The Laws of your Money with Ann-Margaret Episode 34

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following is a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed. The following program is sponsored by New
York Priority Medical Care. Now it's time for the Laws
of Your Money, a weekly call in show with legal

(00:20):
tips to help you protect your money. Here's your host
and Margaret Caroza.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hello, and welcome to the Laws of your Money. This
is a program dedicated to protecting you from legal and
financial mayhem when it comes to personal finance. I don't
think there's anything more important than legal protections, because what

(00:52):
does it matter how diligently I save and how brilliantly
I invest if there's a forty per sent chance of
losing assets to a long term illness and expensive divorce lawsuits,
con artists and taxes. This can be capital gains taxes

(01:15):
or estate taxes. I am asset protection attorney and Margaret
Carosa We're going to dive into all of these topics today,
and I am thrilled to be joined by the one
and only Todd Wharton. Todd is the host of FaceTime

(01:36):
with Todd Wharton, New York City's number one independent TV show.
Welcome to the program, Todd.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Thank you for having men. Now are you this morning?

Speaker 2 (01:49):
I'm sorry to have I know I cut short your
evening out last night.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
No, not at all, not at all.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Very grateful to have your your insight. You know you
are out there, You're in the mix, and I'm really
looking forward to having your input into the topics that
we talk about every week. When we dig into these
topics about legal issues and financial issues and family, I

(02:19):
say that it's in the news every single day, and
I want to start with. ABC has announced that this
year's Golden Bachelor. The series is going to start this
coming week. This year's Golden Bachelor is mel Owens. He's

(02:43):
a former NFL player. Do you watch the Golden Bachelor?

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Uh? Not really, I mean to be honest with you.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
Do you watch the regular Batchelor?

Speaker 3 (02:54):
I think like everybody else, I did. I was curious
when I was when we first started. But even though
it's a real show, it's not really reality because I mean,
it's a gift if I'm allowed to be able to
date twenty women at least, and it's legal, and I
got people paying for the dates that I could write

(03:14):
and I'm not in Utah, and I could do whatever
I want. I mean, that's every man's dream and it's
just not reality to me. And at the end of
the day, I think it's kind of funny when the
women get upset that, oh I thought he was going
to pick me, and like ladies or even with the men,
you're hanging out with somebody on TV who's going out
with other women at the same time. You know, I

(03:36):
think it's almost impossible to find that love interest when
you're being seen by millions of people. I think love
is something that comes from the heart that only you
two should know about and doesn't have to be on TV.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
Well, I don't think that makes for great TV, but
I hear it.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
God, So this year's Golden Bachelor is in a little
bit of hot water. Did you hear comments that he
made when off the cuff might have been a hot
mic moment. He said that he was going to immediately
rechecked any of the women who were over sixty years old,

(04:15):
so he pedal. He's trying to backpedal from those comments.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yeah, I think it's pretty bad. I guess he's not
a field goal kicker, because if you've got to say
something like that you're definitely not going to get it
up three upright, So good.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Now, a little bit of an issue there, But I
think you know one issue that I didn't really hear
them get into last season when we saw Jerry Turner
and his uh since failed marriage to Teresa Nist, they
didn't really bring up the topic of a prenup. And

(04:49):
I think you know, when we're looking at later in
life marriages, we all know that the divorced statistics for
all marriages is forty three percent, But when we get
into the second marriage and third marriage realm, the statistics

(05:11):
jump and it's over sixty percent of people entering into
second and third marriages that are going to be divorced.
So their need for legal protections, I think is greater
than any other cohort. And when we're later in life,

(05:31):
we are more likely to have children, right, So even
if we beat the odds in a later in life marriage,
it will end at death. And if we want to
avoid blended family warfare, you know, your kids fighting with

(05:51):
my kids, you need to set out some parameters and
guard rails. So chief among these has to do with
where the couple is going to be living. Is it
his house? Is it her house? And what do we
do to balance the competing concerns? Right, if I get

(06:15):
married later in life, my children are justifiably going to
be wondering what am I doing to ensure that their
family home goes back to them upon my death. Now
I have a new, younger spouse who's saying, oh, put
my name on the house. You know, I'm always going

(06:36):
to take care of your children. Well, we shouldn't know that,
because in my experience, in my practice, that is simply
not the reality. If you leave the new spouse the house,
they could get dementia, right, they could have every good
intention in the world, they could get remarried, right.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
And now my.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Surviving spouse and his new wife they're living in my house,
and I've seen situations where the adult children can't even
get in there to pick up baby pictures because they've
you know, changed the locks.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
So it's like a chess game.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
And I really think we're on a firmer foundation when
we go through all of the mental what.

Speaker 4 (07:25):
Ifs right to protect our loved.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Ones, And if you put a little bit of creativity
into the planning, you can achieve a great compromise. So,
in my trust, in my will, I should say that
if I am survived by this new spouse and there

(07:51):
were no marital dissolution proceedings that had been started as
of the time of my death, then he or she'll
be allowed to remain in the home until the earlier
of their voluntary departure, their death, their permanent stay in
a nursing home. Or if I really want to be

(08:11):
a control freak, I can have his ability to be
in the house cut off if he brings an unrelated
person into the house to live there, and then I
can say, upon the termination of his right of occupancy,
the property goes back to my children. So that's an
easy compromise, an easy solution that ensures that there's going

(08:35):
to be a roof over the head of the surviving spouse.
But we're not disinheriting the adult children, right, Okay, let's
get into you must be invited to a lot of
weddings a couple of year.

Speaker 4 (08:51):
You're a very social person.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
I see you out there on social media living your
best life. How can people find you on social media?

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Instagram? Todd Wharton Official, Wharton like school Business, wha R
and you know t Odd wh Ton Official and my
website FaceTime a tod Wharton dot com.

Speaker 4 (09:14):
Perfect.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Okay, so the cost of the average wedding is through
the roof, Yeah it is. What would you say that
you think the average wedding is across the US?

Speaker 3 (09:28):
I mean, just based on watching TV shows, any arguments,
I'm seeing weddings that can go anywhere from a minimum
of fifty thousand dollars to like a j Low wedding
or Mariah at twenty million. It's it's it's unreal. And
I think my attitude day is with today's world is
I think most people just want to be happy, and

(09:49):
I think there are more people out there that are
having a smaller wedding where people that are close to
them and saving the money for the honeymoon. Because at
the end of the day, the wedding's supposed to be
about the bride and the groom. It's not supposed to
be about everybody else. Just supposed to come and enjoy it.
No matter where you do it. You know, people doing
in church, people doing on a beach. If you're religious

(10:09):
or not, I always tell people God's house is our house,
So no matter where you get married, He's above you anyway.
And if you want to get married in a building
it's built by Italians. I mean, that's fine, but at
the end of the day, it's God's house is our house.
So get married wherever you want, save the money, enjoy
the well.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
That's great advice, but statistics indicate that people are not
yet taking your advice.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Todd.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Of course, the average cost of a wedding in the
US is in excess of twenty four thousand dollars. And
the saddest part about that is that most of these
folks are financing part of the cost of the wedding.
So you know, I don't like to charge a meal

(10:56):
when I go out to eat. I never use a
credit card because I don't want to see a bill
six weeks later for a meal. You know that I
ate six weeks ago. So I'm always paying cash in
a restaurant. But what does it feel like you get
home from the honeymoon and you open the credit card

(11:20):
statement and you can't afford to pay the full balance. Now,
the interest rate on credit cards today is absolutely obscene.
I got a notification on my Bloomingdale's credit card that
the rate has jumped to thirty five percent. You know,

(11:41):
it's just obscene. I don't know how that's even legal.
But if you don't get out ahead and you can't
pay that thing off, you are in serious trouble. And
there is a statistic that gen Z and I'm sorry
if it seems on the program that imois putting gen

