Women's Financial Protection Marriage, Divorce & Beyond w/ Nikki Tucker Part 2

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Coming up next on Coffee,Cocktails, and Clarity.

Nikki (00:04):
Insurance is about security and in the event of.

Shai Boston, CPTD (00:09):
It covers the expenses for you after you are
gone.
Rich lasts one lifetime, wealthlast multiple lifetimes.

Nikki (00:16):
There are plenty of marriages that involve prenups,
and they still live to behappily ever after.
It is going to end becausesomeone is going to die or
you're going to get a divorce.
Having a prenup has nocorrelation to your marriage
ending in divorce.
Just because you're not marrieddoesn't mean you don't need a
will.

We're back for part two of our financial
management series with NikkiTucker.
We last talked to her about thefinancial fundamentals that we
as women have.
In this episode, we're going toget into protecting your money.
And so what do we mean by that?
So many of us are findingourselves in situations where we

(00:57):
have been in relationships andnow those relationships,
unfortunately, may be coming toan end, or fortunately depending
on how you look at it.
But the reality is that theremay have been assets, financial
assets, that are involved inthis relationship or that were
grown out of the relationship.
There might've been monies orassets that came into the
relationship.

(01:17):
And now you're facing divorcecourt.
And now you're figuring outwho's going to get the house.
Not just who's going to get thedog, who gets what car, who's
going to take care of the kids.
You're figuring out who's goingto pay what support to whom.
And so, as women, oftentimes wecome out on the short end of the

(01:37):
stick, normally, because we knowthat there's not pay equity, we
also know too, that women oftenhave to take time off because of
the children.
And so that impacts our careerseven more.
When we have children and we arein a career, even a thriving
career, we are also impacted.
Why?
Because we're normally the oneshaving to take the children to
the doctors.

(01:58):
We're the ones that have to stayhome.
We're the caregivers of ourparents.
The list can go on and on andon.
And even if you don't havechildren and you're not married,
your money still needs to beprotected.
Hey girl, have you been lookingfor a safe space for women to
have authentic conversationsaround everything that impacts
our life, careers, andrelationships?

(02:20):
I'm Shai Boston, and on thisshow, I talk about all things
connected to our personal andprofessional development.
So we can live our best andauthentic lives.
Grab a drink, sit back, andlet's have a chat.
It's time for some Coffee,Cocktails, and Clarity.
In this episode, that's what we're going

(02:42):
to dive into talking about withNikki.
Let's get back to this.
Let's start off with somethingthat most of us kind of know
about and talk about and kind oftalk about it from a high level
perspective.
Let's talk about insurance,health, life, disability, those
sorts of things.
When we're talking aboutprotecting our money, in
general, how does insurance helpus with that?

Nikki (03:04):
A number of different ways, actually.
Fundamentally speaking, youshould have insurance.
Now, that's an oversimplifiedstatement for some.
Where you have opportunities tohave insurance or to accept
insurance, you should haveinsurance.
From an income standpoint, thereare insurance.
And let me have the caveat.

(03:25):
I am not an insuranceprofessional.
Okay.
So take this with a grain ofsalt, but there are, policies
and financial products availableto protect your income, to
protect you and your household.
You mentioned health insurance.
The main reason we want to havehealth insurance is because it
subsidizes the cost.

(03:47):
It's a protection mechanism inthe sense that you mentioned in
the previous episode, you had areally large hospital bill.
Imagine if you had to pay for100% the hospital bill, out of
pocket.
Be significant.
Might be some discounts becauseyou're paying cash, but it'd be
significant.

(04:07):
And so having things like healthinsurance is a protection in the
sense because your expensesrelated to your health are
subsidized.
Now, health insurance is notcheap.
Let me level set there.
It's not cheap and I understandthat not all jobs provide it, or
even if your using theAffordable Care Act or whatever,

(04:28):
it's an expense, but it'srelative when you think about if
you don't have it.
Those that are not making thechoice of food on the table or
health insurance, that's adifferent conversation, but
those that have the ability topay and have the income or have
coverage options available tothem, I'm always saying take

(04:51):
advantage of it.
And life insurance policies.
A lot of your employers offerbasic life insurance coverage.
Not everyone offers thecoverage, but for those that do,
it may cost you a couple dollarsout of a paycheck.
But relative to what you couldbe using or how you could be
using those proceeds or how yourfamily could be using those

(05:12):
proceeds, that's significant.
If you get a$100,000 policy, youcan't save your way to$100,000,
by putting away$2 or$3 perpaycheck.
Insurance is about security andin the event of.
No one wants to have a caraccident.
But it's good to have carinsurance or property insurance,

(05:36):
in the event that you need it.
Because when you don't have it,then it can ruin your financial
life.
When you have opportunities totake advantage of insurance,
that's my general guidance, Iknow it's oversimplified for
some, but it really can make ahuge, a huge difference when we
talk about wealth preservationand building wealth and you're

(05:59):
trying to figure out how doother people do it?
Life insurance.
I used to work for a familyoffice.
So I'm telling you from personalexperience.
There is a life insurance policyon everybody, multiple life
insurance policies on everybodyin that family, because it's a
mechanism that's used to buildwealth.
You as the living person today,when you pass away, will you

(06:23):
benefit from the policy?
No.
It goes to the beneficiaries.
However,

your

Nikki (06:28):
family will benefit, your children, your spouse, your
god-children, nieces andnephews.
Like you can make anybody abeneficiary,(generally speaking)
of a life insurance policy,right?
And so if your focus is buildingwealth or protecting your income
and what you've earned, theinsurance is absolutely a way to

(06:49):
do that.

Okay.
And that's good to know.
And I think some people knowthat, but they may not be fully
aware of how it all works or whyit's beneficial.
I'm not an insurance agenteither.
I'll just briefly speak topersonal experience because yes,
my hospital bill was extremelylarge, and I think that was just
for one of the surgeries I had.

(07:11):
I was double covered byinsurance cause I was employed.
I wasn't self employed at thetime I was working for an
employer plus my husband'sinsurance.
That significantly reduced.
I can't even tell you.
I think out of a nearly 200,$300,000 bill, I can't remember
the exact numbers between thetwo surgeries, but I think I
only paid a couple of thousanddollars between all of those

(07:33):
surgeries, and everything else,the testing and all that stuff.
So yes, health insurance isimportant.
And I know from personalexperience that it costs a lot
of money to be sick and it costsa lot of money to be insured,
which would you prefer?
That's all I say.
And then as far as the lifeinsurance policies and things

(07:54):
like that go, yes, a lot ofpeople use that to build wealth.
Look at it this way.
If you can't get to that, it'shelping to generate wealth.
It covers the expenses for youafter you are gone and anything
else for your family.
Even if you're looking at, well,I'm a single parent or, I'm just
a single person.

(08:15):
That money, whoever youdesignate it to can use that to
help care for whatever yourfinal expenses are going to be,
and then also think of it as away of giving back to them and
saying, thank you for takingcare of whatever needed to be
done once I'm no longer here.
Otherwise it is definitely, lookat it as this is building some

(08:36):
additional wealth.
This is giving your family thecushion that they need to be
able to move forward.
You all know, I've had a seriesof deaths in my family over the
last several years, and I havebeen grateful that our family
members were able to have lifeinsurance, pensions, and other
things that we were able to useto take care of expenses and

(08:56):
then also used to help us tocontinue to do some of the
things we needed to do tosurvive because we are still
here, right?
So it's something we don't oftenlike to talk about but it's very
important, I'm glad we broughtthat out.
Let me go back to one otherthing you said:"It's security in
the event of" that's how we needto start looking at it.
We can't let our car insurancego and say,"Well, I'm going to

(09:17):
do the bare minimum just becauseI have to have the bare minimum.
I can't afford it." It'ssecurity in the event of.
Same thing with the healthinsurance.
Same thing with life insurance.
I always take life insurancefrom the employers.
You are definitely reminding meto look at doing life insurance
outside of the employers aswell, but, at the bare minimum,
take it through the employer.
I definitely want to circle backon the security in the event of,

(09:40):
this is another,

Nikki (09:41):
Can I jump in there?

Yeah, go ahead.

Nikki (09:43):
So the life insurance piece with the job and outside
of the job is really importantand I'm glad you said that.
Take the coverage with the jobbecause it's usually going to be
the cheapest option, it is vitalto have coverage outside of the
job.
Because very often thosepolicies can be transferred to
you as the owner, but yourpremium is not going to be the

(10:04):
same.
So if you're paying$2,$5 a monthfor your life insurance coverage
through work, if you leave thatjob and you are able to transfer
the policy, it's not going to be$2 or$5 when you transfer it.
It'll probably be significantlymore.
So if you have an additionalpolicy outside of your employer

(10:26):
in the event that you can't eventransfer it, like say that's not
an option, then you're stillcovered.
The older you are, which mostpeople know this, but for those
that don't, the older you are,the more expensive it is to get
insurance.
The more health issues you have,the more expensive it is to get
insurance.
So when you hear people talkabout take out the most basic

(10:49):
policy you can.
Term, not necessarily whole,when you're young and you're
healthy.
That's why they say that.
I just wanted to add that.

Thank you for adding that.
I agree because like we weretalking about, like I said,
before we started recording, youwere talking about, you know,
it's about making your moneywork for you.
And this is one way you makeyour money work for you.
Our previous episode, if youhaven't listened to it yet,
please definitely go back andlisten.
There's vital information inthere, about your basic
financial foundation, if youwill, and that's the foundation

(11:21):
of how to start making yourmoney work for you.
The insurances in general isanother continuation of that.
And we'll jump into everythingelse in just a moment.
The other thing that we talkedabout before we started
recording is that you hadmentioned that sometimes we're
the ones that are in our ownway, either because we're
comparing ourselves to others;we have habits that we need to

(11:43):
break; we're not being honestwith ourselves; we want to pull
the wool over our eyes.
Been there, done all of thoseand fighting through those
habits, unfortunately.
Let's briefly touch on thatbefore we get into the
protecting the money, because ifyou don't have money to protect
to begin with, and if you're notbeing honest about your money,
then there's no point in goingany further and trying to talk

(12:04):
about the rest.
Let's kind of elaborate on thata little bit more.
In your experience and thethings that you have seen and
have advised people.
What are some of the things thatyou encourage others and suggest
that they shy away from in orderto be able to continue building
off of that foundation to thepoint that they are now able to

(12:24):
have monies that they canprotect?

Nikki (12:26):
It's a couple of different things.
One thing I would say, payattention to who you are
surrounding yourself with andwho you're talking to about
money.
And this seems a little bit onthe softer side, not necessarily
the tactical side of things whenit comes to money.
But as your progressing on adifferent journey, you're going

(12:47):
to have some hiccups.
That's a part of it.
Let me make that very clear.
It's not going to be perfect.
You might take a few stepsforward and one step back.
That's okay.
That's normal.
But if you're talking to familymembers It could be parents, it
could be cousins, it could be aspouse who is not encouraging
you on your journey and tellingyou all the reasons why what

(13:09):
you're doing won't work or,"Youknow our family has never had
money" or,"Never been good withmoney.
You're not going to get goodwith money now." That messaging
matters.
While you can't necessarily pickyour family, you can pick who
you share information with.
You can pick who you haveconversations with.
And if you're noticing thatpeople are saying things to you

(13:30):
or doing things that aredetrimental or harmful to your
journey, then you need toseparate yourselves from them,
or you need to change the way inwhich you're communicating with
them.
Everyone doesn't get to knoweverything.
Everyone doesn't have to be apart of your journey.
So when I say get out of yourown way, sometimes those are the
types of things that we need todo, because we're so used to

(13:52):
having friends and family thatwe trust and we love and we
assume that they will besupportive.
We assume that they willunderstand, well, if they've
never been where you're tryingto go, they're not going to
understand it.

Exactly.
That reminds me of a quote oneof my mentors told me, actually,
I think it's from John Maxwelloriginally.
And it was when talking aboutbusiness and entrepreneurship
and all these other things, itwas:"Don't ask people who don't
think what they think." And sobasically the gist of that is
don't ask people who are notthinking like you, what they

(14:26):
think.
Because you're not going to getthe type of feedback that you
need in order to keep propellingyourself forward.
And that's one reason why I havethis podcast and we will have on
different guests that have theexpertise like Nikki and others.
That's one reason why I talkabout from my experiences is
because, we want to be of thesame mindset and think a certain

(14:49):
way that's going to help us tomove forward and not keep us
where we are now and not keep uswhere we were in the past.
And so when you're talking aboutmoney and I'm going to keep
saying the word"money" becausewe have a problem talking about
money.
When we talk about what we wantto do with it, when we talk

(15:11):
about what our hopes and ourdreams are going to be and we
put that plan in place, like wetalked about in the first
episode, building thatfoundation of how to make our
money work for us, we need to betalking to others who also get
it and who have that samemindset.
Now, it doesn't necessarily meanthat you're talking to people
that are talking about"wealth"per se.
It means you're talking topeople who are sensible, who

(15:34):
have knowledge and understandthat they too want to make their
money work for them.
Now, if you end up wealthy,great.
I'm not knocking that at all.
And I don't mean rich.
Rich lasts one lifetime, wealthlast multiple lifetimes.
So if your goal is to get richboom, you can go get rich you
can jump on YouTube make a tonof videos and get rich.

(15:55):
If you're looking to buildwealth, there's foundations that
go with that or if you'relooking to have what I call a
relatively comfortable life,this is how you start building
that.
Because, granted, no matter whatmoney you achieve, you're going
to have to work to maintain it,right?
And you're going to have to workto keep achieving it.
But you can get to a point whereyou've worked through some of

(16:15):
those habits that have preventedyou from being able to have that
emergency fund, that hasprevented you from being able to
have that fun,fund or thecushion or where you can go to
the shop and get your nails doneand not have to worry about,
"Ooh, am I robbing from Peter topay Paul?" You know, that's sort
of a thing.
That's the mindset we want to bein.

(16:35):
We want to be in the mindset ofwe want to make our money work
for us.
We want to be in the mindset ofwe're moving from where we are
today and we're moving to apoint where we're making our
money work for us.
And this is one way, having theinsurance, building that
foundation.
Now that we're talking about,yes, we're going to have money
to work with because we'retalking in the positive, we're
putting it out there.

(16:56):
We are going to have money.
How do we protect it?
So now we're going to get intothe heart of this episode, which
is protecting your money before,during and then I say after
marriage which is just basicallydivorce and this is Nikki's area
of expertise.
Before one gets married whatwould be your advice in ways

(17:19):
that one can protect theirmoney?
Miss Nikki.

Nikki (17:23):
Well, the first thing that comes to mind is prenups.
I know it's a controversialtopic, it's not the only way
that you could protect yourself,but that is one of the ways.
And I would like to dispel somerumors and misunderstandings
about prenups.

Okay.
Please do.

Nikki (17:42):
We often hear about celebrities and their situations
with prenups and how prenups arechallenged or thrown out.
And that happens.
Don't get me wrong, thathappens.
That is the exception, it's notthe rule.
There are plenty of marriagesthat work, that involve prenups,
and they still live to behappily ever after.

(18:05):
The idea that prenups aregenerally thrown out is false,
it's a myth, they can be, butnot all the time.
The idea that you have to bewealthy to have a prenup is also
false.

Wait, pause.
That is not true?

Nikki (18:22):
That is not true.

Okay.
We got to come back to that one.
Okay.

Nikki (18:26):
And then also, this idea that if you want a prenup, then
you're planning for yourmarriage to end or you're going
into your marriage with the endin mind.
And that is also not true.
Let me start backwards.
Okay.
And this is not my originalthought, but it's a fact.

(18:47):
And so you've heard it a lot.
And if you've heard other peoplesay it, you'll be like,"Oh, I
heard so and so say that." Yourmarriage is going to end.
It is going to end becausesomeone is going to die or
you're going to get a divorce.
But your marriage is going toend.

Wow.
Thank you for putting that outthere like that.
No, because, you know, honestly,you really don't think that way.
Especially if you're in a goodmarriage, you try not to think
about the fact that this personisn't going to be in your life
one day.
So, yeah.
Okay.
Thank you for, yeah.
All right.

Nikki (19:20):
Let me, let me give some color because some people are
like,"Gosh, that was reallyharsh." I'm a widow.
I'm a widow.
My husband died unexpectedly inhis fifties, in his early
fifties.
And my marriage ended.

Okay.
You got to give me a moment onthat one.
Cause the empath in me is just,I am number one, I'm sorry to
hear that.
But you also get what I'm sayingtoo, about that's not something
that you think about it.
I mean, you think about it, butyou put it out of your head
because, it's too painful.
Like I said, my husband's ateacher.
I don't think about schoolshootings.
I can't.

Nikki (19:59):
I understand it.
I understand it.
I'm also very much a realist andI'm a certified divorce
financial analyst.
So if your marriage is fortunateenough that it ends, on your
terms, let's put it that way.
It's on your terms.

We believe in being real here and being
honest.
So I appreciate, I mean don'tget me wrong.
That was sobering to hear.
And that's something that a lotof us needed to hear.
So I appreciate that, but yes,you're right.
If the marriage doesn't end theway that you would have chosen.

Nikki (20:35):
Yep.
Exactly.
When we think about yourmarriage ending because of
divorce, particularly for mywomen who have worked really
hard and you're at a point inyour life where you have things
You've accumulated wealth,wealth in the sense that you
have money in the bank, you'veaccumulated assets, you own a

(20:57):
home, you have a car, you haveretirement funds and whether
it's your first marriage orsecond or your third.
If you've accumulated thosethings, prior to meeting the
person that is becoming yourspouse, or even while you we're
dating this person.
Before that person becomes yourhusband, why wouldn't you want
to protect those things in theevent of your marriage ending?

(21:20):
Why wouldn't you?
I am all for the idea of when weget married, we become one.
This is true, but we also knowthat approximately half of
marriages end in divorce.
So, unfortunately there is ahigh probability that your
marriage could end in divorce.
Why wouldn't you do the thingsto protect yourself?

(21:42):
It doesn't make you selfish.
It doesn't mean that there's anincreased likelihood that your
marriage will end.
Statistically speaking, whilemost don't know this, having a
prenup has no correlation toyour marriage ending in divorce.
You're more than likely not tobe divorced.
It's not a lot of data on it,but theoretically you're more

(22:03):
than likely not to be divorced.
Why?
Because prenups force you tohave very transparent
conversations about money.

Yeah, that's true.

Nikki (22:11):
You know everything.
If it's done correctly, if it'snot done correctly, it's going
to be thrown out by the courts.

The other thing to your point though of
what I know of prenups.
You're talking about money.
You're talking about potentiallychildren.
You know, depending on what youwant to put in there that you
want to protect or what you seein the future, that might need
to be protected and that sort ofthing.
It's all included in there.
So yes, there are some veryimportant conversations.
In general, I tell women thereare conversations you should be

(22:40):
having prior to marriage anyway.
And generally, from myunderstanding of prenups, those
are the conversations you shouldbe having prior to marriage
anyway.
But most of us don't, to beperfectly honest.
We might have some, we may nothave all.
And then you get married, andthen you're like,"Oh, I have
jumped out of the frying paninto the fire." So certainly
understand that.

(23:01):
And that, makes a lot of sensethat, if you are one that has
some things, because I've knownwomen who did have their own
condos.
They've had a car.
Those different types of things.
Maybe they did have a retirementfund beforehand because a lot of
us do.
You're not thinking that I haveto protect that.
You're just thinking I'm gettingmarried and 401k is mine.

(23:21):
It's like, no, there's certainthings that then become
community property, so on and soforth, especially depending on
the states that you live in andall that kind of stuff.
That is very valuableinformation.
Okay, let's keep workingbackwards.
As you started there, let's keepgoing.

Nikki (23:37):
So this idea that you have to be wealthy.

Yes, that part.

Nikki (23:41):
Yeah.
The reason that I say that,that's a myth is because, if I
have$50,000 in the bank, thatdoesn't necessarily make me
wealthy.
I may not be able to carry thaton for multiple generations to
your point about the differencebetween being rich or being
wealthy.
That said, the$50,000 I do have,should my marriage end, and I

(24:04):
earned all of it before I met myspouse, I want to keep my
$50,000.

Facts.

Nikki (24:11):
Now, if I have$5M, then the stakes are even higher,
which is why you see a lot ofwealthy people or celebrities
who have wealth using prenups asa tool to protect their money.
Because the more you have, themore you want to protect.
But just because I don't havemillions of dollars doesn't mean

(24:31):
it's not worthy of beingprotected.
It's actually more impactful.
If I'm a millionaire, I couldprobably take a loss.

Right.

Nikki (24:40):
That the average person can't afford to take.
If all I have is$50,000 in thebank and I lose it, I'm going to
be decimated.
If have$5 billion in the bankand I have to give up a million
or 2 million, I could probablystill survive off of a couple of
million dollars.

Jeff Bezos.
I mean, but seriously, he wasmultibillionaire.
He gave almost half his fortuneto his wife, and she's giving so
much away, which I admire herfor, but I'm just saying.
Very valid points.
That's one reason why I waslike, hold up.
We got to circle back to thatbecause that is the mindset and

(25:16):
mentality that many of us have.
Because, again, going back tolike our previous discussion,
when we talked about some of usdid not grow up talking about
money.
We did not grow up talking abouthow to value money outside of
"money was to pay bills and tosurvive." Not that money can be
used to help us to get furtherahead except in"paying for an

(25:36):
education." What you're sayingis, if you have some money that
you can't afford to lose, thenyou definitely should consider a
prenup, especially if it's arelatively substantial amount
that you can't afford to lose.
And I don't mean relativelysubstantial like to the tens of
millions of dollars, becauseclearly that's something that
you definitely want to protect.

(25:57):
But like you said, if you have$50,000,$100,000 even$25,000 in
the bank, you wanna walk awaywith that.
That is substantial.
You want to protect that.
If you have a home that youalready own, you want to protect
that, or an investment propertythat you have, like an Airbnb or
something like that, you want toprotect that.
I would also venture to say thatthat also includes protecting

(26:20):
perhaps the assets of yourbusiness or something like that
in association?

Nikki (26:23):
Oh absolutely, absolutely.
It involves protecting not onlythe assets of your business, but
also think about your children.
There are a lot of people thatget married and they end up with
blended families.
And so prenups are designed tobe mutually beneficial, not one
sided.
Another myth.
It's not intended to benefit oneparticular gender over another.

(26:44):
However, when we think about themakeup of our society, and our
economic system, it tends tofeel that way, but that is not
the intention of a prenup.
But if you're going into ablended family, and you have a
son or daughter who's a minor,or even if they're adults, but
you want to make sure that theyreceive certain assets when you

(27:06):
pass away, when you get adivorce, whatever the case may
be, then that's where thesedocuments are helpful.
Estate planning and prenups cango hand in hand by the way but
that's when these documents arehelpful.
And I think sometimes it canfeel very overwhelming to think
about it.
And we're always positioning itfrom worst case scenario.

(27:28):
But what people don't understandis prenups can also help you
decide and iron out decisionsjust about how money will be
managed while you're happilymarried.
What are the responsibilities ofthis person?
The funds of this account.
A lot of times people are awareof the fact,"Well, if I had it
before I got married, then it'smine." Sure.

(27:51):
Technically, also depending onthe rules of your state, but
technically, yes, it's yours.
Once you co-mingle those funds,not so much.
Once you move in your spouseinto your home that you had
before, and he startscontributing to the maintenance
of that house, to the value ofthat home, making mortgage

(28:13):
payments.
Once you put his name on thedeed, not so much yours anymore.

Right.

Nikki (28:20):
So those things, while prenups are not the end all be
all, I think that it gets anunfair bad rep.
And people don't understand howthey can aid and be beneficial
with ensuring that you have verytransparent, upfront
conversations about money.

(28:41):
And even if you don't get theprenup, go through the process.
Going through the process willjust teach you a lot about the
person that you're marrying.
How they think, they'recharacter.
Even if you don't sign thedocument.

And you know, that's one of the things too,
that I think is really importantbecause if you're not talking to
each other about money, howyou're managing your finances,
if you're not being upfront andhonest, and I'm going to be
straight up, if you haven'tpulled credit reports together
and sat down and talked aboutthem and gone through them.
And I'll be honest, that's notsomething that I did before I
got married, but my husband hadperfect credit.
I didn't have so perfect credit,but if we had done that, we

(29:15):
could have managed and plannedout our first couple of years
more effectively.
I'll be.
upfront and brutally honestabout that.
But if you're not having thoseconversations, then you don't
know how that person viewsmoney.
And again, I go back to where Isay with the word of money.
Valuing money.
Are they a miser?

(29:36):
Are they going to hoard theirmoney and hold on to it and not
want to spend it?
Are they a spender?
Are they someone that's in themiddle and knows balance or are
they spending on certain thingsand don't want to spend on other
things?
You know, like, some people wantto spend on vacations.
Other people feel like, no, Iwant to spend on technology.
So you need to understand thesetypes of things.

(29:56):
And like you said, having thesereal and honest conversations.
Sometimes they are painful.
I'm telling you, as someonewho's been married almost 25
years, you'd rather know upfrontwhat you're dealing with rather
than getting into the mix andthen now you're finding out
otherwise.
I like the suggestion of, well,go through the exercise, even if

(30:16):
you don't sign one, becauseyou're going to uncover all of
this, and I also know that a lotof couples will go through,
spiritual counseling.
Some will also go throughtherapy, you know, a couple's
therapy and that kind of athing, which is great.
Those things can help you tolearn how to communicate with
each other.
Those things can help you tolearn how to be on the same page

(30:37):
with your morals, your values,your faith, and so forth.
They don't always get intosomething like this, which is
the money.
They're teaching you how to livetogether.
This is teaching you how to lifetogether, so to speak.
because the one thing I do know,and I don't know the statistic
offhand, but I do know that mostmarriages and behind financial
situations.
It's infidelity and financialsituations are the top two.

(31:00):
I do know that much.
You talked about the prenups.
You touched on estate planning.
So let's jump to estate planningbefore we come back to talking
about whether or not you shouldhave joint or separate accounts.
So can you define exactly whatis estate planning and then how
does that fit into the prenuparrangement or the whole
protecting your money beforemarriage?

Nikki (31:22):
Yeah, it's an important part of protecting your money
because you don't need to bemarried in order to have an
estate plan or a estatedocument.
So the most basic estatedocuments are your will, your
power of attorney, that could beyour healthcare power of
attorney or your financial powerof attorney.
A durable power of attorney isanother common name.
And then also your living will.

(31:42):
And so even the first statementand the last statement gets a
lot of people confused.
Your will and your living willare not the same thing.
Your will is directing where youwant your assets to go and who
you want to be guardian of yourchildren.
It's primary intention of thewill.
And I am not not a legal expert,by the way.
However, I am familiar and Ihave these documents too.

(32:05):
So that helps.
Your financial power of attorneyas an example.
When we talk about power ofattorneys is a document that
allows someone to take over inthe event that you become
incapacitated, or unable tocarry out your normal financial
duties, so if they need accessto your accounts, if they need
to pay bills on your behalf,whatever the case may be.

(32:25):
Handling financial matters thatdocument allows them to do that.
Now, you could delegate it to aspouse.
You could delegate it to afriend, but you have to name
someone to do it.
It is valid while you're living.
No longer alive, no longervalid.
And then your healthcare powerof attorney allows someone to
make healthcare decisions foryou.

(32:46):
Your living will, which it'slike healthcare directives is
the name and we don't need toget into all the specifics, but
your living will essentiallysays, if I am in the hospital,
or if I'm in a situation whereit's questionable if my life
could continue as is, this iswhat I want you to do.

Right.

Nikki (33:03):
I want you to exhaust all options.
I want to be on life support.
I don't want to be on lifesupport.
The moment that they say, I'mnot going to make it.
I want you to pull the plug,whatever it is, you're naming
the person, you're naming yourdesires.
All of these things are reallyimportant.
And so the other element thatsometimes gets overlooked is

(33:24):
having trust, whether it's arevocable or irrevocable trust.
You can have a living trust aswell, but the trust allows you
to declare assets that the trustowns, and then the trust will
fund to the beneficiaries of thetrust.
So my son, for example, he's ayoung adult.

(33:45):
Let's say I have life insurance.
I don't want him to be thebeneficiary of the life
insurance policy.
Because I don't think he's at anage where he could handle it all
at one time in a lump sum.
So if I direct the proceeds tothe trust, the amount of money
he gets at certain milestones orcertain points in his life is

(34:05):
based off of what's in my trustdocument.
All of those pieces inpartnership with something like
a prenup can be helpful whenyou're going into a marriage.
Now, when you're married, youand your spouse can have estate
planning documents together.
Just because you're not marrieddoesn't mean you don't need a
will.
If you own a home, if you havefurniture, if you have things in

(34:26):
it, if you have money in thebank and stuff like that, these
are assets that you have.
Now, life insurance policies,retirement accounts, you're
often designating beneficiaries.
Those designations, thosedocuments, supersede what's in
your will.
A lot of people don't understandthat either.

Okay.
Didn't know that.
That's good to know.
Now I will say between me and mygirlfriends, we've already, did
verbal wills of who gets whosepurses and all that and shoes.
But in all seriousness, Iappreciate you breaking down
each one of those because theydo get confused.
Now I do have a medicaldirective for myself on what

(35:03):
type of care that I want andthat sort of a thing.
And I recognize the importantvalue of that many years ago.
And quite frankly, it came inhandy even when I was in the
hospital of, Okay, this is thecare I want.
These are the people designatedthat will make these decisions."
Recently my mom was in thehospital and it was the same
thing.
I'm not on her medical directiveand we chose to do that for

(35:23):
different reasons.
So I contact her surrogates.
"Hey, you guys need to be awareshe's in the hospital, such and
such." All of that isinvaluable.
I won't go into more detailsabout that, but I really
appreciate that.
And then also to talking aboutthe trust.
Because I have some friends whohave children that have trust
and as you said the way thatthey're set up a certain
milestones, they'll receivedifferent things.

(35:45):
And that is also a really goodway of handing down even if
you're not wealthy.
So again, let's go back to youmay not be wealthy.
You may not be well to dowhatever that's defined for you.
But you still want to protectthat and still be able to hand
it down.
So going back to, if you had$10,000 in the savings account

(36:05):
and you're never going to touchthat, you would want to make
sure that whomever you choose tohave that money can receive that
money, whether that's throughyour trust.
Whether that's through the willsand things like that.
And I appreciated too, just toreiterate what was just said,
that one can override the other.
You said whatever you have asyour beneficiaries, like on your

(36:28):
life insurance and things likethat overwrites your will.
Did I get that correct?
Okay.

Nikki (36:33):
Yeah.
Generally speaking, from a legalperspective, there may be some
caveats there, but generallyspeaking the beneficiary
designations is what's in stone.

Awesome.
That's good to know.
So we've talked about prenups,estate planning, wills, trust,
all of those different types ofthings.
Again, ladies, this is talkingabout protecting what you have.
So as you are building yourfinancial assets, which is not
only your liquid assets, whichis your cash on hand, what you
have in the bank.

(37:03):
As we talked about in the lastepisode, you can quickly turn
into cash.
We're also talking about yourassets as far as, your physical
assets, your house, your cars,your things like that.
We've got all of this going intothings that we need to protect.
It's part of the prenups, estateplanning, and so forth, but one
of the things that we often getinto when we're getting married

(37:26):
or we're coupling up.
Joint versus separate accounts.
Hit us with the facts and thehard truth.

Nikki (37:34):
I have very strong feelings about this.
I am not a fan of everythingjoint.

I knew you was going to say that.

Nikki (37:44):
Probably you knew I was going to say that for obvious
reasons.
There is nothing wrong withhaving joint accounts.
Everyone, women in particularneed access and autonomy to
their own funds.
And just because you haveseparate accounts does not mean
that you're hiding anything.
It does not mean that you arenot one as a couple.
It's not what that means.

(38:05):
It means that if you're ever ina situation we keep talking
about in the event of, where youneed access to funds.
Conversations keep coming upabout,"How much did you spend on
this?
I saw you bought this.
Why did you buy that?" Doesn'tmean again, you're hiding
purchases, but there issomething to be said for having
power and autonomy over themoney that you earn or the money

(38:28):
that is coming into yourhousehold.
Even if you're a stay at homemom or stay at home wife, I
strongly believe you need accessto your own account.
If you decide to have everythingjoint, well we know some people
do.
Then my guidance is that, thisis where I'm going to say"need".
You need to have access to everysingle account.

(38:48):
You need to know where they are.
Your name on there if yourjoint.
But passwords you can go onlineand look, even if you never want
to look at it, you need to havethe ability to look at those
accounts when you want to.
The perfect setup to me is ahybrid.
You have something's joint, andyou have something's separate,
and you still have verytransparent communications about

(39:09):
what's happening in thoseaccounts.
Because, as a couple, as one,you need to talk about your
financial position as a couple,and the only way you're going to
be able to do that is if youknow what's going on, in its
entirety.
So it's not about hiding.
It's not about being deceitful.
And another myth is if it's in aseparate account, then it
doesn't come up in the divorce.
It's a lie.

(39:30):
I'm sorry.
If funds were used or funds havegone into the account, while you
were married, it is a maritalasset.
It doesn't matter whose name ison the account.
Now, if you had the accountbefore this is where it gets
into technical stuff withdivorce.
If you had the account beforeyou got married, that's fine.
If you start having money goinginto that account, that's

(39:51):
considered marital income.
Now, all of it technically isn'tyours.
The appreciation, interest thatyou're earning, technically is
not just yours anymore.
So, even as a tip, it's like,"Oh, I have this one account.
I have$10,000 in the bank.
I'm getting married tomorrow."Don't do anything with that
account anymore.
Open a new account, now, thatyou're married.
That$10,000 stays.

(40:12):
It remains separate property,period.

Okay.
That makes sense.
That makes a whole lot of sense.
What I wanted to ask was, I'mprocessing all of that
information because honestly,that's not something that we as
women are often taught.
We're taught to have a separateaccount, and, a lot of times,
it's like almost like a hushhush like you don't talk about
that you have the side account.
So I do appreciate the fact thatyou said to be transparent about

(40:37):
it.
I also kind of ascribe todepending on what the purpose is
for.

Nikki (40:42):
I agree.

Put it on the side and don't talk about it.
Some couples even do where ifthey have a joint account, the
joint account is let's say forhousehold expenses and they
agree that certain amounts ofmoney out of their personal
checks or out of the overallfamily pot will then go into
their personal accounts to usehowever they want.
But again, I do firmly believethat the more honest and upfront

(41:05):
you are in having thosediscussions the better, and no,
they're not going to be easy.
But here's the thing to keep inmind.
The more those discussionshappen, ladies, the more that
you're talking about it, theeasier it becomes.
If nothing else, the easier itwill become for you to talk
about money.
And the easier it becomes foryou to talk about money, if you

(41:27):
do find yourself in a situationwhere your partner does not want
to talk about money, the easierit'll be for you to recognize
that something is not right, andthat you need to start checking
things out, which is why theyhave people that do financial
forensic analysis, because goingback to one thing Nikki said,
and okay, so I watched too muchtrue crime as well as, you know,

(41:50):
dramas.
But the reality is, is that menwill hide their assets.
Women have learned to do this aswell, but they will hide their
assets.
They will put their assets inother people's names.
There's a reason why they dothat.
And that's because they don'twant it traced back to them,
which is why financial forensicanalysis needs to be done when
we're talking about divorce, butwe're not on the divorce part

(42:11):
yet.
So one thing I did want to askabout is let's say, a woman, one
of our ladies out there, oursistafriends has a separate
account, solo account.
Should she put someone else onthere that she trusts that can
have access to those funds justin case?

Nikki (42:29):
She can, it doesn't hurt.
If you put someone on theaccount as a joint owner, as a
joint signer, then they are thejoint owner.
So in the eyes of law it's asmuch as their money as it is
your money.
So you may want to be carefulabout that.
Okay.
Because it depends on what theother person has going on.

(42:50):
But I'm a signer on like mymom's account as as example.

Yeah, that's me.
Yeah.
That's what I'm saying.

Nikki (42:54):
I touch her money, but if I needed access to it,

Well, I can't say that.

Nikki (42:59):
I would have access to it.

I don't do it without her permission.
But yeah,

Nikki (43:02):
Right, no, I understand and every situation is a little
bit different.
So it depends on thecircumstances.
But you can also just make surethat you assign, TOD or POD,
which is transfer on death orpayable on death.
So if something happens to youand you want that particular
person to access those funds,and it is separate property, you

(43:23):
can put them on the account,STOD or POD.
So from a day to day basis, theycan't access it, but if
something happens to you, theycan access it.

Awesome.
Alright.
I just wanted to clarify thatand get that out there.
Appreciate that.
So we are covering ourselvesbefore marriage.
Now we're marriaged, we end thisthing, we doing this thing.
What are some things that we cando to protect our money while we
are married?

Nikki (43:50):
So if you didn't get a prenup, you might want to
consider a postnup.
Might.
It's not very common.
And there are other stickingpoints that go with that, but it
is something that is an optionand it could make sense for some
people, depending on yourfinancial circumstances or how
things have changed.
So that is an option for you.

(44:11):
The other thing and I mentionedthis about access, usually in
most marriages, and this is howit worked in mine too.
You have someone who operates asthe household CFO.
The business manager of thehouse and that's okay.
Everyone has different strengthsyou play into those strengths.
However, that doesn't mean thatyou should not be aware of what

(44:33):
is happening from a financialperspective.
Too often I'm havingconversations with clients and
they don't know how much moneytheir spouse earns.
They don't know how much moneyis in the bank because their
husband takes care of all ofthat.
Sometimes it's the woman, butthat's rare.
Because their husband takes careof everything they kind of turn

(44:54):
a blind eye to it.
There's some men that don't wantto give up that control.
From an ego perspective, theyview it as you not trusting them
if you start asking questions orthat there's concerns or that
you're trying to leave them ifyou start asking questions.
And so it's important whileyou're married to begin to lay
the groundwork of saying,"I wantus to do things differently.

(45:17):
I know you're the person that'salways managed our household and
that's great.
I think you're doing an amazingjob, but there, are things that
I'm thinking about as we getolder.
And I do want to be an activepart of the conversations.
I do want to be more active indecision making." And the best
way to do that is withinformation.
So that means you may havesomething informal like date
nights.
Like a money date nights on aregular basis, or you may have

(45:40):
something more formal whereyou're sitting down with your
advisors.
If you have a financial advisor,if you have an insurance agent,
if you have an accountant or atax accountant, if you have
attorney.
Get all those people in a roomtogether, once a year, they can
strategically bounce off of eachother so everyone has a full
picture and understanding ofwhere your gaps are.
And what's going on and ifyou're on track for whatever

(46:02):
your retirement goals are, yourtravel goals are, or if you're
off track and what you need todo, those are things that you
can do while you're married, butthe biggest piece of advice is
do not hide from theconversations and make sure you
have access to information.

Yes, I would tell you hiding from the
conversations does not benefitanybody, does not benefit
anybody.
It actually does more harm thangood, and causes more stress
than necessary.
And I love the point that youbrought up, which I don't think
many of us think about, that ifwe do have different
specialists, for lack of abetter term, that are working

(46:41):
with us and assisting us in ourfinancial management to get them
all into the room at one timeand have a conversation.
I think one, many of us don'tthink about the fact that we
might need a financial analystor financial planner.
I think we associate that withbeing"wealthy" and again, even
if you had$10,000 in the bank,$25,000 in the bank, that's a

(47:04):
good time to talk to someone asa financial analyst or financial
planner to say,"Hey, what can Ido to make sure I'm protecting
this money and I don't end upspending all this money or
blowing all of this money, or Ihave certain goals that I want
to achieve." You have them, youhave your accountant or whoever,
whoever, all in one room.
Yes, that makes for a greatconversation for everybody to be

(47:26):
on the same page.
When we talk about making yourmoney work for you, you get to
see it from all differentaspects because everybody's
looking at it from differentpurposes.
Your CPA or accountant islooking at it from tax purposes,
right?
Versus your financial planner islooking at how to build out your
future.
Your tax person wants to see howwe can save you money now.
Your planner is like, I'm tryingto see how you can build money

(47:47):
for the future.
And then you may have someoneelse that's like, no, we need to
talk about where we are rightnow.
So that's really important.
So, thank you for bringing thatout, because that is definitely
not something that I havethought about before, and,
again, that's because you'recoming from that experience and
that knowledge and expertise ofbeing a financial analyst of if
you get us all in the roomtogether, we can all be on the
same page and really make yourmoney work for you.

(48:09):
That's great.
If you've got an amount that youcan't afford to lose.

Nikki (48:13):
Then you need to have a conversation.

Then you need to have these conversations for
sure.
Okay.
So we're in marriage.
We're talking about finances.
Just briefly, cause I know we'rerunning out of time here and I
want to make sure we hit onthese last several points that
are important to us.
But, one thing that we weregoing to briefly touch on was
like co-owning assets andretirement.
What can you tell us about thatwhen you're talking about being

(48:36):
in the marriage, how to protectour money that way?

Nikki (48:39):
Yeah.
So, it depends on what theassets are.
When you think about retirementassets, as an example, most
retirement accounts that fallunder ERISA, E R I S A are
governed by ERISA, so there arefederal laws that basically
dictate what happens with thoseaccounts while you're married,

(49:00):
what benefits goes to yourspouse and all of that.
Not necessarily, a lot that'sgoing to happen while you're
married.
If you're trying to do thingslike, take out funds from an
ERISA managed retirement accountor ERISA guided retirement
account, you might have to getyour spouse's permission.
Those are laws that are in placeto protect you and also to
protect your spouse.

(49:21):
So you need to be mindful ofthat.
But, I think the biggest piecearound co-owning assets.
So jointly, is that what youmean by jointly owning assets?

Right.
Yes.

Nikki (49:31):
Is when you start to make those decisions, whether it's
buying a house together,starting a business together,
whatever it is.
You need to really make sureyou're understanding your
spouse's financial philosophy,especially when it comes to
debt.
And I know you said assets, butvery often, when it's big ticket
items, there's debt associatedwith that.

(49:52):
And so, understanding like yourhusband's or your wife's
approach to how they think aboutmoney, what they intend to do
with whatever the asset is thatyou're purchasing, how they see
things going, all of thedifferent conversations that
give you insight into who theyare and how they think before

(50:13):
you sign on the dotted line.
You should probably have thosethings and not ignore the pink
flags may not necessarily be redflags.
Take the time to explore thingsthat make you pause when they
say something.
If you're buy a boat and maybethe average person is not buying
a boat, but if you're going tobuy a boat, it's like,"Hmm, why
are we buying this?""How are wegoing to manage the expenses

(50:35):
associated with this?" Or ifyou're going to buy a home.
Now, if you are married, it'slikely marital property anyway.

Right.

Nikki (50:43):
So even if you don't title it in both of your names,
if it is acquired while you'remarried, unless you have some
special, again, situation thatyou've accounted for in a legal
document, prenup or whatever,it's marital property.
So not a lot that you reallyneed to do because the law is
going to dictate what it is foryou.

(51:04):
But just be conscious ofdifferent purchases and
different things that you'redoing.
And it goes back to theawareness factor.
Like you want to know if yourspouse has retirement benefits,
you want to know what they arebecause you're entitled to them,
legally.

Okay, same with pensions.

Nikki (51:22):
Yes.

Social security.

Nikki (51:23):
Yes.
Yes.
Don't ever let a spouse tell youthat if you don't do whatever
they're telling you to do, andyou're going through a divorce
as an example, they're not goingto give you their social
security.
That's not a thing.
They don't have any control overthat.

And here's the other thing, just as a
sidebar, I'm not sure of all theins and outs and nuances.
But were getting ready to getinto the subject of divorce, but
when you do get into the pointof divorce, if they have not
designated someone else on theirpension as beneficiaries,
retirements, all that kind ofstuff.
If you're the last spouse, Justsaying it's coming back to you.
So that's something else for youto think about, ladies that if

(51:59):
you are protecting your assetsand we'll get there in a moment
about divorce, but that'ssomething that I know off the
top of my head, you want to makesure those are designated to
somebody or some beneficiary,you put it in a trust, whatever
the case may be, you've plannedfor that because if you haven't
and you don't remarry or youdon't have children.
Then that sir, that you justwalked away from, could walk

(52:20):
away with your money as well.
Speaking of which, so this istruly your area of expertise,
obviously.
And unfortunately I know toomany women right now that are
either in the middle of adivorce or might be heading
towards that way.
And we need to talk about this.
So let's talk about divorce.

(52:41):
What are the financialimplications and ramifications,
particularly for women, when itcomes to divorce, before we get
into protecting ourselves, whenit comes to divorce.

Nikki (52:54):
The implications are often harsh because we know that
women tend to suffer more as aresult of a divorce financially.
So the loss of income, the lossof assets, generally impacts
women in a greater way than itdoes men.
That's like just statisticallyspeaking.
Now, always going to be anexception to every rule.

(53:16):
So, if you're a man listening tothis and you feel like you got
burned in your divorce, Hey, I'mnot arguing with you.
Okay.
You probably did.
You probably did, it's thereality.
But, the other thing that comesup sometimes, and this is all
connected to what we've beentalking about in this episode
and the previous episode, isbecause there's a lack of

(53:38):
awareness, we women are makingdecisions with half of the
information, or most, but notall of the information.
You think you're getting, oryou're negotiating a fair
settlement, not realizing thatwhat you're negotiating isn't
necessarily fair because A.
They're assets that are hidden.

(53:58):
B.
Because you've decided not toengage the right professionals,
whether it's legal counsel orfinancial analysts or even a
forensic accountant to make surethat you're getting everything
that you're entitled to, whichis very different than trying to
drag someone through the mud andtake them for everything they
have.
That is not what I'm advocating.
I'm just saying, making sureyou're aware of the things that

(54:20):
you're legally entitled to isimportant.
Because sometimes we just wantit to be over.
You hear the phrase,"I just wantthis to be done." And so you
agree to a settlement that youdon't realize causes you
financial harm in the long termbecause of the of tax
implications or because it's notenough money to help you sustain

(54:43):
lifestyle and not necessarilythe life you were living with
them, but just regular life,right?

Right, right.
Your day to day.

Nikki (54:53):
Your day to day, yeah.
Or you didn't understand spousalsupport.
We're not even going to talkabout child support, just
spousal support.
And the fact that maybe you'rethe higher income earner and you
have to pay because there are alot of women out here making a
lot of money.
And sometimes they are outearning their spouses and they

(55:14):
don't understand that theimplication of getting a divorce
may mean that you have to payhim spousal support.
Those are the types of thingsthat we're not considering when
we're going into a marriage, soagain I am pro marriage, just
because I am in the divorcespace doesn't mean I want your
marriage to end.
I want you to have a successfulmarriage.
But I think that very oftenwomen in particular.

(55:37):
And those who are Black andBrown don't have enough
information and do enoughhomework about what it really
means to be married.
There is the relational, I loveyou.
I want to spend the rest of mylife with you.
Warm and fuzzy.
There's that side.
It's beautiful, but there'sbusiness transactional side of
marriage.

(55:58):
And if there wass no businessside, we wouldn't have to get
the government involved.
We wouldn't have to get alicense in order to get it.
So it's very easy to getmarried, which is detrimental to
us, but it's very difficult toget a divorce.

And I think we tend to forget too, quite
honestly, that in a lot ofsocieties, marriage was all
transactional, was aboutfinances, and even though we
want to believe down throughhistory, it was all about love
and so on and so forth, and nomatter how you believe marriage
started and came about,ultimately it became a financial
transaction situation.

(56:32):
That's something we don't leaveout.
Like you said, you have theromantic aspects of it, but the
financial part is often the partthat we don't talk about.
And that's the other reason whywe as women, get left in the
lurch, so to speak.
It's also true that nowadays, Idon't know if it started
necessarily since the pandemic,but I would say probably in the
last 5 to 10 years, the trend isnow that couples cannot really

(56:56):
afford to be divorced.
They get divorced, but then theyend up having to stay in the
same home or whatever the casemay be.
And part of that too is thecommunication around finances,
around money, how the assetswill be split, all of these
different types of things.
That's another thing that wealso have to think about as
women, that if we're the onesseeking the divorce, prepare

(57:18):
yourself, make sure you'reprepared in advance.
If it's sprung on you, then doall the things that Nikki just
talked about, getting the rightpeople together so that you can
better be protected financiallyin the sense of you can get what
should be coming to you,especially if it was sprung on
you, because that means somebodywas plotting somewhere already.

(57:41):
And again, moving assets around,putting it in different people's
names.
And I know we think that a lotof people putting money in
offshore accounts and all thatkind of stuff has to do with the
"rich" and the"wealthy".
No, you can take a couple ofgrand and go put it down there
in Grand Cayman and nobody hasto know, and it's earning money,
you know, and all that.

Nikki (57:57):
You can take a couple grand and give it to your mama.

That's true.
That is true.
Give it as a gift, whatever themay be, we'll put it into a car,
any number of things.
Before we move on and talkingabout some of the other things
we need to consider when we'retalking about divorce, we as
women do not always want tothink the worst of our spouses
until they show us their worst.
You know, like Lizzo said,"Whymen great till they got to be

(58:21):
great." Well, because that's howwe see, you know there's a
saying that's out there thatsays, Oh, I'm trying to think of
how it goes.
It's something to the effect of"You don't have to lie to a
woman cause she'll lie toherself for you."

Nikki (58:34):
Hmm.

Something along those lines.
So unfortunately we'll do that.
And when the divorce comes aboutor you realize you're on that
path and you're like,"Wait,where did that come from?" Or he
just hits you and blindside you,which I know many women that's
happened to, they hit you andblindside you like,"Whoa".
You're off guard.
And that was the whole point wasto catch you off guard and

(58:58):
unprepared.
So what we're trying to do todayis to make sure that you are
prepared in the event that thisshould happen, whether you're
choosing to have this happen.
Or if suddenly you see yourselfon that path or it gets thrown
at you, you now know what nextsteps it takes because I'm all

(59:18):
about hiring a PI and everythingelse to go and get your business
and handle it.
I'm that girlfriend.
But anyway, that's the story foranother time.
We don't have no tea for that.
But anyway, with that beingsaid, let's kind of talk about
some other things.
So we said the implications andramifications, I have in my
notes here, we were going tochat about protecting your
assets during the divorce.

(59:39):
So let's touch on that before wetalk about rebuilding after
divorce.
So how do we protect the assetsthat we as women may have
acquired or that we have broughtinto the marriage?

Nikki (59:50):
Yeah, so a lot of it comes down to documentation and
understanding what really isseparate property versus what is
marital property.
That's a big piece ofprotection.
Another simple thing that womencan do, is freeze your credit.
And your probably like"Oh, yeahI guess that makes sense." When
I say it, usually it takes asecond for people...

(01:00:11):
freeze your credit.
Even if you aren't planning tobuy a new home after your
divorce is final or maybe beforeyour divorce is final, unfreeze
it so they can run it.
Refreeze it before you close,they're going to need to run it
one more time.
Just tell them to give you aheads up, unfreeze it again,
refreeze it.
Sometimes there are surprises,that come up during the divorce.

(01:00:34):
And so you want to protectyourself from various angles.
And that's one of them.
You don't want someone to openup a new credit card right
before they file.
If divorce has come up inconversations with your spouse,
and you think they may be filingbut you haven't been served,
it's okay to freeze your credit.
It's okay.
But again the other piece is thedocumentation of understanding

(01:00:57):
what really is mine and can Iprove it?
That's often where we lose inthe battle.
If you've been married for along time, it's going to be
difficult to prove sometimes, orif you haven't kept great
records, it's going to bedifficult to prove.
So all of those things that wetalked about you doing before
you get married, you do whileyou're married, it'll make your

(01:01:18):
divorce process that much moresmoother, emotions aside, and
that less expensive if youfollow some of those guidelines.

Shai Boston, CPTD (01:01:28):
And to that end, that's one reason why
getting a safe deposit box isgood.
So you can store your documentsor store them in a safe
somewhere else away from thehome.
That's why putting things intothe cloud where someone else
doesn't have access is good.
So you can pull those documentsdown.
I'll be honest, a lot of timeswe feel like we as women, like

(01:01:49):
that's being shady, that we'rebeing sneaky and we're this this
and that.
I'm just going to put this outthere and keep it real.
Number one, you do have to dowhat you have to protect
yourself.
Simple as that.
Your doing what you have to doto protect yourself.
Number two, like for instance,there are certain friends that
have access to my passport, mymedical directive, certain

(01:02:10):
documents that I have writtenup, like, I need you to handle
this in case something happensto me.
Partially because I know my momand my husband is probably going
to fall apart.
I need my girlfriends over hereto handle this because they're
not going to be able to do thiskind of thing.
But the other thing too is, andthis is not all men, let's just
say this is not all persons.

(01:02:31):
But in general, divorces can getnasty.
Very rarely are they amicable.
Where it goes relativelysmoothly.
In most cases they start to getnasty.
I have so many friends that aregoing through or about to go
through very nasty divorces.

(01:02:52):
And the reality is, assets werealready being hidden.
They're already withholdingcertain information about
financial statements andrecords.
All these things were alreadybeing maneuvered and they had no
clue.

Nikki (01:03:06):
It's very common.

Yeah.
So we don't want to think thatway and I get that.
We don't like to think that way.
We as women, we're generallyspeaking, we're loving, we don't
want to see the negative, butthis is about putting on
protective armor.
This is about looking at thingsfrom a different perspective.
This is about the fact thatyou're going to be emotionally
devastated.
Every woman I know that hasgotten a divorce.

(01:03:29):
Even men, I know who have saidit.
It's like a death.
Because it's the end ofsomething that you've had, it's
the end of your hope and dreamof what you thought you were
going to have with thisparticular person or the life
you thought you were going tohave, your life has suddenly
taken a turn.
Even if you are happy to havethis now take place.
It's still an ending of achapter and period in your life.

(01:03:52):
And so because emotions are inplace, we don't think about
these other things and you don'tthink about it until it's too
late until it's too messy, untilyou're in the thick of it.
So this is how to startpreparing now.
The other thing going back, youwere talking about the credit
and being able to freeze credit.
That's when you want to pullyour credit report.
You get to pull one free creditreport a year, pull your annual

(01:04:13):
credit report, check your creditreport, and start keeping an eye
on those things.
Put monitoring on your ID if youneed to, so that if you're not
freezing anything, you will knowif somebody is trying to do
something or trying to opensomething.
Protect yourself in every kindof way.
Because with technology and allthese different things, we know
each others social securitynumbers, all these different

(01:04:35):
things.
It's so easy to go and do a lotof this stuff.
We've gone through the divorce.
We've done everything that wecould, no matter what monies
we're walking away with, how canone rebuild their financial life
after divorce?

Nikki (01:04:50):
One of the things that won't cost you anything is
getting a financial BFF.
So your financial fill in oryour financial BFF.
You eluded to it a bit.
If you are no longer with apartner, then you need someone
to be aware of the ins and outsof your financial life.
That doesn't mean they know howmuch money you have in the bank,

(01:05:11):
but it does mean that if youneed them to come and stand in
or to take care of business, orto check on some things, you
have a designated person to dothat.
Particularly if you are aparent, it's important even if
you're not, but it is superimportant if you're a parent.
That just means you're pickingsomeone you can trust, someone

(01:05:33):
you can depend on, someone whowants to do it.
Sometimes we pick people thatare like, I don't have any
interest in being that personfor you.
So you want to make sure thatall three of those things are
there.
It won't cost you a thing.
The other thing is as it relatesto your financial life.

(01:05:53):
You need to update estatedocuments.
If you didn't have any to beginwith, now it's imperative that
you get some, but you had somewith your partner, those are no
longer valid because you're nolonger married.
So you need to get your estatedocuments updated.
I think the third thing that Iwould mention, there's a whole
list of things that you can do,but the third thing from an
overarching perspective is nowit's time for you to get even

(01:06:16):
more intimate with your money,because you're resetting your
financial life Now it's downfrom two incomes to one.
Some of your expenses may belower.
Some of your expenses may behigher.
So that thing that we talkedabout with budgeting making sure
that the foundation is there,you might need to reconfigure

(01:06:37):
some things.
But you need to know yournumbers.

Understood.
I really like to that you talkedabout the financial BFF, and
making sure the person wants todo it, is able to do it, and
willing to do it.
Especially if you have children,like young children per se, but
having someone that can assistwith that, especially if
something should happen to youand you're incapacitated.
You want to make sure yourchildren are cared for, their
needs are met, that kind of athing.

(01:07:01):
So whether you're talking aboutyour children's god-parent if
you believe in all of that, orif you have someone else is
designated to care for yourchild, as a step in guardian, so
to speak, that's reallyimportant.
And also the rebuilding of thefinances may take some time.
Let's just be honest.
It may take some time.
You could be walking awaydecimated because you were not

(01:07:23):
prepared.
You could be walking away, withless than what you thought
because you're paying spousalsupport.
You might be having to pay childsupport depending on how things
go with the children.
It could be any number ofthings.
It may take some time, so that'swhere the patience come in.
That's where we don't do theblame game, the shame game, the
judgment,of woulda, coulda,shouldas and that sort of a

(01:07:45):
thing.
As we've said in the lastepisode, I'm starting from where
we are now, and I'm going to goahead and rebuild.
The one thing to keep in mind,ladies, you did it once, you can
do it again.
Even if you went into themarriage and you didn't have any
assets, so to speak, no realfinancial assets.
No physical, tangible assets,such as a home and all that kind

(01:08:05):
of a thing.
Even if you were a stay at homemom, or if you weren't a stay at
home mom, you just didn't haveto work, that might've been the
way things were set up in yourhome or that was the privilege
that you had that you didn'thave to work.
What I'm saying is even if youdidn't have any of those things
financially that you brought inwith, you're going to start
where you are now and you'regoing to rebuild and you're

(01:08:26):
going to be okay.
Yes, ma'am.
Throw in that"and" girl.

Nikki (01:08:33):
Don't be ashamed of having to make difficult
decisions even after you get adivorce.
Sometimes we get very caught upin the life that we had before,
whether it's from ourperspective or for our children.
So maybe you fought really,really hard for the house,

(01:08:53):
because that's the house thatyou raised your kids in.
That's where your memories are.
That's the house they know, itkeeps you in the same school
district.
But if it is killing youfinancially, then it's time for
you to make some difficultdecisions.
And maybe that might mean might,because every situation is
different.
That might mean letting thehouse go.

Because like you said, it's about making your
money work for you.
And even though I've heard thatin my adult life quite often, I
never really fully understoodwhat that meant.
And now here I am at my big agenow going, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh,
Oh, right.
So it's the same thing, but it'slife experiences as life

(01:09:33):
lessons.
These are things that we may nothave known or been taught.
This may be things that werewhispered about in other rooms
that we weren't allowed to be inor whatever the case may be.
I just want to circle back ontwo things.
So those difficult decisionsalso go back to what we were
talking about, even in the firstepisode, laying that foundation
and starting to work towardsbuilding our emergency funds and

(01:09:56):
all of those sorts of things.
We may have to make thosedifficult decisions.
We may have to say,"Okay.
Look, we gonna split thisNetflix account.
I know it's gonna cost fiveextra dollars a month.
I got you on the five.
Can you handle the rest?" Youknow, I'll be honest.
I share my Disney+ with someother folks.
I share my Netflix.
I pay an additional cost forsomebody.

(01:10:18):
We're sharing those costsbecause there are certain
expenses that some people justcannot have.
It's just not within theirbudgets, but if we can make it
easier for each other.
Again, this goes back to thecommunity.
So even when you go through yourdivorce, ladies, the one thing
to keep in mind is to look foryour sense of community.

(01:10:39):
If you didn't have a supportsystem, now it's time to get
your support system, get them inplace.
Let your sistafriends rallyaround you.
Even some of your brothafriends,let them rally around you.
Rely on your support systemsbecause when you do have to make
those difficult decisions, andthey are going to come, you need
your support system to keepholding you up.
And those are the people again,going back to what we talked

(01:11:00):
about before that are going tosupport you in the decisions
that you're making.
And they're going to say,"It'scool.
We got you," but they're alsogoing to reassure you.
"You're going to be okay." Theother thing I wanted to circle
back to is, when you said you'reresetting your financial life.
I think that kind of sums upboth of the episodes that we've

(01:11:22):
talked about.
So whether you're putting yourfoundations in place to move
forward, or whether you'retalking about getting married,
in your marriage or now afteryour marriage, if you're
divorced, that you want to doeverything you can to move
forward from here.
That means you're resetting yourfinancial life.
We're now looking at thingsdifferently because we have

(01:11:43):
information and knowledge now,we did not have before.
Now we can make better and moreinformed decisions.
Now we know what to go andresearch.
What questions to ask.
Those are all extremelyimportant.
I just wanted to point back tothose two things.
Let's wrap this up with onefinal question and that is...

(01:12:04):
What is the most commonfinancial mistake women make
before, during, and aftermarriage, and how can they avoid
it?

Nikki (01:12:13):
I like this question because it's a very simple
answer.

Okay.

Nikki (01:12:18):
They're not organized.

Mm.

Nikki (01:12:21):
If you think about everything that we talked about,
everything that we talked about,it comes back to, being
informed, and having yourinformation together in an
organized way that allows you todeal with it.
So if you're going through adivorce, you need to be
organized because it's going tomake your divorce less
expensive.
And it's going to keep you sane.

(01:12:42):
If you're married, you need tobe organized so you can reduce
fighting about money andunderstanding where you stand
from a financial perspective.
If you're single, you need to beorganized so that you can,
again, plan your future, setgoals appropriately.
And before you walk into amarriage, you understand

(01:13:03):
everything that you own andeverything that you owe.
Being organized has a directcorrelation that people
underestimate to the health ofyour financial life.
And it doesn't cost you a dimeto be organized.
That's the one thing.

(01:13:26):
It's not rocket science people.

It's not.
I know I keep testifying toeverything you say, because I'm
seeing it.
I'm picking up everything you'relaying down.
And the reason why I did thatwas because for a lot of us,
it's just overwhelming, at leastit seems overwhelming.
And like we talked in the lastepisode, some things are
overwhelming just because wedidn't know.

(01:13:49):
And now we're facing it head on.
It's almost like, you know, I'mkind of think of it as like,
when they rolled up to JurassicPark and it was like,"Oh, this
is awesome.
This is so cool.
This is great.
And look at all this coolinformation." And then they're
dropped in the middle of thepark.
Now they've got to figure outhow do I survive?
And so at this point, that'swhat I think some are thinking

(01:14:12):
is like,"Oh man, how am I goingto survive?
How do I get to that thousanddollars?
So I can start building thatemergency fund", going back to
the first episode.
And then now we're talkingabout, I'm thinking about
marriage or I'm engaged, I'mmarried, or I'm going through a
divorce.
And now I have all thisinformation.
I didn't know.
I'm overwhelmed.
And so I think too, when we talkabout being organized, that's

(01:14:36):
part of that.
But you're absolutely right.
Being organized and beinginformed.
That's true about almostanything and everything.

Nikki (01:14:44):
It is.
And to your point about beingoverwhelmed, you don't have to
do it alone.
You don't have to do it alone.
I know that we take pride inbeing strong women.
And sometimes it's okay to laythe cape to the side and just
ask for help.
Whether it's me, there are a tonof financial professionals out
there.
There are a ton of emotionalsupport professionals out there.

(01:15:06):
There are a ton of relationshipexperts out there.
That's the greatest thing aboutmodern day society, whether it's
a human or technology, you donot have to do it alone.

#Facts.
So with that being said.
Where can our listeners find outmore information about you and
the firm that you have?

Nikki (01:15:28):
Well, again, thanks for having me.
It's been a fantasticconversation.
Of course.
People can find us on ourwebsite: TheFiirmApproach.Com.
Firm has two I's.
So F I I R M.
TheFiirmApproach.com We have aprivate podcast, which is just
our newsletter, audioperspective.
We have digital programs.
We have live community programs.

(01:15:50):
That's focused on helping preand post divorce women.
So when you go toTheFiirmApproach.com you can
find all of that information.
We're also on social media aswell, but the easiest way to
connect, like if you want tosend me an email and connect
with me directly, do it throughThe Fiirm Approach.

Wonderful.
Wonderful.
Nikki, I am so grateful that Imet you.
I'm grateful that we had aconversation.
And from the first time that wehad that conversation, I was
like, Yeah, definitely got tohave her on the show.
The information that you shared,is just been so impactful.
And so I just want the ladies toknow out there, these two

(01:16:29):
episodes were so powerfulbecause they're helping us to
get a start, a reset, to moveforward financially.
For some of us it won't take anytime at all.
Now we're better prepared to be,as my brother in law says, to be
forewarned is to be forearmed.
You're now forewarned, you'reforearmed for your better

(01:16:51):
financial future.
So with that being said, thankyou so much for joining us.
Thank you, Nikki, for beinghere.
I look forward to having youback again because I'm pretty
sure there's going to be a lotmore to talk about.
I'm looking forward tocollaborating with you again,
and I really, really appreciateyou being here.
Thank you so much.
Have a good rest of the day.
Thank you for taking a fewminutes out of your day to chat

(01:17:14):
with me.
If you want to continue theconversation, follow me on
social media.
I'm@ShaiBoston on Instagram,Threads, and Facebook.
I hope you have a good rest ofthe day and a restful night.
I'll see you next time for moreCoffee, Cocktails, and Clarity.

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Women's Financial Protection Marriage, Divorce & Beyond w/ Nikki Tucker Part 2

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal