September 2, 2025 • 37 mins
What’s your money story? That’s the big question we dive into today as we chat with Jennifer, a financial advisor and author who’s all about empowering folks, especially women, to take control of their finances. We kick things off by reminiscing about our earliest money memories, whether they were filled with joy or a bit of stinginess. From selling cards for a skateboard to learning that you gotta put in the work for what you want, we uncover how these experiences shape our financial habits. Jennifer shares some golden nuggets on financial literacy, especially for those who might feel a bit out of their depth when it comes to handling money. So grab your favorite drink, settle in, and let’s get ready to squeeze the juice out of those financial conversations!
Takeaways:
- Understanding your personal money story can significantly shape your financial habits and decisions.
- Women often outlive their partners, making financial literacy crucial for long-term security and planning.
- Creating a family love letter is a meaningful way to communicate values and financial wisdom to loved ones.
- Discretionary spending is about understanding what you can afford beyond fixed expenses, which is key to financial freedom.
- Engaging both partners in financial discussions helps bridge the gap in money management within relationships.
- Roth IRAs are a fantastic investment tool for those looking to secure their financial future, especially for young earners.
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Episode 308
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This episode is Sponsored bybcpublic relations.com.
It'S kind of fun to exploreand say, what is your money story?
Right.
So what is the very firstmemory of money that you have? And
was it positive? Was itempowering? Was it of lack? Was it
somebody being stingy aboutmoney? I mean, I remember being a
(00:22):
kid and wanting a this like wehad to sell cards to neighbors and
people. I didn't really wantto go sell cards, but I wanted the
skateboard.
Right.
So you had to sell the cardsto get the skateboard. So. So I understood
at a young age that the effortcould equal the reward.
(00:42):
Right.
So that's. I'm an entrepreneur.
Right.
Not everybody did that.
Right.
So what's your story about? Money.
Welcome everybody back toanother exciting show, the about
that Wallet podcast where wehelp the Sandwich generation build
strong financial habits sothat they can talk about money, spend
(01:02):
money and enjoy their moneywith confidence today. I have an
awesome guest today and she isa financial advisor, author of the
Squeeze the Juice book, andfounder of the financial advisory
firm Modern wealth inSarasota, Florida. Welcome to the
show, Jennifer.
(01:23):
Thanks for having me, Anthony.
So one of the things with wewere just talking back on the green
screen was just about like howyou're from Maryland and I'm from
Maryland and this is alreadylike give me good vibes today, so.
Me too. Solid Maryland people.I love it.
Yeah, we're gonna rock thisout. So, you know, making that transition
(01:44):
to Florida is one thing, butone of the things is that we also
got to look into is a lot ofwomen are usually the caretakers
for in the family regardless.And let's keep it real is that they
usually outlive the guys inthe relationships. I would say at
least 70% of the time I'm justthrowing it out there. That's what
it feels like.
Yeah, it's. It's always, it'salways hard when I'm talking to a
(02:06):
couple and I was like, andthey're the same age. I'm like, well,
she's probably going to livefive years longer. Sorry. She's female.
We start there. So it happens.
Is it just something like inthe water, like guys are doing dumb
stuff or what is it?
I don't have a fun good answerfor that one. But. But there's probably
something there.
Yeah. And usually in arelationship, you. I noticed that
(02:31):
you focus a lot on the. I wantto say, what is it called? Like the
no money.
The non moneyed party.
Yes, the non money party. Iwas like that is so cool of a name.
I was like, where can I signup? Where can I learn more about
this and who are they? But canyou start about like, who are the
no Money party?
(02:52):
Sure. Well, you know, I lovewhat I do. I love talking about money.
I love, you know, I'd lovenothing more than to be at some little
gathering and be in the cornertalking about something complicated
with a business or financialoriented. But you know, that's some
kind of the unicorn there. Andnot everybody wants to do that unless
they have a specific question.So the non moneyed party is often
(03:15):
the person in the relationshipwho doesn't handle the finances,
doesn't handle the budget,doesn't handle the retirement accounts,
doesn't handle the mortgage,all those things. It's not their
natural space. I like to sayin relationships we divide and conquer.
You know, your wife may bebetter at one thing and you're better
at another. And so you kind ofjust lean those ways. It's never,
(03:38):
almost never about a level ofcompetency or intelligence. It's
just, hey, that wasn't mything. Like if you never cooked and
all of a sudden you have tomake dinner and breakfast and lunch.
Oh my gosh. Flipping an egg isa problem.
Right.
So the same thing with money.If you never had to balance a checkbook
or understand what comes in,what goes out and what you have left,
(04:01):
how are you ever gonna do ituntil you learned?
Right.
So it's about educating theperson who has not necessarily been
at the forefront of that andgetting them comfortable with these
tools. Because money's just a tool.
Yeah. And because it's a tool,is there a system that should be
in place on how to use thattool? Because you hinted on a little
(04:22):
bit. We like to say, we don'tlike to say budget because it's us
the bad word. But we love it.We usually, I try to switch it up
and say a spending plan. Youknow, would a spending plan be a
great for somebody like that?So the person's handling all the
money, they can just write itout right quick. Or should they do
it as a couple or separate?
Well, I think that's a greatquestion. I think if you are a couple,
(04:46):
you both need to understandwhat you really have to work with.
Okay? So you gotta have thatconversation. I don't like to say
budget a year because people squirm.
Right.
So again, non money, they'regonna squirm. We don't want to talk
about the word budget.
Right.
And I had one client one timesay, look, my father, you know, made
me have a budget as a kid.Don't use budget. I don't want to
(05:08):
be restricted. Okay. Allright. So let's figure out what your
story is and figure out how tohelp you understand this. So I like
to say, what do you have atyour discretion? And people go, what
does that mean? Okay, well,you have money coming in from your
paycheck from if you have arental property, from rents coming
in. If you have SocialSecurity from Social Security and
(05:28):
you have bills, you have yourmortgage, you have your car, you
have your kids, whatever yourcell phone you have fixed things
you have to spend money on,then there's something left over
that's at your discretion.Guess what? You get to choose. Do
you go to a bookstore? Do yougo to the movies? Do you go out to
dinner? Do you spend too muchmoney at Costco? Do you have an Amazon
(05:49):
problem? Do you like latte? Doyou have shoe fetish? What is your
thing? You get to choose. NowI hope that when we get that discretionary
number right, as a couple, yousay, okay, we have X number of dollars
a month. How much do we wantto spend on our Future big goals?
5 year, 10 year retirement.How much do we spend, want to spend
(06:13):
on, you know, three monthsfrom now because we want to go on
a family vacation. And howmuch do we want to just choose? Like
I'm gonna, you know, go, we'regonna go out this weekend and we're
gonna spend $200. You know,maybe you should have spent a hundred
toward your retirement andwent to the grocery store and bought
some really cool steaks andmade dinner and saved a hundred bucks.
(06:35):
So you get to choose my job asan advisor. And people think that
I'm telling them what to do.I'm not telling you what to do.
Right?
I want you to understand whatyour what is at your discretion.
From there, you have all thechoices in the world. You can plan,
you can fail to plan, that'sup to you. But if you want to get
(06:56):
beyond today, right, you needto have your dreams. What are your
dreams? What do you want to doif you don't know where you're going?
That's, that's old saying, youdon't know where you're going, you're
never going to get there.
That is true.
Right?
But if you're shooting for thestars or the moon, you might land
in the stars. But you got todo some things to help yourself.
And when it comes to planningand one of the things like going
(07:18):
back to These extra sayings,it's like, yeah, you can run pretty
fast, but you ain't going away.
It's true.
So how do you kind of bringthem in to kind of say like, you
know, it's going to be okay.
Right. So I try to have someof these fundamental discussions
that get to the root of what'sgoing to serve their overall picture,
their overall financialhealth. And the one is, figure out
(07:40):
what your discretionary numberis. Right, we talked about that.
The other is talking, I wastalking about goals a little bit.
So what do you have? What'syour income, what are your assets,
what are your resources? Andthen what do you want? Right, well,
well, I want a new car. Well,okay, I want to send my kid to college.
I want to pay off ourmortgage. I want to go on vacation
as a family. I want to buy X,Y and Z, whatever it is that you
(08:03):
want. Our job as an advisor isto take your resources, your discretionary
number, and help you get whatyou want.
Right.
