today podcast
on Apple Welcome to Divorce Sucks, Angela said, ers Bizarred,
thank you, thank you so much for having me. It's
truly a pleasure. Oh God, I'm so psyched that you're here.
And I'm so actually, like, you know, I can pretend
(24:35):
like I know all this stuff, but like talking to
in a call and particularly talking to you. I was
just explaining to somebody this morning my stepdaughter is visiting
and she's in her twenties, and I'm like, you need
a credit card, you need to start establishing credit. Don't
do it somebody else's. I have so many people that
come to me. Generally they are women and they and
they you know, they are the wealthiest, most sophisticated. They
go to the Paris fashion shows. They have you know,
(24:58):
cars and p personal shoppers and could get a restaurant
reservation anywhere. But they've never had their own credit card.
They just have a card issued in their spouses name
and one in their name and if it gets paid
through his office or business manager. Tell our listeners why
that's not a good idea? Well, I love that you're
actually bringing this up, because I think the best gift
that we can give our children is financial literacy. And
(25:21):
I think it's the biggest thing right now that's not
out there. And the reason for that is technology. Technology
is wonderful. I mean, it saves so much time. But
at the end of the day, I tell this funny
story about apps. So how easy it is to have
a coffee app? Right? And so one day my bookkeeper
comes into me and says, excuse me, who is spending
(25:44):
two hundred and fifty dollars on coffee? Jesus? And I
had to raise my hand. That was me. And it
was so easy because what happens is is that you
click a button on your phone and you buy your coffee.
But they don't tell you what your balance is, and
they don't tell you how much you spent. So this generation,
millennials generation acts they have no concept of what credit
(26:07):
really means and that it's a leverage tool. What's the
first thing you see when you walk into a college campus.
You see a lot of banks and financial institutions touting
credit cards. Well, when I'm eighteen years old and someone says, hey,
guess what, we're going to trust you. We want you
to have ten thousand dollars worth of credit, hallelujah, ten
(26:29):
thousand dollars drinks are on me, I'm not thinking about
the compound interest that's going to come with that credit card.
So I think it's wonderful that you are talking to
You said your niece, she's my stepdaughter, your stepdaughter. I
think it's wonderful that you're actually having this conversation because
I talked to so many people on a daily basis,
(26:49):
even adults that have no concept of what really credit
can do. We live in the US, and again I'm
going to go back and say, they have this policy
where they say, you know what, we're going to trust you.
You have really good credit. You want to buy that
million dollar house. We know you don't have a million
dollars in the bank. But you have really good credit,
and you can prove that you've worked with a job
(27:11):
for the last three years, go ahead and buy that house,
no problem. But what people don't realize is that what
comes after that is responsibility, and a lot of people
don't understand. Like you said in the beginning, what I
always say is that your credit is an investment tool
to build wealth. And you truly can build wealth, specifically
(27:33):
in real estate when you have a really good credit.
So explain it to me, like or to my listeners,
like or fourth graders. What is credit? Why is that
so important to have it? And why? I mean, you
gave us the example of why it's important. How do
we get it? How do we start building credit? How
can my twenty one year old step daughter begin to
be building her credit? I think it's a great question,
(27:55):
um the way that young adults can build their credit.
I would always tell parents that it's really important to
start your children when they're sixteen. Walk them into the bank.
This is what I did with my boy, and why sixteen,
just because because this is the starting of learning, this
is the starting of responsibility. Okay, you're in high school.
Things are different. You're preparing for college, you're living for
(28:18):
a car, right right? We hope right? You know. I
mean unfortunately, the same problem as the coffee right right.
And that's such another subject because I've talked to so
many young adults that don't want to have cars because
they'd rather take uber and lift and that's a whole
another story. But how you that's the transportation exactly. But
(28:40):
what I would say is to give young adults understanding
of how they can build their credit and why it's
so important because when you go out on your own,
you want to buy your car on your own. You
want to build up your credit because when you get
out of college, you want to be able to sustain
on yourself. You want to be able to buy the
essentials of life. So when you are sixteen, what I
(29:04):
say to parents is, walk your child into the bank.