(12:02):
Z down, but there are lots of very interesting statistics
that gen Z. Two thirds of gen Z respondents asked
admitted to using credit cards for ordinary monthly expenses. So
they're just generating a mountain of debt. So we have

(12:25):
them with credit card debt and now student loan debt.
Late last year, the pandemic era pause on student loan
payments and interest and penalties, that has lifted, so now
the payments are due again and there is over one

(12:47):
trillion dollars in outstanding student loans. And when we look
at the economy, that is, you know, one area that
people aren't really talking about because the delinquencies are just
now being reported to the credit reporting agencies. So the

(13:11):
FICO scores of gen Z have dropped more than fifty
points on average year over year, so their credit worthiness
is sinking. Their debt on credit cards, their debt on
student loans are really creating a financial strain, not to

(13:34):
mention the challenging employment market. This is today's Business section
of the New York Times. College graduates facing a blow
of long term unemployment, and a lot of this is
AI driven. You know, they are full on taking away

(13:54):
a lot of entry level analyst and consulting positions across.

Speaker 4 (14:00):
All sectors of the job market.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
But what are these adult children doing when faced with
all of these strains. They are moving back home. And
there was a recent Forbes study where forty six percent
of parents surveyed said that their adult children have moved

(14:27):
or have asked to move back home.

Speaker 4 (14:30):
Does that surprise.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
You No, and it kind of explains why everybody's kind
of pissed off today. Forget about everything else that we
know forty six percent you said, yeah, people moving home.
I mean everything's just so expensive. I think a lot
of gen z's being given false information on how to
save money Fyco scores. You know, AI is great. Social

(14:52):
media is great, but at the same time, it's not
allowing people to really learn in their own because everything's
right in front of their face. But people have choose
to learn right get the info. But I'm not surprised
people moving home because if you go shopping, which I
know you do you have kids, just to get a
box of cheerios at a regular price, it's like ten bucks.

Speaker 4 (15:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
So I mean just imagine living anywhere, especially in New
York or LA. I mean, people forced to go home
because they're overspending instead of saving money.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
It's really it's really really challenging, tough. And I think
you know, I say all the time that saving money,
it's like a skill, doesn't just come easily.

Speaker 4 (15:37):
To a lot of people. Now, are you a saver
or a spender?

Speaker 3 (15:41):
Todd? I think everybody's going to agree on this in
some sort of aspect. We're all savers. But it also
depends on the holidays coming up, the seasons. Who are
you dating? Are you looking to impress somebody with your
money instead of pressing them on who you are? Right?
And then it reverts back to while I'm broke again.
I think people have to draw a fine line on
what's important to you, what's your future because I think

(16:04):
today people live for today and they forget about the future,
and then one day you turn around and your future
is broke. And I think more people should really learn
from people like you, how to save money, dealing with
the state time everything.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
You know, people need to realize that I'm not being
preachy when I'm telling everyone save money, save money.

Speaker 4 (16:29):
I learned the hard way. I had zero.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Financial acumen as a young person. And you know, one
little anecdote that illustrates this is at eighteen, I was
a sophomore in college a State University of New York
at Albany Bargain Institution, and I got a little part

(16:55):
time job at the Gap at a nearby mall. And
it was a little too far to walk, so I thought,
you know, I really need a car. The only problem
was I didn't have any money, so I went to
I saw some ad that you could get a Nissan
CenTra for ninety nine dollars a month and no down payment.

(17:20):
So I went to a dealership and through a combination
of an eager salesperson and lax underwriting, I drove off
of that dealership lot with a brand new car. Okay,
So now I have the brand new car with which

(17:42):
to go to my little part time job at the
Gap at Crossgates Mall, and now I need to work
more hours to pay for the car. So I ended
up working at the gap full time, and now I
wasn't able to go to my classes. Yeah, so there
was one class I said I need to go to

(18:05):
the final. So I thought I could learn the material
on my own and just show up at the final.
So I get to the final in mid December and
I couldn't find them because they were in a different classroom.
And I come in late and apologize to the professor.
I said, I'm sorry, I'm late, but you're in a

(18:27):
different room. And he informed me that they moved the
room back in October. So you know, that wasn't really
a good look. And unfortunately I did not do very
well on that final.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
But did you a lease or a financed car? I
leased it, okay, So I'm glad you said that because
I always tell people if you get to get a
brand new car, try to lease it so you not
lock in forever because you're actually getting the car paying
for a third of it. But what happened with you
is what happens to a lot of kids as well.

(19:00):
It's cheaper, you get a three year thing, it's great,
but you forget about the insurance, you forget about the gas,
you forget about the maintenance, and before you know it.
It's not ninety nine dollars. It's ninety nine dollars and
a it's not one and I'm not going to say
it that one line.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
So that was the December episode of that saga. In January,
I decided I need to attend more classes, so I
cut back on the hours at the gap, and now
I wasn't able to make the payments and they ended.

Speaker 4 (19:33):
Up repossessing far. Yeah. So I mean that was just
absolutely bombers, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
And to mess with your credit when it happens.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Absolutely Now, what do you think the number one cause of.

Speaker 5 (19:50):
Divorces is the number one cause of divorce statistically? I mean,
if we're talking on money right now, I think it's
going to be money. I think it plays a major
role in everything. And it's sad to say that, but
when you get married to somebody, you look and have
a life with them, a future, and if the money

(20:12):
is not there, it plays a role in the way
you look at somebody. With me personally, I want to
be with somebody who's independent, meaning that they don't need
me for my money. They need me because they need
me for their heart. Where if I'm already doing well
and they're doing well, we already know each other's financial states.
But I think if you both work separate jobs, love

(20:34):
each other, trust each other, build a life with each other,
you can now combine those assets and build a future.
But if one person's working and then something happens, whether
there's no money there or they lie about how much
they're making, and then you find out later in life
who your true spouse is, I think that plays a
major role in why people separate.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Okay, so you bring up an interesting avenue to explore,
and that is, do you think you have a right
to know about the financial situation of a person you're dating?
Of course, Okay, what would happen if they are up

(21:16):
to their eyeballs in debt and don't tell you about it.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
I think that goes back to what a pre and
up may entell in writing. Because you're marrying everything about
a person ups and downs, better or worse. That doro
a spart to all nine. That's a conversation that's to
be part of the dating aspect of learning your spouse.
You know, you fall in love with everything about them,

(21:42):
what you hate, what you love. That's a huge conversation.
I think that's also something that could be put into
law that this person lied to you about their financial
status that you're married into and then found out later
on this is not where they are. I think that's
a legal binding thing that could help separate the marriage.

Speaker 4 (22:02):
To be well.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
You know, we now have no fault divorce in New
York State. New York was the last state in the
United States to enact no fault divorce. In the old days,
when you decided you wanted to call it quits, you
had to come up with some you know, pretext like
cruel and unusual treatment or adultery or something. Yeah, but

(22:29):
having a lot of debt, you know you should be
the one to bring this up.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
Right.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
You used to be tested before marriage for communicable diseases.
I think of debt as a disease, of course, because
it hurts both of you. If I marry someone and
they have a mountain of debt, I just bought it.
Because the marital state brings with it over one thousand

(22:59):
legal rights and responsibilities. So you can easily do a
prenup that says my debt is my problem, and in
the event of a split, you are not responsible for
any of my debt. It's a way of protecting each other.

(23:21):
So I don't think that a prenup is unromantic. We
do a lot of other legal things to protect each other.
We might ensure that we have insurance so that the
person is not left in a financial quandary upon death.
We want to protect them within the will, within the trust.