So you need those two things.
How do we pull people awayfrom that? Being scared of their
finances.
It's hard to not be scaredabout your finances. Right. So I
like you to get comfortablewith. When I look at, when I look
(08:26):
at the steps, the buildingblocks of a financial success.
Right.
When you're a little kid, you,you stack blocks high and you giggle
and then you whack them over,right? They fall really quickly.
So we don't want to build yourfinancial picture on, hey, Amazon
is great or this is great, orTesla and oh no, Tesla's tumbling.
(08:48):
You don't want to build it onthese one offs or on what you hear
at a cocktail party or withyour friends on a weekend. What you
want to do is you want to havea foundational level. So there's
a couple things that arereally easy that people don't think
about. If you have a job thathas a 401k, a 403 or a retirement
plan, oftentimes there's amatch. Make sure you get your free
(09:08):
money. I was talking to awoman the other day and she said,
I said, well, don't you have aplan at work? And she goes, yeah,
but I, I haven't participated.I was like, well, they're, they're
giving you dollar for dollarmatch up to 5%. So you're making
$60,000. You just lost, youknow, 5% of $60,000. What are we
doing? It's free money. So youwant to take care of your free money.
(09:31):
And then you, you don't Wantto just. I mean, sometimes it works
if you throw a dart at thestock board and you might pick the
right one.
Yeah.
There's a great illustrationof a bunch of stocks if you took
$10,000 and invested in one.So sometimes I'll show it to clients.
I'll say, okay, here's a listof 50 stocks. If you. I give you
(09:54):
10 grand, you could go back,which one would you pick? And they
pick one. And then we can lookat what has it actually done and
say, oh, look, you know, thatstock was the 54th in the. In the
60 that we showed you. Andit's like, oh, that's disappointing.
All right. But what did thefund do that had a portfolio manager
(10:17):
that's buying and selling thestocks inside of there, knowing the
companies and so on, and itwas second from the top.
Right.
You might have been number oneif you picked Apple, but not if you
picked Coca Cola or gm.
And what goes back tounderstanding the stocks have different
areas inside your portfolio,because Coca Cola is. Can give you
(10:40):
great dividends, but they.They don't fluctuate as much. Similar
like Microsoft.
You're a little dangerous onthe financial side, aren't you?
Well, I mean, I did dabble.
Yeah.
You know. Well, I mean, thisis what we do on the show.
Absolutely. And it matters.Like, it matters. What is your goal?
Right.
(11:00):
And what is your risktolerance? So, you know, some clients
think they want to go 90 milesdown the highway, but they're really
uncomfortable.
Right.
And so they need some of thosemore conservative things like you're
talking about. Or diversification.
Yeah, definitelydiversification. Because one of the
things that I noticed that alot of women actually tune into this
(11:23):
show and they always feeloverwhelmed because one of the things
is that now they havediscretionary money to start investing
with their children. And it'skind of like, okay, well, I have
the money. What do I do toactually help my child be well and
good with money? Far as, like,books or should I make sure that
(11:45):
they. What company shotinvesting in what ETF shall be doing
or what should I be doing as amother to kind of make sure we solidify
our. Our finances? And one ofthe things, I like how you went back
to say, like, first off, yougot to look at your values, and it's
something that you have inyour book that I didn't get a chance
(12:07):
to read it, but I was justreading some of the highlights. You
have something called, like,your family love letter. Can you
explain what that is? BecauseI think that will tie in to kind
of help people understandwhere they want to put their money
at.
Yeah, I mean, the, the fit andhope I don't make you cry. It's a,
it's a tear jerker.
Right?
Like, think about your. Do youhave kids, Anthony?
(12:29):
No, this is my podcast. Is my kid.
Is your kid okay? Do you have,like a favorite niece or nephew or
somebody who like, looks up toyou and.
Yes.
No.
Yeah, I do.
So you're thinking aboutsomebody. So if you had to have the.
If, if, if this were your kidand, and it was the last conversation
you were going to have withthem. Okay, what do they need to
know? Like, there's a lot ofthings they need to know about what
(12:52):
you would hope for them as faras marriage, as far as relationship,
as far as job and work andcontribution to society. There's
a lot of things that you wantto impart with on them about your
values and life.
Right.
Life experience. So writingyour family love letter is not only.
It's about taking care of yourpeople. It's not only about what
(13:15):
do I have as far as assets andwho does it go to, but it's what
does this mean?
Right?
Like, my aunt gave me thisring and she gave it to me. She's
still living. Thank you. Andshe said, I want you to have it because
I really love it and I wantyou to. You're special to me and
I want you to have it. Thatwas amazing.
Right?
And I cherish it and I valueit today. But writing your family
(13:38):
love letter is telling yourspouse, your business partner, your
niece or nephew, yourchildren, what are your values? What
is important about where areyour assets? Right. Where the money.
Sometimes there's cash hiddensomewhere. We need to know where
that is. But where are yourpasswords? Who are the people that
you can trust? Who's youradvisor? Who's your accountant? Who's
(14:00):
your attorney? These things,these. Or your best friend, whatever
it is. Do you have a safedeposit box? So it's communicating
not only the logisticalthings, but what your legacy is.
Right.
What do you want to pass on ifyou're not here? What do people need
to know?
Yeah, and I like that too. Oneis not to scare people, but to really
(14:22):
bring to light on why you dowhat you do. And I wanted to ask
you about the title of thebook because you called it Squeeze
the Juice. I know usually thephrase is called is the juice worth
the squeeze? So can youexplain that a little bit?
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thinkabout, think about anything. Like,
(14:42):
think about this podcast like,or. Or you. Or this interaction.
Like, what's the juice of thisinteraction? Like, you're gonna.
We're gonna be done. You'regonna be like, ah, that was the juice.
Right.
Like, there's, there's somepart that's like, you're so, so thankful
that that's what you got outof it. And, and that's what it's
like in, in life. I don't havechildren either. I've got nine nieces
(15:05):
and nephews, and they are my everything.
Right.
So I like to squeeze thejuice. As far as the relationships,
the interactions I have withthem, there's nothing to me that's
more significant than that. SoI use that terminology about getting
the best out of whateverinteraction, relationship work, podcast,
(15:26):
article, whatever it is.What's the. What's the meat of it?
What's the juice of it that'sgoing to be. Has the most significance.
Set and dug it.
So what will be the juice fromyour book?
I think the juice is differentfor everybody.
There you go.
I think, you know, everybodywould take something different from
it. To me, the juice is the.Is writing your family love letter,
(15:46):
taking care of your people.
Right.
You know, particularly if youwere the moneyed person in the relationship,
your spouse doesn't know anything.
Right.
And you know, you divide andconquer. So it just wasn't their
area, but now they're left.They're upside down. I mean, sometimes
we'll have. We'll have husbandand wives come in and their new prospective
clients, and the husband willsay, I don't really need you. I do
(16:09):
my own finances. But I knowone day I'm not going to be here.
And I need my wife to becomfortable talking about this and
having somebody who she canlean on.
Right.
And so who she can askquestions of. Doesn't always happen
that way, but it's reallysweet when it does.
Yeah.
Because they're really lookingout for their. Their partner if they're
(16:30):
not going to be there.
And I think that's a good,healthy relationship to understand
the strengths and weaknesses.Because sometimes people just afraid
to even talk about the moneyaspect at all.
They are.
And it's like, how do we openup those conversations? Do you have
like a beginner, like, if twopeople are meeting for the first
time.
Yeah.
And they coming together,like, the relationships become as
(16:53):
serious. What would be like,your top three questions to like,
kick that off?
Well, the most telling is to.Well, a couple things. One you can
look at. You can ask themabout their family and relationships
with people. In their familyand things are going to come out.
So you're going to know, youknow, oh, I don't talk to my father
(17:13):
or I don't have a relationshipwith my grandmother, you know, she's
crazy or whatever it is.You're going to see things. But when
it comes to the financial. Andyou'll also learn things about the
financial picture by askingwhat was it like growing up in this
environment or whatever. Butthe most telling question is to ask
your partner or your friend,kind of fun to explore and say, what's.
(17:36):
What is your money story?
Right.
So what is the very firstmemory of money that you have? And
was it positive? Was itempowering? Was it of lack? Was it
somebody being stingy aboutmoney? I mean, I remember being a
kid and wanting a. This likewe had to sell cards to neighbors
(17:58):
and people. I didn't reallywant to go sell cards, but I wanted
the skateboard.
Right?
So you had to sell the cardsto get the skateboard. So. So I understood
at a young age that the effortcould equal the reward.
Right.
So that's. I'm an entrepreneur.
Right.
Not everybody did that.
Right.
(18:19):
So what's your story aboutmoney, your very first story or memory
about?
Well, my first story is onethat I can remember only because
I got a beaten for it. It'smore so of because I actually stole
a sticker from a local, localconvenience store. And the thing
(18:41):
about it is, like at the timeI was really looking at this reflective
holographic sticker. Like, youknow, you change, it looks really
cool. And I was like, mom, Ireally want this whatever. And she
was like, no, put it back. Youknow, get something else or we not
here for that. I can'tremember what she said, but I put
it in my pocket anyway. Gethome, which is in walking distance.
(19:02):
And so I get home and I startplaying with it. She was like, where
did you get this from? I waslike, from the store. And then next
thing you know, the belt cameout for at least. It felt like at
least an hour. She was justgoing in. It could have been like
five minutes, I don't know.But she walked me back to the store
to give it back to the guy.And my lesson from that was that
(19:27):
finances, like, just becauseyou want it doesn't mean you have
to take it. You have to earnit. And by doing so, you have to
put in the work. Going back tounderstanding, we had to put in the
work to get the money so thatI can do it myself. Since then I
was like, let me make my ownmoney and not rely on somebody else
to kind of ask for them forwhat I need or what I want. So that
(19:49):
was my money story.
That's priceless. You ought tothank your mother for that beating.
Yeah, she does listen to theshow, so thank you, man.
No, I mean, it's important,though, your mom imparted, you know,
her values and good values onyou, so you could understand that,
you know, that wasn'tacceptable. And then, look, it made
(20:11):
you think differently andthink, okay, well, I got to figure
out a way so I can. I can feedmy little. My holographic sticker
need.
Right?
And that's good. You know, alot of people, we talked about budgeting
in the beginning. A lot ofpeople think about from a perspective
of lack, and they think, well,budget means I'm restricted. And
when I think about wanting theholographic sticker and I don't have
(20:34):
the money for it, I think, allright, what do I have to do to make
money to get the holographicsticker? Because I really want it.
Yeah, right.
So, you know, it's. We allhave a different mindset. You know,
it's. It's. It's the lensesthat we grew up with. You know, mine
are different than yours. Imean, I did this icebreaker one time,
and. And this line of. We werein this women's group, and we were
(20:57):
all standing in a line, andthey asked questions like, did you
have two parents, you know,take a step forward? Did you, you
know, go to college, take astep? And it was just, oh, I got
chills thinking about it. The.And these are my colleagues. And
the disparity between whereyou start, you have a different lens.
So I love that you're doingthis podcast because everybody has
(21:22):
the right and the ability tolisten and learn something and take
it and apply it in their life.And that's. That's awesome.
And that's one of the thingsthat I. That keeps me going is just
that one person listening tosay, you know what? I actually. Actually,
this happened last. Actuallythis week. Wednesday, I went out
to happy hour. Somebody waslike, you know what? Don't worry
(21:42):
about it. I'll take care ofit. Because of you and your show,
I actually have travel pointsnow that I can take my family on
vacation. And I was like.Like, I had to get a hug for that
one. I was like, you know,thank you for hearing it, because
you don't. A lot of that stuffisn't written, but when they come
to you to say, like, hey, thisreally impacted me. And this is what
(22:03):
I hope and that people willfind the juice use out of your book
in, in life and really thinklike I'm doing something good and
I'm not. It's not bad, you know.
Yeah, no, that's, and that'sthe whole thing, you know, I didn't
write, I didn't write the bookto sell books.
Right.
Like, I mean, it's not, it'snot, it's not a money maker. I wrote
(22:23):
the book because there's somany people that are intimidated
about money.
Right.
And so if I can give you likeall the nuts and bolts and, and we
could have, we could have sixsessions and talk about these financial
concepts and break it down.
Right.
It's all in the book. It's,it's right there. And I did it in
such a way, I hope and Ithink, and that's the feedback I've
(22:46):
gotten is that it doesn't hurtto read it. It's not a painful book.
I promise. Like, it'll takeyou a couple hours to read it. That's
it. There's worksheets in it.You're going to get, look, the worst
thing you get is one idea.Boom, that's okay.
Life change.
But you might get 10.
Yeah, right.
Yeah. Because depending on it,like you said, every orange is a
(23:08):
little different. You mightget a lot of juice from it.
That's right. You might getmore juice.
Right. Because, you know,understanding. Because it seemed
like family is a big thing foryou. But what does family really
mean to you?
Family probably means mosteverything. I mean, family for me
is do my parents have been. Mydad is no longer with us, but my
(23:29):
parents have always been aboutus doing things together and coming
together at least a coupletimes a year. And so we still, I
mean, I'm 55 this year. Westill do a family vacation with all
the siblings and then the kidsand the spouses and it's so much
fun. We do silly things like,you know, dress up and do theme nights
(23:50):
and it's just like thepictures are great. It's, it's fun,
but it's really about havingthose connections with the kids for
me and take care of yourpeople, taking care of my mom, you
know, making sure that you'rethere for your siblings. And you
know, probably the, one of themost favorite things that happened
for me was a mic drop moment.My 22 year old niece called me or
messaged me last year and shesaid, hey, I want to, I'm going to,
(24:13):
I'm in. She Was an au pair inItaly, and she had this really cool
job for the summer. When shegraduated college, she's like, I
think I'm going to go and,like, babysit kids in Italy and learn
Italian. Okay, like, thatsounds amazing. How smart is that?
I never thought of that. Iwent and took a job in accounting,
but what did I know? And soshe messaged me and she says, aunt
(24:35):
Jen, I have 10 days where Idon't need to be with the kids, and
they're on a family vacation.Will you come travel with me? I'll
go anywhere. That's it. That'sfamily for me.
That's life. I like that.
Yeah.
Because, you know, obviouslywe, like you said, views of life
is differently because my,like, the way how we grew up, it
(24:56):
was just everything is like,you're independent. Like, everybody's
isolated. And it's like, okay,well, as long as I didn't get the
phone call you, dad, you'reokay. Yeah, I know. We just kind
of live with it. And it's justone of those things. It's like, it'll
be nice to have, but wedidn't. Don't know that environment.
That wasn't your value.
(25:17):
Right.
So how do you know? You don'teven know if you like it.
Right.
Like, we all have. We all haveour things. Like when you go, when
you. When you come back forThanksgiving dinner, that's the root
of everything.
Right.
Like, all the stuff comes out,the personalities are back. You're.
You're 12 again on Thanksgiving.
Exactly.
(25:37):
So, you know, it's. It's all amatter of experience and perspective
and your own personal evolution.
Yeah. And now, because Iwanted to take this podcast episode
a little different direction,says just kind of feel the people
in with all this stuff andjargon is because, first of, we have
to understand living is veryimportant, and living your life is
(25:57):
important. And that's thereason why I love your story is like,
you're focusing on the womenwho really outlive just about all
the men in the family. Andit's like, where do they go? Where
do they start? Start. And yougot a little bit of time. I want
to dive into a little bit partof the divorce process, or at least
the separation piece of it.When you're extracting the assets.
(26:18):
One of the things you talkedabout, I've never heard this term
before, which is a quidro. A quido.
Quadro, Quadro, Q, D, R, O. Yeah.
What is that?
Okay.
Right.
So this is something peopleforget when they're doing a Divorce.
When they're going throughdivorce. So, you know, a lot of what
we do is. Is financialadvocacy. We advocate for. Sometimes
(26:39):
it's the couple. Like, I mean,I've had clients that are a couple,
and they say we're divorcing,Right. Like, we just aren't in love
with each other anymore. Wedon't want to be evil about it. Can
you help us divide assets? Andwe talk about those things, which
is, you know, perfect way toget a divorce. Okay, I love you.
I used to be in love with you.I don't want to be with you, but
let's figure it out. So.
(27:01):
Great.
Unfortunately, it doesn'talways happen that way.
Right.
So. So a lot of times whatwe'll do is we'll advocate for the
one person. You have to gatherlists of assets. What do you have?
Right?
So if somebody has a pensionplan from a government job or a big
company that has a pensionplan still or an active. Okay. Those
(27:22):
type of things have to bedistributed. Like, if you have a.
Okay, I can't have. You can'tjust say, here, take half.
Right.
We have to have a qualifieddomestic relations order signed by
a judge to go get that. So ifyou work for the University of Maryland,
then the order goes to yourfinancial person, the hr, and they.
(27:46):
They see it and they say, yourspouse is entitled to half, and then
they're able to carve that offlegally. So it's a. It's a legal
document that facilitates someof the assets that you can't just
split.
See, I always thought it wasjust kind of like, all right, well,
it's straight down the middle.I didn't know that was actual form.
Well, you can. I mean, youknow, if you. If you just have a
bank account, you can split itright down the middle.
(28:08):
Okay.
But once you have a house thatgets a little more complicated, you
got to sell it or you got torefinance. Once you have IRAs, even
if you have an IRA and I havean IRA and they're uneven, and we're
trying to even them out, youcan use a divorce decree for an iron
ira, but you need a quadro forthe okay or the retirement plan.
(28:28):
Thank you for explaining that.
Yeah, yeah.
I was like, what? Because Iheard you mention it, but you didn't
go to this level of detail,which is great, because for those.
Like I said, we're going tofind the juice in this episode. Somebody
getting something out of this.But as we go to our third segment
of the show, which is talkingabout the features and this is where
we talk about, like, eitherpersonal or you can talk about business,
(28:50):
but I prefer personal becausewe all like to. I like to go back
into the episodes and say,like, hey, you remember you said
this like last year or twoyears ago. So where do you think,
what areas of focus that youwant to improve on the most?
Personally, I gotta, I gottaminimize my plate. I like to. I like
(29:13):
to have a plate that has allkinds of stuff in it, and the busier
and the messier it is, themore interesting and it keeps my
attempt. Maybe I have add, butI like it active.
Right.
I get bored, so I need to getmore comfortable with, you know,
some space on my plate.
Right.
Which maybe will create alittle anxiety around, like, okay,
(29:34):
what am I doing? But, youknow, I, I need to, to chill a little
bit in there, if that makes sense.
It makes perfect sense. Ithink as business owners, we like
the chaos.
Yeah.
Because. Yeah, because there'sno chaos. It's like, well, what am
I doing today?
Right, right. I feel that.
Yeah. So. But let's just go tothe business. What do you think will
(29:56):
help out your business?
Well, I just got back from amastermind group in New York focusing
on business owner transition.So, you know, I've been doing probably
13 years or so focusing onwomen in financial transition, divorce,
loss of spouse, those bigthings. And we're not, certainly
not leaving that area. Butthere's a lot to be done for and
(30:19):
with business owners and theirfamilies, getting them ready to sell
their business.
Right.
So not five minutes before yousell your business, but like five
years before you sell yourbusiness. How can we help you shelter
more money from tax? How canwe plan ahead so that you can get
the most money for yourbusiness? That. Or get the right
(30:40):
team or transfer it to yourkids? So that's really where I'm,
where I'm trying to get tosqueeze the juice.
Right.
That's, that's my, that's myarea of focus for the next couple
of years. Just developing anddeepening that.
Yes. So thank you for that. Isthere anything that you want to leave
the audience with before wedive into the final four?
(31:01):
You know, the only thing wedidn't talk about, which is like
the second lowest hangingfruit, the first one, is make sure
if you have a retirement planat work, you're getting your free
money. The second thing is ifyou're eligible and you're not familiar
with what a Roth IRA is.
Yes.
Google that. Look at that.And, and just put a little bit of
money in it every month youwill be. I mean, I sometimes I talk
(31:22):
to these like young kids, likea 20 year old, and I'm just starting
work and I say, okay, if youjust put a hundred bucks away a month
into this and be, you know,assertive with it, you'll be like,
I remember this lady. Andyou'll be so rich. And you'll be,
I remember this lady told me,and I really need to do this. And
you either do it or you don't.Like, I can't make you do it, but
(31:43):
I think you'd be happy if you do.
So now I do get this a lot.When people start with their businesses,
will start a job, do they.Should they start to do it individually
or do it part of the company?Sponsored retirement accounts?
I have the building blocksthat I. That I do. And lower to the
bottom, more stable. Get yourfree money first. If you're making
(32:04):
$50,000 and you have moremoney to save and you got your free
money through work and you'reeligible for a Roth, then you might
do that on the outside as aRoth, or if your plan has a Roth
option, you can add more moneyin the roth inside the 401k.
I like that.
Free money.
Roth.
Can't beat that. Are you readyfor the final four?
(32:24):
Sure.
All right, so the final fourquestions are the final four questions
that I ask every guest andthey should be rapid fire, but we
can deep dive into them ifyou're comfortable. Okay. Number
one, what does wealth mean to you?
Freedom, options. Number two, Flexibility.
(32:46):
Oh, I mean, you keep going like.
What does wealth mean to me isthat we could go all day.
Right.
It really means. It reallymeans having flexibility and options.
So that's good. Number two,what was your worst money mistake?
I invested in a business withbusiness partners that ended up not
(33:08):
being good. And I ended upowning a business that I have no
business on.
So it explains on yourfutures, on trying to figure out
how to sell this business business.
Yeah. If you want one, come toFlorida. You can have it.
I will.
It's nice here, I hear, but I.
Don'T think I want to own thebusiness. Number three, is there
(33:31):
a book that inspired yourjourney or changed your perspective?
More than one? My favoritebook that I give to people is the
seven Spiritual Laws ofSuccess by Deepak Chopra. And I have
a copy of it that I literallyhave read over the years. 20 sometimes.
And I underline it and Ihighlight it and I date it. So I'm
(33:52):
like, look, I got over this,you know, and it's just. It's kind
of like a grounding mechanismfor me from a business perspective,
like Robert Kiyosaki's theFour the Cash Flow Quadrant. That
is such a good book for an entrepreneur.
Such great books. All right. Imight have to check out the. The
first one.
(34:12):
Yeah.
To check out. See if mylibrary has that one. Let's see,
number four. What is yourfavorite dish to make?
My favorite dish, and my lastmeal to eat is chicken tikka marsala,
but I do not make that.
Okay.
Way too complicated. Indianfood. What is my favorite dish to
make? You know, my favoritething to do, and no one has taken
(34:33):
me up on it. My dream is tohave friends come over and bring
a bag of groceries and wine.Of course you need the wine. And
say, can you make something?Like, here's some random things.
Here's some lobster tail,here's some whatever. Here's some
chicken, here's some veggies.What can you make? I. I like to.
I learned to cook from thefood from the Food Network channel,
(34:57):
and I like to do it on thefly. It's kind of fun.
That is a great concept, goingback to, like, if you have the family
gathering and be like, hey,everybody, just bring whatever that
you didn't get a chance to. Toopen up. Well, make sure it's so
good, you know.
Right, right. No, no. Well, Idid one time. You'll find this amusing
and definitely use it ifyou're. If you're ever moving. We
(35:18):
were moving from Maryland toFlorida, right? And we had a freezer
full of weird things. Youknow, three fish, pieces of fish
and two chicken thighs. And soI had. We had what I called a redneck
barbecue.
Okay, okay.
And. And we cooked everything,right? And people were walking out
with lamps. Like, I don't needthis lamp. You can take it. You know,
(35:40):
it was very funny, but, youknow, it was. It was a fun time.
Yeah, I would love to haveseen that. That would have been funny.
Like, I got the chicken wing,but the land was free.
My dad, I remember him veryspecifically, he's like, he. He goes,
the older people are going tochoose first. Let me get. And, you
know, he's pushing people outof the way. I'm pretty sure he got
(36:01):
a piece of steak or something.
That was fun.
Yeah, it was fun.
So this is the very lastquestion of the show, which is, where
could people find out moreabout you?
Well, I have a website calledSqueeze the Juice Book, and that
talks about the book. Mybusiness is called Modern wealth,
so it's modern-wealth.com andyou know, if we left you with a burning
(36:23):
question and you just have tohave it answered, like what was my
favorite dish? Or whatever, orsomething financial, you can schedule
a calendar or shoot me anemail. I've got a calendar. It's
Jennifer Modern Wells. And youcan just set up a squeeze or juice
call.
I'll make sure I put those inthe show notes.
All right, sounds good.
Well, thank you, Jennifer.It's been such an amazing time learning
(36:46):
about you, about your story,your passion about family and making
sure that we all takeinitiative to start having those
family money stories andreally sharing what does it mean
for us? What is our loveletter to our family? What do we
want to leave them with? Andreally getting. We're squeezing the
most juice out of life ineverything that we do. So I encourage
(37:09):
you all to find that burningquestion and answer the question
to its nth degree so that youcan find your true passion of what
you need to do. All right,everybody, we out. Y' all be safe.
Peace.
This episode is Sponsored bybcpublic relations.com.
It'S kind of fun to exploreand say, what is your money story?
Right.
So what is the very firstmemory of money that you have? And
was it positive? Was itempowering? Was it of lack? Was it
somebody being stingy aboutmoney? I mean, I remember being a
(00:22):
kid and wanting a this like wehad to sell cards to neighbors and
people. I didn't really wantto go sell cards, but I wanted the
skateboard.
Right.
So you had to sell the cardsto get the skateboard. So. So I understood
at a young age that the effortcould equal the reward.
(00:42):
Right.
So that's. I'm an entrepreneur.
Right.
Not everybody did that.
Right.
So what's your story about? Money.
Welcome everybody back toanother exciting show, the about
that Wallet podcast where wehelp the Sandwich generation build
strong financial habits sothat they can talk about money, spend
(01:02):
money and enjoy their moneywith confidence today. I have an
awesome guest today and she isa financial advisor, author of the
Squeeze the Juice book, andfounder of the financial advisory
firm Modern wealth inSarasota, Florida. Welcome to the
show, Jennifer.
(01:23):
Thanks for having me, Anthony.
So one of the things with wewere just talking back on the green
screen was just about like howyou're from Maryland and I'm from
Maryland and this is alreadylike give me good vibes today, so.
Me too. Solid Maryland people.I love it.
Yeah, we're gonna rock thisout. So, you know, making that transition
(01:44):
to Florida is one thing, butone of the things is that we also
got to look into is a lot ofwomen are usually the caretakers
for in the family regardless.And let's keep it real is that they
usually outlive the guys inthe relationships. I would say at
least 70% of the time I'm justthrowing it out there. That's what
it feels like.
Yeah, it's. It's always, it'salways hard when I'm talking to a
(02:06):
couple and I was like, andthey're the same age. I'm like, well,
she's probably going to livefive years longer. Sorry. She's female.
We start there. So it happens.
Is it just something like inthe water, like guys are doing dumb
stuff or what is it?
I don't have a fun good answerfor that one. But. But there's probably
something there.
Yeah. And usually in arelationship, you. I noticed that
(02:31):
you focus a lot on the. I wantto say, what is it called? Like the
no money.
The non moneyed party.
Yes, the non money party. Iwas like that is so cool of a name.
I was like, where can I signup? Where can I learn more about
this and who are they? But canyou start about like, who are the
no Money party?
(02:52):
Sure. Well, you know, I lovewhat I do. I love talking about money.
I love, you know, I'd lovenothing more than to be at some little
gathering and be in the cornertalking about something complicated
with a business or financialoriented. But you know, that's some
kind of the unicorn there. Andnot everybody wants to do that unless
they have a specific question.So the non moneyed party is often
(03:15):
the person in the relationshipwho doesn't handle the finances,
doesn't handle the budget,doesn't handle the retirement accounts,
doesn't handle the mortgage,all those things. It's not their
natural space. I like to sayin relationships we divide and conquer.
You know, your wife may bebetter at one thing and you're better
at another. And so you kind ofjust lean those ways. It's never,
(03:38):
almost never about a level ofcompetency or intelligence. It's
just, hey, that wasn't mything. Like if you never cooked and
all of a sudden you have tomake dinner and breakfast and lunch.
Oh my gosh. Flipping an egg isa problem.
Right.
So the same thing with money.If you never had to balance a checkbook
or understand what comes in,what goes out and what you have left,
(04:01):
how are you ever gonna do ituntil you learned?
Right.
So it's about educating theperson who has not necessarily been
at the forefront of that andgetting them comfortable with these
tools. Because money's just a tool.
Yeah. And because it's a tool,is there a system that should be
in place on how to use thattool? Because you hinted on a little
(04:22):
bit. We like to say, we don'tlike to say budget because it's us
the bad word. But we love it.We usually, I try to switch it up
and say a spending plan. Youknow, would a spending plan be a
great for somebody like that?So the person's handling all the
money, they can just write itout right quick. Or should they do
it as a couple or separate?
Well, I think that's a greatquestion. I think if you are a couple,
(04:46):
you both need to understandwhat you really have to work with.
Okay? So you gotta have thatconversation. I don't like to say
budget a year because people squirm.
Right.
So again, non money, they'regonna squirm. We don't want to talk
about the word budget.
Right.
And I had one client one timesay, look, my father, you know, made
me have a budget as a kid.Don't use budget. I don't want to
(05:08):
be restricted. Okay. Allright. So let's figure out what your
story is and figure out how tohelp you understand this. So I like
to say, what do you have atyour discretion? And people go, what
does that mean? Okay, well,you have money coming in from your
paycheck from if you have arental property, from rents coming
in. If you have SocialSecurity from Social Security and
(05:28):
you have bills, you have yourmortgage, you have your car, you
have your kids, whatever yourcell phone you have fixed things
you have to spend money on,then there's something left over
that's at your discretion.Guess what? You get to choose. Do
you go to a bookstore? Do yougo to the movies? Do you go out to
dinner? Do you spend too muchmoney at Costco? Do you have an Amazon
(05:49):
problem? Do you like latte? Doyou have shoe fetish? What is your
thing? You get to choose. NowI hope that when we get that discretionary
number right, as a couple, yousay, okay, we have X number of dollars
a month. How much do we wantto spend on our Future big goals?
5 year, 10 year retirement.How much do we spend, want to spend
(06:13):
on, you know, three monthsfrom now because we want to go on
a family vacation. And howmuch do we want to just choose? Like
I'm gonna, you know, go, we'regonna go out this weekend and we're
gonna spend $200. You know,maybe you should have spent a hundred
toward your retirement andwent to the grocery store and bought
some really cool steaks andmade dinner and saved a hundred bucks.
(06:35):
So you get to choose my job asan advisor. And people think that
I'm telling them what to do.I'm not telling you what to do.
Right?
I want you to understand whatyour what is at your discretion.
From there, you have all thechoices in the world. You can plan,
you can fail to plan, that'sup to you. But if you want to get
(06:56):
beyond today, right, you needto have your dreams. What are your
dreams? What do you want to doif you don't know where you're going?
That's, that's old saying, youdon't know where you're going, you're
never going to get there.
That is true.
Right?
But if you're shooting for thestars or the moon, you might land
in the stars. But you got todo some things to help yourself.
And when it comes to planningand one of the things like going
(07:18):
back to These extra sayings,it's like, yeah, you can run pretty
fast, but you ain't going away.
It's true.
So how do you kind of bringthem in to kind of say like, you
know, it's going to be okay.
Right. So I try to have someof these fundamental discussions
that get to the root of what'sgoing to serve their overall picture,
their overall financialhealth. And the one is, figure out
(07:40):
what your discretionary numberis. Right, we talked about that.
The other is talking, I wastalking about goals a little bit.
So what do you have? What'syour income, what are your assets,
what are your resources? Andthen what do you want? Right, well,
well, I want a new car. Well,okay, I want to send my kid to college.
I want to pay off ourmortgage. I want to go on vacation
as a family. I want to buy X,Y and Z, whatever it is that you
(08:03):
want. Our job as an advisor isto take your resources, your discretionary
number, and help you get whatyou want.
Right.
So you need those two things.
How do we pull people awayfrom that? Being scared of their
finances.
It's hard to not be scaredabout your finances. Right. So I
like you to get comfortablewith. When I look at, when I look
(08:26):
at the steps, the buildingblocks of a financial success.
Right.
When you're a little kid, you,you stack blocks high and you giggle
and then you whack them over,right? They fall really quickly.
So we don't want to build yourfinancial picture on, hey, Amazon
is great or this is great, orTesla and oh no, Tesla's tumbling.
(08:48):
You don't want to build it onthese one offs or on what you hear
at a cocktail party or withyour friends on a weekend. What you
want to do is you want to havea foundational level. So there's
a couple things that arereally easy that people don't think
about. If you have a job thathas a 401k, a 403 or a retirement
plan, oftentimes there's amatch. Make sure you get your free
(09:08):
money. I was talking to awoman the other day and she said,
I said, well, don't you have aplan at work? And she goes, yeah,
but I, I haven't participated.I was like, well, they're, they're
giving you dollar for dollarmatch up to 5%. So you're making
$60,000. You just lost, youknow, 5% of $60,000. What are we
doing? It's free money. So youwant to take care of your free money.
(09:31):
And then you, you don't Wantto just. I mean, sometimes it works
if you throw a dart at thestock board and you might pick the
right one.
Yeah.
There's a great illustrationof a bunch of stocks if you took
$10,000 and invested in one.So sometimes I'll show it to clients.
I'll say, okay, here's a listof 50 stocks. If you. I give you
(09:54):
10 grand, you could go back,which one would you pick? And they
pick one. And then we can lookat what has it actually done and
say, oh, look, you know, thatstock was the 54th in the. In the
60 that we showed you. Andit's like, oh, that's disappointing.
All right. But what did thefund do that had a portfolio manager
(10:17):
that's buying and selling thestocks inside of there, knowing the
companies and so on, and itwas second from the top.
Right.
You might have been number oneif you picked Apple, but not if you
picked Coca Cola or gm.
And what goes back tounderstanding the stocks have different
areas inside your portfolio,because Coca Cola is. Can give you
(10:40):
great dividends, but they.They don't fluctuate as much. Similar
like Microsoft.
You're a little dangerous onthe financial side, aren't you?
Well, I mean, I did dabble.
Yeah.
You know. Well, I mean, thisis what we do on the show.
Absolutely. And it matters.Like, it matters. What is your goal?
Right.
(11:00):
And what is your risktolerance? So, you know, some clients
think they want to go 90 milesdown the highway, but they're really
uncomfortable.
Right.
And so they need some of thosemore conservative things like you're
talking about. Or diversification.
Yeah, definitelydiversification. Because one of the
things that I noticed that alot of women actually tune into this
(11:23):
show and they always feeloverwhelmed because one of the things
is that now they havediscretionary money to start investing
with their children. And it'skind of like, okay, well, I have
the money. What do I do toactually help my child be well and
good with money? Far as, like,books or should I make sure that
(11:45):
they. What company shotinvesting in what ETF shall be doing
or what should I be doing as amother to kind of make sure we solidify
our. Our finances? And one ofthe things, I like how you went back
to say, like, first off, yougot to look at your values, and it's
something that you have inyour book that I didn't get a chance
(12:07):
to read it, but I was justreading some of the highlights. You
have something called, like,your family love letter. Can you
explain what that is? BecauseI think that will tie in to kind
of help people understandwhere they want to put their money
at.
Yeah, I mean, the, the fit andhope I don't make you cry. It's a,
it's a tear jerker.
Right?
Like, think about your. Do youhave kids, Anthony?
(12:29):
No, this is my podcast. Is my kid.
Is your kid okay? Do you have,like a favorite niece or nephew or
somebody who like, looks up toyou and.
Yes.
No.
Yeah, I do.
So you're thinking aboutsomebody. So if you had to have the.
If, if, if this were your kidand, and it was the last conversation
you were going to have withthem. Okay, what do they need to
know? Like, there's a lot ofthings they need to know about what
(12:52):
you would hope for them as faras marriage, as far as relationship,
as far as job and work andcontribution to society. There's
a lot of things that you wantto impart with on them about your
values and life.
Right.
Life experience. So writingyour family love letter is not only.
It's about taking care of yourpeople. It's not only about what
(13:15):
do I have as far as assets andwho does it go to, but it's what
does this mean?
Right?
Like, my aunt gave me thisring and she gave it to me. She's
still living. Thank you. Andshe said, I want you to have it because
I really love it and I wantyou to. You're special to me and
I want you to have it. Thatwas amazing.
Right?
And I cherish it and I valueit today. But writing your family
(13:38):
love letter is telling yourspouse, your business partner, your
niece or nephew, yourchildren, what are your values? What
is important about where areyour assets? Right. Where the money.
Sometimes there's cash hiddensomewhere. We need to know where
that is. But where are yourpasswords? Who are the people that
you can trust? Who's youradvisor? Who's your accountant? Who's
(14:00):
your attorney? These things,these. Or your best friend, whatever
it is. Do you have a safedeposit box? So it's communicating
not only the logisticalthings, but what your legacy is.
Right.
What do you want to pass on ifyou're not here? What do people need
to know?
Yeah, and I like that too. Oneis not to scare people, but to really
(14:22):
bring to light on why you dowhat you do. And I wanted to ask
you about the title of thebook because you called it Squeeze
the Juice. I know usually thephrase is called is the juice worth
the squeeze? So can youexplain that a little bit?
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thinkabout, think about anything. Like,
(14:42):
think about this podcast like,or. Or you. Or this interaction.
Like, what's the juice of thisinteraction? Like, you're gonna.
We're gonna be done. You'regonna be like, ah, that was the juice.
Right.
Like, there's, there's somepart that's like, you're so, so thankful
that that's what you got outof it. And, and that's what it's
like in, in life. I don't havechildren either. I've got nine nieces
(15:05):
and nephews, and they are my everything.
Right.
So I like to squeeze thejuice. As far as the relationships,
the interactions I have withthem, there's nothing to me that's
more significant than that. SoI use that terminology about getting
the best out of whateverinteraction, relationship work, podcast,
(15:26):
article, whatever it is.What's the. What's the meat of it?
What's the juice of it that'sgoing to be. Has the most significance.
Set and dug it.
So what will be the juice fromyour book?
I think the juice is differentfor everybody.
There you go.
I think, you know, everybodywould take something different from
it. To me, the juice is the.Is writing your family love letter,
(15:46):
taking care of your people.
Right.
You know, particularly if youwere the moneyed person in the relationship,
your spouse doesn't know anything.
Right.
And you know, you divide andconquer. So it just wasn't their
area, but now they're left.They're upside down. I mean, sometimes
we'll have. We'll have husbandand wives come in and their new prospective
clients, and the husband willsay, I don't really need you. I do
(16:09):
my own finances. But I knowone day I'm not going to be here.
And I need my wife to becomfortable talking about this and
having somebody who she canlean on.
Right.
And so who she can askquestions of. Doesn't always happen
that way, but it's reallysweet when it does.
Yeah.
Because they're really lookingout for their. Their partner if they're
(16:30):
not going to be there.
And I think that's a good,healthy relationship to understand
the strengths and weaknesses.Because sometimes people just afraid
to even talk about the moneyaspect at all.
They are.
And it's like, how do we openup those conversations? Do you have
like a beginner, like, if twopeople are meeting for the first
time.
Yeah.
And they coming together,like, the relationships become as
(16:53):
serious. What would be like,your top three questions to like,
kick that off?
Well, the most telling is to.Well, a couple things. One you can
look at. You can ask themabout their family and relationships
with people. In their familyand things are going to come out.
So you're going to know, youknow, oh, I don't talk to my father
(17:13):
or I don't have a relationshipwith my grandmother, you know, she's
crazy or whatever it is.You're going to see things. But when
it comes to the financial. Andyou'll also learn things about the
financial picture by askingwhat was it like growing up in this
environment or whatever. Butthe most telling question is to ask
your partner or your friend,kind of fun to explore and say, what's.
(17:36):
What is your money story?
Right.
So what is the very firstmemory of money that you have? And
was it positive? Was itempowering? Was it of lack? Was it
somebody being stingy aboutmoney? I mean, I remember being a
kid and wanting a. This likewe had to sell cards to neighbors
(17:58):
and people. I didn't reallywant to go sell cards, but I wanted
the skateboard.
Right?
So you had to sell the cardsto get the skateboard. So. So I understood
at a young age that the effortcould equal the reward.
Right.
So that's. I'm an entrepreneur.
Right.
Not everybody did that.
Right.
(18:19):
So what's your story aboutmoney, your very first story or memory
about?
Well, my first story is onethat I can remember only because
I got a beaten for it. It'smore so of because I actually stole
a sticker from a local, localconvenience store. And the thing
(18:41):
about it is, like at the timeI was really looking at this reflective
holographic sticker. Like, youknow, you change, it looks really
cool. And I was like, mom, Ireally want this whatever. And she
was like, no, put it back. Youknow, get something else or we not
here for that. I can'tremember what she said, but I put
it in my pocket anyway. Gethome, which is in walking distance.
(19:02):
And so I get home and I startplaying with it. She was like, where
did you get this from? I waslike, from the store. And then next
thing you know, the belt cameout for at least. It felt like at
least an hour. She was justgoing in. It could have been like
five minutes, I don't know.But she walked me back to the store
to give it back to the guy.And my lesson from that was that
(19:27):
finances, like, just becauseyou want it doesn't mean you have
to take it. You have to earnit. And by doing so, you have to
put in the work. Going back tounderstanding, we had to put in the
work to get the money so thatI can do it myself. Since then I
was like, let me make my ownmoney and not rely on somebody else
to kind of ask for them forwhat I need or what I want. So that
(19:49):
was my money story.
That's priceless. You ought tothank your mother for that beating.
Yeah, she does listen to theshow, so thank you, man.
No, I mean, it's important,though, your mom imparted, you know,
her values and good values onyou, so you could understand that,
you know, that wasn'tacceptable. And then, look, it made
(20:11):
you think differently andthink, okay, well, I got to figure
out a way so I can. I can feedmy little. My holographic sticker
need.
Right?
And that's good. You know, alot of people, we talked about budgeting
in the beginning. A lot ofpeople think about from a perspective
of lack, and they think, well,budget means I'm restricted. And
when I think about wanting theholographic sticker and I don't have
(20:34):
the money for it, I think, allright, what do I have to do to make
money to get the holographicsticker? Because I really want it.
Yeah, right.
So, you know, it's. We allhave a different mindset. You know,
it's. It's. It's the lensesthat we grew up with. You know, mine
are different than yours. Imean, I did this icebreaker one time,
and. And this line of. We werein this women's group, and we were
(20:57):
all standing in a line, andthey asked questions like, did you
have two parents, you know,take a step forward? Did you, you
know, go to college, take astep? And it was just, oh, I got
chills thinking about it. The.And these are my colleagues. And
the disparity between whereyou start, you have a different lens.
So I love that you're doingthis podcast because everybody has
(21:22):
the right and the ability tolisten and learn something and take
it and apply it in their life.And that's. That's awesome.
And that's one of the thingsthat I. That keeps me going is just
that one person listening tosay, you know what? I actually. Actually,
this happened last. Actuallythis week. Wednesday, I went out
to happy hour. Somebody waslike, you know what? Don't worry
(21:42):
about it. I'll take care ofit. Because of you and your show,
I actually have travel pointsnow that I can take my family on
vacation. And I was like.Like, I had to get a hug for that
one. I was like, you know,thank you for hearing it, because
you don't. A lot of that stuffisn't written, but when they come
to you to say, like, hey, thisreally impacted me. And this is what
(22:03):
I hope and that people willfind the juice use out of your book
in, in life and really thinklike I'm doing something good and
I'm not. It's not bad, you know.
Yeah, no, that's, and that'sthe whole thing, you know, I didn't
write, I didn't write the bookto sell books.
Right.
Like, I mean, it's not, it'snot, it's not a money maker. I wrote
(22:23):
the book because there's somany people that are intimidated
about money.
Right.
And so if I can give you likeall the nuts and bolts and, and we
could have, we could have sixsessions and talk about these financial
concepts and break it down.
Right.
It's all in the book. It's,it's right there. And I did it in
such a way, I hope and Ithink, and that's the feedback I've
(22:46):
gotten is that it doesn't hurtto read it. It's not a painful book.
I promise. Like, it'll takeyou a couple hours to read it. That's
it. There's worksheets in it.You're going to get, look, the worst
thing you get is one idea.Boom, that's okay.
Life change.
But you might get 10.
Yeah, right.
Yeah. Because depending on it,like you said, every orange is a
(23:08):
little different. You mightget a lot of juice from it.
That's right. You might getmore juice.
Right. Because, you know,understanding. Because it seemed
like family is a big thing foryou. But what does family really
mean to you?
Family probably means mosteverything. I mean, family for me
is do my parents have been. Mydad is no longer with us, but my
(23:29):
parents have always been aboutus doing things together and coming
together at least a coupletimes a year. And so we still, I
mean, I'm 55 this year. Westill do a family vacation with all
the siblings and then the kidsand the spouses and it's so much
fun. We do silly things like,you know, dress up and do theme nights
(23:50):
and it's just like thepictures are great. It's, it's fun,
but it's really about havingthose connections with the kids for
me and take care of yourpeople, taking care of my mom, you
know, making sure that you'rethere for your siblings. And you
know, probably the, one of themost favorite things that happened
for me was a mic drop moment.My 22 year old niece called me or
messaged me last year and shesaid, hey, I want to, I'm going to,
(24:13):
I'm in. She Was an au pair inItaly, and she had this really cool
job for the summer. When shegraduated college, she's like, I
think I'm going to go and,like, babysit kids in Italy and learn
Italian. Okay, like, thatsounds amazing. How smart is that?
I never thought of that. Iwent and took a job in accounting,
but what did I know? And soshe messaged me and she says, aunt
(24:35):
Jen, I have 10 days where Idon't need to be with the kids, and
they're on a family vacation.Will you come travel with me? I'll
go anywhere. That's it. That'sfamily for me.
That's life. I like that.
Yeah.
Because, you know, obviouslywe, like you said, views of life
is differently because my,like, the way how we grew up, it
(24:56):
was just everything is like,you're independent. Like, everybody's
isolated. And it's like, okay,well, as long as I didn't get the
phone call you, dad, you'reokay. Yeah, I know. We just kind
of live with it. And it's justone of those things. It's like, it'll
be nice to have, but wedidn't. Don't know that environment.
That wasn't your value.
(25:17):
Right.
So how do you know? You don'teven know if you like it.
Right.
Like, we all have. We all haveour things. Like when you go, when
you. When you come back forThanksgiving dinner, that's the root
of everything.
Right.
Like, all the stuff comes out,the personalities are back. You're.
You're 12 again on Thanksgiving.
Exactly.
(25:37):
So, you know, it's. It's all amatter of experience and perspective
and your own personal evolution.
Yeah. And now, because Iwanted to take this podcast episode
a little different direction,says just kind of feel the people
in with all this stuff andjargon is because, first of, we have
to understand living is veryimportant, and living your life is
(25:57):
important. And that's thereason why I love your story is like,
you're focusing on the womenwho really outlive just about all
the men in the family. Andit's like, where do they go? Where
do they start? Start. And yougot a little bit of time. I want
to dive into a little bit partof the divorce process, or at least
the separation piece of it.When you're extracting the assets.
(26:18):
One of the things you talkedabout, I've never heard this term
before, which is a quidro. A quido.
Quadro, Quadro, Q, D, R, O. Yeah.
What is that?
Okay.
Right.
So this is something peopleforget when they're doing a Divorce.
When they're going throughdivorce. So, you know, a lot of what
we do is. Is financialadvocacy. We advocate for. Sometimes
(26:39):
it's the couple. Like, I mean,I've had clients that are a couple,
and they say we're divorcing,Right. Like, we just aren't in love
with each other anymore. Wedon't want to be evil about it. Can
you help us divide assets? Andwe talk about those things, which
is, you know, perfect way toget a divorce. Okay, I love you.
I used to be in love with you.I don't want to be with you, but
let's figure it out. So.
(27:01):
Great.
Unfortunately, it doesn'talways happen that way.
Right.
So. So a lot of times whatwe'll do is we'll advocate for the
one person. You have to gatherlists of assets. What do you have?
Right?
So if somebody has a pensionplan from a government job or a big
company that has a pensionplan still or an active. Okay. Those
(27:22):
type of things have to bedistributed. Like, if you have a.
Okay, I can't have. You can'tjust say, here, take half.
Right.
We have to have a qualifieddomestic relations order signed by
a judge to go get that. So ifyou work for the University of Maryland,
then the order goes to yourfinancial person, the hr, and they.
(27:46):
They see it and they say, yourspouse is entitled to half, and then
they're able to carve that offlegally. So it's a. It's a legal
document that facilitates someof the assets that you can't just
split.
See, I always thought it wasjust kind of like, all right, well,
it's straight down the middle.I didn't know that was actual form.
Well, you can. I mean, youknow, if you. If you just have a
bank account, you can split itright down the middle.
(28:08):
Okay.
But once you have a house thatgets a little more complicated, you
got to sell it or you got torefinance. Once you have IRAs, even
if you have an IRA and I havean IRA and they're uneven, and we're
trying to even them out, youcan use a divorce decree for an iron
ira, but you need a quadro forthe okay or the retirement plan.
(28:28):
Thank you for explaining that.
Yeah, yeah.
I was like, what? Because Iheard you mention it, but you didn't
go to this level of detail,which is great, because for those.
Like I said, we're going tofind the juice in this episode. Somebody
getting something out of this.But as we go to our third segment
of the show, which is talkingabout the features and this is where
we talk about, like, eitherpersonal or you can talk about business,
(28:50):
but I prefer personal becausewe all like to. I like to go back
into the episodes and say,like, hey, you remember you said
this like last year or twoyears ago. So where do you think,
what areas of focus that youwant to improve on the most?
Personally, I gotta, I gottaminimize my plate. I like to. I like
(29:13):
to have a plate that has allkinds of stuff in it, and the busier
and the messier it is, themore interesting and it keeps my
attempt. Maybe I have add, butI like it active.
Right.
I get bored, so I need to getmore comfortable with, you know,
some space on my plate.
Right.
Which maybe will create alittle anxiety around, like, okay,
(29:34):
what am I doing? But, youknow, I, I need to, to chill a little
bit in there, if that makes sense.
It makes perfect sense. Ithink as business owners, we like
the chaos.
Yeah.
Because. Yeah, because there'sno chaos. It's like, well, what am
I doing today?
Right, right. I feel that.
Yeah. So. But let's just go tothe business. What do you think will
(29:56):
help out your business?
Well, I just got back from amastermind group in New York focusing
on business owner transition.So, you know, I've been doing probably
13 years or so focusing onwomen in financial transition, divorce,
loss of spouse, those bigthings. And we're not, certainly
not leaving that area. Butthere's a lot to be done for and
(30:19):
with business owners and theirfamilies, getting them ready to sell
their business.
Right.
So not five minutes before yousell your business, but like five
years before you sell yourbusiness. How can we help you shelter
more money from tax? How canwe plan ahead so that you can get
the most money for yourbusiness? That. Or get the right
(30:40):
team or transfer it to yourkids? So that's really where I'm,
where I'm trying to get tosqueeze the juice.
Right.
That's, that's my, that's myarea of focus for the next couple
of years. Just developing anddeepening that.
Yes. So thank you for that. Isthere anything that you want to leave
the audience with before wedive into the final four?
(31:01):
You know, the only thing wedidn't talk about, which is like
the second lowest hangingfruit, the first one, is make sure
if you have a retirement planat work, you're getting your free
money. The second thing is ifyou're eligible and you're not familiar
with what a Roth IRA is.
Yes.
Google that. Look at that.And, and just put a little bit of
money in it every month youwill be. I mean, I sometimes I talk
(31:22):
to these like young kids, likea 20 year old, and I'm just starting
work and I say, okay, if youjust put a hundred bucks away a month
into this and be, you know,assertive with it, you'll be like,
I remember this lady. Andyou'll be so rich. And you'll be,
I remember this lady told me,and I really need to do this. And
you either do it or you don't.Like, I can't make you do it, but
(31:43):
I think you'd be happy if you do.
So now I do get this a lot.When people start with their businesses,
will start a job, do they.Should they start to do it individually
or do it part of the company?Sponsored retirement accounts?
I have the building blocksthat I. That I do. And lower to the
bottom, more stable. Get yourfree money first. If you're making
(32:04):
$50,000 and you have moremoney to save and you got your free
money through work and you'reeligible for a Roth, then you might
do that on the outside as aRoth, or if your plan has a Roth
option, you can add more moneyin the roth inside the 401k.
I like that.
Free money.
Roth.
Can't beat that. Are you readyfor the final four?
(32:24):
Sure.
All right, so the final fourquestions are the final four questions
that I ask every guest andthey should be rapid fire, but we
can deep dive into them ifyou're comfortable. Okay. Number
one, what does wealth mean to you?
Freedom, options. Number two, Flexibility.
(32:46):
Oh, I mean, you keep going like.
What does wealth mean to me isthat we could go all day.
Right.
It really means. It reallymeans having flexibility and options.
So that's good. Number two,what was your worst money mistake?
I invested in a business withbusiness partners that ended up not
(33:08):
being good. And I ended upowning a business that I have no
business on.
So it explains on yourfutures, on trying to figure out
how to sell this business business.
Yeah. If you want one, come toFlorida. You can have it.
I will.
It's nice here, I hear, but I.
Don'T think I want to own thebusiness. Number three, is there
(33:31):
a book that inspired yourjourney or changed your perspective?
More than one? My favoritebook that I give to people is the
seven Spiritual Laws ofSuccess by Deepak Chopra. And I have
a copy of it that I literallyhave read over the years. 20 sometimes.
And I underline it and Ihighlight it and I date it. So I'm
(33:52):
like, look, I got over this,you know, and it's just. It's kind
of like a grounding mechanismfor me from a business perspective,
like Robert Kiyosaki's theFour the Cash Flow Quadrant. That
is such a good book for an entrepreneur.
Such great books. All right. Imight have to check out the. The
first one.
(34:12):
Yeah.
To check out. See if mylibrary has that one. Let's see,
number four. What is yourfavorite dish to make?
My favorite dish, and my lastmeal to eat is chicken tikka marsala,
but I do not make that.
Okay.
Way too complicated. Indianfood. What is my favorite dish to
make? You know, my favoritething to do, and no one has taken
(34:33):
me up on it. My dream is tohave friends come over and bring
a bag of groceries and wine.Of course you need the wine. And
say, can you make something?Like, here's some random things.
Here's some lobster tail,here's some whatever. Here's some
chicken, here's some veggies.What can you make? I. I like to.
I learned to cook from thefood from the Food Network channel,
(34:57):
and I like to do it on thefly. It's kind of fun.
That is a great concept, goingback to, like, if you have the family
gathering and be like, hey,everybody, just bring whatever that
you didn't get a chance to. Toopen up. Well, make sure it's so
good, you know.
Right, right. No, no. Well, Idid one time. You'll find this amusing
and definitely use it ifyou're. If you're ever moving. We
(35:18):
were moving from Maryland toFlorida, right? And we had a freezer
full of weird things. Youknow, three fish, pieces of fish
and two chicken thighs. And soI had. We had what I called a redneck
barbecue.
Okay, okay.
And. And we cooked everything,right? And people were walking out
with lamps. Like, I don't needthis lamp. You can take it. You know,
(35:40):
it was very funny, but, youknow, it was. It was a fun time.
Yeah, I would love to haveseen that. That would have been funny.
Like, I got the chicken wing,but the land was free.
My dad, I remember him veryspecifically, he's like, he. He goes,
the older people are going tochoose first. Let me get. And, you
know, he's pushing people outof the way. I'm pretty sure he got
(36:01):
a piece of steak or something.
That was fun.
Yeah, it was fun.
So this is the very lastquestion of the show, which is, where
could people find out moreabout you?
Well, I have a website calledSqueeze the Juice Book, and that
talks about the book. Mybusiness is called Modern wealth,
so it's modern-wealth.com andyou know, if we left you with a burning
(36:23):
question and you just have tohave it answered, like what was my
favorite dish? Or whatever, orsomething financial, you can schedule
a calendar or shoot me anemail. I've got a calendar. It's
Jennifer Modern Wells. And youcan just set up a squeeze or juice
call.
I'll make sure I put those inthe show notes.
All right, sounds good.
Well, thank you, Jennifer.It's been such an amazing time learning
(36:46):
about you, about your story,your passion about family and making
sure that we all takeinitiative to start having those
family money stories andreally sharing what does it mean
for us? What is our loveletter to our family? What do we
want to leave them with? Andreally getting. We're squeezing the
most juice out of life ineverything that we do. So I encourage
(37:09):
you all to find that burningquestion and answer the question
to its nth degree so that youcan find your true passion of what
you need to do. All right,everybody, we out. Y' all be safe.
Peace.
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