Divorce and Your Money - #1 Divorce Podcast

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In this episode, we're continuing the series on the top 10 divorce tips, and I want to go through tips number seven through 10. In the previous two episodes, I went through one through six, and now we're going to go through the last four.

Tip number seven is keep your spouse from spying on you. What do I mean by this? Well, one of the things that's really important, whether you're planning for divorce or going through divorce is, or even after divorce, is making sure that your private information remains private. And that means you don't necessarily want your spouse to have access to your emails or your computer or all the sensitive communications that are going on during the divorce process and afterwards.

And you want to start setting up your own independent online accounts so that you can keep that information private. And I don't just mean online accounts, I also mean physical accounts as well.

So specifically is, I'll start with some electronic things. So you're going to want a different phone number. It's not good when you see X, Y, Z Divorce Firm popping up on your phone and your phone bill. So if you can set up or even better yet, get a new phone just for divorce communications, that's a good idea.

And the nice thing is, is that a smartphone these days is pretty cheap on Amazon or if you go into the store. And so you can get a phone for $25, $30.00 a month, and that allows you a new phone number, new way to communicate and a very private line for all of the various private things that go on during the divorce process.

I encourage you to consider getting a new computer. It's worth it to get a new tablet or new computer. Also, not a very large investment these days, so you can surf, do all of the relative online things with privacy and not be tracked by your spouse.

Definitely get a new email address. If you use AOL, go to Gmail. If you use Gmail, go to Yahoo. If you use Yahoo, go to a different service. One of the things that happens all the time is your spouse may have access to your emails. And something that happens all the time with the phone is that your phone's linked to an email account, so when you take a picture of a document or something, all of a sudden that picture shows up on all of your devices that your spouse is going to login to their pictures, and they'll be saying, "Oh, new picture added." You'll have a picture of a retainer agreement or picture of a financial document or a picture of something else. And if you don't have all of these things separated, you're going to unintentionally be providing your spouse access to everything.

So non-online things is get your own bank account. If you are at a bank, like Bank of America, get an account at a different bank. Go to Chase, go to Citi Bank, go to whatever your local bank is, a bank that you don't traditionally use. Because all too often, and I this every week, is where a bank teller starts sharing information about accounts they shouldn't be sharing information on, because you're still banking with your soon to be ex-spouse.

Get a new physical address. It's very easy to set up a P.O. Box for mailing things or one of those mailboxes at a UPS store, very cheap, very easy to do. And you don't have to keep all of these things permanently, but during the divorce process, very well worth doing.

And also monitor your credit report, just to make sure that there's no new accounts being added or new cards being taken out, just making sure that you understand that you have all of the right information. So that's tip number seven.

Tip number eight is avoid court, if you can. I talked about this recently in an interview that I'll be sharing with you in a few episodes. But one of the things that you should try and avoid is don't think that judges have your best interests in mind. Don't think that you're going to have lots of time in court. Don't think that it's the ideal place to get things resolved.

If you're in a position where you can avoid going to court, going to trial, spending tons and tons of money, fighting it out till the bitter end, and also ending up with an even worse result, I would suggest you do that.

Sometimes court's inevitable, and I talk about in my new book, some things about court that you should keep up with. But if any way that you can stay out of court and come to resolutions on issues, you will save time, money, emotional energy, and a lot of other from avoiding the court process.

Tip number nine is stay involved in your divorce process. This is an important tip, because a lot of times you'll have this opinion, you would have spent hours searching for the best lawyer getting recommendations. You hire someone, maybe you hire the most expensive firm in town, or you hire the ...

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In this episode, we're continuing the series on my top 10 divorce tips, and I want to just jump in to the next ones. Tip number four, so if you didn't hear the previous episode, I gave tips one through three. Number four is keep the big picture in mind. If you know or ever heard of Yogi Berra, he has a funny quote that I like that says, "If you don't know where you're going, you're going to end up someplace else." And the point is with keeping the big picture in mind is what do you want? One of the questions that I will ask everyone if they don't have a clear answer for is what do you want out of life? What do you want out of the divorce process? Clearly things are going to be changing during the divorce process, and given that, you need to have some goals, some things that you're aiming for.

Start envisioning what your future looks like, and what I encourage is I encourage writing down your priorities. This is an exercise I go through every week, and I do it for me personally, but this is something you should be thinking about and thinking hard about, and it is, I usually ask two questions for if you're going through divorce. One is what are the three most important things that matter for you in the future? And secondly is what are your three most important goals for your divorce? The point is this, is if you think about your future and think about what your life may look like or what you really want to get out of life, you might not have concrete answers. Sometimes it might be a well, I want to be able to support my kid until they reach this age or get off to college, or maybe I want to start a new career, or it may be I want to pay off some debt and start fresh. There's any number of potential goals you may have. It may be I want to move. I've talked to a lot of people who say, well, I've been thinking about where I've lived isn't the place I necessarily want to be. I've been thinking about moving to some other place.

Whatever that is, it's worth writing down your goals and ultimately then sharing them with the people who are here to help you. Because one of the things that we can do, your attorney can do, you can do, is really guide yourself and guide the divorce process so that people are working towards the goals that matter most for you. And oftentimes in the divorce process, you have options, and one of the most valuable things that I think that I do and that an attorney can help you with is, hey, you have this pool of assets, but there may be five different ways to split them up that gets you to the same place, but maybe way number four is the one that actually gets you to the goals that you're aiming for. But if you don't know what those goals are and you're not able to share them, it's hard for all of us collectively to get you on the right path.

The next tip, which is tip number five, is one of my most important and one of my favorite tips when it comes to the financial side of things, and that is understand your expenses. I have a line, so I've written I guess three books at this point. One of my first books is more general financial advisor related, but I have a line in there which is one of my favorite lines. It says expenses are guaranteed, making money and investment and income is not. And so what I mean by that is that you have a fixed base of expenses. Some people call it a monthly net, monthly nut, some say it's just your expenses, but it's your housing, your car, your food, your activities, your clothes, just the normal way that you live your life. And most people don't sit down to understand, well how much do I need to cover my expenses each month?

Now, I do know some of you who know offhand, and that you know that every month you spend $8,000 or you spend $24,000 or whatever the case is, and you kind of have a pretty good idea, but most people have no idea how much they spend every month, and it's usually a shock to once you sit down and figure out what your expenses are. And so one of the things I really encourage you to do is to understand your expenses and your expense picture as you go through the divorce process and figure out what areas you might be able to cut as you go down later. Now if you complete a financial affidavit, in many states the financial affidavit or statement and net worth statement has and requires some very, very detailed expense information. And while it's admittedly a pain and perhaps kind of overwhelming to fill out that information, on the plus side, that information is very helpful when it comes to planning your future, because you'll have a baseline of like, hey, here are all the things that I've been spending on. Do these expenses make sense? Can I continue this lifestyle afterwards, or most likely, for most people that I talk to and work with is, is that you'll ha...

Sometimes in divorce, it feels like one spouse is dragging their feet and the divorce is taking too long. Your spouse may be causing delays: rescheduling meetings or court appearances, requesting an extension, or taking a long time to give you information that you need. In some cases, it may be your spouse’s attorney that is slowing down the process, either as a deliberate strategy or just out of incompetence. You may feel helpless in the face of these delays. How can you speed things up? There is no silver bullet for these issues. Every locale has its own rules and procedures, so you’ll have to check with your attorney to see if the options below will work for your situation. Be aware that it’s important to document everything. Document every email and phone call, every rescheduled meeting, and every time you follow up on something and do not receive a reply. If you ultimately go before a judge, you can bolster your case by showing that your spouse or their attorney were causing delays. There are four options that may help you to speed up your divorce: 1) A motion to compel In broad terms, a motion to compel is when the court sets a date for your spouse to reply to a specific request or to provide documentation that you have asked for. If they missed that date, they can be held in contempt of court. Often the penalty will be a fine, but there are other consequences that can follow. For example, the court may place an evidentiary restriction that limits the evidence that your spouse can provide for their case. The most extreme penalty is jail time. If you’re waiting on a specific request, see if a motion to compel is an option for your situation. 2) Settlement conference in front of a judge Although it’s often preferable to avoid going to court, there are times when it can be beneficial. A settlement conference will allow you to meet the judge, test out a few arguments with them and get a sense of how the case would go if you end up resolving it in front of the judge. A settlement conference can be good motivation for your spouse to try to look as good as possible, so they will often address any outstanding requests shortly before the settlement conference so they don’t look like they’ve been ignoring you. 3) Subpoena a third party In some cases, you need information that is held by a third party. As an example, let us say that your spouse has worked for a particularly employer and has a retirement plan at Fidelity. You need information about their retirement plan, but your spouse is taking forever to get that information to you. In this case, your attorney may be able to subpoena Fidelity to get those records. There are some legal technicalities, so check with your lawyer if it will be an option to get information that your spouse is not providing willingly. 4) Default judgment If your spouse has repeatedly been missing deadlines, you may have the option of asking for a default judgment. This means that if your spouse fails to respond for a certain period of time, the court can issue a judgment of whatever you ask for (within reason). The non-responsive spouse’s side will not be considered. It can take a long time for a default judgment to happen, and there are restrictions in place to protect your spouse, but it’s worth looking into if there hasn’t been movement on your case. When it comes to divorce, there is no easy solution. Unfortunately, some things in divorce just take time. It can take 3-6 months between court appearances in some places, particularly if the courts are backed up. However, if your spouse or their lawyer is actively slowing down this process, and you have documentation, bring these options up with your attorney. You may be able to force the process to move forward. Thank you for listening to the Divorce and Your Money Show. Visit us at www.divorceandyourmoney.com for personalized coaching services. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment to leave a review on iTunes, as it will help other people discover this free advice.

Right now, a lot of divorce cases are rushing to a close. Most people want to finalize their divorce before December 31. The year that you are officially divorced is the first year you file taxes on your own. However, just because your divorce is wrapping up, it does not mean that the process is over. In this episode and the next, we will cover what to do after your divorce is over. Your post-divorce tasks fall into two categories. You need to ensure you receive everything you agreed to (and that you give up everything that you agreed to). You also need to update all of the documents in your life to reflect your new situation. This episode will be about the first category. Once you have the settlement in hand, you need to sit and study it, line-by-line. You want to find time when you will not have distractions. Take notes as well. Set up your notes with a column for what you need to do, what your spouse needs to do, and optionally, anything that your attorneys need to handle. As you go through the settlement, make notes of whatever you need to do. Do you need to transfer money from your bank account, or make sure that your spouse does? Do you need to set up a parenting schedule? Go through each line to make a list of everything that you need to do. There will be a lot of little things that need to happen. Once you are very familiar with your settlement, and you have that list, you will need to create a calendar. This is a complicated step. Your calendar will have a lot of different dates on it. In some cases, you may have to start the process far ahead of the deadline. For example, if you are transferring a 401k, that process can take a few months. Other dates will be routine and repeating. If you have a custody schedule, you will have to map out every date that the kids are supposed to be in one place or another, for years. Your life will revolve around those dates, so they are important to have in your calendar, even if the dates are far in the future. Some asset transfers are slow, especially with large, illiquid assets. The most common one is a house. It will take time to sell a house, often 6 months to a year, before you will see the proceeds. In some situations, you may be transferring ownership of the house, but this can present complications. There was one case where a condo was being transferred. It took 8 months and nearly $500,000 in legal fees because of the complexity of the transfer. It was important to keep the deadline in mind, even though there was a complicated process going on. Likewise, if you are selling a house, you will need to start preparing the house for sale early, so that you have ample time to sell the house and receive the highest price possible. Otherwise you may be forced to do something that is financially unwise. For the calendar dates that will take time, you can create milestones for each issue. For example, if you are splitting up a 401k, you will need a QDRO – which can take months to obtain. The first milestone would likely be finding a QDRO attorney. Your second milestone could be to submit documentation to that attorney. The third would be obtaining pre-approval, and so on. Creating milestones for large tasks will help you stay on track to meet your deadlines. Many of the tasks on your list will need to be broken down into milestones, so your calendar will be complex. If you aren’t a very organized person, you may want help breaking your task list into manageable parts. Ask a friend or hire a personal assistant to help you set up your system. If you choose to hire a professional organizer, you may work with them for a few days in the beginning, and then just once per month to keep you on track. In the next episode, we will discuss what you need to do to set up your new life – setting up financial accounts, checking your credit report, and updating important documents. Before you go, visit divorceandyourmoney.com: 1) Sign up for the email list to get exclusive tips you won’t find anywhere else. 2) To get access to the best divorce resources in the United States, check out the store here. 3) Get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here. Thank you for listening!

0232: How Does Spousal Support Work? - Part 2

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In this episode, we are continuing the series on spousal support/alimony, whatever name you want to call it. And the importance of this episode is to cover the different types of spousal support or alimony available. I'm going to go through five different types, temporary support, permanent support, rehabilitative support, lump sum, and partial lump-sum support. So, let's jump in.

Let's start with temporary support. Temporary support, generally speaking, is - before or during the divorce process - you have a temporary support amount you may be paying or receiving. It's the support you agree upon before the divorce is over. Pretty clear. The important thing to know about temporary agreements, and I say this almost every day on calls or when people are negotiating, whether you're the person about to pay or receive temporary spousal support, be very careful about what you decide. The numbers that you agree upon for temporary support often become the support numbers you use after divorce.

And so, if you agree to a $1,000 a month, oftentimes the agreement after the divorce will be $1,000 a month. There is a lot less flexibility. Generally speaking, once you agree upon a temporary support number that often becomes the final support amount that you use after the divorce process. So, something to be very careful about there. Permanent support. Permanent support is what it sounds like. Permanent support is support for life. It's generally speaking, not as common as it used to be. If you were in a long-term marriage and you didn't work and you're near retirement age, there may be a permanent support amount, but if you are relatively young, then there usually isn't permanent support.

It's not something that's automatic or even expected the way it once used to be. That said, it still exists, and that's something that you should be aware of. Every state, of course, as always has its own circumstances in revolving permanent support. Now, there's something between temporary and permanent support that wasn't on my list that I want to jump in, is there's just what your final support amount is. So, it's just what you negotiate. It doesn't necessarily have a fancy name other than your alimony number. So, if your alimony is $1,000 a month for eight years, either paying or receiving, that's just the amount. That's not temporary, that's not permanent, that's just your amount. So, that is the alimony payment. I just want to make that distinction in there very quickly.

There's something called rehabilitative support. And it's not always known by that name, but I'm going to go through what it means because its meaning is very relevant to many of the discussions that I have, and that you may be thinking about when it comes to thinking about support and what makes sense. So, rehabilitative support is a very simple concept and that is either you or your spouse may need some additional training to get back on their feet and start earning a reasonable living after the divorce process. If they've been out of the workforce for a period of time, or if you've been out of the workforce for a period of time, it might take one, two, five years to get back on your feet or for your spouse to get back on their feet.

And so, in a rehabilitative support model, what often happens is you pay a higher amount of spousal support or receive a higher amount of spousal support for the first few years while that spouse gets their training. So, if they're going to become a paralegal, go back to college, get an advanced degree, some sort of free training, whatever the case may be. Well, you might say, "Well, I'm going to agree to a higher level of support for the first three years that person gets to get back on their feet." And then it's presumed that after those three years, they'll have their certification, they can earn a good living for themselves. And then the support amount declines or goes away or whatever it is that you negotiate. That's what's called rehabilitative support. And it's just there to allow someone to retrain and then start earning funds on their own. So, that's something to think about when it comes to support models.

The last two are lump sum and partial lump-sum support. You'll understand lump sum very clearly. A lump sum is paying all the support in one payment, instead of paying it over time or receiving all of your support in one payment, instead of receiving it over time. It's a topic I've discussed on the podcast before. If you haven't gotten the archives with all the podcast episodes, I encourage you to do that. There are some extensive details on how lump sum support can work and ways to negotiate it in that archive of all of the 200 plus podcast episodes, not all of which ...