Let's open up a bank account. Let's get them a
custodial credit card. Custodial. Why do I say that, Because
the parents know the transactions that are happening on a
daily or a monthly basis. They can sit down with
them and they can train them. Oops, you made a
mistake here? Hello? Yes? Hell are yes? So you can
(29:30):
actually train them at a young age, because what happens
traditionally right now is that people don't learn until they
start making mistakes. So I would say sixteen. But let's
just talk about your stepdaughter, who you said is twenty.
She's well, she's nineteen. She's about to be. Okay, she's nineteen.
So the best thing to do if you want to
start her off with a bang, and you want to
(29:50):
start things off really fast, is you can actually add
her as an authorized user to one of your credit cards. Now,
start listening. This is so not happening, but well, hang on,
hang on, let me let me just tell you why
it's a good idea and why you have nothing to fear. Okay,
because it built up my credit to have her buying
things doesn't do anything to your You're responsible for your
(30:13):
own credit, your credit card, it's your credit card. But
what's happening is is that she's piggybacking on your history.
So if you've had a credit card for twenty years
and you've done really well with that credit card, and
you've had good utilization, you've got good payment history. Now
that's going to report to her credit history as though
she's had that same history. And how many people can piggyback?
(30:36):
Is it like WiFi or there's only at a hotel,
there's only so many people. Can I add her and
my son when he gets old enough. Because I know
people that wanted specifically speaking about divorces. I have so
many people that come to me. I think that their
wives generally that have done that piggybacking thing. But do
they have their own credit or if it's why, why
don't these people have any of their own credit when
(30:57):
they come to me and they've been married twenty years
on the same card as their spouse. Yeah, that's a
that's a tough one. That's a tough one. But I
want to stay on the the credit card so that,
you know, for your step daughters, so she never has
to have the credit card, she never has to use
the credit card. It's literally what's called an authorized user.
(31:18):
So she came event you wanted to authorize her to
use that credit card. Let's say she's going to Europe
and you say, you know what, the next month, I
want you to have access to this credit card. So
I'm going to authorize you for the next thirty days
to use the credit card. Here it is, but you
have the credit card in your possession, so it's never
that she gets to use it at her leisure. She
(31:38):
uses it when you want her to use it. But
the cool thing is is that that particular credit card
is building her credit. So now she has that as
a foundation starting point, and then she can get a
secured credit card. Now, what is a secured credit card?
Secured credit card is where you're going to a bank
and you're putting on deposit, let's say to to a
(31:58):
thousand dollars, and then they're giving you credit on your
own money. Got it? So there's not a big risk
for them. Correct? And is there then what's like a
pr financing? Like do we have to then pay interest
on our own money? We'll still do okay, it's it's
a regular credit card. It's just less risk for the bank.
But it's all good for the client because it's helping
(32:21):
to build their credit. And if students UM and I
call students, whether you're young or old, whether you're you know,
starting over or just starting, it's important that you have
that cycle of using credit. Now, after a year of
having that secured card, then we can graduate to a
regular credit card and you can get your money back. Now,
(32:41):
let me ask you a question as a mom, not
so much about my stepdaughter or my kids, what about
the fact that I've got a credit card and I've
got an authorized user in household employees. If I've got
a housekeeper who uses it or a nanny who's are
we building their credit by having their names on the cards?
You are really absolutely that's good to know. And the
cool thing is is that let's just say you want
(33:03):
to automatically take them off. Okay, all you have to
do is call the credit card company and say I
want to take X, Y, and Z off the credit card.
They will no longer be an authorized user and it
will come off of their credit report. What are some
of the biggest credit mistakes pre impost marriage, So the
pre divorce plan of attack. Let's say you are starting
to think about this and you don't want to be
(33:24):
caught necessarily with your pants down, so to speak, give
us your six steps ANGELA to protect your credit profile.
So whenever I'm sitting down with a couple that is
going through a divorce, one of the things that I
say is is a important is to pull a copy
of your credit report. You want to see what's reporting?
Can we get those anywhere? I always see ads? How
(33:44):
can do it right on your phone? Are all of
those companies you know, they're good companies. They'll they'll give
you the accurate credit score accuracy. We're gonna just put
that on the side card. But anywhere you go online
there are hundreds of company needs that will give you
access to your credit reports. The cool thing is is
that you can get a free copy of all three
(34:06):
credit reports once a year by going to Annual Credit
Report dot com. Annual Credit Report dot com. Guys, and
there's three I remember this from when I bought my house.
What are the three different ones? Yes, there's Experience, which
you know for those older folks is formally known as TRWA.
There's TransUnion and then their cb I Equifax. These are
(34:26):
the three main repository companies that have your information and data.
And you want to have a copy of your credit
report because I can't tell you, and I'm sure you've
heard this before, how many times I'm sitting across the
table from someone and the spouse who is the housewife,
has never ever known the lines of credit that are
(34:47):
out there, anything that's reporting on their credit report? What
they are responsible for and so. And if you are
married to somebody and you are on his or her cards,
then you are going to be piggybacking, whether you like
it or not on some of the is credit reports. Well,
it would depend because there's two ways to be on
a credit card. You're either an authorized user where you
(35:07):
have no fiduciary responsibility, okay, or you are a joint
card holder. God. Now that's the first thing when I'm
sitting down with people pre marital conversations, is that what
you need to understand is that you have and maintain
your own separate credit identity and let's keep it that way.
(35:28):
And the reason for that is is in the event
something happens. You know, we're not going to talk about
divorce before you get married, right at the same time,
what if someone gets sick, what if something happens, You
want to make sure that you have the other one
to fall back on. And in this particular case, when
someone's going through divorce, if you did that from the beginning,
you wouldn't be worrying about some of these problems going
(35:49):
into the divorce. All right, So talk to us about
paying off the debt and that kind of stuff, So
paying off debt in the event that you're stuck holding
the bag. Number one, that's why it's important to pull
your credit report. So why we were talking about pulling
your credit report is having an understanding of what kind
of debt is out there and what you need to
plan for. Got it? Okay? So the number two is
(36:11):
separate your joint accounts. And why again we just talked
about the two different types of accounts that you can have.
You can have an authorized user credit card, which in
the event if you are an authorized user and that's
the only type of credit cards that you have, guess what,
you have no fiduciary responsibility to those credit cards, so
(36:31):
said spouse will be responsible for making those payments. But
if you are a joint card holder, then you have
just as much responsibility as they do. And if you
let things go into collections, you let them go to
charge off and eventually, if these banks or financial institutions
want to file a judgment against you, you will be
on the hook and be responsible for paying that. Got it.
(36:54):
So we said here during your divorce separation uh plan,
you can talk to your creditors about separating your credit cards.
That's a really good one and I love they will
let you do that. If I have a master card,
they will be cool and say, yes, you can separate this,
so listen. So if you've had a credit card, you've
been married for twenty years, and you've had a joint
credit card together, you just give your bank a call
(37:16):
and say, listen, I'm in the middle of a divorce.
I want to keep and maintain my relationship with your bank.
Can you give me my own credit card? You and
your soon to be ex spouse can figure out. You know,
I'm responsible for this much, you're responsible for this and miles.
You can figure all that out, guys, But make that
call absolutely. Yeah, yeah, you definitely want to ascertain what's
(37:39):
owed and what credit cards and what lines of credit
are out there before things get nasty. And then number three,
make sure any authorized user accounts are removed and updated. Again,
that's super important. Can't tell you how many times I
have conversations someone's been uh divorced for over ten years
(37:59):
and the other spouse never refinanced the house. Now they've
got late payments on the mortgage, and my poor sweetie
is crying because she's trying to buy a house and
there's nothing you can do right because you didn't take
care of that ten years ago, or his girlfriend is
now using the card that you're the it's you just
get it straight. I've I've got a lot of clients
(38:20):
who for whatever reason, had a lot of users on
their account, especially entertainment industry people. You've got all the
staff members, the assistant, the p A, all these things,
and now all of a sudden you're getting divorce and
his staff is still on your card. Separate them. This
is an important thing to look at, figure out, get
all of the answers that you need, and then start
attacking the questions. Yeah, it's super, super important. I can't
(38:44):
tell you how important that is. And again going back
to the pulling the credit report to find out where
they are. And number four, how will joint property affect
one's credit history for future buying power? Again, I just
made that for instance that my friend or my client
who ten years later is still on the home, so
it will affect it. Absolutely care of it. But here's
(39:05):
the thing. In the middle of the divorce or is
a part of the agreement that you have, what you
have to agree is okay, who's going to keep the
house whoever is keeping the house, you need to refinance
it out of said spouse's name and take them off title,
and now they own the home on their own. Now,
I've seen a lot of banks say that they don't
want to do that because they don't want to let
(39:26):
the deep pockets off the hook. What do you do
about that, Angela, Well, I don't know if it's the
deep pockets. I think a lot of it sometimes is
the fact that the other spouse has not built up
their credit history because they've never had a need to.
They've always depended on the other spouse because they were
the income driver. So again, ladies out there, listen to this.
(39:47):
It's very important to have your own credit identity. Okay,
super important. Okay, so number five removing my ex from
my credit profile completely. So when you look at your
credit history, there's many different factors that come up. You've
got addresses, A, K, A. S. And then of course
(40:07):
who you've been associated to. So anybody's credit card that
you've been an authorized user on or joint a joint
card holder, their name is going to show up on
your credit report. Now, buying the fact that you've actually
looked at a copy of your credit report and done
the homework that you need to do to take yourself
off of those credit cards. There's no need for that
expouse to be on your credit report any longer, and
(40:30):
you can get him or her off absolutely. Who do
you have to call to do that? You have to
contact all three agencies. So it's really important to also
maintain your personal data on all three credit agencies to
make sure that things are updated. Specifically, Again, if you're
going through divorce and now you haven't had to work
all of these years, now you have to go into
the professional industry, you know you need to have a
(40:51):
good credit report because if you plan to go in
the financial world, they're going to pull your credit history
and you need to make sure that everything is up
to date and on target. So what if we're in
a really volatile divorce, how do we protect our credit
and personal information from him or her doing that to us?
From her about to be x. So there's this wonderful
thing that's called freezing my credit report. So awesome, So
(41:14):
you can cut the outside world off from pulling your
credit history, seeing a copy of your history, doing anything
to it until you give someone authorization to do so. Wow,
how do you do that. Three companies that get do
it right online. You can freeze your credit. Now. The
pain in the ass, so to speak about that is
(41:35):
is that if you don't remember that credit on freeze
and go. You know, I have this whole story. I
actually went to go and buy a car. This was
a couple of years ago, and I walk in and
I'm sitting with the finance manager and he's like, Um,
your license plate, says credit queen. I'm assuming you do
something in credit. Yeah, I do, well you have no credit.
(41:55):
Oh my gosh, I forgot to unlock my credit. And
we just back out to the fact that your license late,
says credit Queen. I love that. So now does your company,
Angela all of this. You've made it really simple, bite
sized pieces, and that's what we're about at the Divorce
Sex podcast. However, if I am going through a divorce
and I am totally overwhelmed and I can't even begin
(42:16):
to remember what the second name of the company was,
I'm supposed to call and all that do. We call
you guys, and you help us out, You get in there,
you fix our credit, you get him off of it,
you maybe pay some of the bills for us. Now okay, okay,
I want you can help us clean that up? Absolutely,
And are you and come up with a plan of action. Yeah.
(42:37):
I think that's where people fail is they never act
and they never make a plan, says the woman whose
credit remained from right, don't they say the sound of
the company cobbler never wear shoes that, But don't forget
when he did pull my credit, it was okay, she
froze it right there. All right. Nicole's going to come
(43:00):
back in and join Angela and me for a little
round table discussion about gender finances and how men and
women think differently about credit and money. Crowned The Fairy
Godmother of Divorce by the New York Post Julia Marsh,
Nicole Noonan, who is an advocate for the protection of
women and men and their rights, is joining Angela's Setter's Bazard,
also known as the Credit Queen and I to discuss
(43:22):
the ways gender impacts financial decisions today. It's like a
Disney movie, The Fairy Godmother of Divorce and the Credit
Queen to both of you guys. With the evolving demographics
that define our new normal, stay at home dad, same
sex marriages, millennials who are more likely to cohabit than
they are to get married. What are some of the
gender specific trends you see as modern couples separate. We've both,
(43:46):
we've spoken today. I think a lot of our clients
are women, and sometimes it's the women that need a
little bit more help with this stuff. But tell us
what it's some of the trends that you've seen. Given
what we all see in terms of families and how
people deal with their money, I've seen a trend towards
more men actually coming to us, more of the stay
at home dad's uh that I get the calls from
(44:09):
where they are the ones that you know took a
leave of absence from their careers to raise the family,
and they're the ones that need the funding. They help
support their wives, which applause, But the wives cut them
off from their credit cards just like then. So you
can be a dick as long as you're making exactly
(44:29):
what gender you are. It doesn't matter if you have
a dick. Atha, what about you? What have you seen?
I'm sorry that was hilarious. Again, going back to making
sure that you have your own identity. I think that
what happens is in marriage, in relationship, no matter what
you're doing is when you're coming together, you're trying to
(44:52):
make an identity together, and doing that with credit is
such a mistake. So what I always tout is make
sure that you maintain your own financial stability. I'm not
saying that you have to keep it separate. Okay, you
can do it together, but know what's going on, you know,
don't be in the dark and put it all on
one person. That's another thing that I see all the
(45:13):
time is there's one person in the relationship that's handling
all money and the other person is like hands off
or I don't want to know about it. That's the
worst thing that you can do because then when it
comes time to call the piper, you're behind on the
learning curve. I mean, I speak on panels all the time,
and it was before always women's panels talking about why
(45:34):
women abdicate responsibility about money. But now I'm definitely finding
it's equaling out. And the point is, Hey, it's great,
gals that you're taking the power and you're making the
money and all that, but all people need to be
responsible for what's going on in their financial world. Yeah,
it's important to have agreement. Yes, that's the thing that's
at the end of the day. It's important in any relationship,
(45:55):
in any business to have agreement. And I'll tell you
this from where I it. It keeps relationships together. It's
only one person is worrying about the money and the
other person's outspending. That creates a problem. Was going to
be resentment there either one person's withholding money, one person
spending too much. If you're both in this together, you're
in a much better situation and you will probably be
(46:18):
able to work through any financial or otherwise problems that
you have. Now you will be able to work through
because you have that communication. You have an agreement set
in place. Yes, say, this is just very positive about
working through stuff. So what's the number one thing the
other side? Number one? Right, we totally are on this.
For some reason, she keeps is instructor that we're paying
(46:40):
to page our kids Tennis. Um, what would you say,
Angela is the one takeaway from today is from your perspective,
what's the one thing our listeners should take away? The
one thing that our listeners should take away is to
monitor their credit. Yes, to pull a copy of your
credit history, know what's going on. I'm like having a
hot flash right now, because I have no and I'm like,
(47:02):
how do I figure? How soon can I break away? Seriously,
it's one of the most important things because I get
calls on a daily basis with people that have been
a victim of identity theft, and it's because we're not
taking the responsibility. No one can protect you against identity theft.
There are apps and and companies out there that can
flash a light on it and say, hey, pay attention,
(47:23):
this is what's going on. But the only person that
knows about one's credit history is you. You know the
credit cards you've taken out, you know the lines of
credit you have, you know the mortgages, etcetera, etcetera. So
the one takeaway that I would say is, wake up, America.
You must monitor your credits so that you know what's
going on. You know what your PHYCO score is. And
(47:44):
for you that are going through divorce, it's important to
pull out that credit history so that you see what
you're responsible for. And for those that are married, now
do it now. Whether you're getting divorced or not. You're
not jinxing it. Just check it out. Acknowledge is our
one takeaway. I would say, I actually had a client
(48:04):
that I asked, what is your mortgage? And she said
to me, what is the mortgage? What is mortgage? I
love that, so I would just love to be that person.
How do you live? By the way back into my
Disney movie, there's little birds flying around. I have no mortgage.
I just walk outside and sing in the morning with
the Okay, we carved out the last few minutes so
(48:27):
I can swear you both in for the divorce sex interrogatories.
Are you ready? Do you swear to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Okay? So um, Nicole, first,
what is your relationship status? I am happily married and
I just celebrated my seventh anniversary in my world. That's good,
I know, and I have a feeling we're going to
have more though. Over here, Angela, how long have you
(48:49):
been married. I've been married for twenty four years. Damn girl,
that's how many three kids? I have three kids. We've
got together for thirty years, and he is my partner
also in business, so we eat, sleep, and drink each other. Gross. Okay, alright, Angela,
what's your favorite breakup song? Oh? See, she's been married
(49:10):
to where she doesn't even have a favor breakup. Oh
my gosh, I don't even know. Gosh we got you
could have borrowed one and many that I had to
narrow it down, all right, So Katie Perry's wore Yes,
No Power, Mint Casey musk Graves High Horse. Okay, And
(49:39):
what's love got to do with Tina turned very Queen
of Breakups? Angela? How about just a man at the
husband for the weekend song? Oh that would have to
be ice cube? Like you know, I'm in my car
and I'm like wrapping, you know, like we won't say
(50:04):
the words I'm using because yeah, even though I've been
married all those years, doesn't mean we don't have problems.
But we just we just a little because you get
right through it. Okay. So Angela, what would you say
to cheer up a friend going through a breakup? Check
your credit score? What would I say to a friend
(50:24):
that's going through a breakup? And let me tell you I? Um,
oh absolutely yeah. I've I've done a lot of life
coaching in my life. So life coaching in my life. Um.
But the thing that I tell people that are going
through a breakup is, you know, try to look at
what your life is going to be like without this person,
And don't go into that deep dark place. You know,
(50:45):
You've really got to empower yourself. Look yourself in the mirror,
tell yourself you're going to be okay. And it's hard
for I think a lot of women at least to
see themselves without their partner, you know. And I think
that's why it's important that when you are married or
in any relationship, that you take inventory to work on yourself.
(51:06):
And so now this is just an opportunity for you
to work on you. So maintain your financial identity, your
credit identity, and your true self identity. Absolutely. Yeah, Like
the rest will fall in place once you have this
under control. Mind, by the way, because you can't head
what would you say? So I'd say the same thing
I said to my clients in my own practice. Don't
(51:27):
disparage your ex, especially if you have children. Um makes
you look bad, is you know? Not just them? Um?
And confidence is key, So hold your head up high,
be the bigger person and move on with your life.
That's right, Okay? And on that note, which rom com
could you watch on repeat again? I had a bunch
of them, but my favorite in Tolerable cruelty. I just
(51:51):
watched that the other night. I thought it was so funny.
The guy that's down in his office hooked up to
all the two and it's the thing. The numbers, George
heat George, their own credit, you know, exactly amazing. Okay,
what about you? Well, are you talking about movies? Because
my favorite movie is The Notebook? Yes, that is a
good rom com. So Learn the Rain. Oh my gosh, yeah, okay, alright,
(52:16):
good okay. Nicole, thank you for flying all the way
from New York City to join us today. Service your company,
New Chapter Capital provides less moneyed spouses makes such a
profound difference in their dissolutions, and I'm so happy our
listeners know about you. I would love you to join
us on the It's Over Easy Index. And Angela, thank
(52:40):
you for joining us and for your company, Conquer Credit
Management being a part of our index already, where listeners
can find you to help them build or rebuild their
credit scores during and after a breakup or divorce. We
salute you both. Tell our listeners where they can find
more information about your company's Nicole ww dot New Chapter
Bittle dot com, or on our Twitter at Nicole nowon
(53:04):
in five and Nicole is n I C O L
E N O O N A N five in our
Instagram at divorce Funding. That's It Awesome. Angela Conquered Credit
dot Com is our website. Um I also do a
weekly podcast which is called Your Credit Today, which is
on iTunes. Tune in and learn more about what you
(53:26):
can do to maintain a high FICO score. It is
precisely and indisputably inevitable that the more relationships there are,
the more relationship dissolutions there will be. I'm Laura Wasser,
the host of Divorce Sucks, and together with the community
at It's Over Easy, we're making the legal part of
divorce suck a little bit less. Thanks for listening. Get
(53:53):
Old Maybe Saturday fort off all SWAT shirts, frost free,
pupper vest for fifteen bucks for adults, twelve bucks for
kids and leggings just eight bucks for women, five bucks
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