Financial Issues In A Marriage

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And welcome to the Greg Hick Show. So glad you
tuned in today in the middle of the hot summer.
Greg Hicks Certify Financial Planner, along with my sidekick Wanda Cooper,
who's a financial advisor, and our other advisor, Bo Nicholson
is out today, so wish him well whatever he's doing.

(00:20):
But thanks for tuning in. We're glad you're here. The
Greg Hicks Show comes on every weekend. If you're listening
on the radio in the Raleigh station one six to
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(00:43):
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as we meet clients. But we're so glad you tuned in.
We were also on podcast under the Greg Hick Show, Sir.
If you're a podcast listener, just go to your favorite
streaming thing and type in Greg Kick Show. I always

(01:04):
joke with my friends wind They'll mention radio sometimes or
I'll say radio, I want to have a radio show,
and they're all, like you do, and I'll say it
it's under a real creative name, Greg.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Kick Shows around.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Forever forever, so in case you missed it, But anyway,
we're so glad if you're listening to podcasts too, glad
to have you. And I have had a few people
call us from the podcast, and I also wander, this
is kind of cool. Sometimes new people, new prospects, talk
to us and they don't know if they're referred by

(01:40):
a former client or a current client. They don't know.
Sometimes we have radio show, I know, and so I'll
tell them this is kind of coincidental. But sometimes there'll
be a topic come up in our discussion and like say,
like the other week we did blended families. So sometimes
there's a prospect that's getting ready to get married again

(02:02):
and I'll say, well, you know, we have a show
on blended families, and they'll go, really, And so I'll
tell them to go on the podcast, The Great Kick
Show and scroll down to the topic that they need.
And that's the great thing is our shows are archive
for a one year backwards, and we do about forty
five different topics during the year, so anyway, just to

(02:23):
heads up on that. But anyway, glad you tuned in,
and I want to start off today. And by the way,
today's subject today and next week in the following week,
we're in the family. We're talking about family situations, which
Wanderbo and I sometimes we joke about we're amateur psychologists
because we deal with all the emotions, all the ups

(02:47):
and the downs and the tragedies of life with our clients.
So it's a relationship business. It's not just about money.
We can show you a pie chart and a graph
and say, who isn't that cool? But it's really about
relationships and how money affects you or how things in
life affect money and money decisions. And today we're talking

(03:09):
about a topic where nobody ever has any problems. Financial
issues and marriage. You don't have any problems there, do
you want? You know?

Speaker 2 (03:15):
What's funny is, you know, regardless of starting out young
or being older, the issues can be the same, I mean,
very similar. As far as arguments about money, it's either
spending yeah, or not saving enough or something of that nature.
It can and mostly evolve around spending at all ages. Yes,

(03:39):
you know, because someone wants to spend one is squeaky
and doesn't want to spend, So that brings on the issues.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
And personalities and all that. So before we get into that,
if you're a brand new listener, the first segment of
our show, we always talk about what's going on out
there that affects your life financially. Could be the government,
you know, the the big beautiful bill that was passed
a few weeks ago. We spent a whole show on
that because so many things in that bill affected your
taxes and how you do financial planning and all that.

(04:08):
So Wanda I had to start to show off today.
This was in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday and it
was just the funniest headline. But I thought, you know,
it's a great headline. It says why are stocks up? Question?
Nobody knows? Isn't that great? What a headline? Because because

(04:29):
because we have broken multiple s and P five hundred
index records in the last few weeks, and all the
pundits when Trump did the tariff thing in April, we
were supposed to be in a recession. Oh oh yeah,
we're gonna get all killed. We're going to lose our
four O n K money. Well, now we're hitting all
time highs repeatedly, and I have literally asked myself this

(04:53):
the last few weeks, why does the market keep going up?
So I love the headline why are stocks up? No?
And the article goes into all of these theories and
what if this happened? And this and that and sometimes
and wander. You and I have been in this business
a long time. Sometimes markets go down for a while

(05:14):
and you and I look at each other and go
why yeah, And then sometimes like now it's like everybody's
making money, everybody's account values are up, and we go why.
So sometimes literally the article says, there's no exact reason.
It's a multitude of things that we can't figure out well.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
And emotional. The market is emotional. People will call and
sell on a whim, whatever their whim is, or they'll
buy on a whim. You know. Sometimes I have to
talk people off the ledge of buying something. I don't
think it's their risk tolerance at all. I know, I'm
an eighty two year old. I want to know how
to buy crypto. Yeah, I'm like, well, that's not exactly

(05:52):
a moderate risk that you are, But you know, so
it's emotions, that's what it is. It's news media. It's
the logic is gone out the door. And if you
don't have an advisor to speak with to kind of
talk you on the ledger or off the ledge, you
can make some dumb mistakes. That's the issue, and that's
what today's show is going to be about, is how
do you get a professional involved when the issue is

(06:15):
money in a marriage? And you definitely should get a professional,
but not the kind of professional that most people would think,
not a psychologist, although I feel like that's what I am.
Sometimes a financial advisor can always be that third party
that can bring things to medium, you know. So if
you're there listening today and you want to discuss your

(06:38):
financial situation with an advisor, give us a call nine
one nine A five six nineteen sixty eight and schedule
your complimentary appointment.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
And you know, Wanda, you bring up a good point.
A lot of times we manage emotions because they hear something.
So I'll give you a couple examples, just in recent weeks,
longtime client calls and I'm just I'm checking in. I
call them maybe twice a year and just to give
them my heads up. Here's how you're doing. Sometimes we

(07:09):
meet but this person's been retired for a while, so
we don't meet in person as much, but we do
a lot of phone call meetings. So anyway, the first
comment was, well, I keep hearing the markets going down
and it's not doing that good. And I said, I
said to them, well, okay, let me just give you
know your account depending on the size of the count.

(07:32):
So I said, your account is up about one hundred
and some thousand dollars since one year ago. And there
was a moment of silence. You know. They had just said,
it feels like the market's going down. It's always going down.
They never realized, like, like I always say, math doesn't
lie the numbers. If you're up one hundred and ten

(07:55):
thousand and twelve months, that is not the market going down.
So I like to use the numbers, the reports to
really validate how things really are. And so sometimes, like
you said, we unravel the emotions that people have built
in them, or what they've heard their friends say, or

(08:15):
their you know, my son called and said I should
buy the new AI company. And I go, well, they've
lost money for three straight years and they only have
a million dollars left in cash. You might want to
wait a little bit on that you know, so again,
you know, Wanda's right. The advisor's job is to help
you look at things more rationally and not so much

(08:38):
with your emotion or what you heard somebody say that's
just part of the deal. And it's like, it's like
going to a doctor, like I'm really hurting. My back's hurting,
but he takes X ray's and does all this stuff
and he says, now here's actually the problem. So it's
not necessarily about how you feel. But we all have

(08:59):
the same goal make money and don't lose money and
save taxes. I mean, when you break down financial planning,
it's only a few areas that really matter, right.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
And to me, don't listen to the hype in the media.
Just call your advisor. I'm really surprised at the listeners
that I've met with that I'll look at their situation
and I'll go, I don't know what you initially told
the advisor, but I'm not sure I would have done X,
you know, but I wasn't in the meeting, and they go, well,

(09:30):
I started out with one thinking I was going to
meet with one. I ended up with another, and honestly,
I haven't heard from him in five or six years. Well,
I think that's pathetic. I mean that's really pathetic because
financial plans are ever evolving. It's not a set at
once and it stays in place because we meet annually
with our clients and you wouldn't believe sometimes how things

(09:55):
change in a year, let alone five or six years.
And I also talk with radio listeners that go, have
you got is your estate plan in place? You will
all of that? Yeah, we did it twenty five years ago.
Did your current advisor tell you to revisit that? Well? No,
should we? I'm well, is your young daughter still young

(10:17):
or she married?

Speaker 1 (10:19):
You know, so two of your kids have divorced? Did
you ever think of that?

Speaker 2 (10:22):
So those are the things you have to revisit. It's
not set it and forget it. It's set it and revisit.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And monitor we call it monitoring.
It's like anything in life. You don't just you don't
buy a new car when you're twenty three and drive
it to your sixty six.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
No, you don't.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
You monitor the car and you take care of it.
Then you lip it along and then you buy a
new one. Same thing, and investing you just you know,
I've met people that have been with a company thirty
years and I'll say, god, l it's your four oh
one K choices are really aggressive for a sixty two
year old. And they said, well, thirty five years ago

(11:01):
when I started, those are the funds I picked. I
just kept them, and I'm like, your age matters. You
might want to refresh your hit a restar button, you know.
So anyway, that's what we're talking about when we talk
about financial planning today. We're going to talk about a
really cool subject, financial issues and marriage and how you
deal with that emotionally and things that you should not

(11:23):
ignore because, as our divorce lawyer Guests says every year
when we have him, the number one reason for divorce
is a affairs B money. Debate about money is number
two on the divorce list. So we might want to
talk about that, and that's what we're going to do today.
Stay tuned and welcome back to the Greg Kicks Show.
I'm Greg Kick, certified Financial planner, along with Wanda Cooper,

(11:45):
a financial advisor. We're here today and our topic today
is fun and serious at the same time. Financial issues
in marriage. So why do you been married a while?
You are grandma now and you love those babies. And
I've been married. My first wife unfortunately passed away a
few years ago, and then I got remarried, So I've

(12:07):
got two marriages under my belt and you got one.
So we're experienced. And people forget sometimes that financial advisors
are actually real people.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
We have we have real marriages, we have real kids,
we have real grandkids.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Real financial issues and issues.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yeah. And I remember with my first wife, Sue, sometimes
we would be debating about money, if it could be anything,
you know, spending too much for the kids or whatever
it was. And and finally, if we argued too long,
I knew how to end it. And here's how I
ended it. She hated me, she said I would say.
I would say, Sue, I'm a financial advisor, and then

(12:44):
there was that yeah, she she wanted to punch, but
she would look at me with that look like you
just crossed the line. And then I was like, I
better be quiet. I'm going to get in trouble now.
But anyway, but one thing we mentioned earlier in the show,
Oh and Wanda and I, as we meet people, we
get into real issues. And that's why I'm not afraid

(13:05):
of the robo financial planner, the AI people, you know,
doing financial planning and investing. Yeah, that's fine, it's great
to have tools. But human relationships and human discussion is
absolutely critical. And why how many times do we say
at the end of shows sometimes communication is critical. It

(13:26):
is in.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Marriage, absolutely And you know, I hate, I almost hate
this AI thing is taken over the universe because a
lot of times you can tell when I can when
emails come through and things like that that are generated
by AI more than the person. I mean, you can
just feel it. And so you don't want that going

(13:46):
on in your marriage. You don't want to ask AI
to communicate with your wife. But any rate, at any rate,
I read something interesting before we jump into the show,
because this is a part of the financial issues in marriage.
Sometimes second marriage is created by death or divorce. I
had not heard the fact that now there's a such

(14:07):
thing as gray divorce, and gray divorce is people sixty
five and older getting divorced. Now we'll talk about that
more on our divorce show. But I thought that was
interesting because they the article went into the fact that
there's more financial issues to tackle at that stage of

(14:27):
the journey as opposed to divorcing younger. I thought that
was very interesting and we will cover that on our
divorce show. But I had not heard that, and the
gray divorce people are it's like the divorcing was doubling
since twenty ten in that age grade. So that's kind
of interesting.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
Remember that reminds me of our divorce lawyer, Rick Lovett,
who's our guests sometimes. He said the last time he
was on, I think that one of the biggest changes
he's seen is the divorce rate of people married twenty
thirty years way higher. And that so what you just
said validates what he said.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Yeah, Well, the common financial issues that can come up
in marriages is differing views on money. Like I said earlier,
you have somebody that wants to spend and somebody that
wants to save, and I think there has to be
a middle ground because for a wife and I and
I've got one of those squeaky husbands that you don't
buy anything till it totally breaks. Well, I've kind of

(15:24):
figured out how to communicate with him to kind of
get things a little sooner.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
You know, do you break stuff on.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Purpose, make it make it more like it's his idea
kind of thing, So you do have to communicate and
kind of find a balance there. And the other thing
is financial infidelity. I thought that was an interesting term.
This is where you're, you know, the husband or the
wife is setting up accounts that the other one doesn't
know about that. Yeah, and then the course spending problems.

(15:56):
And then debt, you know, is a big, big thing.
No matter what age you are, debt is a huge
thing and you have to tackle it. Lack of transparency,
not being open about finances. Maybe there's one in the
household that handles the finances and the other one has
no clue, and then things get that person that handles

(16:17):
it gets laid off and here we are, you know,
the main money source cut off or maybe a debilitating
situation happens where the health changes, financial picture changes a lot,
and the other spouse doesn't know, doesn't know a whole
lot of things. So that's transparency and unequal power dynamics

(16:38):
where one spouse controls the finances and doesn't let the
other spouse even talk about it, right, And there's danger
in all of that. It causes increased conflict. And honestly, Greg,
I think, and you may disagree with me, I just
think when you're in a marriage. You communicate about the money.

(17:00):
Some money can cause all kinds of problems. You communicate.
You don't have hidden accounts. You don't have your account,
you know, the other account. You try to have an
account that you handle jointly, because that brings the mesh together,
you know, you meshing, you know, not only emotionally, but financially.
It's okay to have your account, her account, but have

(17:24):
one jointly that handles the household bills because you all live,
both of you live there, you know, and then that
will solve to me a lot of financial problems.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
You know. You bring up a lot of great stuff.
I'll just give you some illustrations. So Sue and I
my first wife before she passed, when our kids were teenagers,
she would be out buying Jay Crew and sneakers and stuff.
And we tried to have a budget, but she always
kind of blew the budget, and of course we would
always I would pay the bill and I say, Sue,
why did you spend one hundred dollars of Jay Crew? Well,

(17:55):
my daughter carriing me. And so after a while Sue
had a job. As the kids grew older, she worked,
and so the way we solved It was quite simple
and it worked really well. We kept her joint account
where we did all the bills, but we started an
account for Sue and her only expenses. All of her
salary came in. I was making enough money to where

(18:18):
we could pay all the bills through the joint account, right,
so she saw that. But it worked great because she
her only expense was her car payment and anything for
the kids, clothes, whatever. And you know what that that
eliminated all the debate and arguing about the kids clothes.
So just one little step changed everything, and it created

(18:39):
a lot more harmony. And then the idea you said
is really true where one person sometimes typically it's the man,
but I have a few claps where the woman is
pretty much the bookkeeper of the family. And it works
as long as you're communicating right. But some of the
bad cases I have seen is the husband dies, a
widow comes into me six months later, and they literally

(19:04):
are petrified. They're scared, they're immobilized because they never made
a financial decision for twenty eight years of marriage. And
that is a sad story because it's almost it's almost
impossible to take away that fear, even though I've tried
and tried. One of the worst cases I saw we

(19:24):
met with a prospective client years ago, and you know,
the first meeting, we're probing for details like how much
is your income, what is your savings, do you have
retirement plans? Do you have any debt? Do you have
a mortgage? And I remember, I remember the couple met
and I couldn't get answers. I couldn't get straight answers,
and finally I kept pressuring. I said, look, well, we

(19:46):
need to know what do you have in your retirement
plan so that we can plan your retirement. You're sixty
years old now, And he finally squeaked out a number,
but I could tell he was fudgeing, you know how
we can now And his wife was completely silent. And
I remember after that meeting thinking, who I would hate

(20:08):
to be in that car riding home right now, because
it was very clear to me that she had never
heard any of that he had never shared and that
and that's a recipe for a disaster. So anyway, it
kind of broke my heart. And of course they never
called back to meet again. I knew they wouldn't, Yeah,
because what the meeting did was open up a can

(20:32):
of worms. That isn't going to be solved real quick.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
Well, I had a situation where a radio listener, it
was a gentleman, you could tell he controlled everything. He
brought his wife to a meeting with me because he
had never shared with her and he knew he was dying.
Oh my, he had a death you know, like a
three month window or whatever, and he brought her to
me to unwant to wind everything up for her. Yeah,

(20:57):
but she didn't know any of the stuff. And that
was sad to see tears from both of them. He
had controlled it so long and he never let her in.
Now I'm working with her and we're fine, and she's fine.
And she did say to me, she said, Wanda, for
my husband to bring me to you means that he
thought a lot of you and trusted you.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
And that's a good, sad story, but a good ending.
So anyway, we're going to come back. We have more
bullet points on marriage, financial issues and marriage. So stay
tuned and welcome back to the second half of the
Greg Hicks Show. I'm here with Wanda Cooper and Bo Nicholson.
Our other sidekickers out today and we're with Financial Resource Management.
We are Financial advisors. We do a lot of financial

(21:43):
planning and also investing, but we cover a multitude of things,
and if you listen to our radio show regularly, you'll
hear multiple topics. Today we're talking about financial issues and marriage.
A couple of weeks ago we talked about blended families.
We talked about the Big Beautiful Bill last week. Next
week we're going to talk about divorce. So we cover

(22:03):
them multitude of subjects. They are archived on the radio
show in Raleigh one o six one FM Talk. If
you go to their website and click on the Greg
Hicks Show, you can scroll down and pick a topic
maybe that you need to hear about. Maybe it's stocks,
or maybe it's divorce, or maybe it's inheritance or IRA rollovers, whatever,
tax planning. We cover a lot of topics, and we're

(22:23):
glad you tuned in. We're also at the beach area
and Crystal Coast and Moreheads City area, and we're glad
you tuned in. So today we're talking about and by
the way, we often get so interested in the topic
we forget to cover our number. But our number to
meet with us or call even nine to one nine
eight five six nineteen sixty eight. We also have a website.

(22:47):
It's the initials of our small business Financial Resource Management
frm NC dot com FRMNC dot com. And you can
also archive, listen to archive radio shows on our website
at FRMNC dot com. So give us a call if
you have any questions or you want to meet with us.

(23:08):
We get people who had never met with an advisor,
and we get a lot of people who have an advisor,
but they're they're not quite sure of things that maybe
they don't understand something, or maybe they just want a
second opinion. We're happy to do that. There's no cost
to call and meet nine one nine eight five six,
nineteen sixty eight. So Wanda, let's talk about I mentioned

(23:30):
it earlier that I had been married. My wife passed
away about eight years ago, and I've been married to
Laurie for six years. We just did a show on
blended families, but that is so common today. Forty percent
of married people are in second marriages. So it's a
big topic. If you want to listen to it, go
back to the archive. But let's bring it up and

(23:51):
talk a little bit right now.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Well, the thing about it is financial things in a
marriage are there in the first marriage, the second, or
the third, or god forbid, the fourth four times, so
they're there. So the things that have to be worked
through to me that are different from a first marriage
is because especially with the gray divorce crowd, it's because

(24:17):
there's a lot of established things and no disrespect. But
men tend to marry quicker, you know, the second go
round or the third go round than the women do.
They just do it. It's just just a fact. Yeah,
So I'm not sure in that situation that the man

(24:40):
stops long enough to think about, Okay, what am I
taking on here? Like what what is the money situation here?
Because you don't know about the debt she might have.
I don't care how old they are. If they haven't
lived frugally or prudently or whatever you might want to
call it, then you might be taking on some of

(25:02):
that debt. And have they been able to financially sustain themselves?
What about their retirement? And so those are things that
are critical the second or third go round that may
not they're all critical, but you know, you develop together
when you're married younger. But when you jump this this

(25:22):
gate to the second, third, fourth marriage, then there's things
and I don't want to call it baggage, but there's
things there that have to be discussed because particularly because
there's adult children on both sides of the fences and grandkids.
And have I met with one person that has been
married for the second time. It was her first, her

(25:43):
husband's second, and she had been married to him twenty
five years. Second marriage, now twenty five years when he
passed away. She is going through a nightmare with his
children because they never adapted to her. They never liked her.
They saw her as a money hungry person, threat, a

(26:05):
threat because their dad married her, left their mom when
they were still at home and kids. Now they're grown
and have their own kids, but they never have liked
this other. They called her the other woman.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
That's the communication.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
And she was married twenty five years to this man
and now she's fighting tooth and nail for what really
is hers as a spouse. So there's the issues you
have to talk through.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
And why do you and I years ago, when we
were in radio together twenty years ago, we wrote a
book and one of the chapters of the book was
prenupts or sexy prenuptial agreements. So that's very important there's
a reason for prenuptial and there's two. There's two reasons.

(26:52):
There's financial like each of you, like you said one
if you both are older now you have retirement plans,
I raise, you have debt. Both of you may have houses.
Like when Laurie and I got married, second marriage is
for both of us. We each had a house and
she was in another state in Pennsylvania, so uh so
uh And Laurie was cute. The first one of the

(27:12):
first times we were together. She said, my my best
friend works for a lawyer, her son. And she said
to me, if Greg mentions prenup, to run And I
laughed and laughed, and I said, Laurie, let me explain.
The prenup sets the stage financially like and and and
this is what I told Laurie. The other thing. It

(27:33):
does not only financial. I said, what if your four
kids saw me coming, we get married, you moved to
North Carolina, what are they thinking? The first thing after
the shock is first thing they think of, is am
I going to lose my inheritance? Even if you're a
good person, you can't help it, you, you know. And

(27:54):
and the prenup sets the stage like if I die
boom boom, boom boom. At the original house, you get
the IRA your beneficiary. I got life insurance when I
got married again to cover Laurie when I die, so
that I can still love her and protect her. But
your children, my two kids inherit the iras and stuff

(28:17):
like that. So it's it's okay to get remarried, but
you have to account. You know, the prenup is a
big deal for the sake of emotion more than even
money sometimes, So keep that in mind. And if you
have questions on this kind of stuff, just call us
at nine nine eight five six nineteen sixty eight.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Well, and the other thing is in second marriage is
typically typically the dating getting to know you period is shorter,
so you don't really talk through some of this sometimes
and you need to. But can it can be a
financial issue that you bring into the marriage or she
brings into the marriage because you haven't discussed what happens

(29:00):
with each of your estates if you will, so you
would just want to talk because you don't want to
bring a financial problem from an expouse, deceased spouse or
whatever into the new marriage. I mean, that's the bottom line.
So I think that if you go see a financial
advisor and work through it. I think the financial advisor,

(29:25):
if they're a good one, can help you tremendously.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yeah, so we see it sometimes second marriage, well, the
husband's paying childcare for the next ten years of one
thousand a month. That might be important to tell your
new wife exactly. You know that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Or I filed bankruptcy two years ago. I had a
business and I lost it. That is important to know.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
And I remember counseling a couple of thirty year, a
couple of brand new marriage. All that. Well, the wife
of the prospective wife, she had one hundred thousand dollars
in college loan debt, and he had debt he had
like fifty thousand in the bank. Now that's if you
don't talk about that before marriage and get that squared away.

(30:07):
Who pays the debt off? Da da da da da,
You're going to have a problem, you know. And like
we said, money is the second reason most common reason
for a divorce later on, so it's critical that you
talk about this stuff. Let's talk about life insurance, health insurance.
If you're a small business owner and you get married

(30:27):
and something happens and you get disabled, for a while.
Do you have disability insurance? What about life insurance? When
you're young? It's cheap. Why don't you why don't you buy?
You know, I always I tell people buy five hundred
thousand to a million dollar twenty year term policy in
case you die, your new wife and child will be okay.
And I had two I had two guys die at

(30:49):
forty nine years old a few years ago, and they
both had million dollar term policies. Save the mom from working,
save the kids from moving from their old house. There's
so many things like that to protect yourself. And we
have a whole show in insurance, so be sure to
pull that up on the archives and listen to it.
And with that, we're going to take our last break
and we'll be back for the last points of financial

(31:12):
issues in marriage and welcome back to the Great Hicks Show.
We're in segment four and we will be doing continuing
our shows here in July talking about family issues and
financial issues. Next week, the topic is divorced and unfortunately
that's a very common thing in our country. And when
you divorce, boy, things can go arrive financially. Who gets what?

(31:35):
And so we'll talk about that and it's a really
great show. We do it at least once a year,
and very important thing that So you may be going
through a divorce or you may be recently divorced, regardless
of your age. That's a really good show. And then
later on when we get into August, we're going to
talk We have some interesting shows. We have a show

(31:59):
coming up on terminology is what does RMD mean? What
does IRA mean? Those kind of things, and then why
does favorite shows in the middle of August Women, Money
and Power?

Speaker 2 (32:10):
And we skipped it the last time because we did
a new show.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
Y'all not skipping it because Boe and I didn't want
to talk about women in power. But we're going to
We're gonna make up for that, and then we'll talk
about IRA rollovers and stuff like that as we get
toward the end of August. So we have our shows
planned out a year in advance, and it's fun to
talk about it. Today we're going to finish our show
on financial issues and marriage and there's so many things

(32:34):
to talk about. But I wrote down at the bottom
of my little page surprises, things like healthcare, Suddenly you
get disabled, or something happens, job loss, you get fired,
you know, things go awry financially quick there.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Oh, you retire early.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Retire early, or in early death. I've had so many
couples where the husband and even the wife died at
fifty years old or fifty five, and y'all were planning
to live eighty five. So you know, and that's what
financial advisors like one and I do. We talk about
the what ifs' just we don't just hold your hand
say everything's going to be fine. No, we talk about

(33:12):
rewards for good decisions, and we talk about protecting from
risk with good decisions.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yep. And here's the deal too. I met with with
lots of couples in the long time that I've been
in this industry, and the one thing is particularly and
it can even apply in first marriages, but particularly second
and third marriages. And as you marry older, you have
to remember to have the discussion around health because one

(33:40):
of you, as we age, you know, one of you
could conceivably go into a nursing home situation or a
rehab for whatever, and who's going to take care of that?
Have you got long term care insurance? That's an easy
fix for any marriage is to explore the different ways

(34:01):
to secure long term care insurance. I think it's equally,
if not more important than life insurance, honestly, because if
you marry somebody for the second time, and you know,
you've got to decide, am I going to take care
of this person if they get sick, if they go
into a long term care facility? Whose job is it
going to be? Is it mine? I did come across

(34:24):
the situation once where the wife was a few years younger.
It was their second marriage, and he was clearly in
a situation that could put him in a nursing home,
and she said, I don't feel like it's my responsibility.
I've only been married to him four years.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
So the other adult kids was her answer to that. Yeah,
but you don't want to discuss that when it happened,
you plan ahead and none.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
I was like, how does he feel about that? She said, well,
he doesn't know because he's not with it right now.
So you know, I think that's that's a bad situation.
If you want to get on the wrong side of
the adult kids, that's one way to do it. But
that is he is a conversation worthy of having. And yes,
you might say, well, Wanda, I've been in that situation.

(35:05):
You don't know what it's like. Yes, I do, because
I've heard the stories many, many times. So that is
a conversation to have. What happens when we get older?
Who's going to take care of who?

Speaker 1 (35:16):
And Wanda. I remember a case with clients where they
didn't have long term care insurance and the husband got
thick and it ended up instead of being a two
year sickness, it was like a twelve year. Yeah, so
what happened. You can imagine what happened. All the assets
that they had saved forever for retirement were burned through
and used up and and then and then you get

(35:39):
to the case where what does what does the mom do?
Does she ask her adult kids if she can move
in with them? Because you get down to zero money
and then and then you're on medicaid. So so we're
talking about I mean, there's a small percentage, but we're
talking about when you plan ahead like that for your
life and marriage, you need to you need to talk
about best case and the worst case. And that's the

(36:01):
great thing about an advisor. We can bring stuff up
like that that may feel awkward with you as a couple,
but we can do it and just be perfectly calm
and normal and talking through it. Another one win I
see is sometimes couples start businesses together. Yeah, and then
and then you start having and then I always joke about,
so you sleep with a boss every night. Right, But

(36:23):
but but what happens is and I've seen it, I've
seen it split marriages because you're now making business decisions
as well as personal financial and then it gets to
be a little bit.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
It could when a team around you do it could.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
Be a can of worms, and it could be a
blessing too. I have clients that grew a business now
their kids are running it and it turned out beautifully.
So I'm just saying, before you get into that and
start going with that kind of business situation, you know,
get advice from a CPA, a lawyer and the financial
advisor is you start making money and then how do

(36:58):
you share money as you make it? You know kind
of thing. So anyway, the bottom line in this, this
whole show on financial issues and marriage is communication and transparency.
Don't don't don't not talk about stuff. I mean you
have to, Like you know, I met with my daughter
not long ago and I just went through again. If

(37:20):
something happens to me because I'm older than Laurie my
wife was six years and and carry my daughter is like, well,
I don't really want to talk about this. Yeah, and
you know, I get it. I get it. But on
the other hand, my mother had cancer and a couple
of years after she was recovering, she said, Greg, coming

(37:41):
to come to my little office here, pulled out a
drawer and there was a box. It had her will,
her goals after death in the sense of money, where
the money goes. Want my daughter to get all the jewelry,
you know, stuff like that. And I thought it was awkward,
But then Mom died about four years later, and I
was so thankful she had prepared that. And we have

(38:04):
little a little booklet that we can give out to clients.
Sometimes it's called a love letter or a preparation letter,
but it's just a list of pages, just list out.
And I'm giving my daughter and son a little network
statement and say, here's who to call if I die,
call one to call BO. You know, I mean, it
sounds morbid, doesn't it, But when things happen, it's so

(38:27):
wonderful to have things planned out and then there's no surprises. Right.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Well, and again critical and second marriage is because you're
blending two families, so you want to make sure things
are clear. But the advice for second marriages is the
same as it is for first marriages. Communications, get the
right team in place, CPA, financial advisor, attorneys. You know,

(38:54):
all those things can be critical to getting through a
hard time. So bottom line is talked to each other,
make some plans.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
Yeah, one more thing real quick. We don't have much time,
but a lot of times one one spouse will get
a big inheritance. Oh really, what do you do with that? Now?
I got a million dollars, I got a house, and
I got an IRA worth four hundred thousand. Who gets
that money? How do you split that between you and
your spouse? What about the kids? What about the grandkids? Ye,

(39:22):
if you've inherited money and there's a lot of that
going on, because we see it in our office, please
call us at nine one nine eight five six, nineteen
sixty eight. We have a whole show on inheritance. But
it's very important in a marriage. There can be a
lot of inks there because sometimes you know, you get
into well this is you know, I had a case

(39:43):
where somebody inherited a lot of money and I said,
do you want that as a joint account with your
husband or a tod where you're in charge of your
money from your family and if you die, he and
the kids get it, but you're in charge of the money.
And you wouldn't believe what a big debate turned out
to be. Like. The husband wanted to be in on it,
and I said, well, if you do a joint account,

(40:05):
he can call and liquidate this and take the money.
And I said, no offense. You probably wouldn't do that,
but see, those are real things. People don't think about it.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
And you don't because the money's not here, but once
he gets here, you'll be thinking.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Like, oh my god, yeah, it becomes a big deal. Okay,
it's been a great show. We're pleased that you listen.
Remember next week's show is about divorce and there's a
lot going on there that we're going to talk about.
And we have many more great shows for you. And
remember you can listen to all of our old shows
on our website frm NC dot com and you can call.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
Us nine one, nine eight five six nineteen sixty eight.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
There you go, and remember this, it's your money, it's
your future. Don't blow it advisory services through couple of
investment advisory Services. LLC Security is offered through Capital Investment Group,
Bank Remember Finra and SIPIC one thousand e six Forks Road, Raleigh,
North Carolina nine one nine three seventy. Cost performance is
not indicative of future results