Blended Families

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, everybody, Welcome to the Greg Kicks Show. I'm Greg Kick,
certified Financial Planner, along with Wanda Cooper Financial Advisor and
bo Nicholson, certified Financial Planner. I've been out for two
weeks on vacation and I'm a little rusty, but I
heard that my two compatriots did really well and everybody
enjoyed the show. I got a lot of feedback from
some people, and we're just glad this summer's rolling along

(00:22):
for you too, and glad you tuned in. Our shows
are on Saturday and Sunday on the radio side down
at Moorhead City area the Crystal Coast seven am Saturday
morning to three pm Sunday afternoon, and then in the
Raleigh area the Metro one of the top twenty five
media markets in the United States. By the way, we're

(00:45):
on at two o'clock pm on Saturday and Sunday. We
get a lot of great feedback from you listeners. Thanks
for tuning in. Some of you are brand new and
you'll I think you'll love the shows. We change topics
every week so they're very fresh and up to day eight.
And then you regular listeners, we know we get we
get feedback from that that some of you people have

(01:06):
listened to us for years, and I did. I did
get a compliment. I didn't tell you bow and wind up,
but I had a listener person that called and wanted
to meet with me personally. And anyway, the long and
short of it was, he said, I'll listen to all
the all the financial shows, and y'all are the best.
And I went, well, thank you for the endorsement. Unasked for,

(01:28):
but I appreciated that. And I told them we have
fun and we love it and we're trying to help
people along the way.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
And as opposed to scaring people up a walls, do
what we want them to do.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Well, he said it kind of I'll paraphrase. He said,
you can tell the other people are selling something.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, good feedback from CFPS as well. I said,
you had the best show.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah yeah, that's true. But anyway, we're glad you listen,
and it will continue to do that. We'll keep changing
our show titles and we create new shows once in
a while, and we're gonna have a brand new show
next week and I'm going to talk about later in
our show today. But guys, we got to talk about
this a little bit today, and that's the big beautiful
bill that was in all the news. It was all
the rage. The Texas flood thing took some of the headlines,

(02:20):
which we are prayers and our thoughts go out to
all the families. Bo has little children and Wanda has
little grandchildren, and it's just heartbreaking. I told my wife Laurie,
I said, I can't imagine going to sleep tonight knowing
your kids may be under a pall of mud somewhere.
I mean, it's just heartbreaking. So you guys in Texas,

(02:41):
so our prayers are with you and the families and
so forth. But anyway, the big beautiful bill passed to
send it in the house. Everybody said it would never happen.
Then they sayers are continuing to underestimate the Trump administration.
I think you might as well get used to it.
But anyway, I thought this was real. I thought i'd
kick it off. We'll just each talk about a little bit.

(03:04):
But the way it was presented in the public and
the media, of course, is never straight and forward. So
here's what I looked at the surveys. I'll just read
you from an article on Wall Street Journal Thursday. A
battery poll confirmed the public is largely down on the
legislation across six June polls. Now, this is before it passed,

(03:27):
of course, when all the hype was going on from
Fox to Kaiser, Pew, Washington Posts, and so forth. Only
twenty three to thirty eight percent of the respondents had
a favorable view of the act. That was in June,
before it happened in early July. But then they went down,
they dug deeper, which I thought was really interesting. And
yet it isn't all bad for the Republicans. These surveys

(03:51):
also show the elements of the new law are popular,
in other words, when they broke it down. Here's what
they found. In the Kaiser poles txty eight percent of
respondents support a work requirement for Medicaid, and so do we.
In the Post Episodes poll, fifty two percent support a
work requirement for able and childless adults, with only thirty

(04:15):
three percent of post In the Pew survey, which is
my favorite survey, forty two percent support extending the twenty
seventeen Trump tax cuts that were to expire this year
and only twenty five percent oppose it. And finally, in
the other pole, the IPSOS poll it's forty nine percent
support extending tax cuts twenty three percent of POSE. And

(04:38):
by the way, the estimated tax savings by not letting
the tax law the tax backets jump up in December,
the average American is going to save about twenty eight
hundred dollars per year. That's like two hundred and thirty
bucks a month. So let's see how this pans out.
There's going to be a lot of happy Americans that

(04:59):
are waiters. And my wife tips everybody that walks, her nails,
her hair, the waitresses, so all of those tips are
tax free. Now, anyway, what's you guys response to the bill.
I thought it was interesting how the perception of it
was negative until it passed, and then now we see
what's in it, and now it's like, wait, it's more positive.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Well, I wish the Social Security could have been tax free,
but since it's not, I've adapted. And I do think
that the additional deduction, though, is going to help with
some taxation on Social Security.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Absolutely six thousand exactly.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
So I mean I was pleased with it, I'm not
you know. I think it also helps families that are
are not wealthy. I think there's some things in that help,
you know, the middle income for sure. So you know,
I don't know what all the hype was, the negativity was,
but I like it now. They are, you know, cracking
down on medicaid fraud. That's been abundant for years and

