The Sugar Daddy Podcast
Ready to normalize talking about money? Then welcome to The Sugar Daddy Podcast. Every episode will get you one step closer to your financial goals. Whether that is learning how to invest, budget, save, retire early or simply make better money choices, Jess & Brandon have got you covered in a way that's easy to understand, and easy to implement. Tune in as they demystify the realm of dollars, so it all makes cents, while giving you a glimpse into their relationship with money and each other.
Brandon is an award winning licensed financial planner, and owner of Oak City Financial, with over a decade of experience and millions of dollars managed for his clients all over the United States.
New episodes published the first three Wednesdays of every month.
The Sugar Daddy Podcast
99: Follow the Money in Your Marriage with Forensic Accountant Tracy Coenen
Money secrets can wreck marriages—and cost you everything in divorce. In this episode, Forensic Accountant, Tracy Coenen, reveals how spouses hide assets (think offshore accounts, hidden income, even billionaires fighting over private jets) and how she uncovers the truth.
Tracy’s 25+ year career as a forensic accountant gives her a unique lens into corporate fraud, white-collar crime, and high-stakes divorce battles.
In this episode she shares:
- How to spot signs your partner might be hiding money
- Steps to protect yourself and your money
- How to have open, non-defensive money conversations in a healthy marriage
Even if you’re not headed for divorce, Tracy explains why financial transparency and independence are essential safeguards for every relationship.
Listen now to learn how to protect your finances, your future, and your peace of mind.
Watch this episode in video form on YouTube
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Notes from the show:
In today's episode we speak to Tracy Conan, a forensic accountant with over 25 years of experience. She uses her super sleuth skills as a forensic accountant uncovering hidden money in corporate fraud, high net worth divorces and all kinds of financial mischief. If you are or know somebody who is approaching divorce or want to avoid it, this episode is for you.
Speaker 2:Hey babe, what are we talking about today?
Speaker 1:I'm really excited because today we are talking about a topic that we have not ever covered on the podcast, and that is financial fraud investigation. And we're going to get into it with an expert who's been investigating fraudulent money behaviors, but especially when it comes to divorces. So listen up. If you're going through a divorce, planning your divorce, this is an episode you do not want to miss, because we're going to dig into all the juicy details of what to look for so that you don't get got in your divorce. And we're doing that with an expert, because we are not experts on finding you money. We are experts in helping you grow your money. But we've got Tracy with us today, and she is an expert and we're going to get into it. Tracy, welcome to the Sugar Daddy podcast.
Speaker 2:Hey, it is great to be here, but I am going to throw something in there. Even if you don't think you're going to get divorced, you think your marriage is solid. We're going to talk about some ways that you can protect yourself, just in case, because you just never know.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right. Well, you know and we talked about this After almost nine years of marriage, we just finalized our post nup. We are now big believers in the pre-nup, so, like, let's just put all the protections in place. Love is great, we want your relationship to work out, but life be life and and you've got to have protections in place. So we're going to get into all of that. That's a great call out. Let's get into this bio so that we understand exactly all of your expertise, your years in the business, and then we're going to get into your first money memory.
Speaker 1:Tracy Conan has been investigating fraud for more than 25 years, but she didn't always want to be a forensic accountant, With the dream of one day being a prison warden. Okay, we're going to talk about that. Tracy went to Marquette University and studied criminology A class on financial crime investigations reminded her how much she loved Encyclopedia Brown books as a kid. She continued her criminology degree but added accounting and economics courses so she could become a CPA. And here Tracy is finding money in cases of corporate fraud, high net worth, divorce and other financial shenanigans. I can't wait to dig into the shenanigans and also who wants to be a prison warden.
Speaker 2:Absolutely no one other than me. This is what I found out. Like people are blown away by that statement, but it is true I, when I was trying to decide where to go to college and I had the cup, a couple of finalists, and I was looking at the different majors that were available and I decided that I wanted to be a criminology major. I knew I was always fascinated by documentaries on prisons. That was kind of my thing to watch on TV. And so I'm like, well, what would I do as a career? And I, you know, back then we weren't researching this on the internet. We had to go to the library and look at books and things like that.
Speaker 2:But I came across the concept of being a prison warden. I was like, oh my gosh, this would be perfect because there are so many groups of people who can be helped when I'm a good prison warden. Right, we have the offenders themselves, who generally probably don't have a good experience in prison, and I want to help make some change there. You have the employees of the prison who are maybe not in the happiest work situation. I can impact them. And then there are victims of the offenders who feel like the system isn't fair. What can I do to help them feel like there is some justice? And then I bring the circle back around to helping the offenders rehabilitate. So when they go back out into the world they have job opportunities and things like that. I felt like there were so many ways that I could help society from one job that people say who wants to do that for a living?
Speaker 3:All right, real quick, I want to speak to the person listening who feels like they can't work with a financial planner yet because they're carrying a lot of debt. First of all, I see you and I need you to know you're not broken, you're not behind, you're just in a tough season. I created something just for you because I've had people reach out who are serious about changing their money story. But the full financial planning package just wasn't the right fit yet. So I built a new service through Oak City Financial that's focused completely on debt reduction. No fluff, no shame. You'll get a one-time planning session, a personalized payoff strategy, your own financial dashboard and monthly coaching. If you want extra support while you climb out, it's $300 to get started and $100 a month. If you want that ongoing guidance, that's it. This is about helping you get unstuck, not making you feel like you failed. If this sounds like what you've been needing, go ahead and schedule a call with me. The link is in the show notes. Let's take the first step together.
Speaker 1:Well, when you put it like that, I mean, wow, what an impact you could have made. So kudos to you for really seeing the big picture and wanting to be a true helper in the community. But I've literally never heard anybody say that and I don't think I'm going to hear that again. So you're truly one in a million.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have a criminology minor and never thought about being a warden.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting because when I graduated with my criminology degree, I had a lot of accounting and economics classes, but I couldn't get a job in that field. I needed more. So I went on to get an MBA and I was going to sit for the CPA exam, which I did. But in the meantime I needed to earn a living, and so I was a probation officer. So I got an upfront look at the criminal justice system as a probation officer. So I got an upfront look at the criminal justice system as a probation officer and, my goodness, if I had stayed there. I wouldn't have stayed there. I probably would have tapped out after five years if I didn't have this alternate plan in place already.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for the pivot, because we are excited to get into what you're doing now as a trained CPA. You've been in this career for more than two decades. Before we go into all of that, we want to hear your first money memory.
Speaker 2:So I was thinking about this, and I don't specifically have a money memory. I don't know what that would be, but here is what I discovered in adulthood that I didn't know as a child.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I did not know as a child that we were solidly lower class. I had no realization of that because we owned a home. That, by the way, my parents had a mortgage with an 18% interest rate on it, and so my dad worked in a factory, my mom stayed at home and every bit of extra money they had went towards that mortgage. They would make double mortgage payments as often as possible. And what I also didn't know was how tightly we were budgeted. I knew that I got to go have dance lessons and things like that, but I didn't think about where the money came from.
Speaker 2:And in adulthood I discovered through conversations with my mom who handled the budget, that her creative budgeting of course included clipping coupons aggressively, that I knew Going to the store on double coupon day, never buying any item at the grocery store unless it was on sale. Literally never bought an item unless it was on sale. And then during summer we had a very large garden and the money that my mom saved on groceries in summer was used to buy Christmas gifts. And, interestingly enough, santa brought things like a new toothbrush, new pajamas, new school clothes. Grandma and grandpa got us toys, but Santa, for for the most part, brought things that we were going to need anyway.
Speaker 1:Wow, what a great moment of reflection and now understanding like the sacrifice to that your parents were making and how they did that with making it so that we didn't even notice.
Speaker 2:I can't even comprehend.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I also. I've also heard to that. You know you're growing up in maybe the lower socioeconomic level, that you're around your peers. So you know the person to your left, the person to your right. It's in the same situation, so it doesn't seem like there's any variance there, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I just I didn't think about it. You know, for us we could during the summer, twice we got to go to Dairy Queen to get an ice cream cone in the evening and that was a big deal to us because it was only twice in the summer. And I think about now how kids would really complain if that was the deal and they couldn't go get treats like that on a routine basis. For us treats were store-bought cookies, because mom always made the cookies from scratch because it was cheaper and they tasted better. But on that rare occasion we got store-bought cookies, like maybe grandma brought them over or something. That was a big deal, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Oh, it just makes you appreciate, though, how, how hard our parents worked and how the sacrifices that they made to make sure that you have what you need, even if you're getting it quote unquote from Santa, but also that you don't feel the impact of, you know, really struggling and kind of making it and getting by. So that's good parenting, right there, yeah.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:Let's get into your work now because it's so interesting. I mean, you know, we watch the shows and we hear about money laundering and you know the fraudulent things happening in corporate and we see that on the news and in the movies. But what you're doing now is so interesting because you're really, I would assume, helping women mostly get the most out of their divorce. Correct me if I'm wrong there.
Speaker 2:Yes, so the divorce work is really only about a third of my practice. The other two thirds is stuff like executive stealing from companies, people who have been charged with white collar crimes like embezzlement I do help to defend them. Charged with white collar crimes like embezzlement I do help to defend them. Companies arguing with other companies about transactions gone wrong and who lost money and how much. Or maybe even like business divorces, where partners are having accusations between each other about money, shenanigans and things like that.
Speaker 2:So, in regard to the divorce, yes, it usually is most often the women that I am retained to help, and that's because, as far as we've come in this world, women are still, the vast majority of the time, the lesser earner, in the lesser position of power when it comes to the finances in the marriage, and so they are the ones who are needing help to look for is. Is everything there? Did we find everything? Can you untangle these, these finances? My husband is telling me this is what we have, this is all we have. It's all fine. I've been looking after it, but is it really all fine? Is it really all there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, out of the those three components that you just mentioned, which one is your favorite?
Speaker 2:Which three components.
Speaker 1:So if you're thinking about like corporate versus the divorce, work versus you know, working with maybe business partners, my favorite is white collar criminal defense. So I why yeah?
Speaker 2:Listen, when the federal government is coming after someone and charging them with a crime like money laundering or tax fraud or something like that, they come in full force and they have a tendency to be wrong in their numbers, sometimes intentionally aggressive. Many times Sometimes they just weren't thorough and careful enough, and my job is to help defend this person, because many of my clients are guilty of crimes. However, they deserve to get punished for what they're truly guilty of, not some made up number. They are, you know. They deserve to have someone like me going through the numbers and making sure that the numbers are accurate, and so I like that advocacy part of it, because criminals need love too, and some of my some of my clients are not guilty.
Speaker 2:I just had a few weeks ago a criminal trial in San Francisco. My client was absolutely not guilty of a crime. He made a big mistake in his business, but we believed it was not a crime and it took a couple years of his life, many hundreds of 1000s of dollars, to defend himself and at the end of the day he went home. We got a not guilty verdict.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I mean that's impactful work. I mean you're really impacting people's lives for the positive. And I mean, can we just pause for a second? You mean the government isn't always accurate with their numbers. Gasp, I can't imagine. Hard to believe, hard to believe. I'm just on the floor.
Speaker 3:And also for the judicial system to work effectively and properly. Everyone's entitled to a proper defense, so that's how it needs to function, and if you're just already assuming guilt and not actually going through the proper steps, then that's just one more step towards the downfall of the judicial system.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, there are a lot of people who do what I do for a living who will not take criminal cases on the defense side because they think it's dirty or because they don't want to work with criminals or people that they assume are guilty. And I pass no judgment on my clients. The numbers are the numbers. I'm just there to find out the truth about the numbers and then testify about them.
Speaker 1:If we get that far, yeah, well, and as the person who wanted to be a prison warden coming full circle there. That seems like you know. You're still kind of in that same space of helping people and trying to improve people's lives.
Speaker 2:So it is that space. But you know, there are cases where I end up saying to the client and the attorney listen, I've gone through everything and you're actually looking even worse than the government is pointing you out to be, and so we might want to think about what we do next in terms of whether you might be wanting to accept a plea deal or something because I can't come and and assist in your defense. I'm actually I found more than they found that that happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, would you ever work on the government side and you know if you're finding more than than they even came up with? I mean, that's kind of a good bargaining chip, if you ask me like hey.
Speaker 2:I used to work on the government side in cases. Sometimes I, several years ago, just chose not to anymore, only defense side when it comes to criminal cases. Yeah, interesting.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think most of our listeners are going to want the juicy goodness when it comes to planning for a divorce, going through a divorce, getting I mean nobody wins in a divorce, I think that's I mean most people would agree, right, even if people feel like, well, I gave her so much or he, you know he was fair, or whatever. It's like, yeah, you still didn't come out on top, you're still got divorced. Walk us through what you do in a divorce, regardless of if you know the man is the breadwinner, the woman is the breadwinner, whatever the relationship dynamic is like, what happens in that process when somebody comes to you, or or when should people come to you if there's a divorce kind of looming?
Speaker 2:So it's usually their attorney who comes to me, because the attorney is familiar with hiring experts and knows exactly what they need. And they're coming to me because the attorney is familiar with hiring experts and knows exactly what they need. And they're coming to me hopefully early on in the case. When you come late, when deadlines are looming, it makes it really hard for me to be able to do what I need to do. But it's hopefully early and it's probably a case where there's a pretty significant amount of money in play and there's some sort of complication. Maybe there's a business involved, maybe there's multiple pieces of real estate, maybe someone is self-employed, and that makes it difficult to figure out. Well, how much do they really make?
Speaker 2:You know, I've been involved in plenty of cases where the family was living a lifestyle that maybe costs two or $300,000 a year to live because they're traveling on and doing a lot of things. But when you look at their tax return, it says they're making $50,000 a year and the person who's hiring me says well, I know that that's not true because we did all these things and it costs all this money, and so I'm coming in to help them prove what money was coming out of a business to them that was funding that lifestyle. And so, in the most basic terms, what will happen is I will get a whole bunch of bank statements, credit card statements, investment account statements, and that's almost always my starting point, because I start going through those transactions to figure out what is the flow of money, what's going back and forth between accounts, how much is going out to pay the mortgage, how much was going out every year to go on vacations, and things like that.
Speaker 1:So you dig into the statements. Do you have a hard time getting access? Or because you're working with the attorneys? They're going to make that happen, even if somebody doesn't want to be compliant and providing all those details.
Speaker 2:Because they're in a litigation process. They can send subpoenas to the banks and credit card companies to get those statements Now. Attorneys generally want to first start out by asking the other side for statements and playing nice about it. It's less expensive if they willingly give it up. My caution there is oftentimes this creates delays If you have a noncompliant spouse.
Speaker 2:One of their favorite things to do is not turn over account statements and then keep saying they're coming, they're coming, they're coming, and we can waste months waiting for account statements. Attorneys will typically request them, give a 30-day deadline. The deadline passes, they'll request them again and give another 30-day deadline and keep doing this over and over. My approach to this and what I recommend when attorneys are open to the input. My approach is ask them once, give them whatever time period you normally do. If they don't turn them over, give them a reminder with a much shorter time period to comply because your date had already passed. And once they miss that second date, we go straight to subpoenaing the bank. It's going to cost the client a few hundred dollars probably to subpoena a bank, but we're going to get the documents, usually within about a month.
Speaker 1:Ooh, even after the subpoena it still is going to take a month. So everything takes a long time take a month.
Speaker 2:So everything takes a long time. The thing is that in this day and age, with it all being electronic in the old days it took much longer because they had to go research this all on microfiche and pull up things by hand. Now it really is a matter of someone at the bank typing in the correct information in the system to pull out what we need. I have seen subpoenas be returned in a week or two, but I usually tell clients plan on about a month. Worst case scenario, six weeks. If there's a really large volume of documents that the bank needs to get, they may advise us that it's going to take two months or something like that.
Speaker 1:Okay, what about in the events of like you don't know what you don't know? So what if? What about hidden accounts and secret accounts or offshore accounts, like, how do you navigate that?
Speaker 2:I'm so glad you asked that because it always goes there. There's there's two different ways to investigate. There's what I call the wild goose chase, and then there's the investigation that's very document based and I do, for the most part, the very document based one. We are starting with the accounts that we know about and I do, for the most part, the very document based one. We are starting with the accounts that we know about and almost always those hidden accounts end up being revealed. And it's really simple how it happens. Someone makes a transfer to an account out of our joint checking account, voila. We know there's another bank, we know there's another account. We send a subpoena there. And I always say it's like you know, when you have a sweater that has a little piece of yarn sticking out and if you pull it, the whole sweater is going to start unraveling, all I need is one of those pieces, and usually we can find a lot. That wild goose chase, there's value in it. I'm just not the person to do it. I will do it's kind of like doing a really fancy background check and I can do a very basic background check.
Speaker 2:But there are private investigators who specialize in doing this stuff for divorce. And so what they're going to do is collect from you like a brain dump from you Tell me everything about your ex and who he's doing business with and what business entities he has and maybe where some real estate was owned and where he lived previously and all these sorts of things. And then they start pulling at those threads, looking through the databases and things that they have access to, and that's how we're going to uncover a piece of real estate somewhere usually, or another business venture. Things get interesting like he has done business with so-and-so who's a good friend of his. Well, the private investigator might start looking at that friend and then suddenly find, oh, they have this other business venture together that you never knew about. So those are kind of the two ways that we go about this.
Speaker 1:Okay, when it comes to uncovering money right from your social media, I gather that a lot of times and let's just call the spade the spade. I'm sure it happens more with the man trying to hide money. I know, you know there's all sorts of bad people who come in all genders and it is what it is. But for today's conversation we're going to say the man is hiding money, or the man is saying, well, I actually don't make this much. Or you know the business, you're always paying the business back, so the W-2 is not going to show very much. How do you overcome? Oh no, there actually is money here, right? I think you recently posted something about you know the company car and the company trips and like this, it all has value. So how do you uncover that?
