January 11, 2026 • 29 mins
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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 (00:25):
Hello, and welcome to the Laws of your Money.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
This is a show dedicated to protecting you from legal
and financial mayhem. When it comes to personal finance, there
is nothing more important than legal protections, because what does
it matter how diligently I save and invest if there
(00:52):
is a greater than forty percent chance of losing assets
to a long term illness and expense of divorce taxes.
This can be capital gains taxes, estate taxes, not to
mention ordinary lawsuits. We are living in the most litigious society.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
That the world has ever.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Known, and we need legal protections to keep other people's
myths out of our pockets and away from our money
and our families.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I believe we all have possible legal landminds in our lives.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Are you concerned about an elderly relative losing their home
to a nursing home. Are you in a second marriage
thinking about blended family warfare later? Do you have a
special needs child, a child who maybe does not have
special needs, who spends money like a drunken sailor. Are
(01:59):
you ranged from a family member and are looking to
avoid a will war later? I am asset protection attorney
and former New York State assembly woman and Margaret Carosa,
and I am joined today by my esteemed friend, colleague
(02:20):
and co host, the Reverend Paul Slatcus.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Welcome to the program.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Paul, Hello Anne, nice to see you.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And Happy New Year.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
Happy New Year to you, healthy one.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
So I'm going to jump in and ask you have
you made any New Year's resolutions?
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I have. I've I like lots of things, and I
realized in the process of liking lots of things that
I'm confused and too many things. I'm say just the
professional side of me, personal side whatever, but professional side
I'm focusing on. I have this Good News Corporation. It's
(03:02):
a nonprofit. I have a for profit and nonprofit. I'm
just going to focus on my nonprofit Good News Corporation,
which does the Peace Day and the Earth Day concerts.
In Times Square, and I have a movie Woodstock Forever
Peace eleven Hope, and I got to finish those projects
because I started the movie in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
And okay, a little while ago.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
The twentieth anniversary of Woodstock, and I need to finalize something.
So I'm gonna laser focus on just in my mind
a little, but it's not a little. A little can
become a lot. And I'm going to focus just on
that one part of my business in my life.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Well, good luck with that. The number one New Year's resolution?
Can you guess what it is?
Speaker 4 (03:47):
I was say also, I got to lose some weight.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Getting healthy, getting our health on track is the number
one New Year's resolution. And I don't know if you
remember last year I did Dry January. I think I
was so obnoxious to deal with that. You actually went
to China to get away from me. But my sister
(04:13):
Laurie is making me do it again. Okay, So here
we are eleven days into dry January, trying to get healthy.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
That is the number one resolution. Do you know what
the number two resolution is?
Speaker 3 (04:29):
H You're right, Paul, it's getting our finances on track, Okay,
And it is now the eleventh of January. Do you
know that the ninth of January this past friday was
National Quitter's Day.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yes, the second Friday of January is on average when
people abandon their New Year's resolutions. And I think maybe
one of the reasons why is that we're perfectionists and
it's an all or nothing mentality. And my family is
sick of hearing me say, don't let the perfect be
(05:10):
the enemy of the good. So I think it's about progress,
not perfection. And you know, I have some tips that
anyone can use to get their finances one step improved.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Okay, So because Dan has always good tips.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
This is This is a super laser focused, practical tip.
And I think most of us are spending way too
much on these food delivery apps. I mean they are
crazy convenient, and you know, forty thirty years ago, all
(05:54):
you could order into the house was pizza or mediocre
Chinese food, and now there's no cuisine, no excuse me,
no Michelin starred restaurant that you can't have delivered into
your house with an app. So my recommendation to everyone
that I know is to give these apps a little break.
(06:18):
And I want everyone today to go into their kitchens,
excuse me, and go into your pantry. I don't think
there's any one of us that does not have expired
food in the pantry, right, So take a big hefty bag,
get rid of all of the expired pharaoh farina pasta,
(06:44):
and what you're left with, I want you to put
into a search engine and come up with a recipe.
So I know that we all realize cooking our own food.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Making our own food is hell. Fear. It's cheaper, it's better.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
But I think we can end up spending too much money.
If we see this beautiful recipe in a woman's magazine,
for example, and we go to the supermarket and we're
buying all of this stuff. I'm buying a big container
of whatever kind of special oil it says to use
in the recipe. So let's start not with the recipe,
(07:27):
but let's start with what you have in the house.
Put it into a search engine, get a good recipe,
and you're going to be ahead of the game. Beyond that,
my second tip is, look around. We all have too
much stuff. We have gifts that were very lovely to open,
and people were very well intentioned giving us these gifts,
(07:51):
but they are often things that we have absolutely no
use for them. We feel guilty about regifting them. Try
to sell some things around the house. Go on to Facebook, marketplace,
put upload an image, sell some stuff from around the house,
(08:13):
have a tag sale with friends. None of us are
in a position where we can't find things to sell
around the house. Then what I want you to do
with the money? After you pay some taxes on it,
take a third of what's left and pay down your debt.
Take a third of what's left invest it, and a
(08:34):
third of it should be given to a reputable charity.
The wealth building effects of giving to a reputable charity
cannot be overstated. What you put out there comes back
to you several fold. And you, as a spiritual person,
(08:56):
as an interfaith minister, I know that you are are
all about generosity and giving, and I think you feel
that that improves the quality of your life.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Oh bye, By far, when you volunteer, you're helping others,
and by far you're helping yourself. And to give some
kind of financial assistance. I just spent the whole week
with accessibility organizations at CEES, the Consumer Electronics Show and
(09:28):
disabled How many people are disabled and can use your help.
It's wonderful, it's absolutely blessing.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Then we want to educate ourselves financially and legally, so
we can get a great free education from a local library.
Community colleges have free and low cost classes and seminars
where we can learn about legal strategies to protect assets.
(10:03):
We can learn about investment strategies, and all of this
puts us in the mindset of creating wealth, which is
where we want to be. You know, back when I
was trying to get myself together financially, you know, decades ago,
(10:23):
I think I read every book out there on saving,
on investing, Susie Orman, Dave Ramsey, Robert Kiyosawa, and I
derived a lot of great practical information, but there was
(10:45):
no one book that did the trick for me. And
unfortunately a lot of the financial lessons that I learned,
I had to do it the hard way by trial
and error. And from my journey from the rubble to
having some money, I wrote.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
A book about it.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I retraced the steps that I took and it's coming
out January twentieth, The Smart Woman's Guide to Building and
Protecting Wealth. This is the book Paul that I wish
I had back when I was a financial train wreck,
(11:29):
because I think my journey out of the financial abyss
would have been a quicker journey had I had this book.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Well, Anne's I know Anne a long long time. She's
extremely smart. She's extremely fair, fair with others, and fair
with herself. Is this just for women?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Well?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
No, I call it the Smart Woman's Guide. The advice
in the book, the tax strategies, the legal structures to
keep the phony lawsuits from, you know, robbing us of
all of our accumulated wealth. These legal, financial and tax
(12:10):
strategies are of course for everyone, but it's my belief
that women experience higher levels of financial stress than men.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
It robs us of our sleep.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Studies bear this out that women have difficulty sleeping at
night because of financial stress. It's going to hurt my
feelings more than your feelings, Paul. If some cousin is
asking us for money for some you know, sketchy startup business,
(12:45):
I know logically that I should not be giving him
yet another loan.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
But women tend to be people pleasers, and in.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
This book, I have strategies for the ladies out there
about changing your mindset. You need to take care of yourself,
get yourself together. If cousin Fred is asking you for
a thousand dollars loan, take a zero off of it
and say, here, here's a gift of one hundred dollars.
(13:17):
I simply can't be without the thousand dollars today. So
we talk about getting our mentality shifted and coming up
with strategies to protect ourselves, surrounding ourselves with people who
build us up, not tear us down, and are supportive
(13:40):
of our efforts to reach the next level of wealth.
If you have a bunch of girlfriends and everyone wants
to go out to some you know, one hundred dollars
ahead boozy brunch on a late Sunday morning, take a
pass and say I'll meet up with you guys after
(14:02):
the fact and we'll take a walk around the park together.
Just be proactive about it and have responses in your
head for all of the people looking to separate us
from our money. And in the book, a central theme
of it is that money alone does not solve money problems.
(14:24):
So if you're forty thousand dollars in debt, you think
absolutely a windfall of forty thousand dollars is going to
make me happy, it's going to make me whole. But
we see time and again, and I see in my practice,
I have worked with more than twenty thousand families, and
(14:45):
I have seen lottery winners who do, in fact blow
through the entire win and end up with less money
than they did before. And you ask, you know, how
can that possible? Simply be someone wins fifty million, how
on earth can they end up broke? And you know,
(15:09):
one of my clients is a cautionary tale in this regard.
It was the adult son of longtime clients of mine
who won ten million dollars lotto. And the first thing
he did, do you know what? The first thing he did.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Paul, he bought a fancy car.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
First, he thought he didn't need to be married anymore
to his wife of twenty five years. So the first
thing he did he split from the wife. Because the
winnings were prior to the divorce, she ended up getting
half of it. What she did with the money was
(15:48):
to buy a multifamily brownstone in Park Slow, Brooklyn. What
he did with the money involved a lot of wine,
women and song, and he bought a fast food franchise
and it was a type of business proposition where he
had to keep putting money into it. Long story short,
(16:11):
he went broke. He ended up moving back into his parents' home,
living in his childhood bedroom, while his ex wife is
now sitting on a gold mine the multifamily brownstone in
Prospect Parkslow Brother. So cautionary tales can keep us from
(16:37):
doing stupid things. Beyond the notion that money alone doesn't
solve money problems, we do get into a lot of
legal protections when you legally protect what you have. Not
only do you keep what you have, but I believe
(16:59):
that more will come if you want something. But you're
not taking care of what you happen to have right now.
You're not putting yourself in the mindset of attracting more stuff.
And the silly metaphor that I use, I think is apt,
(17:19):
and it involves Barbie dolls that I had when I
was little and I wanted more Barbie dolls, and my
mother pointed out the sorry collection of the Barbies I
already had. They were they had their hair cut off,
I had magic marker all over their faces, their their
(17:41):
clothes were all lost. So if you're not taking care
of what you happen to have right now. Again, you're
not putting yourself in the mindset where other people want
to give you things, where you will, you know, add
to what you have right now. So protecting what you
(18:03):
have is probably, in my opinion, the single most important
thing we can do to reach the next level of wealth.
And then we get into in the book The Smart
Woman's Guide to Building and Protecting Wealth, a state planning.
A state planning is our last act as a parent.
(18:29):
And when we look to the beginning of our parenthood journey,
we were customizing a nursery. We were, you know, really
going to town to welcome our little bundle of joy
with every creature comfort known to mankind.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Yet I'm crazy about this end so descriptive.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
When we look at our final act as a parent,
fifty percent of us don't even have a will in place.
So when we check out, our surviving loved ones have
to go to court, and even if we have a will,
(19:22):
they're going to be stuck there in probate for a
minimum period in New York State where I practice, of
seven months. You know what kind of parent is that?
I think that's a bad roommate because you're absolutely if
there's a house involved. Now the kids have to notify
(19:44):
the insurance carrier that the house is vacant, because if
they don't do that, then it's as good as having
no insurance. Right, So the insurance premiums are going to
go up. Yet the family can't sell it until the
probate is completed. So really, you want to get your
(20:07):
act together and protect the next generation from probate, from taxes,
from external and intra family lawsuits.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Isn't there something they call it a trust that helps
in a situation like this.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yeah, you know it's my opinion, and you've heard me
say this a million times, Paul. It's not a question
of whether or not you need a trust. The question
should be what type of trust do you need if
you own real estate? If you have a home, a condo,
(20:50):
a co op, investment property, vacation property, rental property, you
need a trust to prevent your family from having to
go through probate. And what we definitely don't want to
do is put the real estate in the child's name now,
(21:15):
because now we're subjecting that real estate to the child's
potential creditors, right, So we want to instead put it
in a good trust, a real estate trust, and asset
protection trust. People ask you know, what is the trust
called that I want to put the real estate in,
(21:36):
And the answer is, it does not matter what you
call the trust. What matters is what are the contents
of this trust? All of the legalese, And unfortunately there
does have to be a little legalese in this trust.
You think you're making it easier by putting it in
(21:57):
plane speak, but it really does confuse the situation, and
a trust needs to be thoughtfully crafted. And you, if
you're getting into doing a trust with your lawyer, you
want to be able to say, Okay, I'm putting my
house in this trust, But where does it say that
(22:18):
I retain one hundred percent of the rights to live
there the decision making control. Where does it say that
I can continue to change who my ultimate beneficiaries are. Right,
I may initially name my kids, Mary, Susie and Johnny
as the beneficiaries, but if I don't retain the ability
(22:43):
to make changes, then I am on the hook if
one of them gets sued.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
If one of them.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Gets sued, they can put a lean on the property
in the trust because they have a future quote unquote
vested interest in the trust. But if instead, mom holds
the cane on their future interest and I can yank
that child out whenever I wish, then if they get sued,
(23:14):
it does not impact my property. Does that make sense?
Speaker 4 (23:18):
This is where you need a smart lawyer who knows
the stuff. I mean, if you didn't do that, as
you say, this is would be a disaster.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yeah, you're you're playing around with what For many people,
the single biggest asset is sure And I don't think
this is a DIY job. You can go onto, you know,
various sites you can buy a living revocable trust, but
(23:48):
there's a lot of room for error, you know. The
analogy for me is a DIY electrical wiring guide, you know,
which which I do see in home Depot. I go
to home Depot a fair amount. Why, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
I'm not particularly handy, but I like home Depot.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
They have a nice garden section, and I bring some
nice looking things home. But I look at the books
they have there, and I just really shudder at the
thought of people doing some things on their own. Yeah,
we don't want to do a trust on our own,
so we have a real estate trust and asset protection
trust to hold the real estate we want to have
(24:30):
a separate life insurance trust. For all of you folks
who have life insurance out there, your financial advisor or
your insurance agent correctly told you that life insurance is
tax free, but it is only income tax free. It
(24:51):
is not a state tax free. So if I am
the beneficiary of someone's life insurance policy and they die
before I get that death benefit, that death benefit is
part of the decedent's gross taxable estate.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Did you realize that? Okay, all right, because we've hung
out together a long time.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
If you have life insurance, you want to make sure
that it is owned by a good life insurance trust
that will the life insurance was going to avoid probate
anyway because it has its own beneficiary. But by changing
the owner of it, we are protecting it from estate taxes,
(25:43):
and we're also protecting the cash value from long term
care expenses. Under current federal law, there is a so
called five year look back. This is period you know.
It use to be three years, and in two thousand
and six it went to five. There is a bill
(26:06):
in Congress that would make this look back period seven years.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
And what does that mean?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
That means that if I create a trust, I put
the asset in the trust, I must wait five years
under current federal law before that asset is invisible. In
the event that I need costly long term care beyond
(26:33):
the one hundred days that Medicare and the supplement cover,
those of you who qualify for long term care insurance,
definitely explore it. I don't think that government means tested
programs such as Medicaid are going to be around forever,
(26:55):
given the strain that they pose to the federal and
various states budgets. But in the here and now, you
need to definitely educate yourself about protecting assets. And on
my website, which is my lawyer and dot com, I
(27:15):
have a lot of information, some short videos about how
to select a trust and how to retain all of
the possible levers of control that you don't feel like
you're giving up control to the next generation because who
(27:36):
wants to do that.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Can you can question, can one trust handle insurance, handle
real estate or do you have to make different trusts.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
I would do different trusts because the trust we're doing
for the insurance is to keep it out of the
gross taxable estate, so it needs sort of like a
double firewall in terms of the language. You don't want
to put your state in that trust or the kids
are going to have a capital gains problem. So let's
imagine that we're at a carnival and we're playing whack
(28:08):
a mole, right, So these structures need to kind of
simultaneously protect us from a state taxes, from capital gains, taxes,
from liabilities from a divorce. And I really don't think
it's a DIY job. Go onto the website. I have
(28:31):
examples of what you can do on your own, and
that's a healthcare proxy. Do that on your own, download it,
fill it out today, and you're going to feel more empowered.
Do your own living will so you call the shots
about what your future long term care looks like.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Before we wrap.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
I want to invite you to visit me on Instagram
at my lawyer and you can catch me tomorrow on
Good Day New York. I think I'm in the eight
to nine o'clock hour slot where we're going to be
talking about the book and financial resolutions. With that, I
(29:18):
hope you all have a wonderful day.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
And Paul, thank you so much for being with us.
It was a pleasure, always a pleasure.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
Seeing Anne learning.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
The preceding program was sponsored by New York Priority Medical Care.
The proceeding was a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed
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 (00:25):
Hello, and welcome to the Laws of your Money.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
This is a show dedicated to protecting you from legal
and financial mayhem. When it comes to personal finance, there
is nothing more important than legal protections, because what does
it matter how diligently I save and invest if there
(00:52):
is a greater than forty percent chance of losing assets
to a long term illness and expense of divorce taxes.
This can be capital gains taxes, estate taxes, not to
mention ordinary lawsuits. We are living in the most litigious society.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
That the world has ever.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Known, and we need legal protections to keep other people's
myths out of our pockets and away from our money
and our families.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I believe we all have possible legal landminds in our lives.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Are you concerned about an elderly relative losing their home
to a nursing home. Are you in a second marriage
thinking about blended family warfare later? Do you have a
special needs child, a child who maybe does not have
special needs, who spends money like a drunken sailor. Are
(01:59):
you ranged from a family member and are looking to
avoid a will war later? I am asset protection attorney
and former New York State assembly woman and Margaret Carosa,
and I am joined today by my esteemed friend, colleague
(02:20):
and co host, the Reverend Paul Slatcus.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Welcome to the program.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Paul, Hello Anne, nice to see you.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And Happy New Year.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
Happy New Year to you, healthy one.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
So I'm going to jump in and ask you have
you made any New Year's resolutions?
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I have. I've I like lots of things, and I
realized in the process of liking lots of things that
I'm confused and too many things. I'm say just the
professional side of me, personal side whatever, but professional side
I'm focusing on. I have this Good News Corporation. It's
(03:02):
a nonprofit. I have a for profit and nonprofit. I'm
just going to focus on my nonprofit Good News Corporation,
which does the Peace Day and the Earth Day concerts.
In Times Square, and I have a movie Woodstock Forever
Peace eleven Hope, and I got to finish those projects
because I started the movie in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
And okay, a little while ago.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
The twentieth anniversary of Woodstock, and I need to finalize something.
So I'm gonna laser focus on just in my mind
a little, but it's not a little. A little can
become a lot. And I'm going to focus just on
that one part of my business in my life.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Well, good luck with that. The number one New Year's resolution?
Can you guess what it is?
Speaker 4 (03:47):
I was say also, I got to lose some weight.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Getting healthy, getting our health on track is the number
one New Year's resolution. And I don't know if you
remember last year I did Dry January. I think I
was so obnoxious to deal with that. You actually went
to China to get away from me. But my sister
(04:13):
Laurie is making me do it again. Okay, So here
we are eleven days into dry January, trying to get healthy.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
That is the number one resolution. Do you know what
the number two resolution is?
Speaker 3 (04:29):
H You're right, Paul, it's getting our finances on track, Okay,
And it is now the eleventh of January. Do you
know that the ninth of January this past friday was
National Quitter's Day.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yes, the second Friday of January is on average when
people abandon their New Year's resolutions. And I think maybe
one of the reasons why is that we're perfectionists and
it's an all or nothing mentality. And my family is
sick of hearing me say, don't let the perfect be
(05:10):
the enemy of the good. So I think it's about progress,
not perfection. And you know, I have some tips that
anyone can use to get their finances one step improved.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Okay, So because Dan has always good tips.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
This is This is a super laser focused, practical tip.
And I think most of us are spending way too
much on these food delivery apps. I mean they are
crazy convenient, and you know, forty thirty years ago, all
(05:54):
you could order into the house was pizza or mediocre
Chinese food, and now there's no cuisine, no excuse me,
no Michelin starred restaurant that you can't have delivered into
your house with an app. So my recommendation to everyone
that I know is to give these apps a little break.
(06:18):
And I want everyone today to go into their kitchens,
excuse me, and go into your pantry. I don't think
there's any one of us that does not have expired
food in the pantry, right, So take a big hefty bag,
get rid of all of the expired pharaoh farina pasta,
(06:44):
and what you're left with, I want you to put
into a search engine and come up with a recipe.
So I know that we all realize cooking our own food.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Making our own food is hell. Fear. It's cheaper, it's better.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
But I think we can end up spending too much money.
If we see this beautiful recipe in a woman's magazine,
for example, and we go to the supermarket and we're
buying all of this stuff. I'm buying a big container
of whatever kind of special oil it says to use
in the recipe. So let's start not with the recipe,
(07:27):
but let's start with what you have in the house.
Put it into a search engine, get a good recipe,
and you're going to be ahead of the game. Beyond that,
my second tip is, look around. We all have too
much stuff. We have gifts that were very lovely to open,
and people were very well intentioned giving us these gifts,
(07:51):
but they are often things that we have absolutely no
use for them. We feel guilty about regifting them. Try
to sell some things around the house. Go on to Facebook, marketplace,
put upload an image, sell some stuff from around the house,
(08:13):
have a tag sale with friends. None of us are
in a position where we can't find things to sell
around the house. Then what I want you to do
with the money? After you pay some taxes on it,
take a third of what's left and pay down your debt.
Take a third of what's left invest it, and a
(08:34):
third of it should be given to a reputable charity.
The wealth building effects of giving to a reputable charity
cannot be overstated. What you put out there comes back
to you several fold. And you, as a spiritual person,
(08:56):
as an interfaith minister, I know that you are are
all about generosity and giving, and I think you feel
that that improves the quality of your life.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Oh bye, By far, when you volunteer, you're helping others,
and by far you're helping yourself. And to give some
kind of financial assistance. I just spent the whole week
with accessibility organizations at CEES, the Consumer Electronics Show and
(09:28):
disabled How many people are disabled and can use your help.
It's wonderful, it's absolutely blessing.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Then we want to educate ourselves financially and legally, so
we can get a great free education from a local library.
Community colleges have free and low cost classes and seminars
where we can learn about legal strategies to protect assets.
(10:03):
We can learn about investment strategies, and all of this
puts us in the mindset of creating wealth, which is
where we want to be. You know, back when I
was trying to get myself together financially, you know, decades ago,
(10:23):
I think I read every book out there on saving,
on investing, Susie Orman, Dave Ramsey, Robert Kiyosawa, and I
derived a lot of great practical information, but there was
(10:45):
no one book that did the trick for me. And
unfortunately a lot of the financial lessons that I learned,
I had to do it the hard way by trial
and error. And from my journey from the rubble to
having some money, I wrote.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
A book about it.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I retraced the steps that I took and it's coming
out January twentieth, The Smart Woman's Guide to Building and
Protecting Wealth. This is the book Paul that I wish
I had back when I was a financial train wreck,
(11:29):
because I think my journey out of the financial abyss
would have been a quicker journey had I had this book.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Well, Anne's I know Anne a long long time. She's
extremely smart. She's extremely fair, fair with others, and fair
with herself. Is this just for women?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Well?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
No, I call it the Smart Woman's Guide. The advice
in the book, the tax strategies, the legal structures to
keep the phony lawsuits from, you know, robbing us of
all of our accumulated wealth. These legal, financial and tax
(12:10):
strategies are of course for everyone, but it's my belief
that women experience higher levels of financial stress than men.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
It robs us of our sleep.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Studies bear this out that women have difficulty sleeping at
night because of financial stress. It's going to hurt my
feelings more than your feelings, Paul. If some cousin is
asking us for money for some you know, sketchy startup business,
(12:45):
I know logically that I should not be giving him
yet another loan.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
But women tend to be people pleasers, and in.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
This book, I have strategies for the ladies out there
about changing your mindset. You need to take care of yourself,
get yourself together. If cousin Fred is asking you for
a thousand dollars loan, take a zero off of it
and say, here, here's a gift of one hundred dollars.
(13:17):
I simply can't be without the thousand dollars today. So
we talk about getting our mentality shifted and coming up
with strategies to protect ourselves, surrounding ourselves with people who
build us up, not tear us down, and are supportive
(13:40):
of our efforts to reach the next level of wealth.
If you have a bunch of girlfriends and everyone wants
to go out to some you know, one hundred dollars
ahead boozy brunch on a late Sunday morning, take a
pass and say I'll meet up with you guys after
(14:02):
the fact and we'll take a walk around the park together.
Just be proactive about it and have responses in your
head for all of the people looking to separate us
from our money. And in the book, a central theme
of it is that money alone does not solve money problems.
(14:24):
So if you're forty thousand dollars in debt, you think
absolutely a windfall of forty thousand dollars is going to
make me happy, it's going to make me whole. But
we see time and again, and I see in my practice,
I have worked with more than twenty thousand families, and
(14:45):
I have seen lottery winners who do, in fact blow
through the entire win and end up with less money
than they did before. And you ask, you know, how
can that possible? Simply be someone wins fifty million, how
on earth can they end up broke? And you know,
(15:09):
one of my clients is a cautionary tale in this regard.
It was the adult son of longtime clients of mine
who won ten million dollars lotto. And the first thing
he did, do you know what? The first thing he did.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Paul, he bought a fancy car.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
First, he thought he didn't need to be married anymore
to his wife of twenty five years. So the first
thing he did he split from the wife. Because the
winnings were prior to the divorce, she ended up getting
half of it. What she did with the money was
(15:48):
to buy a multifamily brownstone in Park Slow, Brooklyn. What
he did with the money involved a lot of wine,
women and song, and he bought a fast food franchise
and it was a type of business proposition where he
had to keep putting money into it. Long story short,
(16:11):
he went broke. He ended up moving back into his parents' home,
living in his childhood bedroom, while his ex wife is
now sitting on a gold mine the multifamily brownstone in
Prospect Parkslow Brother. So cautionary tales can keep us from
(16:37):
doing stupid things. Beyond the notion that money alone doesn't
solve money problems, we do get into a lot of
legal protections when you legally protect what you have. Not
only do you keep what you have, but I believe
(16:59):
that more will come if you want something. But you're
not taking care of what you happen to have right now.
You're not putting yourself in the mindset of attracting more stuff.
And the silly metaphor that I use, I think is apt,
(17:19):
and it involves Barbie dolls that I had when I
was little and I wanted more Barbie dolls, and my
mother pointed out the sorry collection of the Barbies I
already had. They were they had their hair cut off,
I had magic marker all over their faces, their their
(17:41):
clothes were all lost. So if you're not taking care
of what you happen to have right now. Again, you're
not putting yourself in the mindset where other people want
to give you things, where you will, you know, add
to what you have right now. So protecting what you
(18:03):
have is probably, in my opinion, the single most important
thing we can do to reach the next level of wealth.
And then we get into in the book The Smart
Woman's Guide to Building and Protecting Wealth, a state planning.
A state planning is our last act as a parent.
(18:29):
And when we look to the beginning of our parenthood journey,
we were customizing a nursery. We were, you know, really
going to town to welcome our little bundle of joy
with every creature comfort known to mankind.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Yet I'm crazy about this end so descriptive.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
When we look at our final act as a parent,
fifty percent of us don't even have a will in place.
So when we check out, our surviving loved ones have
to go to court, and even if we have a will,
(19:22):
they're going to be stuck there in probate for a
minimum period in New York State where I practice, of
seven months. You know what kind of parent is that?
I think that's a bad roommate because you're absolutely if
there's a house involved. Now the kids have to notify
(19:44):
the insurance carrier that the house is vacant, because if
they don't do that, then it's as good as having
no insurance. Right, So the insurance premiums are going to
go up. Yet the family can't sell it until the
probate is completed. So really, you want to get your
(20:07):
act together and protect the next generation from probate, from taxes,
from external and intra family lawsuits.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Isn't there something they call it a trust that helps
in a situation like this.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yeah, you know it's my opinion, and you've heard me
say this a million times, Paul. It's not a question
of whether or not you need a trust. The question
should be what type of trust do you need if
you own real estate? If you have a home, a condo,
(20:50):
a co op, investment property, vacation property, rental property, you
need a trust to prevent your family from having to
go through probate. And what we definitely don't want to
do is put the real estate in the child's name now,
(21:15):
because now we're subjecting that real estate to the child's
potential creditors, right, So we want to instead put it
in a good trust, a real estate trust, and asset
protection trust. People ask you know, what is the trust
called that I want to put the real estate in,
(21:36):
And the answer is, it does not matter what you
call the trust. What matters is what are the contents
of this trust? All of the legalese, And unfortunately there
does have to be a little legalese in this trust.
You think you're making it easier by putting it in
(21:57):
plane speak, but it really does confuse the situation, and
a trust needs to be thoughtfully crafted. And you, if
you're getting into doing a trust with your lawyer, you
want to be able to say, Okay, I'm putting my
house in this trust, But where does it say that
(22:18):
I retain one hundred percent of the rights to live
there the decision making control. Where does it say that
I can continue to change who my ultimate beneficiaries are. Right,
I may initially name my kids, Mary, Susie and Johnny
as the beneficiaries, but if I don't retain the ability
(22:43):
to make changes, then I am on the hook if
one of them gets sued.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
If one of them.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Gets sued, they can put a lean on the property
in the trust because they have a future quote unquote
vested interest in the trust. But if instead, mom holds
the cane on their future interest and I can yank
that child out whenever I wish, then if they get sued,
(23:14):
it does not impact my property. Does that make sense?
Speaker 4 (23:18):
This is where you need a smart lawyer who knows
the stuff. I mean, if you didn't do that, as
you say, this is would be a disaster.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yeah, you're you're playing around with what For many people,
the single biggest asset is sure And I don't think
this is a DIY job. You can go onto, you know,
various sites you can buy a living revocable trust, but
(23:48):
there's a lot of room for error, you know. The
analogy for me is a DIY electrical wiring guide, you know,
which which I do see in home Depot. I go
to home Depot a fair amount. Why, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
I'm not particularly handy, but I like home Depot.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
They have a nice garden section, and I bring some
nice looking things home. But I look at the books
they have there, and I just really shudder at the
thought of people doing some things on their own. Yeah,
we don't want to do a trust on our own,
so we have a real estate trust and asset protection
trust to hold the real estate we want to have
(24:30):
a separate life insurance trust. For all of you folks
who have life insurance out there, your financial advisor or
your insurance agent correctly told you that life insurance is
tax free, but it is only income tax free. It
(24:51):
is not a state tax free. So if I am
the beneficiary of someone's life insurance policy and they die
before I get that death benefit, that death benefit is
part of the decedent's gross taxable estate.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Did you realize that? Okay, all right, because we've hung
out together a long time.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
If you have life insurance, you want to make sure
that it is owned by a good life insurance trust
that will the life insurance was going to avoid probate
anyway because it has its own beneficiary. But by changing
the owner of it, we are protecting it from estate taxes,
(25:43):
and we're also protecting the cash value from long term
care expenses. Under current federal law, there is a so
called five year look back. This is period you know.
It use to be three years, and in two thousand
and six it went to five. There is a bill
(26:06):
in Congress that would make this look back period seven years.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
And what does that mean?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
That means that if I create a trust, I put
the asset in the trust, I must wait five years
under current federal law before that asset is invisible. In
the event that I need costly long term care beyond
(26:33):
the one hundred days that Medicare and the supplement cover,
those of you who qualify for long term care insurance,
definitely explore it. I don't think that government means tested
programs such as Medicaid are going to be around forever,
(26:55):
given the strain that they pose to the federal and
various states budgets. But in the here and now, you
need to definitely educate yourself about protecting assets. And on
my website, which is my lawyer and dot com, I
(27:15):
have a lot of information, some short videos about how
to select a trust and how to retain all of
the possible levers of control that you don't feel like
you're giving up control to the next generation because who
(27:36):
wants to do that.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Can you can question, can one trust handle insurance, handle
real estate or do you have to make different trusts.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
I would do different trusts because the trust we're doing
for the insurance is to keep it out of the
gross taxable estate, so it needs sort of like a
double firewall in terms of the language. You don't want
to put your state in that trust or the kids
are going to have a capital gains problem. So let's
imagine that we're at a carnival and we're playing whack
(28:08):
a mole, right, So these structures need to kind of
simultaneously protect us from a state taxes, from capital gains, taxes,
from liabilities from a divorce. And I really don't think
it's a DIY job. Go onto the website. I have
(28:31):
examples of what you can do on your own, and
that's a healthcare proxy. Do that on your own, download it,
fill it out today, and you're going to feel more empowered.
Do your own living will so you call the shots
about what your future long term care looks like.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Before we wrap.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
I want to invite you to visit me on Instagram
at my lawyer and you can catch me tomorrow on
Good Day New York. I think I'm in the eight
to nine o'clock hour slot where we're going to be
talking about the book and financial resolutions. With that, I
(29:18):
hope you all have a wonderful day.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
And Paul, thank you so much for being with us.
It was a pleasure, always a pleasure.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
Seeing Anne learning.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
The preceding program was sponsored by New York Priority Medical Care.
The proceeding was a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed
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