(06:01):
we all know it. So that's being cracked down on.
It doesn't mean that we're not going to take care
of the poor. It just means those that are getting
those funds that were able bodied and should have worked,
and we all know that's been happening.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Pretend they're going.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
To crack down on that, and you want them to
because it's your tax dollars. So there you go.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, that's a good point. And a lot of the
personal tax benefits are actually targeted at the lower income earners.
So the six thousand dollars deduction that was mentioned is
for people over sixty five. It's twelve thousand per couple.
By the way, so twelve thousand additional deduction if you're
a couple over sixty five in retirement where every dollar
obviously matters, that's coming in and going out. But that's

(06:42):
only if you as a couple make under one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars joint. Now, I know that sounds
like a lot in retirement, but we have a lot
of retirees who have significant pensions and maybe rental incomes,
and so not everybody is under one hundred and fifty
thousand joints or seventy five singles are, but again they
cap it. And so, like Greg mentioned, you know, one

(07:04):
the media pushes one thing and how this bill is
for the ultra rich, but it really, it really is
focused on I wouldn't say the lower class, but you know,
the more moderate American. And then the state and local
tax deductions are now capped at forty thousand. They used
to be capped at ten thousand. So the money that
you pay your state North Carolina and Raleigh and everything else,

(07:26):
you can deduct that from your federal tax return now
four times more of than you used to be able
to mortgage interest, very fair mortgage interest, all the things.
A state tax exemption remained in place, which was huge.
And then the Affordable Care Act subsidy got expanded, and
now this is a separate line item that's going to
be revisited next tax year and Congress has to act

(07:49):
or else there's going to be a subsidy cliff And
basically what that means is if you retire before Medicare age,
one of the big hurdles for you is what do
you do about hell health care? Healthcare is so dang expensive.
The Affordable Care Act, as a lot of people will
find the hard way, is not very affordable unless you
play it right. It's income based, and this is something

(08:12):
that you should be very much in tune with if
you are retiring before medicare. We have a lot of strategies.
We will get into them. If you give us a call,
we can sit down with you and show you how
you can potentially get quote free healthcare.

Speaker 4 (08:25):
And we know there are some things.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
There are some things that they're left in there about
the real estate. If you're selling real estate and you're
gonna have a big capital gain on investment property, there
are things that were left in that bill to help.

Speaker 4 (08:36):
That's right, So give us a call.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
At nine one nine eight five six nineteen sixty eight.
Particularly if you're in the area the five forty is
going through and you're losing a lot of land, give
us a call nine one nine eight five six nineteen
sixty eight.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeap opportunity zones and everything got extended and so good news.
With the Big Beautiful Bill. We have so much more
to talk about with that Big Beautiful Bill. We actually
have a whole show on it next week, so y'all
stay tuned for that. Give us a call, like Wanda said,
nine six one, nine six eight, if you'd like to
talk about your situation and stay with us today we're
talking about blended families and all the complexities that come

(09:09):
with that.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Be right back and welcome back to the second segment
of The Greg Hicks Show. Greg Kicks, Wanda Cooper, and
Bo Nicholson here every week. We're also on podcast under
the very creative title The Greg Kicks Show, so it's
not hard to remember. Uh, But anyway, we're going to
talk today about something very important and it's a big

(09:31):
deal because it affects so many people. It's called blended families.
Now we're not talking about sex here. We're talking about
past married people that get remarried. Just to make that
real clear in our lovely world today, the culture and
just a sort of a precursor, the CFP, the Certified

(09:52):
Financial Planner Board does surveys once in a while and
it was just a little highlight. I'll bring it up
again next week a little bit. But three out of
four Americans look for financial information help at least once
a month adults. That's amazing. That's that tells you that
a lot of people don't know a lot about financial things,

(10:14):
and that's why people like us actually exist and have
a business. But here's some interesting survey news. Americans believe
the information they find online. Two out of five believe
it's in their best interests. Three out of five don't.
No way, yeah, And that's because there's so much hype
in everything, including financial planning and radio shows included. And

(10:39):
then here's here's something that we U and I will
say this is one of our goals in our radio show.
Three out of five Americans regret a decision they made
because of financial misinformation. And we see that people come
into us with advisors all the time to listen to
our show and they we just want a second opinion,

(11:01):
a second look, and we find things actually regrettably more
than we would like that it's bad information or they
they're actually they've already done. It's a decision made and
now they can't unwind it very well. So anyway, the
point being, we know you're out there listening, and we
know you need help, and we are going to try

(11:21):
to give you the most accurate information we possibly can.
And a lot of times that's because we are doing
the very thing same things we talk about on this
show with our clients already. Let me say so, it's proven,
it's proven experience, it's not hypothetical. It'll happen.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Let me say something really quick about online research. I
am a sucker for confirmation bias, especially when it's supposed
to snow. You know, I look at weather dot Com,
I look at acuweather, I look at wr L and
Greg Fischel, I'll look at I will get glued to
the one forecast that says Riley's going to get eight inches,

(11:58):
but everybody else is.

Speaker 4 (11:59):
Calling for a I'm like, no, no, no, no, We're gonna get it. It
just says it right here this San Antonio website.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
Hey, I just.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
I just typed in into two different tabs. Coffee is
good for eyesight one of the things that came up
healthline article why drinking coffee is good for your eyes
On the next tab, coffee is bad for your eyesight?
Can coffee cause blindness or damage eyesight? Why coffee has
been linked to blindness also from Healthline, So again, confirmation

(12:26):
bias is real. If you're going to the Internet, the
world Wide Web where I just went just on a
crazy topic like coffee and blindness, and you're trying to
predict your own retirement and what you're doing with your
money and using the Internet to do that, or maybe
message boards like Reddit, it might be a good starting point. However,
I think it's probably a better idea to call a

(12:47):
team of professionals that you can sit down with that
you trust. Maybe the guys you listen to on the
radio right come in and just spend some time with
us and share your story with us and see how
we can kind of dissect your situation and pull out
some things it might help you in the long run
get to where you want to go.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
Nine one nine eight five six one nine sixty eight.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
Now on blended families, there is a lot of information
if you look on the Internet about blended families as well.
There is a whole site that tracks blended families. By
the way, But Greg, I know, as long as we've
been in business, as long as the company's been around,
you've seen a lot of families go through divorce, widow.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Widow, wer, loss of a spouse.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
Right remarriage, to whatever the reason is. And so that
presents complexity, if you will, in a lot of ways.
It can be emotions and particularly the financial area, because
the financial and emotions are kind of tied together. And
then it becomes this is my money, this is your money.
We've seen it where it works where they separate it.

(13:49):
We've seen it where it works when they blended. So
I think when you blend a family later on in life,
that has a whole set of complexities.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Was shocked at how much this occurs. So just today
I googled it up. Thirteen hundred new families blended families
are created every day in the United States, thirteen hundred
marriages with blended families. I was like stun and then
the overall they're estimating approximately forty percent of American families

(14:24):
are second marriage families. I didn't realize it was so huge.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
I wonder what percentage is widows, widowers.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
They didn't break it down. They didn't my personal one
you mentioned personally, I went through the death of my spouse, Sue,
about eight years ago. It's hard to believe spent eight
years who had leukemia. And then I was single for
around a little less than two years, and then a
friend of mine introduced me to Laurie, and so I've

(14:52):
been married six years to Laurie as of a month ago.
So I'm a blended family person. She had four adult kids,
I had two, and so I literally went through all
this that we used to talk about with clients, and
it is not simple, but there's great steps to go.
I will say this that Laurie and I and all
of our kids love each other, so we've done something right.

(15:15):
But there was specific steps we did to make sure everybody.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
Understood it didn't happen overnight, though, and that liking each
other and loving each other was building over time.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, and you do steps while you're in the dating
process so that the adult kids don't think somebody's coming
to steal something. There's all these things you can prevent.
It's preventative medicine, literally, and one of them is a prenup.
Let's talk about prenups.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
Well, I mean, I think you know, we wrote a
book years ago and a Chabu Wars. Prenups are sexy,
and I'm like, should we go back and change that?
Maybe that was the sexiest comment, you know, when you
think about it.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
It was two thousand and eight, right right before everything.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
But you know, I think you can do prenups. I
have plants that have gone through losing a spouse, divorce,
remarriage and all of that, and what they chose to
do was sit down and segment their finances. In other words,
I'm going to leave this annuity. I'm we'll do an
annuity for you to have lifetime income and that's for

(16:17):
you and everything else goes to my children, you know.
So and they work it out that way so they
don't have to have a legal document that sometimes.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
Until something happens.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Yeah, well, but I'm just saying you said, well, no,
when you do the annuity, you can spell out what happens.
You know that that spouse is added on the beneficial
or she becomes a beneficiary. So there's there's ways to
do it without the document. Obviously a legal document is preferable,
but I have couples that don't like that, so they

(16:49):
do it a different way. So it's not a one
size If it's all you can work it out. We've
seen it work. We've seen it where it's still a
little hassle sometimes because the adult children is the spouses
of the adult children that get all up in arms about, well,
you deserve this, and you deserve that. You don't deserve
anything that's your parents' money. You're lucky to get it,

(17:11):
but you don't deserve it.

Speaker 4 (17:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
I think a lot of the complexity does come in
when there are kids involved. If it's a second marriage,
that is excuse me from two young divorcees who may
be married the wrong person. At first, there might not
be a need for a prenup there, but when their
kids involved, that just creates potential tensions between the two sides,
especially when there's money. We talk about this on the

(17:34):
show all the time with inheritances. When you leave kids
an unstructured inheritance, even the best relationships can sometimes get
fractured because you know, it's like throwing slop in a
pig sty and all of a sudden, everybody goes crazy.

Speaker 4 (17:48):
The pigs come.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
That's right, and so it is important to kind of
protect your legacy and your lineage. And you think about it,
you have husband and wife. Husband has their assets, wife
has their assets. If one of them passes away, ultimately
they will predecease the other one. You want to make
sure that other person, the widow or widower, is protected,
but at the same time maintaining that legacy for their

(18:10):
children and not jeopardizing that. And so I have a
client this is also important to do before the blended
family situation happens.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
Now.

Speaker 4 (18:18):
I actually talk to a client.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
This morning who inherited a significant amount of money from
his family and when he passes away, he wants to
make sure his wife is taken care of, but that
if she decides to get remarried that the husband's the
new husband's not going to come in there and take
those assets. And so he's put all that in a trust.
He's given his wife him's positions so that him's provisions

(18:43):
so that she can then access that money for her
own wellbeing. And it's a very thoughtful way.

Speaker 4 (18:48):
To do it.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
And I commended him because he's taken a long time
in this process, but he's finally getting towards the end
of it. It's just something you need to do. Nobody
likes talking about this stuff, whether it's putting a will together,
trust together, or a prenup again, because prenups they don't
sound sexy. They have a negative connotation, but they are
so important and they can they can really impact a

(19:09):
situation in a very positive way. So give us a
call if you want to talk more about that. Nine
one nine eight five six one nine six eight that's right.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, And just one other point on the prenup. You
if you do it before you get married. I told
Laurie this, my wife, then your four kids are not
going to think that I'm coming in to take some
of their inheritance. And my two kids feel the same way.
So just by telling the adult kids everything is legally adopted. Now,

(19:38):
the uh, the thing about a prenup, people think it's
like hardcore can never change. Well, you can change your
will with a phone call with your lawyer. You can
also change a prenup, by the way. Yeah, and then
we've been married six years, so now now we've we've
maneuvered things where some of the real estate we have

(19:59):
when I die goes to Louri, my new wife, And
in exchange for that, Lauri helped us fund and pay
down debt in our condo at the beach. So you
can divide and conquer in a smooth, slick way and
everybody's happy. So just keep that in mind. We're not lawyers,
but we are highly recommended the prenupson idea well that

(20:21):
we're going to come back. We got a lot of
stuff on taxes, investments and all that kind of stuff.
Stay tuned, welcome back to the second half of the
Greg Hicks Show. If you want to listen to some
of our shows that have been archived, by the way,
they archive them back about a year, so there's about
fifty shows archived on the Raleigh radio station one oh
six one FM Talk and also they're on podcasts, so

(20:43):
you can do just search the Greg Hicks Show and
you can go down and scroll down and find your show.
You can also do it on our website frm NC
dot com. FRM is the name of our business, Financial
Resource Management frm N. She is of course North Carolina.
We have offices in Raleigh and Atlantic Beach. So you

(21:06):
can go on the website, and by the way, it's
a great website. It's got tons of information including our
newsletters to clients, our office locations, but also it's a
little tab that says radio show. And the good thing
about that, let's say you just inherited money, or let's
say you really want to learn more about stocks, or
real estate, or tax savings, any multitude of things. Maybe

(21:28):
you just got a divorce or inherited money. We have
shows on all that stuff, so you can scroll down
and listen to that show. And this is interesting. A
lot of our own clients listen to those shows because
they want to learn more information. As I mentioned on
the introduction of today's show about how many people adults
in America are looking for financial advice, three out of

(21:52):
four Americans look online once a month for advice. So
you don't listen to the radio show or the podcast,
and you can listen and find out some cool stuff
about different topics. Okay, back to the Blended Family show.
We talked about some prenups we talk about, Uh, let's
talk about like some hypotheticals which we have helped people
deal with that are real. They what if both spouses

(22:14):
own a house, uh, you know, or one of them
owns a business, or one of them has a lot
of debt and the other one has no debt. These
are financial things that that emotionally can get really tough,
and you need to have these discussions. Sometimes an advisor

(22:35):
sitting across the table from a couple getting married again
is really helpful because you're you're we are impartial to this.
We're going to give you the exact best device, or
sometimes I'll give I'll say you have three options one, two, three,
and that kind of advice. Then the couple can talk
together later and pick one of the three. So so

(22:58):
our goal there is just to smooth the journey for
the new couple.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
Well with real estate. I mean, I just had a
meeting with some radio listeners that they've been married twenty years,
second marriage twenty years, but her name was not on
the house. And that's the reason she brought her husband
in because she was a little worried what happens your kids,
you know, they really never in twenty years, never have

(23:26):
adopted the idea that this is his love.

Speaker 4 (23:30):
This is it.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
So I sent them to it to an attorney. But
the answer is to add her to the deed in
the title of the house. But and he had never
done that, you know. So she was like really upset
because I think she heard one of our shows or something,
and she was really upset, and so I sent them
to an attorney to fix that, because you do want

(23:52):
her to get the house right and he said, I do.
And he said, but when we bought this house, everything
was still new and you know and.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
All of that.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
And I said, well, if you pass away, less likely
your kids are going to get it.

Speaker 4 (24:04):
Oh, they bought it together. She wasn't on it, but
they bought it while he was she was around.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
Yeah, so he's never you know, put her name on
it because he sold the property with his wife. Yeah,
and he bought this and then they got mad, so it.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Was his money and those complicated.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yeah, And so I knew what needed to happen globally,
you know, if you will, but I'm not a legal
expert on that. So I did send them to an
attorney to get that fixed. But after twenty years her
his kids had never bought into the fact he has
a new wife because they love their mother, you know, obviously,
but she passed away. But they've never I mean, she said,

(24:45):
they're nice to me, she said, but I can tell
they're worried about what's going to happen when their dad
pass until he died, because they keep bringing it up
at every gathering him. Yeah, exactly. So the key that
what I'm trying to say is to take care of it.
It all spelled out legally up.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Front, and you know, there's an objective way to look
at things. I mean, there's an emotional way to look
at things. And I think the emotional angle is important here,
particularly when there are young kids, because if there's two
spouses and they're from the same area and you move
into one of the spouse's houses, one of the spouse's houses,

(25:22):
that can create resentment from the other kids sometimes. So
like if there is a mom and they move into
the stepdad's house, in the kid's eyes, it's always going
to be stepdad's house, right, It's never going to feel
like home to them. So the cleanest thing to do,
and again this is emotional, not objective, is to sell
both the houses, raise money, buy a new house together,
start fresh, clean slate. That's the way to do it. Again,

(25:46):
the housing market's a little crazy right now. Interest rates
are nuts, and so it might not make sense for everybody,
But if you have the financial wherewithal, that's going to
be the best way to kind of preserve the mindset
and the emotional state of your children, right it is.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
And then there's other tools, and I'll mention one. We
have a whole show on insurance. So I've had many
many couples as clients, like they get they're newly married,
they have adult kids or little kids, they have grandkids
sometimes and then they say the husband usually go, well,

(26:20):
I'll go what are you going to leave for your
new wife? By the way, and sometimes it's life insurance.
It's a simple, it's so simple. So I did that
when I got remarried. I bought a nice large policy
in case something happens to me, it goes to her.
I also had I had two different life insurance policies,

(26:41):
so I put my new wife Laurie on one of them,
and I told my adult kids and they didn't care.
So it's funny life insurance. If you have a business
or you have a beloved condo at the beach that
you kind of don't want anybody to have with your
kids and grandkids, even though you love your new spouse,
that life insurance is kind of an effective, not high

(27:05):
cost way to make sure the new spouse is taken
care of in a different way with different assets. So
that's that's just a simple idea. If you're healthy, it works.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
It's all legal documents. You got to get it done
because in this situation that I just talked about. It
was the spouses of the children that were causing so
much angst.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Oh gosh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
So you know, and that's what we're finding is the
is in families things are the dynamics can be huge
as far as who speaks out. And you know, so
you've got a daughter in law that's very verbal, you
got a son in law that's very verbal, and they
really don't have a dog in the fight, but they
think they do. So it's better to get it all

(27:46):
spelled out on documents, legal and then have the family
meeting and say we're not going to talk about this anymore.
I have handled it. No more family gatherings where this
is brought up.

Speaker 4 (27:56):
This is the deal, This is the way it is.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yes, exactly, good a life.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yes, exactly, get.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
Your own life, get your own inheritance.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
Gig talk about a little bit about and bo add
to it as well. Investments, the four one K, the iras.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
So many things require beneficiaries, and you can change the beneficiaries,
by the way, So what I did was I changed
the beneficiary. I mean on my one of my annuity
iras that had guaranteed income benefit. Whenever I retired. I
simply transferred it to a new IRA. I own it.

(28:35):
It's Greg Hicks IRA. But as long as Laurie lives,
she's younger than me, so the odds of real house
she will live longer. She gets the income benefit. Yeah,
so that that way you can take care of the
new spouse in a different way. So, so it's important,
and you can be very creative. This is where this
is where Bow and Wane and I come into your life.

(28:57):
We I've said this on the show over the years.
We get paid to be creative. We are going to
throw in things. We had a case. I had a
case recently where it wasn't the second wasn't the second marriage,
but it was the same concept where somebody has like
five kids, but one kid is a stick in the mud,

(29:17):
and that very kid is the one who's causing all
the problems. They want their money. They want money now,
blah blah blah. You don't want to die. This is
not even related marriage. You don't want to die without
your will or your beneficiary specifically in order and then
you can say quit griping. Yeah, so in a second marriage,
it's even worse because you'll have an in law one

(29:40):
time I had this is like twenty years ago. I
had a guy come in and he had a inherited trust,
but he couldn't get it until he was much older.
So he was married to a new person now and
they moved into her house and her kids be raided
him weekly. They thought for sure mom was going to

(30:04):
die first and he was going to inherit her house. Yikes.
So and so now, and I haven't seen this person
in fifteen or twenty years, so I don't know what
happened to them, but they're going to live in an
unhappy family for until they die, until one of them
dies because of that lack of trust. It's you don't

(30:27):
need to do that. You need to talk up front
when you get remarried and get everything settled.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
Well. The other thing that people need help with, especially
when they marry the second time later on in life. Yeah,
the husband may have already turned on pension. Yeah, and
so they're living large and everything's fine, but no survivorship survivorship.

Speaker 4 (30:48):
And there's no redoing that. Once you elect your pension option,
you're done.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
So social security strategizing is important because you don't know
how long she was married to the other spous versus
married to this one. So social security plays into a
second marriage as well.

Speaker 4 (31:03):
Yeah, by the way, all the pieces of the pie.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
And this shocked me when I got remarried to Lorie.
I looked it up and I couldn't believe it. She
only had to be married to me ten months. No way,
when I die she gets my solid security. She was
married to a pastor's wife and she was a school teacher,
so my social security is way more than hers. But
once she's married ten months, not years, she can get

(31:28):
all mine. And then but by doing that, her former
spouse who passed away, she dropped off his, but he
was a pastor, so he did not have a lot.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
We have a lot of couple of clients who are
older and they will not get remarried.

Speaker 4 (31:43):
They live together a domestic union. My social security, my
late husband's security, and one.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
More thing on one more thing on beneficiary is really quick.
We mentioned that briefly. I know he got a quick
second before we take a break. We have a lot
of clients that come in or prospects from the radio
that come in with a lot of old four oh
one cas. We never like to see that because it's
a cluttered mess. There's a way to simplify that and
just open up one IRA. Twenty percent of iras and
four oh one k's still list x spouses as beneficiaries.

(32:13):
To say that again, one out of five iras and
four one ks still list ex spouses as beneficiaries. I
hope those people are on the way to meet with
their advisor to change those beneficiaries. I hope they don't
get in a carrect and pass away.

Speaker 4 (32:26):
On the way. They're gonna have some very happy ex spouses.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
Consolidate your stuff, simplify your stuff, and make sure your
beneficiary designations are accurate. You can call us to get
that process started. Nine to one, nine eight five six
one nine six eight. We got so much more to
talk about with blended families and things that you should
watch out for.

Speaker 4 (32:43):
So y'all stay tuned, Welcome back to the grad Kicks Show.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
We're in the last segment of our show on blended
families of Americans live in families that are remarried, second
marriages and so forth, through divorce and lots of a
spouse and all that stuff. By the way, we have
complete shows on divorce. We have a complete show on
the loss of a spouse. We have it. We have

(33:06):
shows on families as a matter of fact. Next week's
show is on the loss of a spouse, which which
kind as a matter of fact, Yeah, the next three
shows are about families, loss of a spouse, financial issues
in marriage, and then finally divorce. So we we chose

(33:26):
July to kind of hit the family issues in the
financial planning world. So and we do that on purpose
to get you know, to get the good things together.
So if you're interested in family issues, July is your
month to listen to the Greg Yek Show, So stay
tuned for that. So let's back to the topic at hand.
We talked about a few things. Tax planning is very important.

(33:53):
Social security planning, want to mention because everything changes when
you get remarried, and and bo you have a point.
I used to have couples that had either pensions or
high solid security from ex spouses and they always giggle
and smile and they say, well, we're kind of living
in sin, and I go, hey, that was your moral collizement.

(34:16):
Yeah yeah. So then as an advisor, we have to
deal with couples who quote are living in sin and
they're not remarried, but they're together.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
Although be careful on buying real estate. Yes, together, because
I just went through that with a couple of them
together twenty years and never married. The kids are fighting
tooth and nail because of that.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
And real estate law is a little different in a state. Planning,
by the way, So anyway, blending the family is tough.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
Tax planning, blending the money's tough.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
What about Yeah? What about that? Now, let me tell
you what Laurie and I did. We did the same
thing that my first wife, Sue and I did before
she passed away. Laurie has her bank account where she
gets her SOB security and her pension, and then we
have a joint account that kind of pays for everything,
which I'm mostly funding. So that's the way I did

(35:08):
it with my first wife, Sue, and it worked well.
So if she wanted to run out and spend money
on a ring or jewelry or the kids or the grandkids,
like Wanda does, she's constantly spending that. Absolutely, Yeah, that's
a good thing to have your own account. This is
my solution personally. And then the joint account we pall
the bills and all that stuff. So so anyway, couples

(35:30):
need to do that anyway, but new couples, because what
will happen is like Laurie had a style that was
completely different than my style. They both worked, but we
had to compromise and work together. And that's true of
a first marriage, but it's even more true of a
second because you got habits built now that are hard
to change.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
Right, and you get to know this person and you
feel like you know them and sure you know you
know the emotional side of who they are, but you
need to know the financial side. Like Greg mentioned and see,
it is important to have that full financial disclosure. Another
commonly overlooked piece is obligations to expouses or kids. You know,
if there's back child support, that's odor if they owe

(36:10):
alimony at you know, five thousand dollars a month, wouldn't you.

Speaker 4 (36:14):
Want to know that?

Speaker 2 (36:14):
And so it is important to run a credit report
and kind of a debt audit before you say I do.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
Yeah, absolutely. You know. I had a couple come in
that I did become clients. But it was so funny.
She said, you know, he's been mister squeaky for forty
years now, and she said, I have always wanted, you know,
a deck screened and porche, you.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Know, patio, lubricate, the squeeze all that.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
She said. And I know when I die that next
woman is gonna get it, she said. So here's the deal.
This is what she was looking at him the whole time. Wanda,
you figure out how much more income you can create
for us, because that's gonna happen. The guy waiting for
my phone calls. I talked to her today and I said,

(37:03):
how's a remodeling going. She said, oh, it's on, it's on.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
You got to keep their wife happy. That's rule number one.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
She's right, the husband and maybe the wives do the
super husbands and second marriage has changed. They do a
lot happier style in a second marriage than they did
the first sometimes, and she knows that. So she's like,
I'm getting my porch, I'm getting my patty, and I'm
getting my remodel kitchen. So figure out how to do
it one and that's all I'm going to ask of you.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
That's a really targeted financial plan goal right there. Sometimes
that's good though, Yeah, and realize some people have that
when they marry remarry. That's a problem. Some people have
rental income and the other one doesn't. How is that
money used, you know, So there's all these little complications.

(37:54):
And by the way, a lot of people think you
can have a perfect marriage and a perfect solution financially
and emotionally. No, we all know that's not true. So
so compromise is part of the plan. Right when you
get remarried especially, that's very important.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
And love is important. I get that, but money issues
can kind of make love disappear if you're not careful.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Remember a divorce Atturny, we have a divorce show and
Rick love it. We'll say two top reasons for divorce.
One is sexual affairs. Number two is money.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
Money.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Money is so money can cause a divorce and a
second marriage too, just like the first marriage. So the
more you have a plan and an agreement, and it's
called a blended family, so it's not just blended emotionally
and with kids and love and all that, just blended financially,
you have to deal with it.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
Full disclosure is what the name of the game is.
Disclose everything. If you've got a problem child that you're funding,
I would want to know that before I marriage, wouldn't you.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Which is well, I have I have a special needs
son who's an adult, so.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
That's that's not a problem, you know, no, but full.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
Disclosure is my point. Laurie needed to know that that
there is a special need situation.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
And you're going to have to fund that. Sometimes you are.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
You are, So that's it. We talk about this a lot.
Communication between families is absolutely critical for any financial life.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
So and making everything clear to the adult kids. I mean,
in fairness, when they lose a mom or dad that
you know, they've known for forty years or whatever, and
or fifty maybe they've been around long longer than that.
That's a long time to love a parent. And then
they pass away and then dad or mom moves on

(39:45):
and their eyes pretty quick. So in their eyes that
second spouse is always out to get something that they
don't deserve. They don't look at it from dad or
mom's perspective. That's a fact, unfortunately. So it's good to
get the financial peace settled. And you might say, well,
my kids don't deserve know anything, there's none of their business.
It really is, though, it really is.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
It has to be.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
It has to be. And so if you get that
out of the way, I think, like what you and
Laurie have done, it's easier to get the love aspect
for the whole piece, you.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
Know, and sometimes in blended families we see and Greg,
I'll be interested if you're open to sharing this what
you guys do. Sometimes this is when we see tax
filing as head of household as opposed to married filing jointly,
because sometimes, especially with kids, when you're married filing jointly
and you want to maybe maintain some of that financial

(40:39):
independence you lose you're kind of penalized for alimony and
child support and that kind of stuff if you do
single filing and married filing jointly, and so head of
household can be a benefit there. Do y'all file married
filing jointly?

Speaker 1 (40:54):
You do, okay, because we're not really hand a hasshole
implies you're a single parent.

Speaker 4 (40:59):
So yeah, but I guess one person comes in with kids, yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yes, and if they're younger kids, that could be.

Speaker 4 (41:06):
Yeah, because I've always looked at that.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
I used to do turbo tax all the time and
finally got a CPA, But I used to look at
head of household and I thought to myself, why in
the heck would anybody do this? When married finally jointly
is right here? You get such a better deduction.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
That they're trying to keep their tax situations separate.

Speaker 4 (41:23):
I don't know that's the situation.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Yeah, if you're trying to keep your finances a little
more independent, and maybe there's some unequal uh dynamic in
the finances between the two couples, then that might make sense.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
Yeah, yeah, it might. So Anyway, I hope we've really
brought out the key things today. And and please call.
There's nothing like an objective person talking to you, uh.
And some of the and I was dealing this week
with a tough state situation on how to how to
set up the kids and grandkids beneficiary wise and stuff

(41:56):
like that in our age and then the will. We're
not we're not we're not lawyers. We're not state lawyers,
but we know a lot about how to do some
good estate planning. And we refer people to our state
attorney friends. But you just need help. And some of this, frankly,
is so emotional. You can't do it by yourself. You

(42:17):
think you can. And remember the thing I read right
at the first of the show. I want to read
it again. This is from a Certified Financial Planner Board
survey in America. Three out of five people regretted decision
they made because of a financial misinformation or lack of information.
So you don't want to be in that sixty percent

(42:40):
and find out after you get remarried there were some
things you should have done early and you just didn't
do it. So so get some input, get some advice.
Call us at nine nine eight five six, nineteen sixty eight, and.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
Get a team of professionals around here.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
Yeah. Yeah, And we have a network of professionals, the
CPAs and the state attorneys and so forth. And remember
the show's coming up. If this is real interesting to you,
Remember we're going to talk about next week the loss
of a spouse two weeks from now. Financial issues, What
are the big what are the big flags that come
up in any marriage, first, second, or third marriages? And

(43:15):
then we're going to talk about another one that's huge, divorce.
Divorce is financially traumatic and emotionally traumatic. So all of
this stuff revolves around family issues, things that matter to
your loved ones, and and things can go wrong. Uh.
Second marriage is what if somebody has an accident and

(43:36):
there they're in the nursing home, I mean, or has
a stroke. You have to you know, we don't we
don't like to think about that. But one of the
things that advisors do like us is we say what if.
We'll we'll say that in the meetings, what if this
happens to you? And they'll go, oh, I never thought
of that. So we look at best case scenarios. We

(43:57):
want you to live happily ever after, but we also
look at worst case. One of you gets in a
car wreck, one of you has an injury, one of
you loses their job, gets fired. There are lots of
things that can throw curveballs in a happy marriage, whether
it's the first, second, or third marriage.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
And I did deal with that in one meeting that
I had with a couple. He was considerably older, and
that was a worry that she had. What happens if
he go he gets disabled and I I'm the one
to take care of him. I think his children should
take care of him.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
That was all ooh, and that needs to be a
family discussion right there exactly. And with that, happy Doug.
We'll leave you with this call us at nine one, nine, eight, five, six,
nineteen sixty eight. We'll talk about anything related to you
personally or your family, particularly in the financial world, and
the impact of that nine one, nine eighty five six,
nineteen sixty eight, and with that, remember this, it's your money,

(44:53):
it's your future, don't blow it.

Speaker 4 (44:55):
Advisory services through Couple Investment Advisory Services.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
LLC Security is offered through Capital Investment Repand remember Finra
and SIPIC. One thousand East six Forks Road, Raleigh, North
Carolina nine one nine eight three one twenty three seventy.

Speaker 4 (45:05):
Past performance is not indicative of future results.