(23:44):
Why shouldn't we want to protect the partner who has
fewer resources in the event of a split.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
Oh yeah, I mean even in my industry, people portray
a persona that's not them. They portray a false identity
of who they are, and it happens to me all
the time. Now, what's to say those same people are
not doing the same thing to the women or the
men they're looking to marry, portraying this ideal of the
perfect person that there you know, partners looking for. Then

(24:14):
when they get married, that person doesn't exist. Where's a
legal aspect of that? And are these people protective? And
these are things I'm learning just by being here in
your show today, because these are talks that people don't
talk about unless somebody like you brings it up. And
I think it's a talk that should be talked about
more and more. And I think if people open their
ears and kept their mouth shut more they would learn more.

Speaker 4 (24:36):
So let's you bring up a lot of very good points.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
Let's continue our in the news segment.

Speaker 4 (24:45):
Okay, you have an article in front of you.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
I do I do in the news segment, which we
were going to bring up today. So Britney Spears was
a pop icon. I'm going to say it was because
pop icons are somebody that built the legendary career on
what people look up to to become. Brittany was one
of those.

Speaker 4 (25:04):
I think she still is todd I.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
Think she can be. But the problem is with all
the personal things happening in her life with social media,
she's bringing it out more and more and more. I
think she's calling for help. And I'm a huge fan
of hers. I always will be Brittany. Yeah, I'm a
huge fan of hers. I feel bad. But when you
see stuff like this in the news, in the social media,

(25:29):
she's posting things, she's looking for attention, not in a
bad way. She needs help and people are using that.
And I want to see her come back because to me,
she is the Madonna yeah of our error, and I
want to see her come back strong and be the
Brittany we always still it the pop icon that dealt
through the trials and tribulations, but overcame it and became

(25:53):
somebody that we can look up to instead of somebody
that we feel bad for.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, and the article that we're referring to is to
Today's New York Post. Now, to be fair, it's a
two page spread with lots of pictures, and I recognize
a lot of these pictures as being, you know, close
to twenty years old. So you know, I hope that

(26:18):
things are not as grim as they were at one time.
But you know, it brings up the issue of a
conservator again. And in some states we call it a guardianship.
In New York it's a guardianship, and that is when
someone is unable to properly protect themselves right that the

(26:44):
court steps in and appoints someone. And I think, you know,
the takeaway for the rest of us is when we
look at the first conservatorship trial way back, when the
court asked, does she have advance directives in place? Does

(27:07):
she have a health care proxy? Does she have a
power of attorney? Because even if the court had determined,
which it did, that she was unable for whatever reason,
to safeguard her interests. Then it would have been the
person she appointed in advance in these advanced directives who

(27:28):
would have been in charge as opposed to the judge,
you know, picking a name out of a hat, and
she was at war with the selected guardian for the
next thirteen years, who you know profited from her career.

Speaker 4 (27:45):
So it really highlights the need to do advance directives.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
Yeah, and celebrities go through what we go through the humans.
People forget that celebrities the humans, they go through what
we go through. There's just in the public eye.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
But I think it should highlight the need for us
to prevent ourselves from being in a similar situation. Of course,
now during the week, I encourage all of you with
questions or if you have ideas for topics that you
want to see covered next week, you can reach out

(28:21):
to me on Instagram at my lawyer Anne and if
you're home tomorrow between ten and eleven am, you can
catch me on Picks eleven where we're going to be
talking about a lot of these issues. Todd, it was
really really lovely to have you on the show.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
I appreciate you, and I have to say one thing
with the Brittany thing, I love her. There's nothing negative
that I'm saying about her. What I would like to
see Brittany opening for Tealiswift on.

Speaker 4 (28:52):
A new tour awesome.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
I think that would be iconic. Two pop stars love
from the past, from the present.

Speaker 4 (28:59):
Killing and Taylor has a big heart.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
All right with that, Thank you everyone for tuning in,
and catch you next Sunday at ten thirty seventy ten
wor have a great day.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
The preceding program was sponsored by New York Priority Medical Care.
The preceding was a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed.