The Happily Never After Show: Finding Help and Hope in Divorce

Did you know that Discover is more than a credit card with Discover's online savings account? You can earn five times more interest than the national savings average. Five times. There's no monthly fees, no minimum deposit, no monthly balance requirements. It's FDIC insured up to the maximum allowed by law. Learn more at discover.com and start saving with confidence today. Discover Bank member FDIC. Oh, hey everyone, just a reminder to tell Jo's mom she looks like she lost weight because I accidentally parked on the grass again. Hey guys, Mike's are hot, quiet on the set. Live from Jo's mom's basement, it's the stacking Benjamin Check. I'm Jo's mom's neighbor, Doug, and if life's brought you relationship and money problems and divorces in the cards, we're here to help. On today's show, we welcome two guests who can help you figure out where the money's going. Forensic accountant, aka money detective, Tracy Conan, and New Jersey-based family law attorney, Sarah Jacobs. In our headlines, we'll discuss Apple's new high-yield savings account and the unusual twist of it being linked to their credit card, the Apple Card. Plus, we'll throw out the Haven Lifeline to Catherine who wants advice on how to build and accelerate wealth building for late career bloomers. And then I'll share some fairly petty trivia. And now, two guys who can finish each other sentences, Jo and O, Jo Jo, Jo Jo, G. Samucius, we've finished each other sandwiches. I can never finish your sandwich. I can finish Cheryl's sandwich. I can finish everybody's sandwich. Hey everybody, welcome to the No Way Jose podcast. I'm Jo Salsi, I have her show money on Twitter. And happy Wednesday. We've got some great financial party introduced. So let's get on with it. Mr. O.G. sitting across the card table from me. Can you truly, can you finish Mrs. O.G. sandwiches? Do you like clean her plate? No, not anymore. In fact, we went out to dinner for my son's birthday. And both of my boys ordered 10 ounce medium fillets. Wow. Did you refinance your house? Meat, dad. We want meat. Double potatoes and double cream corn. And you know, it's only going to get worse the next couple years too. Oh yeah. It's horrible. Yeah. Well, the good news is, is that if it turns out that your wife has to hide money from you, O.G. to make sure the bills get paid and that the meat gets purchased. We've got a Tracy Conan who friends at the accountant here and Sarah Jacobs, attorney. We're talking divorce. We're talking home. We're talking communication. Even if you have a great relationship, we're going to talk about the keys to keeping that relationship great because as Tracy likes to explain, O.G., a lot of times the big lies that happen in a family, start off with a little lie and then another little lie. Next thing you know, you're committing fraud and, you know, doing some pretty bad stuff plus a great headline. But you know what, even before that, O.G., have you heard about this? What? Hey, dude, listen to this. Did you know that Discover is more than a credit card with Discover's online savings account? You can earn five times more interest than the national savings average. Five times, there's no monthly fees, no minimum deposit, no monthly balance requirements. It's FDIC insured up to the maximum allowed by law. Learn more at discover.com and start saving with confidence today. Discover Bank member FDIC. Stackers, this is so funny. If you're somebody who likes intelligent conversations like stacking vegments, but you have kids and you want to get them interested in the world around them, who's who's smarted? Which is by the way, the best name for a podcast for kids. And this is great. Who smart is the world's funniest educational podcast for families from history to science to pop culture? They make learning fun for the whole family. It's beloved by homeschool families and classroom teachers for its ability to spark conversations and natural curiosity. It's a perfect link for car rides or fun educational breaks during the day. They have more than 300 original episodes. Everyone under 20 minutes impact with great stories and real facts from, got with their amazing voice, their trusty narrator. You've got to listen to this guy and what it is. Such a great show. I've been addicted myself and here's the deal. My kids are 28 now. So I can't make the excuse that I'm listening for other people. I'm listening for me. So listen to the most recent episode, just the titles. What's the biggest fish in the ocean? Our chickens, third cousins to T-Rex. And by the way, of course, the answer is going to be different than you might think it is. How do invasive species invade? Is a Pacific garbage patch a floating island of trash? How do countries pick their national symbol? It's all over the place. And by the way, how did Loosen Clark become famous American explorers? My favorite board games, Loosen Clark, and they cover all of this with intelligence, but very fun and very appropriate for the whole family. So if you want to be a smart parent, look cool for your kids. Make sure your kids have fun learning who's smarted available wherever you're listening to us now. Just search for who's smarted. Where are we listening to us now? Isn't that important? Mucho importante. Absolutely. Sarah Jacobs, Tracy Kona waiting for us. Headline first, though. So let's move. Hello, doggings. And now it's time for your favorite part of the show. Our stacking Benjamin's headlines. Our headline today comes from the Wall Street Journal. It's written by Amani Moyes. Apple's new savings account. People been talking about this the last three, four weeks. Got six bucks in it. Apple's new savings account is convenient. Is that a good thing? They ask, you saw, oh, gee, a lot of people online talking about how high this interest rate is. In fact, initially out of the gate, this savings account is a Goldman Sachs savings account that is branded an Apple savings account. Yeah. Apple customers are getting a higher interest rate for this savings account. Goldman is giving people here better than they're giving clients of Marcus their home rate. At least that was the case when we recorded this. How about that? There's got to be something attached to that, of course, right? I mean, it can't just be all sunshine and roses. Well, as far as I know, it's just a savings account with $6 in it. Amani wrote Apple, two millions of iPhones and a piggy bank. So, launch if it's new high yield savings accounts. The savings account is unusual in other ways too. It's attached to the Apple card, a credit card. Savings accounts, credit cards usually kept separate and traditional wallets. Debit and credit cards keep spending accounts at your fingertips, but it's rare to have similar access to savings on the go. The allure putting them together is the ability to seamlessly transfer money between them and more easily use savings money to pay off debt. Here's the question. It seems like this is an innovation in some ways, OG. This should have happened a long time ago, right? Debit account. I mean, you didn't already with just Apple cash. Apple cash, but not credit card. I've got credit card, not debit. I've got credit card attached to my cash. I got a cash account attached to my credit card. Maybe there's other companies that have done that. I don't know. I mean, I don't want my credit card company to have access to my cash. That could end badly, I suppose. Remember when Dorothea Kelly was on here talking about that, she gave a credit agency the ability to go take 50 bucks and instead they decided it was time to pay off the bill. Yeah. Exactly. That was ugly. Charlotte Galetta, financial planner with Silver Penny Financial in Atlanta says Apple savings accounts could be a great way to manage short-term savings for things such as travel and smaller purchases. But for others, the instant access could lead to mindless spending. Quote, will you treat it like a savings account? Not just an easy trigger checking account, she said. I think that's really the key to this OG. It's not about what the company did. Of course, on Monday, we talked about how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have kind of changed the game for people with low credit scores. And we advise people that you should probably get your credit in order first and prove to yourself, nobody else but to yourself, that you are ready for a mortgage and to make a house purchase. In this case, I think having your savings account, especially if you're not great with money, having your savings attached to your credit card might be, might could get a little ugly. Well, I think the linking is if you use your Apple credit card, you get a reward cash back, right? That's kind of their deal. You get some money back. And now you can have that money go into the savings account as opposed to the Apple cash. Part of your Apple wallet. And so now the savings account gets a decent interest rate on it too. It doesn't seem like a real easy, I mean, I guess it is easy to transfer money between another bank and that savings. But I just set it up so that the Apple cash that I get from using my Apple credit card deposits into that savings account as opposed to just accumulating for nothing in the Apple cash. They bring up the point here. And this is what worked for me. For me, OG, I had to put speed bumps in the way. Like I had to make sure when I was trying to get my financial house in order that I put some speed bumps so that I was able to do a better job of managing my money and being intentional about it. I mean, one of the reasons why I made that video about cube money that people can find on our YouTube page. And what I like about cube is that there's just that second where you have to open up your app at the grocery store wherever, open up that cube, and then you slide the card. So you have this little shock absorber. Friction. Yeah, friction. Yeah, this little thing that goes, is this really important? Like I like that. In some ways, I think that this helps Apple as much as it helps me, right? I can, hey, oh, it's so easy for me to use my Apple card. I just boop, go over here and then boop, cash pay it off. I'll just do everything using the Apple card. Makes them some money. But then when I get in trouble, if I don't have good systems, I then end up owe an Apple lot of money. Yeah, I'm not sure why they did it. It doesn't seem like a logical next step, but I don't know. There's probably there's obviously some strategy behind it. Sure. I can't figure out what. Well, listen to here's what I think the strategy is. This piece says a 2019 study by researchers at the University of Geisen in Germany found that frequent use of mobile payments was highly correlated with costly credit card behaviors, such as paying light fees or only making minimum payments. The easier it is to get at your money, the more we touch that stove and the uglier it might get for us. So then what's the benefit of the savings account then? I think it's a perceived benefit. Don't you think it's more of a perceived benefit to the end customer? Like, oh, this is super easy. Like super easy sounds great. It sounds fantastic. And I maybe personal finance isn't personal finance kind of the only place where you want to have it not be super easy. Sometimes you just especially if you find yourself bad with money, like set it up in a way that it's not so super easy. Yeah, I mean, I have it just because we use the Apple card from time to time and it was accumulating cash in the Apple cash part and there's not any interest. So I might as well get some interest on it, but I don't know that it becomes the daily driver of my savings or spending personally. Chrissy Charles 29 who works at a law firm in New York and blogs about her spending and savings habits said she recently removed all of her debit and credit card from Apple Pay in an effort to rein in her spending. Everywhere I go, I just tap, tap, tap and I lose a sense of my budget, she said. I think this is definitely a case of no yourself, isn't it? 100% sure. We will link to this and we'll talk about behavioral spending, which is what this piece really alludes to in our follow up to every show, every Monday, Wednesday show we have a newsletter, which goes into deeper dives on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's called the 201 stackinbenchments.com slash 201 and that'll take you to that and we'll dive in even more on that tomorrow. Hey, coming up next, we got a fantastic discussion on tap for you guys. We have not done a full interview before where we dive into the horrible world of divorce and if you're going through that situation or even if you're in a healthy relationship, how do you keep it healthy? We're going to talk about number one, better money habits for anybody in a relationship. Number two, when things start to go bad and number three, of course, is what to expect and how that whole process works. Tracy Conan, I've always referred to Tracy as a accountant spy or an accountant detective. She's been on the show a couple times talking about how she catches people who do bad things just using the power of numbers. She is a brand new book out where she dives into this composite of people that she's worked with in the past and how the divorce process generally goes. We also are very pleased that we also have Sarah Jacobs here from the firm, Jacobs Burger LLC in New Jersey. She's a co-founder of a matrimonial and family law firm and definitely somebody who, when Sarah sees people, they're usually great people having a horrible, horrible instance happen in their life and she's very skilled at helping people through that as you're about to hear. Tracy and Sarah, coming up next, but before we get there, I think we've got some trivia Doug. What do you got on tap today, brother? Hey, there's stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug and since we're talking about money and divorce today, have I got some weird divorce settlement trivia for you. You know, when it comes to money, people fight about the strangest stuff in 1998 during the divorce from wife Pamela Bach. What not often fought for thing did the star of Baywatch and German singing sensation David Hasselhoff negotiate to have all rights too. I'll be back right after I smooth out the Knight Rider poster over my bed. What? Again Knight Rider and dude was a man before his time. We're all juggling life, a career and trying to build a little bit of wealth, the Brown Ambition podcast with host Mandy and Tiffany the budget needs to can help. How can I protect myself from identity theft? I think the first thing is to be aware of what fishing attempts look like. So check that email address. But now it's like coming to your text. You guys fishing text now? Girl, yes. Talking about this virus. I'm like, girl, so you text now? Or what? With your lack of funding? Brown Ambition. Wherever you listen. Hey there stackers. I'm president of Pam Anderson's fan club and rescue requester Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. So want to know what David Hasselhoff who sang what became an anthem for the reunification of Germany looking for freedom. You know what he demanded that he got to keep after parting ways with his then wife? He wanted to keep all rights to his nickname the Hoth as well as his catchphrase don't hassle the Hoth. I love it. I stand behind you Hoth. I have all rights to don't duck the duck as well as Dougster, Doug Adantist and best one of all Douginator, duh. And now let's say hello to two women who are going to help you become Sherlock Holmes of your money, Tracy Conan and Sarah Jacobs. And I'm super happy to have these two women joining us Tracy Conan and Sarah Jacobs you're here. How are you two fantastic? I ask you both and you give it back to me. That's great. He's stereo. Well, let's start this off with a story because Tracy in your new book you have this hypothetical couple who is kind of a composite of a lot of the families and people that you've helped in the past. Tell us the story of Jackie discovering what's really going on in her family. Right. I've been doing forensic accounting for over 25 years. I've worked with all sorts of people going through the process of divorce to help them find the money. And I brought together all of these things that I've seen to create the story of Jackie who left her corporate job in marketing 10 years ago to become a stay at home mom unbeknownst to her, her husband Derek was having an affair. And so this affair went on for a few years. He finally decided to end the marriage. She was of course shocked to find out that there was an affair. She accidentally finds a credit card statement for a credit card. She didn't know he had and wonders what else has been going on with the money for all of these years. She had taken a hands-off approach to the money while she was at home raising their three kids. And now she is in a panic as to whether she's going to have financial security, whether she's going to figure out what he's done with the money, whether there's some money that's hidden somewhere that belongs to her. Yeah, Derek, her husband handled all of the finances. She took care of the family obligations. He took care of the of the money situation. Right. Early on in their marriage, she was somewhat involved with the finances. He had primary responsibility. She would pay some bills here and there and kind of just keep an eye on the money and felt comfortable doing that. But as they got busier with the kids, she went hands off and she trusted him like so many couples in America. This is super common. My question, Tracey, is during this period of time, did she get an allowance? Did she have a specific amount of money that was given to her by Derek to pay certain bills? Or did she really not have any idea and just charged to a card that he paid and that she never saw the statement for her? She had the ability to charge on credit cards to use the debit card to get money out of the bank account when she needed it. But she really did not have any responsibilities for bill paying and her needs were always met. So she was never suspicious. They did a little bit of belt tightening when they decided she was going to be a stay at home mom, but everything otherwise seemed normal and he really didn't restrict her. So there was there was no warning sign there. Got it. Sarah, my first question for you is this, that's Tracey's composite client. How does that sound to you? Is that sound like your firm's composite client as well? I think that our firm has shades of that composite client, which was, hence, my question about whether she got an allowance or not, because I see a lot of clients in a way that Tracey is describing where there's some inherent trust that is there and to the point of my needs are met and I don't really need to look any further, I kind of feel comfortable and therefore I can live in this world. There's a lot of composite clients that we also get though that are, well, he gave me $500 a week to spend on my hair and nails or $500 a week to spend on the kids and then I could charge the card, but I had to ask if the charge was above the axe and that starts bordering on is that this just because someone's really has a lot of financial acumen and they're watching their bills correctly or is this a level of control and financial abuse and where does the line draw and how do we find that out? Well, Sarah, you sent me a stat before the interview, which was from a report from the National Financial Educators Council. Listen to this, everybody, 38% of individuals surveyed said their lack of financial literacy costs him at least $500 in 2022, including 15% who said it's set them back by $10,000 or more. You wrote that for those going through divorce, financial literacy is non-negotiable. Sarah, I just think as I read this stat and I hear Tracy's story that in any relationship, whether it's a good relationship or bad relationship, delegating financial responsibilities, one thing, but not knowing the financial controls is maybe a bridge too far. I think that's really the issue is a lot of these people when they go and I heard Tracy's explanation of what the fictional client was doing early in their marriage where she was paying a couple of bills and she understood a little bit that was going on. I think a lot of people walk into the marriage saying we are financially literate. We understand how to balance a checkbook, what expenses look like, what budgeting looks like, and over time, the question of being financially literate versus delegating financial responsibility and abdicating the knowledge of looking at those financial controls are two very different things. Financial literacy can be a base of everything, but it's how you manage the controls of that literacy during the course of the relationship that can really be the underpinnings or the downfall per se of what the couple does and the way that they act. I've got one more question for you, Sarah, before I go to Tracy for a little bit here to dive into really that forensic period about becoming a detective. One of the first things that Tracy thinks is, well, I've got to get a lawyer, right? When I've had friends that go through or going through a divorce and they're presented by their soon to be ex that, hey, I'm thinking about leaving this relationship. First thing they think is I need a lawyer. Is that the first place to start is calling a lawyer? I don't necessarily know that it's the first place. I think it's one of the first places to start. I think really the first place to start is get your crap together. Find your documents. Find all the information. Start doing your homework. Re-gain some of the control that you may have lost during this period of time. Get organized because any good forensic account is Tracy knows any good lawyer as I know, any good therapist as a therapist knows you need the information. If you don't have the information, we can lead a horse to water, but the water, the horse can't drink because there's nothing there to drink. You need the substantiation in order to figure out how to start unpacking all of the issues on the table and to make educated informed decisions about those issues. Yeah, Tracy, I've known you long enough to know that you believe that it starts well before this moment as well, that you really got to get your stuff together. Jackie finds a credit card of Derek's in the closet, which tells the story she doesn't even know. Where does she really need to start? Where should she have started? She started where everyone starts, which is an accidental discovery. She started in the right place there and she did something that was really wise, which was she took pictures of the documents that she found and then tucked them back in where she found them and said not a word because she had an inkling that she was going to have to do a little more investigating and she didn't want to tip Derek off. She went next to an attorney. She went and did interviews with attorneys. She started gathering documentation. Sarah is singing my song. I always tell people that one of the first things they want to do when they're considering divorce is start gathering all the information that you have legal access to and put it in a safe place because you never know when you're going to lose your access. You never know when documents are going to disappear. And even though through the divorce process, you will have legal moves you can make to get the documents. It's so much easier if you just have access to them now to take them and put them in a safe place. So much easier. This started off on Derek's end. You point out Tracy, not as fraud. It became fraud, but it didn't start off there. It started off with some little lies. Can you kind of walk through what was going on in Derek's head? Is this snowball got bigger and bigger? Right. We talk about this fraud snowball that it starts small and it gathers steam until it becomes, in this case, an avalanche. When Jackie quit her job to stay home with the kids, they did some belt tightening as I mentioned before. So they decided to cut out some extras, some fancy meals out. Maybe they weren't going to upgrade their phones as often. They were maybe not going to get a new car as often. And just some of the extras like streaming services and things like that, they realized that by cutting a little bit here and there, they could really save some money to make up for what Jackie wasn't bringing in. But Derek cheated on her in the financial regard and he still treated himself to a new phone and to some online games that were costing money and things like that and didn't mention it to Jackie. He thought she won't care about 20 bucks here or there. Well, those introductory lies made it easier for him to start telling bigger lies over time. Sarah, I got to think for, you know, the people that have relationships that they think are healthy right now, there are some things we can do to help those people to make sure that hopefully they never they never have to call you, right? How do we stop these little lies from becoming big lies? Am I think is it is it one bank account for everybody? Is it consistently checking your credit report? Like, how do we kind of nip this early so that Derek's little lies to Jackie don't become where we're at today? I think that you just asked me a question where he handed me a little bit of a shovel and you said, can you please dig me the grand canyon? Because that is such a multi-layered question. And I think the first thing that you said is, is it right for a bank account for everybody? Definitely not. In full disclosure, my husband and I don't have a joint bank account. We've been married for 17 years. We've been together for 22 and a half and we don't have a joint bank account. Why? Because I don't want, but not not because he refuses. But we have conversation and I think that's where you need to start. And prior to getting married or if you've already been married, start having a conversation. What is money to you? How do you value money? How do you spend money? How do you want to save money? Let's actually have a conversation about what your values are concerning money. Because honestly, things happen. Obviously, Derek and Jackie made a decision about belt tightening and maybe Derek wasn't as comfortable with that decision as he wanted to be in that kind of spiral this as Tracy said into this avalanche that occurred. But they didn't have a conversation. Derek didn't come to her and say, listen, I know we agreed on this belt tightening situation. Here's where I think that there's a little bit of expansion that I could do and you could do. He just unilaterally did it. And the lack of a conversation created this little fissure or this little cavern and it grew as Tracy said, you know, into this snowball and this avalanche down this time. So many people don't get married having conversations. They get married having conversations independently in their head. And then they act on those independent conversations during the course of the relationship. And then they never really have a conversation about the other person's actions. And so it's all this like marching in tandem instead of walking the path together. That creates an issue. Yeah, it's funny you say that Sarah that Cheryl and I, my spouse and I, we have a weekly schedule, just 20 minute discussion. It's always over wine or pancakes, depending on what time of day it is. It's meant to be fun. It's not meant to be long. It's not, you know, I see some of these couples that have what is like the Camp David summit. And you know, one person thinks it's awesome. The money geek, the other person's poking their eye out because they hate it and feels like an interrogation. And to have it consistently once a week and have it scheduled because we're busy people makes it so much easier to just keep that door open. I love that this you say the starts with a conversation. Tracy, let's talk about thieves. You've got these thieves in your book. You talk about some of them are shame. Obviously people feeling a lot of shame. You can imagine Jackie thinking, how come I didn't know? Why am I so stupid? Right? I mean, why was I so hands off? Yeah, this negative self talk we give ourselves, which is absolutely just piling on. You say chief among them during this process though is overwhelmed. Explain to me that. The divorce process is completely overwhelming. There are so many moving parts. It is so expensive. You get, you know, you've got to work with your attorney. You've got to gather all sorts of documentation. There's financial issues, children issues, home issues. What's the new schedule? What are the logistics? Who's going to live in the house? Who's moving out? There is just so much going on. And it's inherently overwhelming. And so, you know, my focus being the money, I'm trying to figure out how can we ease that burden on the money side and make it less overwhelming, make it a, make it a simpler process to go through. Jackie's freaking out because she's been stay at home mom, taking care of a lot of very important responsibilities that have paid the family zero. Now she needs to get a job. You say that obviously this whole thing needed to start earlier. A question that came up in my mind as I was reading through this story, Tracy, is are you implying that Jackie should have had some income coming in all the time? Because now she's all of a sudden worried about her skill set about catching up with quote, the world and making sure that her resumes in place. Should she have kept that dusted off and maybe had a side hustle as we call it? I do not should on anyone. However, when I get asked, what is the best way to protect yourself financially when you're married? One of them is having an income source of your own. Because that way, if you do ever end up splitting, you know what that income source is, how much you can count on at the very least. So the answer to your question is, yes, it's advisable to have an income source of her own, but I never say someone should because for their family, that might not have even been possible. They had three small kids. You know, I'm, I'm, you can't expect that everyone's going to do that. Sarah, let's talk about this from a legal perspective. If one person brings in all the money, you're representing the other person. How difficult is it to create then an income stream for your client? I think it really depends upon a series of facts, right? How long has the person been out of the workforce? What was the amount of time that they were working prior to that? How much income did they earn prior to the time that they became a stay at home parent? What skills do they have currently in today's job market that are translatable immediately versus a period of time where they have to sort of build themselves back up from, from not just a financial literacy, but a work literacy perspective? What childcare responsibilities still exist and restrict them from having certain kind of employment moving forward? Something Tracy said made so much sense. I agree with her, you're speaking my language now. We don't should anybody, but the advisability of a side hustle or some form of income. What immediately came to my mind is independent credit. Keep that independent credit. Have a credit card just in your name where you're not the authorized user, you're actually the card holder. Pay it responsibly. Keep some level of independent means because when you move out of the home, if that's what's happening to you and you need to buy a new one or rent a new apartment, your credit score has been belonged to your spouse for all these years. You need another year, two years, three years to build that back up, especially in today's market with the level of inflation and not the lack of giving by anybody, you're at a luck. Like you need time and time is not on your side when you're getting a divorce because despite how long it takes, the end result is there faster than what you've ever planned for and there's a whole lot of decisions that you need to make during that time period. And if you're not making them strategically and smartly throughout the process, you come to the end and you throw your hands up, you're like, now what? Even if you're taken care of, you have alimony, child's, but doesn't mean that you can logistically get a mortgage, logistically lease a car. All these things are practical in nature. They're not just conceptual in like the legal framework. Well, and I'm thinking internally too, the overwhelm becomes just even that much more unbearable, Sarah. Absolutely. When Tracy said the word overwhelm, I was like, Oh my God. So our mantra here at Jacob's Burger is to de-stress the divorce process and to do that by actually working on clients goals and working through the practical process of the divorce because we are lawyers. We have a excuse after a name, we went to law school, we understand the law, but our clients are people and their families have realities. And there are situations in which you don't have excess, excess funds credit isn't available. There are things that you cannot do. So legally, you could have the moon, the sun, and the stars and practically doesn't align with legal aid. So we'd take a step back and start from scratch and say, okay, even if these are your goals and your dreams, are they achievable from it boots on the ground perspective? And if not, how do we start building that? How do we get you credit during the process? How do we start looking for friends and family that can help? How do we make decisions about potentially keeping the house or selling the house because that's going to lead you to a better financial outcome three years from now when you'll be able to support yourself and stand on your feet, because that's not going to happen today? I'm glad you explain where you start from because I'm sure all attorneys aren't the same. In fact, in Tracy's book, Jackie goes and she interviews three different attorneys. What are some of the key questions that you don't get asked enough, Sarah, when people are evaluating if you're the right fit for them? One of the key questions that we definitely don't get asked is how you evaluate as a lawyer, how do you evaluate what's good for me? They ask all about our expertise, they ask about the number of cases that we've tried and look, experience is critical. But we're a partnership. You're interviewing me because you want to trust that I know not only what I'm doing in a courtroom, but that I also know what I'm doing for you. And if you're not asking me questions about how I evaluate your matter, how I help you achieve your goals, how I make sure that I'm leading you to good, stable financial and emotional outcome for your family, we're not going to be a fit for each other because you're not in a place where you can accept the kind of advice that I am going to give because that's what's best for you. You're looking for someone to tell you what to do and that doesn't make a good attorney client partnership. Tracy, people like Sarah need a bunch of information from their client. I had a time I know part of what you do is help people find money. They didn't know they had Jackie found in the bottom of this drawer a credit card statement she didn't know that she had. What are some of the things that you go hunting for with people when you're beginning your relationship with maybe somebody who might be working with Sarah later? What we like to do is start putting together a list of accounts that you know about. Banks, credit cards, investments, loans, mortgages, all those kinds of things. Any bank that you may have done business with goes on that list, even if you don't know a specific account number, you don't know whose name and account might have been in any clues that you have, we put them on the account list. From that account list, then it is starting to gather those statements, which sounds like an overwhelming piece of the process for some people because where do I begin to get statements? And so we walk through how do you go through online banking? How do you get those statements? Those are really critical pieces along with the tax returns, which by the way, in a number of marriages, you have one spouse who holds those tax returns hostage. And so I teach people how to go directly to the IRS and in 10 minutes or less get their taxes right away. They don't have to wait for them. Those are sort of the key building blocks to finding your money and gathering those documents will really help because they can give those to their attorney and you know, be on that path towards meeting some of the obligations that they'll have for documentation in the divorce. You've also found clues to hit money in those tax returns. We find it in tax returns. We find it in the bank statements. In the vast majority of cases, it's not a complicated scenario that we see. What we typically have as one spouse has had control over the finances, knows that the other spouse isn't looking at the statements. And so they're not really actively hiding things. They might have that account that's in their name only, but they do something as simple as make a transfer from the joint checking account to that secret account. Once that transfer shows up on the bank statements, we have the ability to uncover it. So it doesn't take rocket science to actually find that hidden money in the statements and the tax returns. The one thing that people talk about is divorce is expensive in so many different ways. I mean, it tears families apart. It tears relationships apart. I know that, you know, friends decide which friend they're going to stay with. But let's just talk about the fee section of this because a lot of people are just unaware of what what this costs. Sarah, somebody coming into firm like yours, what would they expect to pay an attorney? I'm about to give you a very attorney answer to that question. So I caveat my next comment with it depends. And the reason that I say it depends is do they have someone like Tracy in their life? Do they have another source, whether it's a full forensic accounting firm or just a friend who's helping them organize and go through the documentation and put the information together? Or is that something that our firm is going to have to do from scratch? Is this a contentious divorce? Or is it just a complicated divorce because it's unexpected? There are questions that are unanswered and we need a bunch of education. Divorces range in costs. They can be anywhere from 10 to 15,000 dollars. And I've seen divorces that are 300, 400,000 dollars. And I know of people who have spent more than that. It's about the issues involved. It's about the cooperation of clients with their attorneys. It's about the cooperation of clients with each other. And everybody laughs, hi, you're getting a divorce cooperation. And some point there, and I'm sure Tracy has seen this too, there's a break point where everybody's like, okay, we're hemorrhaging money. This is money that we could spend on college education for our children or to buy new houses or to get the cars that we need. I think the thing that people forget about is that there are hidden costs that aren't just fees. You have tax implications of splitting up a family and the way that you claim dependence and the way that you address child education credits and tax credits. There's issues about insurance. You're no longer in an umbrella policy covering your house and your cars and your things like that. You're two separate households. There's two separate costs. You may have to liquidate an insurance policy that you had and all the cash surrender value that you built up liquidate it gone. There are tax implications of dividing stock accounts and retirement accounts because now you're splitting up funds and it's been in either one person's name or two people's name and they have different tax brackets and different tax implications. Deferred compensation come to one party. Their income's different than the other party. They're tax implications for that. So when you start breaking down what the costs actually look like for our client, their eyes, you know, saucers, as Tracy said, now you're really talking over a while. Now you're at a level of another layer where they're like, oh boy, this is too much. The most frustrating divorce that I went through as a financial advisor was a couple that they had children together. They had a whole life together. They had so many things to fight about. They thought about who was going to live in the house because they were both attached to this beautiful house they lived in. And I thought for the amount of money that they paid in all these different fees, they could have gone and bought an exact replica of the house. Probably true. It was so, so frustrating. Tracy, how about you? Somebody brings a forensic accountant on board. What should they expect fee-wise? It's typical to pay at least $10,000 to $15,000 for something. And in some cases, it's much more. The more complicated the situation, the more money involved, it's going to be more than that. I typically talk about $10,000 to $15,000 as a starting point. But I've got to tell you, in probably 95% of divorces, first of all, they can't afford that fee level. But second of all, they don't need me. Honestly, this is something that if someone was willing to get their bank statements and go through them line by line, and if I told them what to look for, they could really identify it on their own because they know their family's habits. They can identify that charge for $200 at that target store is an hour away from us. They're going to know there's something odd there. They know a hotel across town isn't an appropriate expense for their family. They're going to know when they see a transfer to a bank they are not aware of doing business with, that that's something they need to question and is potentially some hiding of money. So most people are actually capable of doing this on their own without any special numbers expertise. Ladies, thank you so much for helping our stackers really start to put what might be a bad situation as they listen to this together. And hopefully to help them find good help. Let's talk about where they can find both of you. Sarah, they can find you at jacobsburger.com Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, everywhere. Awesome. And you know what, we'll link to all those on our show notes page at Stackey Bedgements. Tracy, we've got three things for you. First of all, your book, find me the money, take control on cover the truth and win the money you deserve in your divorce. This is I'm assuming available everywhere. It's available everywhere. Go to Amazon, get it in Kindle format, audiobook, paperback or hardcover. I love how you took this story of this couple and really made it universal. I was reading it and much like some of my favorite business books, there's so many universal truths here and I think can help a lot of people. Also, we should point out that you also have a summit coming up for people listening to this today. You have a summit tomorrow that I'll be a part of. The summit is called When You're Divorce and it is a virtual event with 38 speakers on everything under the sun about divorce. It's free to attend and just wanting to give people an opportunity to learn more about the divorce process, be more prepared for it and feel more confident as they go through divorce. And if people go to StackeyBedgements.com slash divorce summit, that's StackeyBedgements.com slash divorce summit. We'll leave people there or just go to the show notes page. We'll have Sarah's links. We'll have Tracy's links. We'll have it all. Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Tracy, great talking to you again. Always a pleasure, Joe. This is Erin from Colorado Springs and when I'm not teaching three boys how to patch hockey stick holes and drywall, I'm stacking benchmarks. Big thanks to Tracy and Sarah. Oh, gee, this idea that it all starts with just a little, well, she doesn't need to know that or he doesn't need to know that. And then you realize that there's a blind spot there and they're not paying attention. Can lead to more and lead to more. Which is why Sarah said that she doesn't use one checkbook. I don't use one checkbook. Cheryl and I have separate. We usually have a three checkbook system, which I wouldn't advise anybody to do, but it works for us. But certainly finding ways to communicate more often, like Sarah and Tracy said about your money is the key to the whole thing. That is 100% the thing, right? I mean, what's the phrase from when we're, two heads are better than one? I mean, as you're dealing with stuff or you're thinking about the future, how do you not want to include your partner in that? And just if nothing else, get their perspective, you know? Well, what if we did this a little differently? Oh, I didn't realize that we were spending this much on that. You've told the story a million times of the time where you almost played the same bill twice and try to do that with a health care bill. They're not going to send your money back. It's a hard enough keeping track of who you'll want to after you go to the doctor. So just having that open line of communication will make things much more efficient. I've listened to Esther Pirel. I'm sure you have to a multiple, multiple podcasts. She talks a lot about intimacy, OG, and how we change as people as we go. And because of that, having one relationship for our whole life, I think is a lot harder. She says is a lot more difficult than we give it credit for staying with the same partner. And certainly when you're in these fictional people's case that she brought up in this, Jackie and Derek, they're ferrying around three kids, doing all this stuff. It's easy to lose track of each other. And having that 20 minute money meeting together, I think even though I don't think the words intimacy and managing the checkbook often go hand in hand, I think it is a way to keep the heartbeat, right? To talk about what are we doing as a family unit? Like, why are we a pair? What are we doing together? It's a great start. And as I mentioned after the headline, we'll of course have even more curated links to all that's involved in this topic. And of course, Tracy's not only book, but the divorce summit that I'll be a part of tomorrow, it's happening today and tomorrow. And then also a link to Sarah's law firm. If you're in the unfortunate case where you're listening to this because you really need help right now. Obviously, that's why we're here. But hopefully that's not the case. Hey, let's throw up the even lifeline. Take us some of the likes, most important questions are friends at Haven Life Insurance Agency, OG, they put what you value first. Cool time, baby. 90 and sunny pool time at your house. It's pool 30. It's pool 30. So I'm out. When did you I'm out? You take this one on your own. Let me I'm gonna get the swimsuit. I'm already wearing it. Did you did you do the pool year round? Did you keep the pool open all year round? Yeah, it's open year round. Yeah. So you got out in the hot tub in January? Half. Yeah, half. We had a pretty nasty storm that kind of ruined some pool equipment. So we had to deal with that. But yeah, we don't really close the pool like you do up north. It's just hot tub for sure. During Christmas, we heat it like we have a little pool party Christmas pool party spring break. Nice week. Yeah, I just wonder because you know here in north Texas, it gets kind of cold sometimes. Oh, yeah, a little super chilly. But if that hot tub's open. Well, it's not open when you're here. But oh, of course, that's why I've never that's why I asked the question in the first place. I'm like, Hey, is that that pool open? It actually says your loved ones in your time. But what's better than within your loved ones in your time in the hot tub? It's why they may buy in quality term life insurance. It's actually simple. You go to stekubedgments.com slash haven life now for a free quote love what they're doing a haven life because they're committed to offering a modern way to buy life insurance. The application is simple. It's online. You get instant coverage decision prices are affordable. You know what? You know, you need life insurance. Get it done today. Stekubedgments.com slash haven life. I know I was talking to Matt over there and OG, they also have type of policy now that they offer for people that really would prefer not to do physical. So I know there's a market of people that need that type of life insurance for you that type of person. You can also find that by using our link stekubedgments.com slash haven life. Today we're going to throw the lifeline out to Katherine. How you doing, Katherine? Hey, Joe and OG. I've been an avid listener of the Stacking Benjamin's podcast for a little over a year. And I love you guys. And I have a question. What advice or strategies can you offer late bloomers? Meaning people who don't find like that perfect fit in a company don't find the ability to really start building wealth until they're their early 40s. Using myself as an example, it's only within the past couple years. And I'm in my early 40s that I really found myself in a gig that I consider to be a long-term gig. I'm happy at my company. I have a lot of prosperity that I'm finally building. Some real estate investments, some stocks. But I'm at the very beginning of this kind of process. So what advice or strategy can you provide for someone like me to help us implement an accelerated strategy for building wealth? Thanks guys. Thanks for listening. And I look forward to listening to you in later podcast. Catherine's thanks so much for hanging out. We love you too. And you know what? For being brave, OG, she's going to get some Stacking Benjamin Swag so she can proudly tell her friends as well that she hangs out with us in mom's basement. But I got to say this too, Catherine, you're not the only late bloomer. OG is a late bloomer. His voice still cracks regularly. He's just going through a change. And we sat him down the other day and said that sometimes when you get to be a certain age, just things start moving a little bit. So had to explain that to him. OG, what do you think? Somebody with a late start, Catherine is not alone. Say at least I'm still blooming and not withering. That's easy. Whoa, hey. I'm not pointing any fingers. But I think that the number one thing that you have to recognize is that there's so much time remaining for compounding that you don't have to be worried about it. Too many people get wrapped up about this like, Oh my gosh, I'm 40. Oh my gosh, I'm 50. And I'm done anything. Therefore, I'm going to throw in the towel. There's no hope for me. I can never be saved. And it's like, well, no, you still have 20 years or 30 years. Should you have started when you were 22? Yeah, it would have been a lot easier. Absolutely. But you can't do that. You can't go back in time. If you stop, if you start saving for your first dollar when you're 40, are you going to retire at 45? Yeah, probably not. That's probably not in the cards for you now. But you had a different life from 22 to 40, 40. You know what I mean? Like you had had a different experience than somebody who was hell bent on saving every penny the whole time. So I don't think that you can discount your history and you don't want to say, well, I would have done it differently because you made the best decision with the information that you had at the time. Nobody purposefully goes through life going, I can't wait to screw up my finances. This is going to be awesome. Watch this. You do what you can. And so now you're in a position where you've got the ability to save and move forward. So do that. I think from a long-term perspective, the first thing that you want to recognize is you're okay. You've got enough time and enough enough days in front of you to do it. That being said, you also need to do some math on the reality of it, right? If you're saving $100 a month and your plan calls for saving 200, I would much rather know that number today. I would much rather get as close as I can to that now by knowing what it is that I need to do to reach my goals versus just going, well, I should probably start and I'm just going to start saving some money and see what happens. All progress comes from telling the truth, right? So it is what it is. Here's where we are. And when you are armed with that information, you can make really good decisions. You know, if your financial plan says, in order for me to retire at 60, I need to save $1,000 a month. And all you have right now is 500 a month. Should you just go, well, screw it. I can't do it. Oh, well, no, I think it's important to know that $1,000 numbers out there. I think it's also important to say if 60 is not realistic, how does 500 get me? Where does it get me? Because the power of compounding would mean that 500 probably gets you to 63. You know, and guess what? 63 is early retirement. It's still early. Yeah. So you have plenty of time, but get after it. I don't think O.G. I have to add is avoid. And this is something that people start to do. Avoid the panic that people get of starting late because what the panic does is make you do stupid things with your money. You will buy asset classes where it's more like gambling. You'll do high risk strategies. Yes. Oh, I'm so far behind. The only way, the only solution I have is Bitcoin. No, not true. Just give yourself just a little bit of grace and realize that a lot of people have done this before you have. I do have a resource for her, O.G. Friends of ours, Becky Heptig, who's been on the show and Becky and her husband started just after age 50 and were retired by 60. Now she will be the first to admit, Becky, he'll tell you a lot of good stuff. O.G. happened in their life. Like a lot of stuff went the right way. The market was going up at the time. Her husband, Steven, had got this huge bump up in pay. They did a bunch of stuff, but still to do what she did in 10 years, you know, there's being given that gift, O.G. and then there's actually doing something about it. A lot of people get the gift. You still got to work. Becky and Steven definitely worked. And Bill Yount, who also started late, he's in, I believe an emergency room physician. Bill hasn't been on the show yet. We got to bill on soon, but they have a newish podcast that I've been catching up with called catching up to Fye to really good people. And they cater specifically to people who are behind on their show. So I give people that link as well, because I think O.G. that surround sound that other people are there with you. I think that's really important too. You're not the only one fighting that battle. Correct. And I'll give you an example of this. Warren Buffett is one of the top two, three, four, five richest people in the world, right? I don't know. It was net worth presently, but it's some hundred-ish billion plus or minus a few tens of billions in neither direction, right? I mean, it's some huge number. What was Warren Buffett's net worth on his 50th birthday? Oh, we've been over this before, and I can't remember, but it's a micro fraction of what it is today. It's a fr- I mean, it was $65 million roughly, which is a lot of money. It's like, oh, I could have $65 million, but no, no, I'm talking about the power of compounding. Take all the zeros off of there and just say, well, my net worth at 50 is 65 bucks. You know, like, well, they're still hope for you, right? You're not going to get to a, you know, a hundred billion, but the power of compounding is super impactful and take the most logical next step. Don't beat yourself up over the decisions you've made in the past. They are what they are, but it can be done. Thanks for the question, Catherine. And I know you're going to do great. The fact that you're focused on this and you're plugged in, I think it's a great place to start. If you are brave like Catherine, we can send you some swag. We can also answer your questions stackabedgments.com slash voicemail is the way to ask a question. And we would be happy to answer your question as well to the best of our ability. Hey, let's talk about the community calendar, OG, before we say goodbye, of course, today and tomorrow I am at Tracy Conan's divorce summit, which is an online summit. Here's the way to get there. Stackabedgments.com slash divorce summit will take you there. I believe in this Tracy in this summit enough that just is full disclosure. We decided to be an affiliate of it for people that want this. I'm excited to get people this type of help. And I know that it's good help. So I feel like us being an affiliate's a way of endorsing it and going, you know, we can get behind helping out what Tracy's doing. I will be live though tomorrow, along with our good friend Jill Schlesinger from CBS news and jill on money and Jennifer Hemphill, of course, from her D'Nero matters. Fantastic coach for lots of families, especially families that are military families like Jen is Jen and I spoke at a conference at Harvard once together. There's a flex right there. Next slide. Jen is amazing. So if you want to join us, a stackabedgments.com slash divorce summit. And by the way, our part is going to be at 5 p.m. Eastern tomorrow. If if you'd like to tune in live, if you're worried about potential divorce or you're in the middle one. All right, that's the community calendar for today. You know what? If you're not that worried about community, you're worried about the fact that the Fed raised interest rates again last week, OG, they raised them again. And you're like, what does this mean for the economy? What does this mean? I should probably go sell everything. We don't want you to do that. Instead, what we'd like you to do is this. So G and his team have put together a free guide that shares eight moves to make in a down market, the guy to help you play a more and panic less no matter what the market does. So head over to stackabedgments.com slash guide. That's stackabedgments.com slash guide and get this helpful for guide from OG. That is it. So much good stuff today, but a dug. What do you think your top three would be? So what should we have learned today? First, learn something from Tracy Conan's detective skills and pay attention to your money. You need to know where your Benjamin's are flowing, even if you're happy in your relationship. Second, watch out for the fine print with Apple's new savings account. If you need to make withdrawals quickly, their seven day notice for withdrawal may make you think twice. But the big lesson, when you're at a stoplight next to a Dodge Hellcat yelling, kit, give me all you got doesn't really make an elk amino goni faster. Thanks to Tracy Conan for joining us today. You'll find her book Find Me the Money Where Of Her Books Are Sold. Thanks also to Sarah Jacobs for lending a hand to today's discussion. You'll find Sarah at matrimonial and family law firm, Jacobs Burger LLC. We'll have a link to both Tracy's book and Sarah's law firm in our show notes at stackingpengiments.com. This show is the property of SB Podcasts LLC, copyright 2023 and is created by Joe Salciha. Our producer is Karen Reppine. This show was written by Lacey Langford, who's also the host of the Military Money Show, with help from me, Joe and Doc G from the Earn and Invest Podcast. Kevin Bailey helps us take a deeper dive into all the topics covered on each episode in our newsletter called the 201. You'll find the 411 on All Things Money at the 201. Just visit stackingpengiments.com slash 201. Tina Eichenberg makes the video version of this show. Once we bottle up all this goodness, we ship it to our engineer, the amazing Steve Stewart. Steve helps the rest of our team sound nearly as good as I do right now. Wanna chat with friends about the show later? Mom's friend Gertrude and Kate Yunken are our social media coordinators and Gertrude is the room mother in our Facebook group called the basement. So say hello when you see us posting online. To join all the basement fun with other stackers, type stackingpengiments.com slash basement. Not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only before making any financial decisions speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's Mom's neighbor, Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the stacking Benjamin Show. you You You You You You You You You So we are in the final episode. Have you watched any succession? No, but I increasingly see clips from it and find it interesting. And of course, when both, you know, with all the Dominion Voting System stuff going on, like just people going back and forth about how close is this to the real Birdock family? And how much is it not like keeps going back and forth? You would appreciate the writing. We were talking the other day about, you know, having an action show that has like drama and character and all that sort of stuff behind it. This is kind of the same thing. I mean, it's not an action show, but it's got all of the intellectual stimulation that you need. I mean, it's just, it's just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Like nonstop, you have to pay attention. The two episodes I've seen of Billions. I've absolutely loved it. I just refuse to get another yet another. Speaking of Billions. Loggy. Allegedly. Bobby's coming back. Going to be another one. Well, no, I mean, they've done six seasons and I think two or seven and the last couple he wasn't in the show because he had to sell his firm. But now, I mean, him and Paul Giamatti, like those are some powerhouse people. That's where the magic happened. Yeah. Yeah. So both of those two shows are really good. I've seen some clips of a show called Suits. Yeah. I started watching that from the beginning. I don't know, Netflix or something. I grabbed it. It's a good or not good. The clips I've seen look really good. Yeah. It's definitely dated. It's funny watching stuff. I think maybe you were talking about this with Seinfeld, a Seinfeld commentary piece about how there's no way he could make Seinfeld now based on just kind of where we are from our society. Even Tina Fey making 30 Rock. Like this is Tina Fey and some of the jokes that she does on 30 Rock. I've watched on planes and I'm like, dude, you can't do that now. No, you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, and it's a... Oh, bye. So you can tell it's a little dated because there's some of that stuff there. But the premise is fine. It's basically some world-class genius who has passed the bar a million times but not for himself because he just cheats for other people because he knows the answers and he had a side project to do in it. The intro episode, he is getting chased down by the cops. He winds his way into this interview room for Harvard Law graduates as he's trying to escape the cops and basically impresses the partner with his law knowledge and goes, yeah, and that guy's in on it. He knows that he's not really a Harvard graduate and this law firm only hires Harvard people. So they have to keep on creating all this backstory of cover for other people to feel like, what class were you in? I don't see you. You weren't you in the class above me? Maybe this isn't the same show. I keep seeing this guy who's got a weird face and kind of really big teeth and he's talking to an assistant who's constantly kind of giving him the finger. You know what I mean? Go in whatever you say. No, that's not true. That's the guy. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of weird looking. The young kid is the genius. I watched a couple seasons of or maybe two season three season. I was hoping it was going to be like a Boston legal. Yeah. I just, you know, like with. Even funnier. Yeah. James. James Spader. James Spader. Spader. Spader. Spader. And Captain Kirk. Yes. And the Priceline guy. And so I was hoping it would be like that and it's not as deep. Like the writing James Spader is really a really good actor. He's so good. He's so good in the blacklist until the writing got so bad that even he couldn't save it. Like you're like, oh, the writing is still on. Blacklist is still on. I just started on the other day. Yeah. I started on the other day. This is, I think this is the final season. Wow. This is the final season. How many years is that? 80? Is that 80 years it's been on? Something. Yeah. Yeah. It's so good though. The first couple seasons of the blacklist are fantastic. Yeah. You know, we just finished the Mandalorian season. Another great, great season. Disney, you know, the Star Wars saga has been a real mixed bag. Some of them really good. Some of them. But the Mandalorian is just great TV. Seriously, it's a, if you think of it like Firefly and it truly is a Western set in space, it's, you know, gunslinger Western stuff. Mandalorian. Still great. And of course, we're addicted to Ted Lasso as is, I think, every other household in the world. Watch one episode was an impressed. So good. So, so, so, so good. And only gets better, by the way, every episode just keeps it going. Anyway, that's what we're watching. Dissecting politics with exclusive interviews, commentary and humor. Useful idiots with Katie Halper and Erin Mate. I really don't like sharks and I think we live in a very shark-again, distant world. Well, one thing to keep in mind is sharks are not out there trying to eat surfers and swimmers. They'd much rather eat fish, but in many cases, they mistake us for their actual prey. When they do bite, they usually move on. That's supposed to make us feel better. Useful idiots. Wherever you listen. ♪♪♪