August 13, 2025 • 27 mins
Jamie M. Lima and Ann Pells tackle the financial challenges faced during divorce, sharing personal experiences and strategies. They discuss DFY (Done For You) businesses, funding options, and recession-resistant income streams, emphasizing the role of financial planning in preventing divorce. The conversation highlights the importance of simplifying financial solutions and seeking assistance, as well as managing DFY businesses to establish a new normal post-divorce. Empowerment and self-worth are key themes, encouraging listeners to ask for help when needed. The episode concludes with final thoughts and expressions of gratitude, offering a supportive perspective for those navigating divorce.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of Broke Up NotBroken.
(00:03):
I'm your host, Jamie Lima and founder ofAllegiant Divorce Solutions, where we help
people prepare for, navigate, and recoverfinancially from divorce.
This podcast is your one stop shop formastering your life and your finances
throughout the entire divorce process.
Today's guest is Ann Pels, a financialstrategist and business mentor who teaches
(00:24):
people how to buy professionally managed, donefor you businesses that generate $10,000 a
month with as little as one hour per week ofeffort.
Anne's work is a game changer for women andfamilies who wanna move beyond budgeting and
step into true financial freedom.
Whether you're recovering from divorce,protecting yourself from future instability, or
just ready to rewrite your financial story,this conversation will challenge you, and I'm
(00:48):
sure it's gonna inspire you.
So grab a cup of coffee or your beverage ofchoice, buckle up, and let's once again get you
personally and financially empowered.
And it's so great to have you with us.
Thank you.
I, I appreciate you joining us here todaybecause I think there's so many so many of the
people that we work with on the divorce side ofthings, you know, helping them navigate the
(01:09):
decisions that they have to make throughdivorce and figure out, like, what is their
future budget gonna look like, and are theygonna be able to make it?
Are they gonna be able to keep the house?
Are they gonna be able to this, that, and theother?
Put little Johnny and little Susie throughthrough college, all of the things.
Right?
Those are all the questions that so many of thepeople that we work with have and so many
people that listen to us have on their mind thewake of divorce, especially if, you know, if
(01:32):
they're going through it or on the tail end ofit.
And I know you have some personal experiencewith this, not not yourself, but your parents
having watched them go through the divorceyears ago.
So maybe we start there and talk a little bitabout, like, what that was like for you and
then and then talk a little bit about, like,what you're doing now and and how some people
that we the people that we work with can canbenefit from working with someone like you.
(01:55):
Okay.
For my own experience, just about when I wasgraduating high school, My stepdad and my mom
divorced, and it kinda blindsided me.
I didn't we didn't I didn't see it coming atall.
And and then, financially, a lot of thingschanged.
I stayed with my mom, and some of the kids werewith him.
(02:17):
And it was, as you said, very interesting totry and navigate who, what, where, when, about
the house, about the money, a lot of things.
And I think that was kind of a crucial time forme just to figure out, alright.
Who am I going to be now to be have our familybroken up but not be broken as a person like
(02:43):
you said.
And just I think the big discoveries for mewere instead of saying, I can't do something
now, whatever it is.
I can't.
We can't figure out the money.
We can't figure out the house.
We can't.
I found that it helped me.
My mom's dad, actually, my grandpa, sat me downon the couch, and I was like, ugh, kind of
(03:07):
stressed and just like, oh my gosh.
What do we do now?
And he's like, and if you ask yourself thequestion, how can I instead of saying I can't,
that will help you find the right people, theright solutions, the right answers for things?
And then for us, for me, going into you know,I'm 18, 19, 20.
I'm looking for the person that I want to bewith.
(03:30):
And I'm I'm still hoping for happily everafter, but we didn't we didn't have that.
Right?
Like, there were job losses.
There were health things.
So whether you're divorced or not, I thinkyou're always going to have something that
comes up in life that makes you go and if youcan find that, how can I place how can I
navigate this now?
(03:51):
How can I have amicable communication with myex spouse?
How can I how can we navigate two sets ofincome now in two households with these?
So that's some of what led me to where we arenow.
It was me just trying to navigate, Okay.
I'm we're still all wonderful people.
(04:12):
We just are not getting along as a family unitanymore.
We have to figure out as an 18, 19, 20 yearold, how how am I gonna navigate that now?
So so fast forward however many years.
Right?
Now you're now you're kind of helping peoplethrough, you know, transit transitions of a lot
I mean, it doesn't have to be divorced.
Right?
It could be, you know, other transitions andother other things that have happened to them
(04:35):
and where they're like, hey.
You know, maybe they have a little bit ofsetback, and now they're trying to figure out,
like, how do I build wealth, you know
Yeah.
Either post divorce or post death or post postreduction in force at their employer or
whatever it is.
Right?
So and and people so many people are just youknow, this is a divorce show, so let's talk
about that.
So the people that are exiting a divorce, in myopinion, they've a lot of them feel like
(04:58):
they're starting over financially and basicallyfrom scratch.
Right?
So from your perspective, I know you have abias towards, you know, the DFY business type
of setup, but why do you feel in your heart ofhearts that buying a DFY business can can be a
powerful step in regaining some of thatfinancial stability and control?
I think what we're trying to do with any sourceof income that we have, our journey was I'm
(05:23):
have three under three.
We've I have gotten married.
We're we're okay.
But then all of a sudden, as you said,reduction in force, and the the income was
gone, and there wasn't any other income.
So I needed to find a way to have income comingin that didn't involve my time and would still
come in even if something changed, our healthchanged or or something.
(05:48):
That same grandpa was an example of that in inso much as when his kids were 18, 19, 20, and
going to college.
His he owned a business, but his healthchanged, and he wasn't able to continue that.
So I think, as you said, divorce and othersituations like that are a financial start
over.
And our mine ours was reduction in force.
(06:08):
And where's the income now?
But we still have to pay water, food, and allthose things.
And so over, I wanted people to be able to nothave to take twenty years to find the
solutions.
Like so that's what we offer.
Two phone calls, one to help your house startpaying for itself, and one to help have that
income generated with business that doesn'tinvolve your time.
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I feel like there are so many I mean, you canfind all kinds of people who want to teach you
how to do real estate, how to do a lot ofdifferent things to have income coming in.
But what we almost need is just automation andsystems and teams of people that will help us
to do it so we don't have to know everythingthere is to know, especially after after a
(06:51):
divorce.
Because, honestly, my mother, she was so busytrying to create income in this new family
situation that she was hardly sleeping, Ithink.
Just the stress and the and her health, andlots of things were changing all of a sudden in
that financial reset that the that the divorcewas.
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And so I think if we can just create a runwayand a system and a I I like to call it the
crock pot recipe, I guess.
I'm very like, if you can put five ingredientsin and know you're gonna get the result out at
the end, that's what you want your health to doand your money.
And because then you have time emotionally tohandle all of the other roller coaster that's
(07:34):
created in a divorce about now we need tocommunicate about a few other different things
now.
Where the kids go to school, how do we dovisitation and custody and all those things
that are related to divorce.
So Give give me a two minute commercial for,like, the typical DFY type of business.
Like, what is because I've I've been afinancial planner for twenty years, and you're
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one of the first people in the twenty year timeframe that I've doing this that actually has
been talking about this stuff.
So and I'm I'm like, I get like, talk to melike I'm a five year old when it comes to this
stuff because I'm not really sure how it works.
In in bullet points, all the baby boomers areretiring, and they want their businesses to
continue.
And when we can offer them a solution, like,we're going to help you sell your business to a
(08:20):
person that wants to own it to have that incomecoming in.
We have a management team already in place.
You'll know that it's continuing.
You can watch the transition happen.
So the baby boomer seller is happy.
It doesn't have to be a baby boomer, anyonethat's selling a business.
But and then you wanna be in in industries thatare more recession resistant.
Like, what are the businesses that people aregoing to keep using even if the economy is up
(08:45):
and down and crazy?
For example, plumbing, electrician, all thosekinds of things.
Not something that I need to know how to do,but something that we would have our management
team manage, marketing and sales, and make surethat the business continues the way it has
been.
They're not start up businesses.
They've already been in business for fifteenyears, so you can see how much profit is going
(09:07):
to come out of that business before you buy it.
So to me, because there's not very much downpayment, you don't have to prove or qualify
income anymore.
It's not about my assets and our income andother things.
It's about the how the business performsitself, then it's a fairly simple process to
just make sure we find the right one in theright location that fits what they're
(09:31):
interested in purchasing and then have thatmanagement team in place.
And they share a portion of the profit, sothey're incur I mean, it encourages them to do
a good job as management.
Amazing.
They One of the one
of the things, though, that that probably oneof the biggest challenges you see is
specifically around people that are goingthrough a divorce is Yeah.
The the financial strain that divorce puts onpeople.
(09:53):
Right?
So it Yeah.
I'm on the research with the work that you do.
I've I saw that you help people find fundingfor these businesses in, like, thirty days.
How do you go about doing that, and how is thateven possible?
Yeah.
We we have teams already in place for funding.
That's and and, again, they're it's not abouthow much income the family is making.
(10:15):
It's about how much income the business ismaking, and that's how they can tell you how
much funding you'll get.
So there are four different ways you can use ahome equity line of credit.
You can use the private funding that we have.
You can use even 0% interest cards.
My my favorite is the home equity line ofcredit, but oftentimes, we don't even need a
down payment or anything else because it isjust totally related to the if the business is
(10:39):
bringing in 500,000 of profit a year and it hasthis much revenue, then they'll adjust their
financing accordingly.
And it's not about, you know, mister JohnSmith's family makes 100,000 a year, and they
have 200,000 of home equity and 500,000 intheir stocks.
Or I don't know.
It's not about Yeah.
(11:00):
The personal assets of the person as much as itis the business.
Because they're already established businessesthat have the cash flow history.
Right.
And just like when you when you're purchasing ahome, if you buy it, it's more about your own
personal assets and your credit score andincome.
Businesses are not like that, which is really alifesaver for divorced families or any
(11:20):
families, really.
I mean, we don't want it to be based on our ownincome and assets and credit score and things.
So yeah.
You also mentioned in the in the lead up tothis call and some of the notes that you gave
me as far you know, so I could prepare for ourconversation that many divorces you feel can be
prevented with the right financial planning.
(11:41):
Right?
And Yeah.
I would concur as a financial planner of twentyyears, either so many people that I've worked
with in in overtime where you're there's a ityou know, husband and wife, but you very rarely
meet the wife.
It's always the dude who's driving around theshow and involved, and and then something
happens where he's dead or they're gettingdivorced or whatever it is and or he's
(12:02):
incapacitated because I've seen this movie athousand times, and she's on blueless.
And I'm not picking on women.
Know.
Everybody everybody that's listening to thisshould know if they've listened to any other
shows that I'm not here, I'm not picking onwomen.
I'm just stating the facts, and that's howthat's what I've seen historically.
So, like, how does how in in your opinion,like, how does how does having that own stream
(12:23):
of income outside of your partner change thatemotional and financial dynamic?
Well, honestly, I think our most expensivething that we all have to pay for, and we don't
even know it, is what we don't know about whatwe don't know.
And my mom, honestly, did not know.
She her dad, my grandpa, ran those businesses,and his health changed.
(12:45):
He created income from real estate and taughtme about the how can I instead of, oh, I can't?
That was her dad, but she didn't percolate allof that information into her own life.
And so when the divorce happened for her, shewas what you said, like, ugh, about I don't
know anything about money.
I'm not ready for this.
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And so I think it is important that we like,what don't we know?
I didn't know that you could pay a house off infive years without changing your expenses and
income until about five years ago.
But we've lived in 15 houses over the lastthirty years.
And, gosh, what if I had learned about that 15houses ago?
Think of all the money I would have saved.
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And all of that money could have been turnedinto creating some businesses or real estate or
anything else that would create that incomecoming in even if you have a health thing, even
if you are incapacitated or there is a death ordivorce or all the big, ugh, that kind of
blindside us that we didn't plan for.
So I think just in the mindset of the twopeople who are in a marriage, if everyone's con
(13:53):
you know, we're contributing to financially andwe all are getting more education than I had,
when I graduated high school, all I knew washow to balance a checkbook.
We don't even use checks anymore.
So
You're lucky you had that because they didn'tteach us that.
They didn't teach I I was laughing.
Like, they they could have at least taught usto balance a checkbook.
I didn't get that education.
Okay.
Fair.
Right?
Like so what we don't know about what we don'tknow is our most expensive thing.
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And what if it just only took a couple of phonecalls to people who do know like yourself or
like our business team or our home equity teamthat helps people to get that house working for
them?
You know, I think there are so many people whohave a little nugget of knowledge that will
speed up everything and just create peace ofmind.
(14:40):
My mom did not have that
Yeah.
After every What you're what you're describingis it reminds me of this this motto that I have
and this motto, which one of the when I when Ifirst got my when my my very first jobs
managing people Yeah.
Twenty years ago, whatever it's been now.
(15:01):
This was even before I got into the financialservices industry.
I had a I had an the opportunity to managemanage people, as a very young person at that
stage.
And I remember succinctly, he said, use yourresources.
Yeah.
Use your resources.
And that thing that those three use yourresource.
(15:24):
Three words account account.
Make sure the three words are not forced sonobody jams me up on that.
It's three three words.
Those three words have, like, resonated with meand stuck with me and, like and that's that's
why, like, I've I've made some of the decisionsthat I make and, like, do the work that I do in
some ways and, like like, all that's, likeit's, like, basically just changed who I am and
(15:47):
how I thought about things.
Yes.
And here's the thing.
Very few people that I come across for whateverreason actually use their resources.
I couldn't tell you how many times was I wasthinking about this on my run this morning.
I'm like Yeah.
How many times a week do I have somebody ask meif we work in all 50 states?
(16:09):
It must be 25 times a week.
Literally, 25 times a week, get a message or anemail or somebody sends us a message through
the Facebook or social media or whatever it is.
Right?
Do you guys work in all 50 states?
It's like Yeah.
How about you go to the website and literallylook at the banner that is across the website?
Like, let's use your resources in you know,like, you're like, how do you it drives me
(16:30):
bananas.
So I'm just kind of venting here, but, like,the what you're talking about is using your
resources.
You don't have to be an expert in everything totake something like this on.
You don't you don't have to be an expert infinances to navigate your way through a divorce
because we are a resource to help you do that.
(16:51):
Right?
Like like, you use your resources and you haveto understand, like, yours to your to your
point, if you don't know what you don't knowand there are resources out there like us,
commercial for us, the two of us Yeah.
Fair.
That basically said, like, hey.
We're here to help.
We can support you through this.
So, like, you must, like, you must see thistime and time again.
And people, like, they finally take the takethe next step to contact you or what have you,
(17:16):
is there a, wow.
This isn't as difficult as I thought, or whatwhat's you what's the usual response?
Yeah.
Really.
I we've tried to narrow it down my whole twentyyears of life after that layoff, and I went
with the three little kids.
And just it was frightening, and I did nothandle it well.
That was not the best version of Anne.
(17:38):
And but it took us twenty years to find twophone calls.
And so I'm really grateful for my own childrennow and all the people after me.
You know, if we can boil it down to two phonecalls and you can learn how to get that house
paid for in five to seven years withoutchanging anything about your lifestyle, and you
can, in addition to that, create thatadditional income coming in with that and spend
(18:00):
time on it.
Wow.
Like, they're free.
They're free phone calls, and you're you'veprobably got lots of information to offer to
people too.
I think that the real key for me was whatgrandpa it took me twenty years after grandpa
said, and don't tell yourself you can't.
Ask yourself, how can I?
How can I find someone who knows what I'mtrying to find out without me having to go
(18:26):
through that learning curve and figure it out?
It's gonna take so much longer to figure outeverything all by yourself than it is to just
ask someone who's already doing what you theresults that you wanna have.
It's the same thing with the scenarios we runinto with with attorneys all the time.
Like, they're they are not trained on thefinancial aspects of divorce.
(18:48):
Most of them can't balance their own checkbookbecause I've worked with dozens of them in the
past, and I know a lot of them can't evencontrol their own finances, never let let
alone, you know, help give somebody advice onon theirs.
Yet they're the one first call for so manypeople when they decide they wanna go to get a
divorce.
They're like, I'm gonna call an attorney,they're gonna handle the whole thing.
And then they're spinning their wheels.
They don't understand how to read thestatements.
(19:10):
They don't understand how to what thisretirement account thing is or that thing is,
and it's a disaster.
It's like, we could do this.
We could help you eliminate all that time,energy, and and effort, you know, by by just
pick up the phone.
Right?
So it's like you've gotta use your resources.
You've gotta, like, you know, take that nextstep, and that's
Mhmm.
You know, if you're out there listening to whatAnne's saying, what I'm trying to, like, pound
(19:31):
home, like like, drive home here, it's it's allabout taking the next step and using those
resources.
And so as you were you you mentioned the kids,and it got me thinking too, like, people
probably don't understand the time commitmentof running a business.
Right?
So, like, talk to me about, like, how do youhow do you help people navigate that?
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Because, like, you're, you know, like, singlemom who's got three kids, and she's gotta work
and everything else to make, you know, makeends meet at the moment.
How is she gonna be able to go in and buy abusiness and manage a business and everything
else and and juggle all that?
That's the real secret, I think.
I took business classes.
We learned a lot, and then I realized therewere too many moving parts, and I needed to
(20:14):
have a team of people helping me.
So just like we have teams of people helpingour kids at school, helping our kids at church,
or where well, all the things, all the peoplethat are helping us in our family anyway, I
think it's important to have a business teamthat does that.
I literally spend one hour a week or less oneach of our businesses.
It's on a phone call like this, and they justgive me an update.
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Here's what's happened in the marketing andsales and how many more new customers, what
what we need to work on this week, and did weneed to hire any new employees?
So I'm not doing it.
I think there are two main things, and I one iscalled a book called who, not how.
Find the right who for whatever you need.
(20:56):
Don't do it yourself.
And the other is, Let them do it.
Whether it's our health, our relationships, allthose things that are important after a
divorce, but most critically, our money and ourtime.
Everything changed about my mom's time andmoney after the divorce because of what she
(21:18):
didn't know she didn't know.
Like, she didn't know that you could have realestate bringing income in without spending time
on it.
She didn't know that you could have a businessthat you didn't have to spend time on.
So I think for me, it was just, k.
I don't want to run the business and spendfifty, sixty hours a week on it, but what if
(21:38):
there is a what if there's people who do knowhow to set up a team that will help do that?
And once we found that team, everything changedfor us.
It was, gosh, not having to miss dinner andbaseball games and all the important things
about the family.
And after a divorce, of course, your time iseven more crucial because you're balancing two
(22:03):
households, two sets of money now.
And so, you know, how how to make that time andmoney really recycle itself and go where it
needs to go so that your relationships arefocused on the people.
Like, money is only to help people, and time isfor helping people.
(22:24):
It's but very often after a divorce, everyonefeels that crunch and the crazy and, ah,
there's bills and the financial reset that youtalked about.
And so that's that's where I feel like we youand I both have resources that people can take
advantage of without having to spend a lot oftime on it.
It's almost it's like a mindset shift that thatpeople need to have.
(22:47):
Right?
And, like, how do you how do you get people tomake that mindset shift?
Because I'm sure there's lot of people thatcome to you.
They're like, I don't know if I can do this.
And, you know, like,
how do you how do you help them over thathurdle?
I did not know what grandpa was trying to say.
Like, instead of saying I can't, say, how canI?
What if the only handcuffs we really have inour life are our own?
(23:10):
And what if we have the key right in ourpocket?
Because we need to use our resources like yousaid.
Somebody knows something that we don't knowbecause they're already doing it.
Yeah.
They they've already figured out how to nothave to have those crazy conversations with
your ex spouse.
For the first five or six years, I was the gobetween between my stepdad and my mom.
(23:34):
Like, you know, we they couldn't talk to eachother very well.
So Mhmm.
We got to do that until they could settle downand establish their own new normal, the the new
normal that happens after divorce.
But it was really hard to be in that in betweenspot.
Yeah.
You're the middle man.
(23:55):
You're the mediator.
I some people don't have a mediator person.
Yeah.
But there are some.
And, you know, I I just I think there's somany.
If we decide that we don't have to do it allourself and, you know, what if it really is
easier?
What if it doesn't have to take thirty years topay a house off, for example?
(24:16):
Or what if it what if there's alreadyopportunity out there and we just have to be
willing to get vulnerable enough to askquestions?
Sometimes I think we want to present a frontlike we know everything, and we're gonna I'm
gonna do it.
I'm in charge.
And, really, I think it's more, I I don't knowwhat I don't know.
(24:39):
So I need to find out and and just to believethat you can.
You're not broken.
You're you did have a breakup, a prettyimportant and and life changing one.
Yes.
But it doesn't mean that the rest of yourlife's in the toilet now.
It's it's not.
You still have a lot to contribute.
And what if there are tons of people you canhelp?
(25:01):
Because you are willing to be like, oh my gosh.
I don't know what to do, but someone does.
This is every every conversation like this, Ilike to to end on on asking this question, and
this is what I I always call the carte blanchesegment of our our conversation.
Is there anything that I didn't ask that Ishould've or anything that you wanna share with
(25:26):
our audience that we didn't cover today?
I think it's just been really good for me tohave an opportunity to be here.
I am grateful for my mother in that she didn'tgive up.
She kept getting out of bed in the morning.
Anybody that listens to this, really, if you'vealready gone through a broke a broken
(25:46):
relationship, the fact that you're stillstanding and breathing means that you can.
You can.
You you are not broken.
And I I think we're all way more powerful thanwe think we are.
And as soon as we can get out of our own way,I'm the best example of that.
Gosh.
What if I'd known my two phone calls twentyyears ago or 15 houses ago?
(26:09):
Or, you know, I I don't think we have to take along journey.
It's like you said.
We just have to make up our mind that we'regonna Yeah.
That we're gonna step forward and and trythings.
Well, that's the thing, and that's the the Imean, I I think, like, the, you the idea of
owning a cash flowing business might be bold,but after a life shake up like divorce, I think
(26:31):
bold might be exactly exactly what people needto be.
So I I thank you for your time today.
Thank you for sharing your story and and, youknow, the the situate know, sorry that you had
experienced the situation with your your momand your stepdad there and but, you know,
lessons learned, and and here you are, and hereI am because of my situation.
(26:53):
So we wouldn't we wouldn't be here if itweren't for those experiences.
That's for sure.
But for those of you that are listening, youcan connect with Anne on LinkedIn or Facebook,
and we're gonna include all those links in theshow notes.
For those of you that are navigating a divorceand wondering how to create real financial
freedom and get the help that you need on thefinancial side of things as you're navigating
it or maybe even recovering from it, visit usat allegiantds.com for that support.
(27:16):
And the support that I feel like can meet youwhere you are regardless of what stage you're
at.
Subscribe to Broke Up Not Broken for moreconversations that blend strategy and hope just
like this one, and we'll see you again nexttime.
Welcome back to another episode of Broke Up NotBroken.
(00:03):
I'm your host, Jamie Lima and founder ofAllegiant Divorce Solutions, where we help
people prepare for, navigate, and recoverfinancially from divorce.
This podcast is your one stop shop formastering your life and your finances
throughout the entire divorce process.
Today's guest is Ann Pels, a financialstrategist and business mentor who teaches
(00:24):
people how to buy professionally managed, donefor you businesses that generate $10,000 a
month with as little as one hour per week ofeffort.
Anne's work is a game changer for women andfamilies who wanna move beyond budgeting and
step into true financial freedom.
Whether you're recovering from divorce,protecting yourself from future instability, or
just ready to rewrite your financial story,this conversation will challenge you, and I'm
(00:48):
sure it's gonna inspire you.
So grab a cup of coffee or your beverage ofchoice, buckle up, and let's once again get you
personally and financially empowered.
And it's so great to have you with us.
Thank you.
I, I appreciate you joining us here todaybecause I think there's so many so many of the
people that we work with on the divorce side ofthings, you know, helping them navigate the
(01:09):
decisions that they have to make throughdivorce and figure out, like, what is their
future budget gonna look like, and are theygonna be able to make it?
Are they gonna be able to keep the house?
Are they gonna be able to this, that, and theother?
Put little Johnny and little Susie throughthrough college, all of the things.
Right?
Those are all the questions that so many of thepeople that we work with have and so many
people that listen to us have on their mind thewake of divorce, especially if, you know, if
(01:32):
they're going through it or on the tail end ofit.
And I know you have some personal experiencewith this, not not yourself, but your parents
having watched them go through the divorceyears ago.
So maybe we start there and talk a little bitabout, like, what that was like for you and
then and then talk a little bit about, like,what you're doing now and and how some people
that we the people that we work with can canbenefit from working with someone like you.
(01:55):
Okay.
For my own experience, just about when I wasgraduating high school, My stepdad and my mom
divorced, and it kinda blindsided me.
I didn't we didn't I didn't see it coming atall.
And and then, financially, a lot of thingschanged.
I stayed with my mom, and some of the kids werewith him.
(02:17):
And it was, as you said, very interesting totry and navigate who, what, where, when, about
the house, about the money, a lot of things.
And I think that was kind of a crucial time forme just to figure out, alright.
Who am I going to be now to be have our familybroken up but not be broken as a person like
(02:43):
you said.
And just I think the big discoveries for mewere instead of saying, I can't do something
now, whatever it is.
I can't.
We can't figure out the money.
We can't figure out the house.
We can't.
I found that it helped me.
My mom's dad, actually, my grandpa, sat me downon the couch, and I was like, ugh, kind of
(03:07):
stressed and just like, oh my gosh.
What do we do now?
And he's like, and if you ask yourself thequestion, how can I instead of saying I can't,
that will help you find the right people, theright solutions, the right answers for things?
And then for us, for me, going into you know,I'm 18, 19, 20.
I'm looking for the person that I want to bewith.
(03:30):
And I'm I'm still hoping for happily everafter, but we didn't we didn't have that.
Right?
Like, there were job losses.
There were health things.
So whether you're divorced or not, I thinkyou're always going to have something that
comes up in life that makes you go and if youcan find that, how can I place how can I
navigate this now?
(03:51):
How can I have amicable communication with myex spouse?
How can I how can we navigate two sets ofincome now in two households with these?
So that's some of what led me to where we arenow.
It was me just trying to navigate, Okay.
I'm we're still all wonderful people.
(04:12):
We just are not getting along as a family unitanymore.
We have to figure out as an 18, 19, 20 yearold, how how am I gonna navigate that now?
So so fast forward however many years.
Right?
Now you're now you're kind of helping peoplethrough, you know, transit transitions of a lot
I mean, it doesn't have to be divorced.
Right?
It could be, you know, other transitions andother other things that have happened to them
(04:35):
and where they're like, hey.
You know, maybe they have a little bit ofsetback, and now they're trying to figure out,
like, how do I build wealth, you know
Yeah.
Either post divorce or post death or post postreduction in force at their employer or
whatever it is.
Right?
So and and people so many people are just youknow, this is a divorce show, so let's talk
about that.
So the people that are exiting a divorce, in myopinion, they've a lot of them feel like
(04:58):
they're starting over financially and basicallyfrom scratch.
Right?
So from your perspective, I know you have abias towards, you know, the DFY business type
of setup, but why do you feel in your heart ofhearts that buying a DFY business can can be a
powerful step in regaining some of thatfinancial stability and control?
I think what we're trying to do with any sourceof income that we have, our journey was I'm
(05:23):
have three under three.
We've I have gotten married.
We're we're okay.
But then all of a sudden, as you said,reduction in force, and the the income was
gone, and there wasn't any other income.
So I needed to find a way to have income comingin that didn't involve my time and would still
come in even if something changed, our healthchanged or or something.
(05:48):
That same grandpa was an example of that in inso much as when his kids were 18, 19, 20, and
going to college.
His he owned a business, but his healthchanged, and he wasn't able to continue that.
So I think, as you said, divorce and othersituations like that are a financial start
over.
And our mine ours was reduction in force.
(06:08):
And where's the income now?
But we still have to pay water, food, and allthose things.
And so over, I wanted people to be able to nothave to take twenty years to find the
solutions.
Like so that's what we offer.
Two phone calls, one to help your house startpaying for itself, and one to help have that
income generated with business that doesn'tinvolve your time.
(06:31):
I feel like there are so many I mean, you canfind all kinds of people who want to teach you
how to do real estate, how to do a lot ofdifferent things to have income coming in.
But what we almost need is just automation andsystems and teams of people that will help us
to do it so we don't have to know everythingthere is to know, especially after after a
(06:51):
divorce.
Because, honestly, my mother, she was so busytrying to create income in this new family
situation that she was hardly sleeping, Ithink.
Just the stress and the and her health, andlots of things were changing all of a sudden in
that financial reset that the that the divorcewas.
(07:12):
And so I think if we can just create a runwayand a system and a I I like to call it the
crock pot recipe, I guess.
I'm very like, if you can put five ingredientsin and know you're gonna get the result out at
the end, that's what you want your health to doand your money.
And because then you have time emotionally tohandle all of the other roller coaster that's
(07:34):
created in a divorce about now we need tocommunicate about a few other different things
now.
Where the kids go to school, how do we dovisitation and custody and all those things
that are related to divorce.
So Give give me a two minute commercial for,like, the typical DFY type of business.
Like, what is because I've I've been afinancial planner for twenty years, and you're
(07:56):
one of the first people in the twenty year timeframe that I've doing this that actually has
been talking about this stuff.
So and I'm I'm like, I get like, talk to melike I'm a five year old when it comes to this
stuff because I'm not really sure how it works.
In in bullet points, all the baby boomers areretiring, and they want their businesses to
continue.
And when we can offer them a solution, like,we're going to help you sell your business to a
(08:20):
person that wants to own it to have that incomecoming in.
We have a management team already in place.
You'll know that it's continuing.
You can watch the transition happen.
So the baby boomer seller is happy.
It doesn't have to be a baby boomer, anyonethat's selling a business.
But and then you wanna be in in industries thatare more recession resistant.
Like, what are the businesses that people aregoing to keep using even if the economy is up
(08:45):
and down and crazy?
For example, plumbing, electrician, all thosekinds of things.
Not something that I need to know how to do,but something that we would have our management
team manage, marketing and sales, and make surethat the business continues the way it has
been.
They're not start up businesses.
They've already been in business for fifteenyears, so you can see how much profit is going
(09:07):
to come out of that business before you buy it.
So to me, because there's not very much downpayment, you don't have to prove or qualify
income anymore.
It's not about my assets and our income andother things.
It's about the how the business performsitself, then it's a fairly simple process to
just make sure we find the right one in theright location that fits what they're
(09:31):
interested in purchasing and then have thatmanagement team in place.
And they share a portion of the profit, sothey're incur I mean, it encourages them to do
a good job as management.
Amazing.
They One of the one
of the things, though, that that probably oneof the biggest challenges you see is
specifically around people that are goingthrough a divorce is Yeah.
The the financial strain that divorce puts onpeople.
(09:53):
Right?
So it Yeah.
I'm on the research with the work that you do.
I've I saw that you help people find fundingfor these businesses in, like, thirty days.
How do you go about doing that, and how is thateven possible?
Yeah.
We we have teams already in place for funding.
That's and and, again, they're it's not abouthow much income the family is making.
(10:15):
It's about how much income the business ismaking, and that's how they can tell you how
much funding you'll get.
So there are four different ways you can use ahome equity line of credit.
You can use the private funding that we have.
You can use even 0% interest cards.
My my favorite is the home equity line ofcredit, but oftentimes, we don't even need a
down payment or anything else because it isjust totally related to the if the business is
(10:39):
bringing in 500,000 of profit a year and it hasthis much revenue, then they'll adjust their
financing accordingly.
And it's not about, you know, mister JohnSmith's family makes 100,000 a year, and they
have 200,000 of home equity and 500,000 intheir stocks.
Or I don't know.
It's not about Yeah.
(11:00):
The personal assets of the person as much as itis the business.
Because they're already established businessesthat have the cash flow history.
Right.
And just like when you when you're purchasing ahome, if you buy it, it's more about your own
personal assets and your credit score andincome.
Businesses are not like that, which is really alifesaver for divorced families or any
(11:20):
families, really.
I mean, we don't want it to be based on our ownincome and assets and credit score and things.
So yeah.
You also mentioned in the in the lead up tothis call and some of the notes that you gave
me as far you know, so I could prepare for ourconversation that many divorces you feel can be
prevented with the right financial planning.
(11:41):
Right?
And Yeah.
I would concur as a financial planner of twentyyears, either so many people that I've worked
with in in overtime where you're there's a ityou know, husband and wife, but you very rarely
meet the wife.
It's always the dude who's driving around theshow and involved, and and then something
happens where he's dead or they're gettingdivorced or whatever it is and or he's
(12:02):
incapacitated because I've seen this movie athousand times, and she's on blueless.
And I'm not picking on women.
Know.
Everybody everybody that's listening to thisshould know if they've listened to any other
shows that I'm not here, I'm not picking onwomen.
I'm just stating the facts, and that's howthat's what I've seen historically.
So, like, how does how in in your opinion,like, how does how does having that own stream
(12:23):
of income outside of your partner change thatemotional and financial dynamic?
Well, honestly, I think our most expensivething that we all have to pay for, and we don't
even know it, is what we don't know about whatwe don't know.
And my mom, honestly, did not know.
She her dad, my grandpa, ran those businesses,and his health changed.
(12:45):
He created income from real estate and taughtme about the how can I instead of, oh, I can't?
That was her dad, but she didn't percolate allof that information into her own life.
And so when the divorce happened for her, shewas what you said, like, ugh, about I don't
know anything about money.
I'm not ready for this.
(13:05):
And so I think it is important that we like,what don't we know?
I didn't know that you could pay a house off infive years without changing your expenses and
income until about five years ago.
But we've lived in 15 houses over the lastthirty years.
And, gosh, what if I had learned about that 15houses ago?
Think of all the money I would have saved.
(13:27):
And all of that money could have been turnedinto creating some businesses or real estate or
anything else that would create that incomecoming in even if you have a health thing, even
if you are incapacitated or there is a death ordivorce or all the big, ugh, that kind of
blindside us that we didn't plan for.
So I think just in the mindset of the twopeople who are in a marriage, if everyone's con
(13:53):
you know, we're contributing to financially andwe all are getting more education than I had,
when I graduated high school, all I knew washow to balance a checkbook.
We don't even use checks anymore.
So
You're lucky you had that because they didn'tteach us that.
They didn't teach I I was laughing.
Like, they they could have at least taught usto balance a checkbook.
I didn't get that education.
Okay.
Fair.
Right?
Like so what we don't know about what we don'tknow is our most expensive thing.
(14:18):
And what if it just only took a couple of phonecalls to people who do know like yourself or
like our business team or our home equity teamthat helps people to get that house working for
them?
You know, I think there are so many people whohave a little nugget of knowledge that will
speed up everything and just create peace ofmind.
(14:40):
My mom did not have that
Yeah.
After every What you're what you're describingis it reminds me of this this motto that I have
and this motto, which one of the when I when Ifirst got my when my my very first jobs
managing people Yeah.
Twenty years ago, whatever it's been now.
(15:01):
This was even before I got into the financialservices industry.
I had a I had an the opportunity to managemanage people, as a very young person at that
stage.
And I remember succinctly, he said, use yourresources.
Yeah.
Use your resources.
And that thing that those three use yourresource.
(15:24):
Three words account account.
Make sure the three words are not forced sonobody jams me up on that.
It's three three words.
Those three words have, like, resonated with meand stuck with me and, like and that's that's
why, like, I've I've made some of the decisionsthat I make and, like, do the work that I do in
some ways and, like like, all that's, likeit's, like, basically just changed who I am and
(15:47):
how I thought about things.
Yes.
And here's the thing.
Very few people that I come across for whateverreason actually use their resources.
I couldn't tell you how many times was I wasthinking about this on my run this morning.
I'm like Yeah.
How many times a week do I have somebody ask meif we work in all 50 states?
(16:09):
It must be 25 times a week.
Literally, 25 times a week, get a message or anemail or somebody sends us a message through
the Facebook or social media or whatever it is.
Right?
Do you guys work in all 50 states?
It's like Yeah.
How about you go to the website and literallylook at the banner that is across the website?
Like, let's use your resources in you know,like, you're like, how do you it drives me
(16:30):
bananas.
So I'm just kind of venting here, but, like,the what you're talking about is using your
resources.
You don't have to be an expert in everything totake something like this on.
You don't you don't have to be an expert infinances to navigate your way through a divorce
because we are a resource to help you do that.
(16:51):
Right?
Like like, you use your resources and you haveto understand, like, yours to your to your
point, if you don't know what you don't knowand there are resources out there like us,
commercial for us, the two of us Yeah.
Fair.
That basically said, like, hey.
We're here to help.
We can support you through this.
So, like, you must, like, you must see thistime and time again.
And people, like, they finally take the takethe next step to contact you or what have you,
(17:16):
is there a, wow.
This isn't as difficult as I thought, or whatwhat's you what's the usual response?
Yeah.
Really.
I we've tried to narrow it down my whole twentyyears of life after that layoff, and I went
with the three little kids.
And just it was frightening, and I did nothandle it well.
That was not the best version of Anne.
(17:38):
And but it took us twenty years to find twophone calls.
And so I'm really grateful for my own childrennow and all the people after me.
You know, if we can boil it down to two phonecalls and you can learn how to get that house
paid for in five to seven years withoutchanging anything about your lifestyle, and you
can, in addition to that, create thatadditional income coming in with that and spend
(18:00):
time on it.
Wow.
Like, they're free.
They're free phone calls, and you're you'veprobably got lots of information to offer to
people too.
I think that the real key for me was whatgrandpa it took me twenty years after grandpa
said, and don't tell yourself you can't.
Ask yourself, how can I?
How can I find someone who knows what I'mtrying to find out without me having to go
(18:26):
through that learning curve and figure it out?
It's gonna take so much longer to figure outeverything all by yourself than it is to just
ask someone who's already doing what you theresults that you wanna have.
It's the same thing with the scenarios we runinto with with attorneys all the time.
Like, they're they are not trained on thefinancial aspects of divorce.
(18:48):
Most of them can't balance their own checkbookbecause I've worked with dozens of them in the
past, and I know a lot of them can't evencontrol their own finances, never let let
alone, you know, help give somebody advice onon theirs.
Yet they're the one first call for so manypeople when they decide they wanna go to get a
divorce.
They're like, I'm gonna call an attorney,they're gonna handle the whole thing.
And then they're spinning their wheels.
They don't understand how to read thestatements.
(19:10):
They don't understand how to what thisretirement account thing is or that thing is,
and it's a disaster.
It's like, we could do this.
We could help you eliminate all that time,energy, and and effort, you know, by by just
pick up the phone.
Right?
So it's like you've gotta use your resources.
You've gotta, like, you know, take that nextstep, and that's
Mhmm.
You know, if you're out there listening to whatAnne's saying, what I'm trying to, like, pound
(19:31):
home, like like, drive home here, it's it's allabout taking the next step and using those
resources.
And so as you were you you mentioned the kids,and it got me thinking too, like, people
probably don't understand the time commitmentof running a business.
Right?
So, like, talk to me about, like, how do youhow do you help people navigate that?
(19:52):
Because, like, you're, you know, like, singlemom who's got three kids, and she's gotta work
and everything else to make, you know, makeends meet at the moment.
How is she gonna be able to go in and buy abusiness and manage a business and everything
else and and juggle all that?
That's the real secret, I think.
I took business classes.
We learned a lot, and then I realized therewere too many moving parts, and I needed to
(20:14):
have a team of people helping me.
So just like we have teams of people helpingour kids at school, helping our kids at church,
or where well, all the things, all the peoplethat are helping us in our family anyway, I
think it's important to have a business teamthat does that.
I literally spend one hour a week or less oneach of our businesses.
It's on a phone call like this, and they justgive me an update.
(20:36):
Here's what's happened in the marketing andsales and how many more new customers, what
what we need to work on this week, and did weneed to hire any new employees?
So I'm not doing it.
I think there are two main things, and I one iscalled a book called who, not how.
Find the right who for whatever you need.
(20:56):
Don't do it yourself.
And the other is, Let them do it.
Whether it's our health, our relationships, allthose things that are important after a
divorce, but most critically, our money and ourtime.
Everything changed about my mom's time andmoney after the divorce because of what she
(21:18):
didn't know she didn't know.
Like, she didn't know that you could have realestate bringing income in without spending time
on it.
She didn't know that you could have a businessthat you didn't have to spend time on.
So I think for me, it was just, k.
I don't want to run the business and spendfifty, sixty hours a week on it, but what if
(21:38):
there is a what if there's people who do knowhow to set up a team that will help do that?
And once we found that team, everything changedfor us.
It was, gosh, not having to miss dinner andbaseball games and all the important things
about the family.
And after a divorce, of course, your time iseven more crucial because you're balancing two
(22:03):
households, two sets of money now.
And so, you know, how how to make that time andmoney really recycle itself and go where it
needs to go so that your relationships arefocused on the people.
Like, money is only to help people, and time isfor helping people.
(22:24):
It's but very often after a divorce, everyonefeels that crunch and the crazy and, ah,
there's bills and the financial reset that youtalked about.
And so that's that's where I feel like we youand I both have resources that people can take
advantage of without having to spend a lot oftime on it.
It's almost it's like a mindset shift that thatpeople need to have.
(22:47):
Right?
And, like, how do you how do you get people tomake that mindset shift?
Because I'm sure there's lot of people thatcome to you.
They're like, I don't know if I can do this.
And, you know, like,
how do you how do you help them over thathurdle?
I did not know what grandpa was trying to say.
Like, instead of saying I can't, say, how canI?
What if the only handcuffs we really have inour life are our own?
(23:10):
And what if we have the key right in ourpocket?
Because we need to use our resources like yousaid.
Somebody knows something that we don't knowbecause they're already doing it.
Yeah.
They they've already figured out how to nothave to have those crazy conversations with
your ex spouse.
For the first five or six years, I was the gobetween between my stepdad and my mom.
(23:34):
Like, you know, we they couldn't talk to eachother very well.
So Mhmm.
We got to do that until they could settle downand establish their own new normal, the the new
normal that happens after divorce.
But it was really hard to be in that in betweenspot.
Yeah.
You're the middle man.
(23:55):
You're the mediator.
I some people don't have a mediator person.
Yeah.
But there are some.
And, you know, I I just I think there's somany.
If we decide that we don't have to do it allourself and, you know, what if it really is
easier?
What if it doesn't have to take thirty years topay a house off, for example?
(24:16):
Or what if it what if there's alreadyopportunity out there and we just have to be
willing to get vulnerable enough to askquestions?
Sometimes I think we want to present a frontlike we know everything, and we're gonna I'm
gonna do it.
I'm in charge.
And, really, I think it's more, I I don't knowwhat I don't know.
(24:39):
So I need to find out and and just to believethat you can.
You're not broken.
You're you did have a breakup, a prettyimportant and and life changing one.
Yes.
But it doesn't mean that the rest of yourlife's in the toilet now.
It's it's not.
You still have a lot to contribute.
And what if there are tons of people you canhelp?
(25:01):
Because you are willing to be like, oh my gosh.
I don't know what to do, but someone does.
This is every every conversation like this, Ilike to to end on on asking this question, and
this is what I I always call the carte blanchesegment of our our conversation.
Is there anything that I didn't ask that Ishould've or anything that you wanna share with
(25:26):
our audience that we didn't cover today?
I think it's just been really good for me tohave an opportunity to be here.
I am grateful for my mother in that she didn'tgive up.
She kept getting out of bed in the morning.
Anybody that listens to this, really, if you'vealready gone through a broke a broken
(25:46):
relationship, the fact that you're stillstanding and breathing means that you can.
You can.
You you are not broken.
And I I think we're all way more powerful thanwe think we are.
And as soon as we can get out of our own way,I'm the best example of that.
Gosh.
What if I'd known my two phone calls twentyyears ago or 15 houses ago?
(26:09):
Or, you know, I I don't think we have to take along journey.
It's like you said.
We just have to make up our mind that we'regonna Yeah.
That we're gonna step forward and and trythings.
Well, that's the thing, and that's the the Imean, I I think, like, the, you the idea of
owning a cash flowing business might be bold,but after a life shake up like divorce, I think
(26:31):
bold might be exactly exactly what people needto be.
So I I thank you for your time today.
Thank you for sharing your story and and, youknow, the the situate know, sorry that you had
experienced the situation with your your momand your stepdad there and but, you know,
lessons learned, and and here you are, and hereI am because of my situation.
(26:53):
So we wouldn't we wouldn't be here if itweren't for those experiences.
That's for sure.
But for those of you that are listening, youcan connect with Anne on LinkedIn or Facebook,
and we're gonna include all those links in theshow notes.
For those of you that are navigating a divorceand wondering how to create real financial
freedom and get the help that you need on thefinancial side of things as you're navigating
it or maybe even recovering from it, visit usat allegiantds.com for that support.
(27:16):
And the support that I feel like can meet youwhere you are regardless of what stage you're
at.
Subscribe to Broke Up Not Broken for moreconversations that blend strategy and hope just
like this one, and we'll see you again nexttime.
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