September 1, 2020 • 46 mins
Money does not determine whether or not you can get divorced. That decision is up to the individual and it doesn’t matter how many zeros you have in your bank account. In this episode of All’s Fair with Laura Wasser, we’re joined by two financial professionals who are dedicated to helping the less monied spouse navigate their way through the divorce process. The Fairy Godmother of Divorce, Nicole Noonan shares how her company New Chapter Capital, Inc. provides funding to untie the knot, and Private Wealth Manager Emily Green from Ellevest discusses socially relevant investment options that fit any size budget. Laura also explains some of the ways that people with limited finances can take complete control over their divorce without hiring an attorney @itsovereasy
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi there. It's me Laura Wasser, the divorce attorney and
the founder of It's over Easy, the online divorce service.
I've been practicing family law for over twenty years, and
I've worked on thousands of divorces, shepherding people through what
may be one of the most terrifying times in their lives.
(00:22):
Along the way, I often have to remind people to
lower their expectations when dealing with matters of the heart.
Rules simply don't apply. Because all's fair in love and war.
So welcome to the All's Fair Podcasts. Fasten your seatbelts
and let's go. Hey there, everyone, I'm Laura Wasser. My
(00:42):
name's Johnny Rains, and this is All's Fair. That It's
over Easy podcast, all about relationships. The way people connect
and disconnect absolutely fascinates me, and in the more than
two decades that I've practiced family law, I continue to
be amazed by relationships, particularly as they pertain to people's
behavior avier when their emotions completely take over. And at
(01:03):
the same time, I'm inspired by the things we do
for love, which is why I remain hopeful. It's Over
Easy is the community where many of these conversations occur.
We're on Facebook at its over easy community and at
its over easy on Instagram and Twitter. Plus we're right
here every week on all Spare with Laura Waser, having conversations,
sharing updates and advice on how to break up, make up,
(01:25):
and move on to your next chapters. And we do
all of this to bring transparency to the life span
of a relationship. Everything about family and divorce is changing,
and yet the prevailing wisdom on how to dissolve a
relationship often seems hopelessly outdated. Some relationships end and some don't,
but I think all of them should evolve. And if
(01:45):
that evolution becomes the dissolution of a marriage is not
the end of the world, nor should it bankrupt you
or destroy your family. That's the evolution of dissolution. It's
a fresh look at the story that's as old as time.
Girl meets boy, boy Mary girl, Girl and boy grow apart,
divorced and lived happily ever after separately. That's so non
(02:05):
gender fluid. What about boy meets boy, girl meets That's true,
you know, it is very good point person meets person.
No one meets anyone because their home depressed, eating fucking
banana bread. How about that. Sorry feeling a little negative today. Well,
(02:29):
speaking of prevailing wisdom, Psychology Today had an interesting article about,
you know, this theory of what did tale that's oldest
time person meeting person or not in the age of
COVID nineteen. But basically they proposed that people in married,
committed relationships might be happier than people who are not married.
(02:49):
What do you think about that? I think it's interesting.
I mean I read it. I read It's by Gwendolen Sideman, PhD.
And um. She says that there's three kind of relationship histories.
There is either consistently married, so people are married to
the same person for most of their adult lives. That's
sevent of her sample. Consistently single, just like bachelor's and
(03:13):
bachelorettes for life, they were single for most of their
adult lives and that was only eight percent. And then
there's varied histories people that move in and out of
different relationship status for example divorce than single, multiple marriages
and divorces, and that was thirteen percent. And I read
that and no disrespect for Dr Siedman, but duh, I
mean that's like saying, you know, I mean, there's two
(03:35):
kinds of people, tall people, short people, and then there's
the in between. I wasn't really sure. I mean the
other stuff she said about how a relationship, history and
relationships are connected to happiness, I think is important and interesting.
I also think we now, more than ever in history,
possibly to a fault. I'm sure some would say, are
(03:56):
examining our relationships and how happy they make us, and
whether they're fulfilling us or stifling us. I remember, as
you know, I was married for like five seconds once
back in the nineties, and when I went to my
dad to tell him that it wasn't working out and
we were getting divorce. And I'm sure my dad was like, well,
that's great that I spent all that money on the wedding,
but he was said thank you. He said, well, does
(04:21):
does he hit you? I said no? He said, is
he cheating on you? I said not that I know of.
Is he abusing drugs or alcohol? Or is he goat?
Does he have a gambling problem? I said no? They said,
so what's the problem. That was the way people used
to think about divorce. You would never participate in something
so torrid and heartbreaking and difficult and taboo unless one
(04:46):
of those things were happening, and now it's kind of like, Hey,
we've had a good run, we've reached the end. We're
still going to be co parents, and I feel like
somehow the law hasn't quite caught up with that. I
am not saying to make it easy for people to
get divorced, but I am saying to make it more difficult,
and make what is already a difficult time so painful
for people because of the legal and financial stress seems
(05:10):
um inequitable. I guess whether a relationship brings happiness or
misery is up to the individuals involved. But if you're
contemplating the end of your marriage, I say it's a
good idea to pick your moment. Finding that moment depends
on a few factors, one of which is can you
afford it. For those of you who may be in
a marriage where there is a financial disparity between you
(05:31):
and you're soon to be X, financing a divorce may
seem particularly daunting. And then once you go through and
your finances are irrevocably altered, then what, well, my friends,
knowledge is power, and today we're going to educate you
on ways to finance your divorce and how to leverage
your finances after the divorce is complete. Our first guest
(05:52):
is zooming in on Pixie Dusts. Well not really, but
she's been crowned the fairy Godmother of divorce. She's a
familiar voice to our divorce Sucks fans and she's a
former matrimonial attorney and the founder of New Chapter Capital, Inc.
Which provides funding for untying the not including legal fees
and living expenses. She's also the secret weapon or fairy
godmother of the less moneyed spouse. Welcome to All's Fair,
(06:15):
Nicole Noonan Esquire. Hi, Hi, super excited to be back.
Thank you, thank you. I love that we're doing this too.
You guys can't see this because it's a podcast, but
we're on zoom with Nicole because I like to be
able to have eye contact. And she's got this big
old American flag behind us. It's wonder woman in the
(06:35):
corner of the American flag because I love it. Woman power, right,
So I'm gonna have everybody remember or go to there's
an article that I put on the It's over Easy
Insights blog and um it's it's called I Need a
divorce but have no money, And the summary of it
is that divorce isn't only for rich people. That's kind
(06:57):
of why we started It's over Easy and a full
blown divorce us right now because we're having a COVID
special is nifty dollars plus filing fees, and It's over
Easy provides education information to give anybody wealthy or not
an idea what they can expect in a divorce or
even the marriage process itself in every state, and our
site walks people through each step of the process, completes
(07:19):
the divorce papers for you and files the forms with
the court. Plus we give you education which is empowering
along the way with articles and videos and podcasts, interviews
of celebrities and experts all about family law. Nicole tell us,
because I had before you and I met, I did
not know that there was such a service, and that
there is seems like the perfect compliment to what it
(07:41):
is we do it it's over easy and and frankly
at my law firm to where we represent a lot
of high net worth individuals. But if there was a
pre nup or if the money was earned before the marriage,
often somebody who has lived this really yummy lifestyle for
a long period of time is now at risk of
kind of being shut out. What you do and why
they call you the fairy godmother of divorces is really
(08:02):
really helpful. Tell us a little bit about it. Yeah,
so we like to say we level the legal playing field. Um. No,
two divorces are the same, and it's fantastic if you
can sit down amicably, you know, resolve your issues. Um. Unfortunately,
for some people that's just not in the cards. The
more uh complex the divorce, the more assets there are,
(08:24):
the more likely there is that there's going to be
a contentious divorce. Um. And usually there's a disparity and
one spouse has more money than the other. I saw
it in my own practice where I had people come
into my office and more often than not it was
either you know, they stay at home mom or dad,
and the other spouse made the money, and all of
(08:45):
a sudden, the moneyed spouse would cut off a non
moneyed spouse. And then, how do you afford your legal team?
How do you afford your How do you afford Laura Wasser?
How do you afford? You know, you're a financial accountants
and your forensic accountants and your experts. You have to
go to friends or family or take out a credit card,
and that's not always possible for a lot of clients.
So we are an alternative. UM. We make an advance
(09:09):
against the client's potential settlement UM. And this is something
that I think is such a powerful tool for so
many litigants out there, is it. I mean, I have
to imagine that excuse more women, yes, Nicole, Yeah, but
I do. We do get a lot of men. We
get you know, same sex divorces. We're you know, really
(09:30):
seeing the gamut um as more women or you know,
in the workforce and the dads are staying home. Um,
we're getting those two. We're also getting people that just
don't have liquidity, especially right now with everything going on,
not the greatest time to maybe sell Manhattan apartment now.
And I see that all the time. People come in
and they're like, how am I possibly going to do this?
(09:51):
There is money, whether it is in real estate or
art or things that are not easy to sell, particularly now,
you'd really take a hit on them. But if you're
able to advance as costs, that's huge. And I would
imagine so when the other side finds out that you're involved,
maybe they thought, ha ha, that I'm going to totally
starve out my spouse. He or she's never going to
be able to play against me. You know, in California,
(10:13):
we we have attorney fee orders that will try to
level that playing field. But you get in even before
that happened. What do lawyers that see you coming on
the other side generally say? I would imagine it would
be a real incentive to get settled because now you've
taken that leverage away from their client. Yes, right, absolutely,
(10:33):
I mean now our clients have the armor on them,
they have a protection. Uh, they know that they're not
going to back down into the settlement less than what
they're entitled to because they are empowered by having you know,
the ability to go out and retain those those that
team those experts, the right legal representation. And for some
clients we even fund for living expenses. So it kind
(10:55):
of takes the stressful time and makes a little less
stressful hopefully. Um So they really I do see it.
I see it in the clients when they feel empowered
to go into whether it's a court or or a mediation,
knowing that they have the ability to to keep in this.
You know, some for some clients a legal battle and
I was gonna ask so you guys do mediation too.
(11:18):
You don't have to be gearing up for some big
legal war. You can say we're going to front you
the money to participate in mediation. Absolutely, absolutely, and I
you know, I do encourage if people are able to
to go and try mediation. Um, certainly it could be
a lot more cost effective. Absolutely, That's that's what we
say to. Here's some options for people to afford a divorce.
(11:41):
This is from my It's over Easy Insights blog article,
and Nicole and I will talk about them. I need
a divorce, but I have no money is the article
on the blog, and the top five questions people have
about how much divorce costs are what if I don't
earn an income, What if my spouse depletes our bank account?
What happens if we can't afford an attorney? Our money
(12:03):
is in a joint account, Can I use those funds?
And my spouse says they'll bankrupt us on purpose? Those
are the top five questions. We will answer those in
that article and as we discuss, so Nicole tell us
who's a good candidate for funding. I know you're writing
us an article about Victoria. I will call her Victoria
tell us about her. Tell Us, I want anybody listening
(12:23):
who's driving somewhere. I don't know where you're driving, by
the way at this point in time, but who's sitting there,
who's sitting there listening to go, Oh my god, that
could be me. I could totally do that. So tell
us our clients. Really it's varied. We have a perception
of it's mostly women. Um, but we do take certainly
men where there's an asset pool where they don't have
(12:44):
access to that asset pool right now, but it will
eventually be entitled to it. So you mentioned the article
that I'm writing. Uh, there's a woman named Victoria, and Victoria,
you know, the name has been changed to protect the innocent,
was a woman I knew from from Girl Me Up
because I practiced in an area where I grew up,
and she had a great lifestyle, helped support her husband. Um.
(13:06):
They got married very young. He built up a legal practice,
she did the marketing for it. She was sort of
the woman behind it, and when it came time for
a divorce, he ran off with his um assistant and
as cliche as it sounds, and from total total total.
So poor Victoria, you know, back in the day, came
(13:27):
into my office and said, basically, I can put together
a retainer, but there's no way I'm gonna be able
to get and this guy with a litigator. So you
know lawyers make the worst clients, right, Um, yes we do. Yes, So, uh,
you know, she she needed a legal team, and I
back in the day went to the firm that I was,
(13:48):
you know, working with, and they said, you know, look,
we have too many clients that were you know, carrying
the costs for We're not being able to keep her on.
So she ended up backed into a settlement way less
than what she was entitled to UM, which is really unfortunate,
but for women like Victoria, had divorce funding been around,
we would have been able to basically advance her her
litigation costs and her legal thees, to value his practice UM,
(14:12):
and to get to that settlement that you know, she
she really deserved. I mean, we have clients that UM
stay at home dad recently who helped support and foster
his wife's career. She was a dermatologist, made her on
skin Caroline was cheating on with cheating on him with
every guy UM on the Upper East Side, and ended
(14:34):
up Um, you know, filing for divorce, and he had
no money, he had given up his job, and so
we we funded him, and you know, it was you know,
a lot of the assets were actually tied up in
the business as well as artwork, so we valued the
artwork and we realized, you know, he's gonna be entitled
to a portion of that artwork, so it doesn't just
have to be real estate. That's amazing. I love it. So,
(14:58):
I guess have you been watching The Dear john the
second one with Betty what's her name? Yes, I have
to tell you. I watched the original one with Meredith Baxter,
Bernie and this one. I love the way this one
is kind of I feel like the real story behind
it because I didn't really show how she helped, you know,
(15:18):
foster his career and you know, put put him through
law school basically. Yeah, So, Johnny, did you watch it? No?
Not yet. I gotta watch because it really is. I
mean there's so many things about it, like the way
her lawyers dealt with it before. I mean, it's I
think it's very even handed. I mean there were times
where she was being just a crazy bitch, so I
get it. At the same time, though, the inequality and
(15:41):
how they were dealt with, how they were dealt with
by the court, the whole scene where he goes to
lunch with the judge beforehand, it was just so gross,
very very interesting. And when you say like, oh, I'm
gonna kill my spouse or I wish I could kill
my spouse, and obviously we've both heard that a few times,
you really see how that could happen, Like you see
how it gets their spoiler alert, Johnny, she kills them.
(16:03):
But anyway, it's a true story pretty well now known.
Happened in San Diego. But it feels like Betty would
have been a really ideal candidate for for for next
chapter Capital. Absolutely, I wish we were around. We definitely
definitely would have taken on Betty Broadwick up and maybe
the murder would never happened, maybe the word would have
(16:25):
never happened. That's right. We could have saved at least
two lives and then I know, but I definitely want
to share with some of our listeners some of the
success stories tell us how new Chapter has really helped
some people and how they've gone on to their new
chapter and what they've done in terms of the money
that they're getting, whether it's going back to school or
starting a business. I want to hear some of those
(16:46):
success stories. Yeah. So we actually had a client go
back to law school, um after you know, she was
married to a professional athlete and said, you know what,
I you know, got out of college, got married and
never really had a career my own. So I now
want to go and and be a successful, hopefully successful lawyer.
I don't know why she want to get into the
(17:06):
legal business, but she does. Um. We've also had clients
that you know, started their own jewelry line that's been
wildly successful that really now they're able to stay at
home with their children and actually work and feel proud
and empowered that they have their own money. And we
make sure that we mentioned to them make sure you
(17:27):
manage that money wisely, because that's one thing that you know,
don't relinquish it to any new spouses or or boyfriends
or whatever you have, because that's gotten them into trouble
in the past. But now we have you know, great
um you know notes that we get Christmas cards saying,
you know, thank you so much, and this is what
I'm doing now, I'm living and just living their best
(17:50):
lives in their new chapter. I love it, Laura. You
often talk about how clients would come into your office
don't know anything about their finances, and then suddenly you're
telling them, well, you will never be in this position again.
You will know more about your finances now than ever before.
And then, Nicole, I wonder if in your work, as
you're navigating your client through the process towards getting their
(18:11):
own money back, are you coaching them financially And I
wonder if you can talk a little bit about the
female empowerment component of coaching women to be financially responsible,
not even just female, the empowerment of people who weren't okay, So,
I mean, one thing Nicole, I know you and I
have spoken about in the past is the fact that
so many of the will call them out spouses or
(18:33):
stay home spouses, whether their men or women. Historically they've
been women, but we see this quite a bit now
with female breadwinners than being men, really abdicating the financial
control and knowledge in their homes. Do you find as
people are going through the process and starting their new chapter,
that you're able to teach them and empower them. You know,
(18:54):
through the learning, so many women powerful women that could
get a lunch reservation at any rest run in town
and have personal shoppers at all the big department stores
come in and they say, I have no idea what
any I don't know what our house costs every month
or if it's paid for. I don't know what our
credit cards are. I don't know what my husband's you know,
salary is. I just signed the tax returns. And I
generally say to them, you'll never be in this position again.
(19:17):
You're gonna learn, and even if you're not as hyper
aware of it going forward, you're always going to know
the basics. Does new chapter really help people learn and
get that kind of enlightenment and then moving on into
their new chapter holding to that, whether it is a
budget or an understanding of investment strategies. I think a
lot of people, men and women, come into as clients
(19:40):
of ours that I find money is being very stressful,
um and in a scary topic something they don't want
to talk about. I I've had a client actually when
I asked her what's the mortgage on the house? She said,
what's a mortgage? Um? Very educated, you know woman who
just you know, put her head in this and and
(20:01):
you know, what they come to us is they get
their funding. They're empowered through their funding, and I make
them promise me at the end, when they get their settlement,
they're going to be more mindful of of spending. And
we like to make sure that they have um the
right experts at the end to help them. Uh really,
you know, make the right investments, be very prudent about
(20:23):
where they're they're spending is in their next chapter. Because
we don't want repeat customers. I mean, honestly, we we
want one and done. Um. You know, we we love
to have the attorneys call us, but you know, for
the clients, I want them to go get their settlement,
be empowered, realize that they too can go off and
and have their best lives and not be dependent on
(20:46):
on a moneyed spouse to to monitor their finances. They
can make their own investments. What have you seen over
the past four or five months with COVID How has
that affected your business? How has that affected the divorce
business in general? For more use it. Yeah, so I'm
sure you've been very very busy as well. We get
you know, calls. I think people are um locked up
(21:08):
more or less and very much like a holiday where
after you know, the New Year's, after the Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah.
They want out. They spent enough time with their their
loved ones and if it's bad, it makes it worse.
And for some people maybe they fell back in love,
um which you know I I do. I love a
(21:30):
love story, but unfortunately I only hear the not love stories.
Um so. But the the real issue is with COVID
getting into courts. Um I know l A is similar.
Right now in New York they're saying it's gonna be
at least a two year backup. I think a lot
of more people are gonna end up turning towards towards mediation.
I think it's gonna be really difficult to get into court.
(21:53):
I know that a lot of people want to get
in there for support modifications, whether it be child so
or modifications. So people just they've even lost their jobs
or they had to take a pay decrease. And it's
going to make it also very difficult for for divorces
where people are making plans and you know, is it
(22:14):
everything tied up in your house again? How are you
going to be able to afford a divorce? So I
do think that more than ever UM new chapter Capital
and Divorce Funding is as a tool for a lot
of these people. Absolutely, and you guys are on our
it's over Easy index also, just so you know, listeners
during this time, if you are having issues UM that
(22:35):
either go beyond divorce or a part of a divorce,
whether you really need help from some kind of an
accountant or c p A or forensic, if you need
help with mental health check ins. There's all kinds of
people on our It's over in the Easy index that
you might want to check into because they are wonderful
resources for folks that are going through a difficult time,
which I am now sadly feeling is almost all of us.
(22:58):
I mean, we've all gotten to a point where this
uncertainty that it's just really kind of difficult to figure out.
So anywhere you can kind of reach out to for
some additional assistance would be good. Most people who get
divorced find that once their assets and liabilities are divided,
their finances have undergone a paradigm shift. But once someone
makes it through to the other side of their dissolution,
(23:20):
it doesn't matter how many zeros you have in your
bank balance. There are important things you can and should
do with whatever you've got left. I'm Laura Wasster, the
divorce attorney and the founder and CEO of the online
divorce service It's Over Easy, And this is our podcast,
All's Fair. We're speaking today about financing your divorce and
funding your next chapter life after divorce. For more tips
(23:42):
on how to live your best life after divorce, check
out our master class at next Chapter series dot com.
But before you do, I want to introduce you to
someone who can help your dream and create your next chapter.
She's the head of private wealth Management at l VEST,
a financial company built to get more money in the
hands of women by a sting with financial planning, career coaching, investing,
(24:03):
and banking to save while you spend. I like the
sound of that, banking to save while you spend. Welcome
to All's Fair, Emily Green. Hi, Emily, Welcome, Emily. Hi.
How are you good? I'm hanging in Yeah, same, So
tell us a little bit about l VEST. So, LVEST,
so our mission is to close all the gender money gaps.
(24:27):
So that's loaded a loaded term. Um. We originally trying
to close the gender investment gap, which means that women
invest significantly less money over their lifetime than men, which
for the average women, actually cost them hundreds of thousands,
if not millions. That's average women. So I think about
a woman with wealth and such, and they cost her
a lot more um. And then we thought that's just
(24:48):
not enough, and so we needed to close all the
gender money gaps. And so actually we talk a lot
about like the gender pay gap, you know, the women
make less money. The actual crazy stat I think is
the HealthCap, the gender wealthcap. Women's wealth on average is
thirty two cents on every dollar of a white man's
thirty two cents, and a black woman's is one cent
(25:11):
on every dollar of a white man's. Now explain to
our listeners what that means. I watched the whole Instagram
video the other day about what wealth meant, not just
you know who rich, whatever, but wealth actual, ability to save, actually,
ability to prochase, actually an ability to leave two heirs,
to to leave inheritances. So tell them what that actually means. Yeah,
(25:31):
So it's it's the real estate. It's that you can
own a home, it's the investments, you have, your four
own case, all all those different basic things, and it's
not um, you know, you think about real estate in general,
and you think about like redlining and the things that
have happened with interest rates, and women actually tend to
have higher interest rates on mortgages, people of color tend
to have higher interest rates on mortgages, and so all
(25:51):
these different things that have actually caused this huge wealth
gap over time. Um, women on average live longer too,
so we need actually more money, and we make less
money because of the pay gap, and our salaries speak sooners.
So there's just this whole you know everything with money,
we are just disadvantaged. And so we need to think
(26:13):
about how the industry can actually change in order to
serve us. And so that's what we're here for, l
of us. Instead of women having to change themselves to
fit the money industry, we are here to change what
the industry is. To love that. I know you've told
me before to get some of the stats, because I
love this. So se women are single, they're either never married,
or they're divorced or their widowed. And then you said
(26:35):
three quarters of women who outsourced the management of their
money to male partners find themselves with a negative financial
surprise after divorce or widowhood and that and why is that?
Because they weren't paying attention and so their surprised or
is it because the guys just aren't doing a very
good job of it? Uh both um high mortgage rates
(26:56):
that they didn't know about because you know, they just
expected when mortgage rates and dialand that their husband refinanced,
but they never kind of like looked at it. He
said he did it, And now they have a seven
percent mortgage rate when mortgage rates have been below for
for you know, a decade. Um secret accounts that there's
a lot of like things like that, the accounts, I mean,
I'm seen the Flora, but like different secret accounts that
(27:19):
they didn't know about. Um venture investments are I think
the biggest thing actually is the size of their investment portfolio,
or really the lack thereof the size of their portfols.
And we've all we've all been there where somebody says
it's fine, I got this, honey whatever. And we were
talking before you came on, Nicole and I about how
(27:39):
women really abdicate responsibility, often for the money, and it's
so interesting to me and again men do it too.
Typically it is a stay home spouse that does it.
If you're the breadwinner, don't you then say I'm out
there earning the bread, maybe you could be home managing
our finances. But instead what has happened has been I
(28:01):
make the money, so I'm going to manage the investments,
and through maybe no nefarious purposes, there's not the appropriate time.
You can't do it whatever. I have seen a change
in the last five to ten years. I have seen
women kind of rising to the occasion and going, no, no,
I got this. If you want something right, let a
woman do it, or even a stay home spouse that
has more ability to be home. Tell us a little
(28:22):
bit about what you've seen, because you've been doing it
a while now, and I know I've seen you in
some of those initial meetings with people, and I've seen
you and you've hit your stride with clients. What are
you seeing, interestingly that is kind of narrowing or closing
that gender gap. What are you seeing women doing willing
to do, and what is l of us doing to
really help with that? So our focus is helping women
get invested, and so we are really like the only
(28:45):
financial advisory firm focused on getting women invested. And so
I talked to women all day about money, literally all
day long about money. And it is really interesting because
I think, you know, women are realizing that in order
to find their full power in life in general, understanding
their money is really important because if you actually look
at it, money is the number one source of stress
(29:07):
for not only women but men too. But it's a
huge source of stress for women. And so when you
think about it, solving that problem is huge here when
you're thinking about it, and the problem has really been
that the industry just doesn't talk towards women, um eighty.
It's like eight five percent of financial advisors are white
(29:27):
men and the average age is over fifty, So like,
why is a woman, especially after a divorce or something
like that, going to be like, yes, this old white
man really relates to me and can tell me exactly what.
Then they're not asking questions because they're embarrassed, and so
you get some old white guy kind of skeewing out
financial terms and things that she may not understand, and
(29:49):
she feels stupid saying, hold up, I don't understand this,
even though he's working for her and it's her money,
I mean, and do I mean one of when you
said why would a woman have a or fifty white
guy telling is the answer because we were used to
are raised to expect daddy to kind of help us,
and is that changing a little bit? I don't want
(30:09):
my dad telling me what to do with my money.
Why would you? If you think of the like just
think of if I say investor, who do you picture?
Probably an old white man. Do you picture like a
Bill Gates? You picture one of these? Like you picture
like picture you pure you with your pearl airings on it,
if you and Sally. Yeah, But that's who people picture
when they think about it. That's what the industry is.
(30:31):
That's how people have talked about it. Do you think
about CNBC what I always say about CNBC? Watch CNBC
and then watch ESPN although there's like no sports now,
but then watch ESPN and you'll be like, Wow, these
are the exact same thing, just talking about different topics.
And so the way that we've been trained to think
about money is just very male and how we're thinking
about this. And so now we're starting to see that,
(30:53):
you know, when women are divorced or when their spouse
dies or all these things, and they go to their
financial advisors. So they'll stick with that guy for a
little bit. But like they're You're right. They're always afraid
to ask him questions, you know, so they don't really
know what's going on. So even if they have a
financial advisor, a lot of times what I find is
like I'll talk to them, I'm like, did you have
any idea what this guy was doing? You know, I
hear a lot of the terms like oh, I don't
(31:14):
know if he's so gross, I don't want to talk
to him. I don't like him. He talks down to
my he's rude and like, you know, like you pay
him to do this. But women also, women are really
bad at firing people. Um, So always when I talk
to women, I have to like, we always have to
do a whole process of like how to fire their
financial advisor, Like we have to go through this whole
thing of like, but how do I tell him? Um?
(31:36):
Because women are just nice feeling We've been told be nice,
be nice to boys, don't hurt their feelings. So you know,
want to hurt your old white guy financial advisors feelings
even though he's been losing you money for years? Are
women more goal oriented? I read something that that we
can invest more and we'll care more if we actually
have a goal. So do you try to ask us
(31:56):
to like figure out what our goal is as we're
changing investments throughout geez, yeah, this is so important. And
we actually spent before we launched all of Us, we
spent two years actually trying to figure out why women
weren't investing, and we realized it was because the industry
didn't talk about goals. They talked about should I buy
this stock versus that stock? Should I buy this mutual
fund versus that? To e t F, like would being
(32:18):
an old white guy, what's an e t F? An
exchange traded fund? It's just a way to like buy
the market really basically um, But when you look at it,
it really is women care about like can I pay
for a new house? Can I buy a boat? Can
I do these things? And it doesn't matter if you
are I have no money or you have a hundred
(32:39):
million dollars. You know, I know women a hundred million
dollars and their goal is and like this is my
stay rich bucket, like and the you know that is
a goal. That is your goal to stay rich? And
so everyone has goals no matter where they sit. And
showing women how they can use their investments to achieve
that is the most important here because the else do
you find that a lot of women actually just end
up sitting in cash. I know I've seen that too.
(33:00):
They want to have a big, stay rich bucket, but
they're not actually enjoying their funds or investing them in
women owned businesses or nonprofits. Tell us a little bit
about investing with impact and the personal mission statements that
you guys have. So this is we did one yesterday.
Yes I don't, we can talk about it. You actually
(33:21):
did a huge relaunch of it yesterday. Um in doing
this and so when we looked at it, women while
they might not go to a dinner party like men
do and say you know, I got an eight percent return,
Oh I have Netflix stock and it's gone up backs
percent or things like that, they do care about their
values and their mission and having these types of conversations.
(33:42):
And so one thing that we've worked with women on
is actually building out investment portfolios that reflect the things
they care about. And so if that's women's rights, it's
not only looking at like how many women are in
a company. It's you know, women's CEO, as women founders,
all these things, but it's also like human rights because
that affects women disproportionately, Climate change affects women disproportionately, gun violence,
(34:05):
all these things, and so being able to reflect this
in women's portfolios give them a mission statement that they
can not only use for their investments, but also just
the way they live their life, how you spend you know,
how you think about films, about By giving all these
different types of things and have like a report, we
we give actual report that you can see, like what
(34:25):
your impact is over time. So while women may not
wanna or man may not want to go in and
say like, Okay, this is what my accounts look like
every day, it is cool to go in and be like, well,
how much impact have I made over like the last
quarter in such and so it's just a different way
to engage money and have women talk about it because
talking about money is so important. Um. So it's just
(34:46):
a good way to actually have, you know, those types
of conversations without feeling like, oh how much money do
I have? Am I doing the right thing? Thing? Who
is it? Okay I talk about money with I mean,
we were taught also while we're not apposed to hurt
guys feelings that we're not supposed to talk about money.
That that's ghost. Who do you talk about money with?
Can you talk about money with anybody? We encourage we
(35:07):
encourage everyone to talk about money. UM, tell people your salaries.
This is the only way that you will know, like
if you were being paid enough, you should have these conversations.
It's totally taboo, especially for women to talk about money,
but everyone should be talking about money. And like, I
have a client she's I love her totally crazy, but literally,
like on her Instagram one day she posted like the
(35:28):
amount of money she had from she worked at a
tech company and such, and I'll never for She's like,
my mom called me furious and it's a lot of money.
And she's like the mom. I need to tell people,
like you know what, I'm rich, and you know what.
That's it. I'm rich and everyone can know because I
worked hard and that is where I got myself. And
so that other women know if I worked this hard.
(35:49):
I mean I might display my wealth and shoes and jewels,
but still I know that young women are like, I
want to be like you when I get out of
law school. I want to have a Porsche to have
this stuff. I worked really hard. I think it's so
interesting we talked so often about how women if you
get heated, then you're called hysterical, whereas a man just
you know, as strong, strong or whatever. Same with women.
(36:12):
I was recently called entitled, and I'm like you bet,
I am, of course I'm entitled because I all of this.
So all right, tell us a little bit before we
bring Nicole back in our conversation for women, because I
think a lot of our listeners and certainly are it's
over easy. UM users may have more what I'll call
modest means to give us some tips for women that
(36:33):
may not have as much money as some of your
clients at LS. And I know LS does lower income
stuff too, but tell us, you know, just for the
average gal. So I think, especially as you're going through divorce,
it's almost just taking like a health check up of
who you where you're at. So it's almost, you know,
like you go to the doctor, take a check up
of where you're at financially, your debt, your assets, all
those different types of things. UM. We actually have like
(36:55):
a list on our side of just like okay, if
you're going through divorce, here all the things that you
need to look at, UM when you're thinking about you
know what your next step is in terms of investing
your financial life. Um, things like your insurance, things like
your credit, all those different things that you need to
look at because now you're a separate entity than your
ex husband and so you need to think about what
(37:16):
your financial picture looks like for you. But you know,
the biggest thing I would think about when you're thinking
about investing is to start having the conversation soon. And
so what a lot of times that I find when
women are divorcing, they're like, all right, when I divorce
and I get all the money and I figured it off,
that's when I'll start talking to people about investing or
find an advisor and things. And there are ways you
don't have to be rich to find an advisor. Like
(37:37):
you said, like, lves we have a service. It's literally
zero to all our minimum zero, and so you can
have an investment basically yeah, zero, you can put a penny.
Sally will probably you know, she gets those alerts and
she's like, oh, it's a competitor, but um, when we
look at that, but you can find advice out there,
(37:58):
and so I would I would encourage always women, especially
going through this process, to start to thinking about this
earlier and search out places like l of ust and
advisors who can help you throughout this process, because they're
gonna be help you to think about, am I do
I have enough money to do when I'm divorcing? What
should I start to be thinking about now? Because way
too many women wait until they're like, all right, now
I'm settled that I have my chunk of money and
(38:18):
now I'll figure out what's next. Or I just got divorced,
now I have all this debt. What should I do?
You know, all these different types of things, and so
I always encourage start to think about this sooner than later.
And for those of us who don't have great ability
to budget, which we are going to find our stuff
that we're going to have to start budgeting. Who do
you like nerd Wallet? Do you like Mind? I mean,
I know there's a lot of them. Have you experienced
(38:39):
them all? And is there one that you would recommend? Yeah?
I mean I I personally use mint Um. I think
it's easy. They send you the alerts and such, but
I think you know what's um And we actually have
a service that you can actually talk to financial planners,
you can buy sessions. We we kind of relaunched our
whole digital business and to be a membership now and
so you can actually define what that looks like. You
(39:00):
can talk to financial planners. UM. I find budgeting to
be a very tough thing for people, to be honest,
you asked anyone what they spend, and I promise you
no one knows. I think people always feel guilty about that.
No one knows. But using tools that's true too, But
also just thinking about you know, putting everything on a
piece of paper and so maybe you're you know, it's
(39:20):
just an Excel sheet that you're putting this all in,
but just kind of tracking that from time to time
in in something like mint that it you know, I
think things are going to change, like right now, obviously
our grocery bills are higher than UM dining out bills
and things like that. But just if you have like
a rough guide and how you're thinking about this using
those types of tools, UM meant we you know, you
(39:42):
can create things on Excel and such like that. That's
actually what I do, but UM as well, but just
using simple tools in order to understand where your at
and just track yourself over time, especially after a change
like divorce. It's going to be different, and it'll be
very good for you to have kind of an understanding
of what you spend and what you can afford. I
(40:03):
tell so many people going through divorce, do something really
nice for yourself, But it's hard to do that if
you don't know that you've got the funds available, or
if you feel like you've been irresponsible or what. At end,
you may not be able to afford to do it.
But maybe it's a couple of months in watching your
budget you will m Nicole Noon and founder of New
(40:24):
Chapter Capital Funding for Untying the Knot is back with
my friend Emily Green from last and I for some
closing arguments in favor of women taking charge of their
finances before, during, and after divorce. Ladies, what is the
most important advice you can share with a woman on
the precipice of divorce? Nicole, gather your support team. Make
(40:45):
sure you have the right team of experts have your village,
whether that's the right financial advisors, right legal advisors, or
the right moms that are at your school that went
through a divorce that you can depend on to bounce
ideas off of. UM. I would say find someone who
you trust. UM you know, as we were talking about before,
(41:08):
you you're gonna have to divulge a lot of personal
things to someone, and so sit down and actually find
someone you like in truest because you're gonna have to
tell them a lot of things that you're not going
to tell other people. And money is so personal. So
just like you want someone that you feel like comfortable
to sending a text to telling them anything, and so
you're doing that, just find the right person and it
that it feels right. Um. And that might sound familiar
(41:30):
to that advice because I know we've said it to
people before regarding their divorce attorney. But keep this in mine.
You're only going to know your divorces or for six, twelve,
eighteen months. You're gonna hopefully know your financial investor for
a lot longer. So you've got to feel even more
comfortable with that person. All right, we're gonna do something
that we do on the podcast, Nicole, You've done it
with me before they're called the interrogatories. Do you both
(41:53):
swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth? Yes? Yet, Emily, which relationship in her
life has had the most profound impact? So I would
actually say, I've been thinking about this actually a lot lately,
and I would actually say when I look at um,
my grandmother when I think about this, because she actually
(42:14):
used to trade stock although she had she actually had
a grace divorce sttlement. She had an amazing divorce sttlement
in the state of Illinois, and she took that money
and she would just day trade all day. When I
think about it, here's a woman who like, yeah, I
mean she died several years ago, but you know, you
think about someone who actually took control of their money
before women did. And here I am investing. So I
definitely love that, how about you, Nicole? Yeah, mine would
(42:37):
be my mother. Um. She was the first woman in
our family to go to college. She was really very
very driven. She did stay at home to raise my
brother and I, but she was the one making sure
that we got all our homework done. Um. And she
said basically, you're going to law school and made sure
that I got there by hoko by crook um. So yeah,
(42:57):
she's she's definitely smiling down on me. I love it. Okay, Nicole,
what's your favorite song? Uh, well, my favorite love song
I suppose would be my wedding song I had to
be you but sometimes right, Yeah, the Frank Sinatra version.
So how about you, Emily, I was gonna say my
wedding song as well. It was just not a traditional
(43:18):
love song. But we actually did Whitney Houston. I wanted
to do that. That's great, all right. And Emily, what
is the one piece of advice that you'd share with
your twenty something year old self? Don't sweat it. I
feel like I spent so much of my time in
my life like worrying about what's going to come next.
I'll tell you, Like every job, decision, everything was just
nerve wragging for me. And I look back and I'm like,
(43:39):
what a weight? I like that? How about you, Nicole? Yeah, no,
so similar. I don't you know, don't be afraid to
be uncomfortable. Um. In my twenties, I called off a
wedding after the save dates went out, so and I
sweated it, and looking back, it was the best decision
I ever made. Um, So yeah, don't you know, don't
sweat the small stuff exactly. And and Emily, which rom
(44:01):
com could you watch on repeat? Probably The Holiday? Um?
I love that movie. And also, actually, my husband and
I met in England. Um, he's not British, but I
always think about that. And I love that movie too.
How about you, Nicole Well, I love, love, love, intolerable cruelty,
but absolutely amazing. But I did watch twenty seven Dresses
(44:22):
the other day first so a long time. And I
love the New York Times wedding section. I mean, I'm
all about it, and I just I love that movie.
It holds up, it really does. I watched it recently.
To my friend Eileen wrote that she also wrote wore
the Devil Wears product and she she got she hit
the nail on the head for sure. With those two. Well,
(44:42):
we are grateful to both of you for being here
and on behalf of the women and the men in
our audience today. Thank you for the work you both
do to help people with their finances before, during, and
after divorce, and for sharing all this valuable advice with
us on All's Fair today. Tell us how people can
find you online, Nicole uh So. They can go to
New Chapter Capital So ny W C h A p
(45:05):
t E R Capital c A p I t a
l dot com, or on Instagram at Divorce Funding or
at Nicole neon an official and Nicole Noonan is n
I C O L E N O O n A
N official. How about you, Emily are so We're l
of us dot com E L L E V E
(45:27):
s T. I always have to spell that. It's like
L like the magazine invest, like the end of invest
dot com. Our Instagram is also l of us. You
can always find me. I'm just E green like the
color at all of us dot com. Fantastic. Thank you
guys so much. You both rock. We loved having you.
Stay safe, stay healthy, and Emily. I'll circle back later
this week about my personal investment profile since Johnny didn't
(45:49):
want me to talk about it good, so fice to
say maybe the very wealthy thanks ladies. By guys, see
you're like m hm hm
Hi there. It's me Laura Wasser, the divorce attorney and
the founder of It's over Easy, the online divorce service.
I've been practicing family law for over twenty years, and
I've worked on thousands of divorces, shepherding people through what
may be one of the most terrifying times in their lives.
(00:22):
Along the way, I often have to remind people to
lower their expectations when dealing with matters of the heart.
Rules simply don't apply. Because all's fair in love and war.
So welcome to the All's Fair Podcasts. Fasten your seatbelts
and let's go. Hey there, everyone, I'm Laura Wasser. My
(00:42):
name's Johnny Rains, and this is All's Fair. That It's
over Easy podcast, all about relationships. The way people connect
and disconnect absolutely fascinates me, and in the more than
two decades that I've practiced family law, I continue to
be amazed by relationships, particularly as they pertain to people's
behavior avier when their emotions completely take over. And at
(01:03):
the same time, I'm inspired by the things we do
for love, which is why I remain hopeful. It's Over
Easy is the community where many of these conversations occur.
We're on Facebook at its over easy community and at
its over easy on Instagram and Twitter. Plus we're right
here every week on all Spare with Laura Waser, having conversations,
sharing updates and advice on how to break up, make up,
(01:25):
and move on to your next chapters. And we do
all of this to bring transparency to the life span
of a relationship. Everything about family and divorce is changing,
and yet the prevailing wisdom on how to dissolve a
relationship often seems hopelessly outdated. Some relationships end and some don't,
but I think all of them should evolve. And if
(01:45):
that evolution becomes the dissolution of a marriage is not
the end of the world, nor should it bankrupt you
or destroy your family. That's the evolution of dissolution. It's
a fresh look at the story that's as old as time.
Girl meets boy, boy Mary girl, Girl and boy grow apart,
divorced and lived happily ever after separately. That's so non
(02:05):
gender fluid. What about boy meets boy, girl meets That's true,
you know, it is very good point person meets person.
No one meets anyone because their home depressed, eating fucking
banana bread. How about that. Sorry feeling a little negative today. Well,
(02:29):
speaking of prevailing wisdom, Psychology Today had an interesting article about,
you know, this theory of what did tale that's oldest
time person meeting person or not in the age of
COVID nineteen. But basically they proposed that people in married,
committed relationships might be happier than people who are not married.
(02:49):
What do you think about that? I think it's interesting.
I mean I read it. I read It's by Gwendolen Sideman, PhD.
And um. She says that there's three kind of relationship histories.
There is either consistently married, so people are married to
the same person for most of their adult lives. That's
sevent of her sample. Consistently single, just like bachelor's and
(03:13):
bachelorettes for life, they were single for most of their
adult lives and that was only eight percent. And then
there's varied histories people that move in and out of
different relationship status for example divorce than single, multiple marriages
and divorces, and that was thirteen percent. And I read
that and no disrespect for Dr Siedman, but duh, I
mean that's like saying, you know, I mean, there's two
(03:35):
kinds of people, tall people, short people, and then there's
the in between. I wasn't really sure. I mean the
other stuff she said about how a relationship, history and
relationships are connected to happiness, I think is important and interesting.
I also think we now, more than ever in history,
possibly to a fault. I'm sure some would say, are
(03:56):
examining our relationships and how happy they make us, and
whether they're fulfilling us or stifling us. I remember, as
you know, I was married for like five seconds once
back in the nineties, and when I went to my
dad to tell him that it wasn't working out and
we were getting divorce. And I'm sure my dad was like, well,
that's great that I spent all that money on the wedding,
but he was said thank you. He said, well, does
(04:21):
does he hit you? I said no? He said, is
he cheating on you? I said not that I know of.
Is he abusing drugs or alcohol? Or is he goat?
Does he have a gambling problem? I said no? They said,
so what's the problem. That was the way people used
to think about divorce. You would never participate in something
so torrid and heartbreaking and difficult and taboo unless one
(04:46):
of those things were happening, and now it's kind of like, Hey,
we've had a good run, we've reached the end. We're
still going to be co parents, and I feel like
somehow the law hasn't quite caught up with that. I
am not saying to make it easy for people to
get divorced, but I am saying to make it more difficult,
and make what is already a difficult time so painful
for people because of the legal and financial stress seems
(05:10):
um inequitable. I guess whether a relationship brings happiness or
misery is up to the individuals involved. But if you're
contemplating the end of your marriage, I say it's a
good idea to pick your moment. Finding that moment depends
on a few factors, one of which is can you
afford it. For those of you who may be in
a marriage where there is a financial disparity between you
(05:31):
and you're soon to be X, financing a divorce may
seem particularly daunting. And then once you go through and
your finances are irrevocably altered, then what, well, my friends,
knowledge is power, and today we're going to educate you
on ways to finance your divorce and how to leverage
your finances after the divorce is complete. Our first guest
(05:52):
is zooming in on Pixie Dusts. Well not really, but
she's been crowned the fairy Godmother of divorce. She's a
familiar voice to our divorce Sucks fans and she's a
former matrimonial attorney and the founder of New Chapter Capital, Inc.
Which provides funding for untying the not including legal fees
and living expenses. She's also the secret weapon or fairy
godmother of the less moneyed spouse. Welcome to All's Fair,
(06:15):
Nicole Noonan Esquire. Hi, Hi, super excited to be back.
Thank you, thank you. I love that we're doing this too.
You guys can't see this because it's a podcast, but
we're on zoom with Nicole because I like to be
able to have eye contact. And she's got this big
old American flag behind us. It's wonder woman in the
(06:35):
corner of the American flag because I love it. Woman power, right,
So I'm gonna have everybody remember or go to there's
an article that I put on the It's over Easy
Insights blog and um it's it's called I Need a
divorce but have no money, And the summary of it
is that divorce isn't only for rich people. That's kind
(06:57):
of why we started It's over Easy and a full
blown divorce us right now because we're having a COVID
special is nifty dollars plus filing fees, and It's over
Easy provides education information to give anybody wealthy or not
an idea what they can expect in a divorce or
even the marriage process itself in every state, and our
site walks people through each step of the process, completes
(07:19):
the divorce papers for you and files the forms with
the court. Plus we give you education which is empowering
along the way with articles and videos and podcasts, interviews
of celebrities and experts all about family law. Nicole tell us,
because I had before you and I met, I did
not know that there was such a service, and that
there is seems like the perfect compliment to what it
(07:41):
is we do it it's over easy and and frankly
at my law firm to where we represent a lot
of high net worth individuals. But if there was a
pre nup or if the money was earned before the marriage,
often somebody who has lived this really yummy lifestyle for
a long period of time is now at risk of
kind of being shut out. What you do and why
they call you the fairy godmother of divorces is really
(08:02):
really helpful. Tell us a little bit about it. Yeah,
so we like to say we level the legal playing field. Um. No,
two divorces are the same, and it's fantastic if you
can sit down amicably, you know, resolve your issues. Um. Unfortunately,
for some people that's just not in the cards. The
more uh complex the divorce, the more assets there are,
(08:24):
the more likely there is that there's going to be
a contentious divorce. Um. And usually there's a disparity and
one spouse has more money than the other. I saw
it in my own practice where I had people come
into my office and more often than not it was
either you know, they stay at home mom or dad,
and the other spouse made the money, and all of
(08:45):
a sudden, the moneyed spouse would cut off a non
moneyed spouse. And then, how do you afford your legal team?
How do you afford your How do you afford Laura Wasser?
How do you afford? You know, you're a financial accountants
and your forensic accountants and your experts. You have to
go to friends or family or take out a credit card,
and that's not always possible for a lot of clients.
So we are an alternative. UM. We make an advance
(09:09):
against the client's potential settlement UM. And this is something
that I think is such a powerful tool for so
many litigants out there, is it. I mean, I have
to imagine that excuse more women, yes, Nicole, Yeah, but
I do. We do get a lot of men. We
get you know, same sex divorces. We're you know, really
(09:30):
seeing the gamut um as more women or you know,
in the workforce and the dads are staying home. Um,
we're getting those two. We're also getting people that just
don't have liquidity, especially right now with everything going on,
not the greatest time to maybe sell Manhattan apartment now.
And I see that all the time. People come in
and they're like, how am I possibly going to do this?
(09:51):
There is money, whether it is in real estate or
art or things that are not easy to sell, particularly now,
you'd really take a hit on them. But if you're
able to advance as costs, that's huge. And I would
imagine so when the other side finds out that you're involved,
maybe they thought, ha ha, that I'm going to totally
starve out my spouse. He or she's never going to
be able to play against me. You know, in California,
(10:13):
we we have attorney fee orders that will try to
level that playing field. But you get in even before
that happened. What do lawyers that see you coming on
the other side generally say? I would imagine it would
be a real incentive to get settled because now you've
taken that leverage away from their client. Yes, right, absolutely,
(10:33):
I mean now our clients have the armor on them,
they have a protection. Uh, they know that they're not
going to back down into the settlement less than what
they're entitled to because they are empowered by having you know,
the ability to go out and retain those those that
team those experts, the right legal representation. And for some
clients we even fund for living expenses. So it kind
(10:55):
of takes the stressful time and makes a little less
stressful hopefully. Um So they really I do see it.
I see it in the clients when they feel empowered
to go into whether it's a court or or a mediation,
knowing that they have the ability to to keep in this.
You know, some for some clients a legal battle and
I was gonna ask so you guys do mediation too.
(11:18):
You don't have to be gearing up for some big
legal war. You can say we're going to front you
the money to participate in mediation. Absolutely, absolutely, and I
you know, I do encourage if people are able to
to go and try mediation. Um, certainly it could be
a lot more cost effective. Absolutely, That's that's what we
say to. Here's some options for people to afford a divorce.
(11:41):
This is from my It's over Easy Insights blog article,
and Nicole and I will talk about them. I need
a divorce, but I have no money is the article
on the blog, and the top five questions people have
about how much divorce costs are what if I don't
earn an income, What if my spouse depletes our bank account?
What happens if we can't afford an attorney? Our money
(12:03):
is in a joint account, Can I use those funds?
And my spouse says they'll bankrupt us on purpose? Those
are the top five questions. We will answer those in
that article and as we discuss, so Nicole tell us
who's a good candidate for funding. I know you're writing
us an article about Victoria. I will call her Victoria
tell us about her. Tell Us, I want anybody listening
(12:23):
who's driving somewhere. I don't know where you're driving, by
the way at this point in time, but who's sitting there,
who's sitting there listening to go, Oh my god, that
could be me. I could totally do that. So tell
us our clients. Really it's varied. We have a perception
of it's mostly women. Um, but we do take certainly
men where there's an asset pool where they don't have
(12:44):
access to that asset pool right now, but it will
eventually be entitled to it. So you mentioned the article
that I'm writing. Uh, there's a woman named Victoria, and Victoria,
you know, the name has been changed to protect the innocent,
was a woman I knew from from Girl Me Up
because I practiced in an area where I grew up,
and she had a great lifestyle, helped support her husband. Um.
(13:06):
They got married very young. He built up a legal practice,
she did the marketing for it. She was sort of
the woman behind it, and when it came time for
a divorce, he ran off with his um assistant and
as cliche as it sounds, and from total total total.
So poor Victoria, you know, back in the day, came
(13:27):
into my office and said, basically, I can put together
a retainer, but there's no way I'm gonna be able
to get and this guy with a litigator. So you
know lawyers make the worst clients, right, Um, yes we do. Yes, So, uh,
you know, she she needed a legal team, and I
back in the day went to the firm that I was,
(13:48):
you know, working with, and they said, you know, look,
we have too many clients that were you know, carrying
the costs for We're not being able to keep her on.
So she ended up backed into a settlement way less
than what she was entitled to UM, which is really unfortunate,
but for women like Victoria, had divorce funding been around,
we would have been able to basically advance her her
litigation costs and her legal thees, to value his practice UM,
(14:12):
and to get to that settlement that you know, she
she really deserved. I mean, we have clients that UM
stay at home dad recently who helped support and foster
his wife's career. She was a dermatologist, made her on
skin Caroline was cheating on with cheating on him with
every guy UM on the Upper East Side, and ended
(14:34):
up Um, you know, filing for divorce, and he had
no money, he had given up his job, and so
we we funded him, and you know, it was you know,
a lot of the assets were actually tied up in
the business as well as artwork, so we valued the
artwork and we realized, you know, he's gonna be entitled
to a portion of that artwork, so it doesn't just
have to be real estate. That's amazing. I love it. So,
(14:58):
I guess have you been watching The Dear john the
second one with Betty what's her name? Yes, I have
to tell you. I watched the original one with Meredith Baxter,
Bernie and this one. I love the way this one
is kind of I feel like the real story behind
it because I didn't really show how she helped, you know,
(15:18):
foster his career and you know, put put him through
law school basically. Yeah, So, Johnny, did you watch it? No?
Not yet. I gotta watch because it really is. I
mean there's so many things about it, like the way
her lawyers dealt with it before. I mean, it's I
think it's very even handed. I mean there were times
where she was being just a crazy bitch, so I
get it. At the same time, though, the inequality and
(15:41):
how they were dealt with, how they were dealt with
by the court, the whole scene where he goes to
lunch with the judge beforehand, it was just so gross,
very very interesting. And when you say like, oh, I'm
gonna kill my spouse or I wish I could kill
my spouse, and obviously we've both heard that a few times,
you really see how that could happen, Like you see
how it gets their spoiler alert, Johnny, she kills them.
(16:03):
But anyway, it's a true story pretty well now known.
Happened in San Diego. But it feels like Betty would
have been a really ideal candidate for for for next
chapter Capital. Absolutely, I wish we were around. We definitely
definitely would have taken on Betty Broadwick up and maybe
the murder would never happened, maybe the word would have
(16:25):
never happened. That's right. We could have saved at least
two lives and then I know, but I definitely want
to share with some of our listeners some of the
success stories tell us how new Chapter has really helped
some people and how they've gone on to their new
chapter and what they've done in terms of the money
that they're getting, whether it's going back to school or
starting a business. I want to hear some of those
(16:46):
success stories. Yeah. So we actually had a client go
back to law school, um after you know, she was
married to a professional athlete and said, you know what,
I you know, got out of college, got married and
never really had a career my own. So I now
want to go and and be a successful, hopefully successful lawyer.
I don't know why she want to get into the
(17:06):
legal business, but she does. Um. We've also had clients
that you know, started their own jewelry line that's been
wildly successful that really now they're able to stay at
home with their children and actually work and feel proud
and empowered that they have their own money. And we
make sure that we mentioned to them make sure you
(17:27):
manage that money wisely, because that's one thing that you know,
don't relinquish it to any new spouses or or boyfriends
or whatever you have, because that's gotten them into trouble
in the past. But now we have you know, great
um you know notes that we get Christmas cards saying,
you know, thank you so much, and this is what
I'm doing now, I'm living and just living their best
(17:50):
lives in their new chapter. I love it, Laura. You
often talk about how clients would come into your office
don't know anything about their finances, and then suddenly you're
telling them, well, you will never be in this position again.
You will know more about your finances now than ever before.
And then, Nicole, I wonder if in your work, as
you're navigating your client through the process towards getting their
(18:11):
own money back, are you coaching them financially And I
wonder if you can talk a little bit about the
female empowerment component of coaching women to be financially responsible,
not even just female, the empowerment of people who weren't okay, So,
I mean, one thing Nicole, I know you and I
have spoken about in the past is the fact that
so many of the will call them out spouses or
(18:33):
stay home spouses, whether their men or women. Historically they've
been women, but we see this quite a bit now
with female breadwinners than being men, really abdicating the financial
control and knowledge in their homes. Do you find as
people are going through the process and starting their new chapter,
that you're able to teach them and empower them. You know,
(18:54):
through the learning, so many women powerful women that could
get a lunch reservation at any rest run in town
and have personal shoppers at all the big department stores
come in and they say, I have no idea what
any I don't know what our house costs every month
or if it's paid for. I don't know what our
credit cards are. I don't know what my husband's you know,
salary is. I just signed the tax returns. And I
generally say to them, you'll never be in this position again.
(19:17):
You're gonna learn, and even if you're not as hyper
aware of it going forward, you're always going to know
the basics. Does new chapter really help people learn and
get that kind of enlightenment and then moving on into
their new chapter holding to that, whether it is a
budget or an understanding of investment strategies. I think a
lot of people, men and women, come into as clients
(19:40):
of ours that I find money is being very stressful,
um and in a scary topic something they don't want
to talk about. I I've had a client actually when
I asked her what's the mortgage on the house? She said,
what's a mortgage? Um? Very educated, you know woman who
just you know, put her head in this and and
(20:01):
you know, what they come to us is they get
their funding. They're empowered through their funding, and I make
them promise me at the end, when they get their settlement,
they're going to be more mindful of of spending. And
we like to make sure that they have um the
right experts at the end to help them. Uh really,
you know, make the right investments, be very prudent about
(20:23):
where they're they're spending is in their next chapter. Because
we don't want repeat customers. I mean, honestly, we we
want one and done. Um. You know, we we love
to have the attorneys call us, but you know, for
the clients, I want them to go get their settlement,
be empowered, realize that they too can go off and
and have their best lives and not be dependent on
(20:46):
on a moneyed spouse to to monitor their finances. They
can make their own investments. What have you seen over
the past four or five months with COVID How has
that affected your business? How has that affected the divorce
business in general? For more use it. Yeah, so I'm
sure you've been very very busy as well. We get
you know, calls. I think people are um locked up
(21:08):
more or less and very much like a holiday where
after you know, the New Year's, after the Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah.
They want out. They spent enough time with their their
loved ones and if it's bad, it makes it worse.
And for some people maybe they fell back in love,
um which you know I I do. I love a
(21:30):
love story, but unfortunately I only hear the not love stories.
Um so. But the the real issue is with COVID
getting into courts. Um I know l A is similar.
Right now in New York they're saying it's gonna be
at least a two year backup. I think a lot
of more people are gonna end up turning towards towards mediation.
I think it's gonna be really difficult to get into court.
(21:53):
I know that a lot of people want to get
in there for support modifications, whether it be child so
or modifications. So people just they've even lost their jobs
or they had to take a pay decrease. And it's
going to make it also very difficult for for divorces
where people are making plans and you know, is it
(22:14):
everything tied up in your house again? How are you
going to be able to afford a divorce? So I
do think that more than ever UM new chapter Capital
and Divorce Funding is as a tool for a lot
of these people. Absolutely, and you guys are on our
it's over Easy index also, just so you know, listeners
during this time, if you are having issues UM that
(22:35):
either go beyond divorce or a part of a divorce,
whether you really need help from some kind of an
accountant or c p A or forensic, if you need
help with mental health check ins. There's all kinds of
people on our It's over in the Easy index that
you might want to check into because they are wonderful
resources for folks that are going through a difficult time,
which I am now sadly feeling is almost all of us.
(22:58):
I mean, we've all gotten to a point where this
uncertainty that it's just really kind of difficult to figure out.
So anywhere you can kind of reach out to for
some additional assistance would be good. Most people who get
divorced find that once their assets and liabilities are divided,
their finances have undergone a paradigm shift. But once someone
makes it through to the other side of their dissolution,
(23:20):
it doesn't matter how many zeros you have in your
bank balance. There are important things you can and should
do with whatever you've got left. I'm Laura Wasster, the
divorce attorney and the founder and CEO of the online
divorce service It's Over Easy, And this is our podcast,
All's Fair. We're speaking today about financing your divorce and
funding your next chapter life after divorce. For more tips
(23:42):
on how to live your best life after divorce, check
out our master class at next Chapter series dot com.
But before you do, I want to introduce you to
someone who can help your dream and create your next chapter.
She's the head of private wealth Management at l VEST,
a financial company built to get more money in the
hands of women by a sting with financial planning, career coaching, investing,
(24:03):
and banking to save while you spend. I like the
sound of that, banking to save while you spend. Welcome
to All's Fair, Emily Green. Hi, Emily, Welcome, Emily. Hi.
How are you good? I'm hanging in Yeah, same, So
tell us a little bit about l VEST. So, LVEST,
so our mission is to close all the gender money gaps.
(24:27):
So that's loaded a loaded term. Um. We originally trying
to close the gender investment gap, which means that women
invest significantly less money over their lifetime than men, which
for the average women, actually cost them hundreds of thousands,
if not millions. That's average women. So I think about
a woman with wealth and such, and they cost her
a lot more um. And then we thought that's just
(24:48):
not enough, and so we needed to close all the
gender money gaps. And so actually we talk a lot
about like the gender pay gap, you know, the women
make less money. The actual crazy stat I think is
the HealthCap, the gender wealthcap. Women's wealth on average is
thirty two cents on every dollar of a white man's
thirty two cents, and a black woman's is one cent
(25:11):
on every dollar of a white man's. Now explain to
our listeners what that means. I watched the whole Instagram
video the other day about what wealth meant, not just
you know who rich, whatever, but wealth actual, ability to save, actually,
ability to prochase, actually an ability to leave two heirs,
to to leave inheritances. So tell them what that actually means. Yeah,
(25:31):
So it's it's the real estate. It's that you can
own a home, it's the investments, you have, your four
own case, all all those different basic things, and it's
not um, you know, you think about real estate in general,
and you think about like redlining and the things that
have happened with interest rates, and women actually tend to
have higher interest rates on mortgages, people of color tend
to have higher interest rates on mortgages, and so all
(25:51):
these different things that have actually caused this huge wealth
gap over time. Um, women on average live longer too,
so we need actually more money, and we make less
money because of the pay gap, and our salaries speak sooners.
So there's just this whole you know everything with money,
we are just disadvantaged. And so we need to think
(26:13):
about how the industry can actually change in order to
serve us. And so that's what we're here for, l
of us. Instead of women having to change themselves to
fit the money industry, we are here to change what
the industry is. To love that. I know you've told
me before to get some of the stats, because I
love this. So se women are single, they're either never married,
or they're divorced or their widowed. And then you said
(26:35):
three quarters of women who outsourced the management of their
money to male partners find themselves with a negative financial
surprise after divorce or widowhood and that and why is that?
Because they weren't paying attention and so their surprised or
is it because the guys just aren't doing a very
good job of it? Uh both um high mortgage rates
(26:56):
that they didn't know about because you know, they just
expected when mortgage rates and dialand that their husband refinanced,
but they never kind of like looked at it. He
said he did it, And now they have a seven
percent mortgage rate when mortgage rates have been below for
for you know, a decade. Um secret accounts that there's
a lot of like things like that, the accounts, I mean,
I'm seen the Flora, but like different secret accounts that
(27:19):
they didn't know about. Um venture investments are I think
the biggest thing actually is the size of their investment portfolio,
or really the lack thereof the size of their portfols.
And we've all we've all been there where somebody says
it's fine, I got this, honey whatever. And we were
talking before you came on, Nicole and I about how
(27:39):
women really abdicate responsibility, often for the money, and it's
so interesting to me and again men do it too.
Typically it is a stay home spouse that does it.
If you're the breadwinner, don't you then say I'm out
there earning the bread, maybe you could be home managing
our finances. But instead what has happened has been I
(28:01):
make the money, so I'm going to manage the investments,
and through maybe no nefarious purposes, there's not the appropriate time.
You can't do it whatever. I have seen a change
in the last five to ten years. I have seen
women kind of rising to the occasion and going, no, no,
I got this. If you want something right, let a
woman do it, or even a stay home spouse that
has more ability to be home. Tell us a little
(28:22):
bit about what you've seen, because you've been doing it
a while now, and I know I've seen you in
some of those initial meetings with people, and I've seen
you and you've hit your stride with clients. What are
you seeing, interestingly that is kind of narrowing or closing
that gender gap. What are you seeing women doing willing
to do, and what is l of us doing to
really help with that? So our focus is helping women
get invested, and so we are really like the only
(28:45):
financial advisory firm focused on getting women invested. And so
I talked to women all day about money, literally all
day long about money. And it is really interesting because
I think, you know, women are realizing that in order
to find their full power in life in general, understanding
their money is really important because if you actually look
at it, money is the number one source of stress
(29:07):
for not only women but men too. But it's a
huge source of stress for women. And so when you
think about it, solving that problem is huge here when
you're thinking about it, and the problem has really been
that the industry just doesn't talk towards women, um eighty.
It's like eight five percent of financial advisors are white
(29:27):
men and the average age is over fifty, So like,
why is a woman, especially after a divorce or something
like that, going to be like, yes, this old white
man really relates to me and can tell me exactly what.
Then they're not asking questions because they're embarrassed, and so
you get some old white guy kind of skeewing out
financial terms and things that she may not understand, and
(29:49):
she feels stupid saying, hold up, I don't understand this,
even though he's working for her and it's her money,
I mean, and do I mean one of when you
said why would a woman have a or fifty white
guy telling is the answer because we were used to
are raised to expect daddy to kind of help us,
and is that changing a little bit? I don't want
(30:09):
my dad telling me what to do with my money.
Why would you? If you think of the like just
think of if I say investor, who do you picture?
Probably an old white man. Do you picture like a
Bill Gates? You picture one of these? Like you picture
like picture you pure you with your pearl airings on it,
if you and Sally. Yeah, But that's who people picture
when they think about it. That's what the industry is.
(30:31):
That's how people have talked about it. Do you think
about CNBC what I always say about CNBC? Watch CNBC
and then watch ESPN although there's like no sports now,
but then watch ESPN and you'll be like, Wow, these
are the exact same thing, just talking about different topics.
And so the way that we've been trained to think
about money is just very male and how we're thinking
about this. And so now we're starting to see that,
(30:53):
you know, when women are divorced or when their spouse
dies or all these things, and they go to their
financial advisors. So they'll stick with that guy for a
little bit. But like they're You're right. They're always afraid
to ask him questions, you know, so they don't really
know what's going on. So even if they have a
financial advisor, a lot of times what I find is
like I'll talk to them, I'm like, did you have
any idea what this guy was doing? You know, I
hear a lot of the terms like oh, I don't
(31:14):
know if he's so gross, I don't want to talk
to him. I don't like him. He talks down to
my he's rude and like, you know, like you pay
him to do this. But women also, women are really
bad at firing people. Um, So always when I talk
to women, I have to like, we always have to
do a whole process of like how to fire their
financial advisor, Like we have to go through this whole
thing of like, but how do I tell him? Um?
(31:36):
Because women are just nice feeling We've been told be nice,
be nice to boys, don't hurt their feelings. So you know,
want to hurt your old white guy financial advisors feelings
even though he's been losing you money for years? Are
women more goal oriented? I read something that that we
can invest more and we'll care more if we actually
have a goal. So do you try to ask us
(31:56):
to like figure out what our goal is as we're
changing investments throughout geez, yeah, this is so important. And
we actually spent before we launched all of Us, we
spent two years actually trying to figure out why women
weren't investing, and we realized it was because the industry
didn't talk about goals. They talked about should I buy
this stock versus that stock? Should I buy this mutual
fund versus that? To e t F, like would being
(32:18):
an old white guy, what's an e t F? An
exchange traded fund? It's just a way to like buy
the market really basically um, But when you look at it,
it really is women care about like can I pay
for a new house? Can I buy a boat? Can
I do these things? And it doesn't matter if you
are I have no money or you have a hundred
(32:39):
million dollars. You know, I know women a hundred million
dollars and their goal is and like this is my
stay rich bucket, like and the you know that is
a goal. That is your goal to stay rich? And
so everyone has goals no matter where they sit. And
showing women how they can use their investments to achieve
that is the most important here because the else do
you find that a lot of women actually just end
up sitting in cash. I know I've seen that too.
(33:00):
They want to have a big, stay rich bucket, but
they're not actually enjoying their funds or investing them in
women owned businesses or nonprofits. Tell us a little bit
about investing with impact and the personal mission statements that
you guys have. So this is we did one yesterday.
Yes I don't, we can talk about it. You actually
(33:21):
did a huge relaunch of it yesterday. Um in doing
this and so when we looked at it, women while
they might not go to a dinner party like men
do and say you know, I got an eight percent return,
Oh I have Netflix stock and it's gone up backs
percent or things like that, they do care about their
values and their mission and having these types of conversations.
(33:42):
And so one thing that we've worked with women on
is actually building out investment portfolios that reflect the things
they care about. And so if that's women's rights, it's
not only looking at like how many women are in
a company. It's you know, women's CEO, as women founders,
all these things, but it's also like human rights because
that affects women disproportionately, Climate change affects women disproportionately, gun violence,
(34:05):
all these things, and so being able to reflect this
in women's portfolios give them a mission statement that they
can not only use for their investments, but also just
the way they live their life, how you spend you know,
how you think about films, about By giving all these
different types of things and have like a report, we
we give actual report that you can see, like what
(34:25):
your impact is over time. So while women may not
wanna or man may not want to go in and
say like, Okay, this is what my accounts look like
every day, it is cool to go in and be like, well,
how much impact have I made over like the last
quarter in such and so it's just a different way
to engage money and have women talk about it because
talking about money is so important. Um. So it's just
(34:46):
a good way to actually have, you know, those types
of conversations without feeling like, oh how much money do
I have? Am I doing the right thing? Thing? Who
is it? Okay I talk about money with I mean,
we were taught also while we're not apposed to hurt
guys feelings that we're not supposed to talk about money.
That that's ghost. Who do you talk about money with?
Can you talk about money with anybody? We encourage we
(35:07):
encourage everyone to talk about money. UM, tell people your salaries.
This is the only way that you will know, like
if you were being paid enough, you should have these conversations.
It's totally taboo, especially for women to talk about money,
but everyone should be talking about money. And like, I
have a client she's I love her totally crazy, but literally,
like on her Instagram one day she posted like the
(35:28):
amount of money she had from she worked at a
tech company and such, and I'll never for She's like,
my mom called me furious and it's a lot of money.
And she's like the mom. I need to tell people,
like you know what, I'm rich, and you know what.
That's it. I'm rich and everyone can know because I
worked hard and that is where I got myself. And
so that other women know if I worked this hard.
(35:49):
I mean I might display my wealth and shoes and jewels,
but still I know that young women are like, I
want to be like you when I get out of
law school. I want to have a Porsche to have
this stuff. I worked really hard. I think it's so
interesting we talked so often about how women if you
get heated, then you're called hysterical, whereas a man just
you know, as strong, strong or whatever. Same with women.
(36:12):
I was recently called entitled, and I'm like you bet,
I am, of course I'm entitled because I all of this.
So all right, tell us a little bit before we
bring Nicole back in our conversation for women, because I
think a lot of our listeners and certainly are it's
over easy. UM users may have more what I'll call
modest means to give us some tips for women that
(36:33):
may not have as much money as some of your
clients at LS. And I know LS does lower income
stuff too, but tell us, you know, just for the
average gal. So I think, especially as you're going through divorce,
it's almost just taking like a health check up of
who you where you're at. So it's almost, you know,
like you go to the doctor, take a check up
of where you're at financially, your debt, your assets, all
those different types of things. UM. We actually have like
(36:55):
a list on our side of just like okay, if
you're going through divorce, here all the things that you
need to look at, UM when you're thinking about you
know what your next step is in terms of investing
your financial life. Um, things like your insurance, things like
your credit, all those different things that you need to
look at because now you're a separate entity than your
ex husband and so you need to think about what
(37:16):
your financial picture looks like for you. But you know,
the biggest thing I would think about when you're thinking
about investing is to start having the conversation soon. And
so what a lot of times that I find when
women are divorcing, they're like, all right, when I divorce
and I get all the money and I figured it off,
that's when I'll start talking to people about investing or
find an advisor and things. And there are ways you
don't have to be rich to find an advisor. Like
(37:37):
you said, like, lves we have a service. It's literally
zero to all our minimum zero, and so you can
have an investment basically yeah, zero, you can put a penny.
Sally will probably you know, she gets those alerts and
she's like, oh, it's a competitor, but um, when we
look at that, but you can find advice out there,
(37:58):
and so I would I would encourage always women, especially
going through this process, to start to thinking about this
earlier and search out places like l of ust and
advisors who can help you throughout this process, because they're
gonna be help you to think about, am I do
I have enough money to do when I'm divorcing? What
should I start to be thinking about now? Because way
too many women wait until they're like, all right, now
I'm settled that I have my chunk of money and
(38:18):
now I'll figure out what's next. Or I just got divorced,
now I have all this debt. What should I do?
You know, all these different types of things, and so
I always encourage start to think about this sooner than later.
And for those of us who don't have great ability
to budget, which we are going to find our stuff
that we're going to have to start budgeting. Who do
you like nerd Wallet? Do you like Mind? I mean,
I know there's a lot of them. Have you experienced
(38:39):
them all? And is there one that you would recommend? Yeah?
I mean I I personally use mint Um. I think
it's easy. They send you the alerts and such, but
I think you know what's um And we actually have
a service that you can actually talk to financial planners,
you can buy sessions. We we kind of relaunched our
whole digital business and to be a membership now and
so you can actually define what that looks like. You
(39:00):
can talk to financial planners. UM. I find budgeting to
be a very tough thing for people, to be honest,
you asked anyone what they spend, and I promise you
no one knows. I think people always feel guilty about that.
No one knows. But using tools that's true too, But
also just thinking about you know, putting everything on a
piece of paper and so maybe you're you know, it's
(39:20):
just an Excel sheet that you're putting this all in,
but just kind of tracking that from time to time
in in something like mint that it you know, I
think things are going to change, like right now, obviously
our grocery bills are higher than UM dining out bills
and things like that. But just if you have like
a rough guide and how you're thinking about this using
those types of tools, UM meant we you know, you
(39:42):
can create things on Excel and such like that. That's
actually what I do, but UM as well, but just
using simple tools in order to understand where your at
and just track yourself over time, especially after a change
like divorce. It's going to be different, and it'll be
very good for you to have kind of an understanding
of what you spend and what you can afford. I
(40:03):
tell so many people going through divorce, do something really
nice for yourself, But it's hard to do that if
you don't know that you've got the funds available, or
if you feel like you've been irresponsible or what. At end,
you may not be able to afford to do it.
But maybe it's a couple of months in watching your
budget you will m Nicole Noon and founder of New
(40:24):
Chapter Capital Funding for Untying the Knot is back with
my friend Emily Green from last and I for some
closing arguments in favor of women taking charge of their
finances before, during, and after divorce. Ladies, what is the
most important advice you can share with a woman on
the precipice of divorce? Nicole, gather your support team. Make
(40:45):
sure you have the right team of experts have your village,
whether that's the right financial advisors, right legal advisors, or
the right moms that are at your school that went
through a divorce that you can depend on to bounce
ideas off of. UM. I would say find someone who
you trust. UM you know, as we were talking about before,
(41:08):
you you're gonna have to divulge a lot of personal
things to someone, and so sit down and actually find
someone you like in truest because you're gonna have to
tell them a lot of things that you're not going
to tell other people. And money is so personal. So
just like you want someone that you feel like comfortable
to sending a text to telling them anything, and so
you're doing that, just find the right person and it
that it feels right. Um. And that might sound familiar
(41:30):
to that advice because I know we've said it to
people before regarding their divorce attorney. But keep this in mine.
You're only going to know your divorces or for six, twelve,
eighteen months. You're gonna hopefully know your financial investor for
a lot longer. So you've got to feel even more
comfortable with that person. All right, we're gonna do something
that we do on the podcast, Nicole, You've done it
with me before they're called the interrogatories. Do you both
(41:53):
swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth? Yes? Yet, Emily, which relationship in her
life has had the most profound impact? So I would
actually say, I've been thinking about this actually a lot lately,
and I would actually say when I look at um,
my grandmother when I think about this, because she actually
(42:14):
used to trade stock although she had she actually had
a grace divorce sttlement. She had an amazing divorce sttlement
in the state of Illinois, and she took that money
and she would just day trade all day. When I
think about it, here's a woman who like, yeah, I
mean she died several years ago, but you know, you
think about someone who actually took control of their money
before women did. And here I am investing. So I
definitely love that, how about you, Nicole? Yeah, mine would
(42:37):
be my mother. Um. She was the first woman in
our family to go to college. She was really very
very driven. She did stay at home to raise my
brother and I, but she was the one making sure
that we got all our homework done. Um. And she
said basically, you're going to law school and made sure
that I got there by hoko by crook um. So yeah,
(42:57):
she's she's definitely smiling down on me. I love it. Okay, Nicole,
what's your favorite song? Uh, well, my favorite love song
I suppose would be my wedding song I had to
be you but sometimes right, Yeah, the Frank Sinatra version.
So how about you, Emily, I was gonna say my
wedding song as well. It was just not a traditional
(43:18):
love song. But we actually did Whitney Houston. I wanted
to do that. That's great, all right. And Emily, what
is the one piece of advice that you'd share with
your twenty something year old self? Don't sweat it. I
feel like I spent so much of my time in
my life like worrying about what's going to come next.
I'll tell you, Like every job, decision, everything was just
nerve wragging for me. And I look back and I'm like,
(43:39):
what a weight? I like that? How about you, Nicole? Yeah, no,
so similar. I don't you know, don't be afraid to
be uncomfortable. Um. In my twenties, I called off a
wedding after the save dates went out, so and I
sweated it, and looking back, it was the best decision
I ever made. Um, So yeah, don't you know, don't
sweat the small stuff exactly. And and Emily, which rom
(44:01):
com could you watch on repeat? Probably The Holiday? Um?
I love that movie. And also, actually, my husband and
I met in England. Um, he's not British, but I
always think about that. And I love that movie too.
How about you, Nicole Well, I love, love, love, intolerable cruelty,
but absolutely amazing. But I did watch twenty seven Dresses
(44:22):
the other day first so a long time. And I
love the New York Times wedding section. I mean, I'm
all about it, and I just I love that movie.
It holds up, it really does. I watched it recently.
To my friend Eileen wrote that she also wrote wore
the Devil Wears product and she she got she hit
the nail on the head for sure. With those two. Well,
(44:42):
we are grateful to both of you for being here
and on behalf of the women and the men in
our audience today. Thank you for the work you both
do to help people with their finances before, during, and
after divorce, and for sharing all this valuable advice with
us on All's Fair today. Tell us how people can
find you online, Nicole uh So. They can go to
New Chapter Capital So ny W C h A p
(45:05):
t E R Capital c A p I t a
l dot com, or on Instagram at Divorce Funding or
at Nicole neon an official and Nicole Noonan is n
I C O L E N O O n A
N official. How about you, Emily are so We're l
of us dot com E L L E V E
(45:27):
s T. I always have to spell that. It's like
L like the magazine invest, like the end of invest
dot com. Our Instagram is also l of us. You
can always find me. I'm just E green like the
color at all of us dot com. Fantastic. Thank you
guys so much. You both rock. We loved having you.
Stay safe, stay healthy, and Emily. I'll circle back later
this week about my personal investment profile since Johnny didn't
(45:49):
want me to talk about it good, so fice to
say maybe the very wealthy thanks ladies. By guys, see
you're like m hm hm
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