Speaker 2:It all has value and there's always documentation behind it. So the key to unraveling this no matter if you have an expert, you don't have an expert. It's all about evidence and facts, getting account statements, getting information. So the thing you mentioned when someone has a company car or certain perks from their company, yes, there's value there. We can get that information by having the attorney send subpoenas to their employer.
Speaker 2:We ask for records from HR and from payroll and you might end up with a copy of an employment contract. You might end up with information on a stock option plan that you didn't know you had before, and it's all about adding all of these things up. When it comes to you know money that is being spent by us personally but isn't showing up on the W-2, then it's a matter of looking at our bank statements and credit card statements and figuring out what did we spend on our lifestyle and then being able to present that in court. If we have to right. Here is the proof the account statements that show, on a monthly basis, this is what we spent on average.
Speaker 3:So I'm going to take a step back because obviously on the podcast we're all about, you know, especially when it comes to couples talking about money together and both being on the same page and both being equal partners and managing the money. Now, when you have a couple, what are some of the signs that maybe people should look out for prior to even getting into the divorce process? So, you know, our ideal scenario is that both people are sitting down talking about money. What are some of the answers that you may hear from somebody else to make you think, hmm, maybe this person might not be telling me the entire picture.
Speaker 2:When they are unwilling to give you information. That is a huge red flag for me. So if you are the spouse who has been hands off with the money, number one, it happens all of the time. It is still by default. There is one person in the marriage who handles the money, and more often it is the husband. So don't be ashamed if that's the scenario in your marriage where you've not been looking at the money. You trust your spouse. You married someone you trust, so don't be worried about that. But if you are in a position where you've you've decided I want to start getting some information about my finances, I want to be more involved, and you're getting a lot of pushback on that and a lot of don't worry, I've got it handled, don't worry, we've got a guy. That's a huge problem for me because I don't know why you would push back on me wanting information about our family's finances.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds like a huge red flag, I mean, even if it's. You know, we always talk about how Brandon and I have separate accounts, not secret accounts.
Speaker 2:That's exactly it.
Speaker 1:But if he came to me and said, hey, can you pull up your statement or can you print this out, or whatever, it's like yeah, here you go, you know, here's the authentication code, or whatever you know, like it's, it's not a question of can you get access. It's yeah, here it is, you know. So I think that those definitely make sense. Are there any other things that you see where you're like oh, the person should have paid attention to this, or like very clear things to you, but that might seem normal to anybody else. Kind of looking.
Speaker 2:I think it's really important to start looking at your account statements. So you've never looked at them before. Get access to them today and just start scanning those transactions. You don't have to do some big spreadsheet, you don't have to do some big workup where you pretend you're a forensic accountant. Literally. Just look at that credit card statement, look at that account statement and see where is the money going.
Speaker 2:And more often than not, there will be things that stand out to you. You might say wait a second, I'm not seeing paychecks being deposited. I see one paycheck a month is going into this account. Where's the other one? And that could be something as simple. As your spouse has set it up One paycheck goes to our main account, the other one goes to our savings account and then, as we need it, we pull from there, or something like that.
Speaker 2:It could be completely innocent, but you want to know that answer. You might see that there are more credit cards being paid than you realized. You may see charges at stores that you didn't know we were buying things at, or it's weird. A simple example you see charges at Target probably pretty routine if you're a family that shops at Target. But what if you're seeing charges at a Target store that's in a city that is two hours away. That's weird, right. So those are the kind of things and I caution people we don't necessarily want to think the worst, right, when you start out with this. It's really just an information gathering process.
Speaker 3:I always say, like when you have, when you're looking to ask questions and receive answers and the person is hesitant, and that, and not so many different avenues, because I even say that when it comes to if someone's looking to work with a financial advisor and they're interviewing them and they're asking them questions, or you already have a financial advisor and you're asking questions about your money and they're hesitant to give you answers, that is always, in my mind, a clear sign of something's not right, like they're hiding something often.
Speaker 2:Well, but it also could be money. Shame for them, right, that could be the reluctance, and I would say you know your spouse, go with your gut, feel. I think you know if they're being dodgy because there's something to hide or if it's more so, they're a little bit embarrassed. Maybe they mishandled some money and they're scared to tell you. I think that there's kind of a difference there. But certainly, when there is reluctance to share information with you, it is always a stop and take notice moment where you absolutely need to get this information one way or another, whether the lack of information is for a nefarious reason or something less nefarious that has to do with their own money story or something like that.
Speaker 3:So what would you say would be the next step in a couple? If, let's just say, the wife is looking through the information, see some things that don't, that don't make sense, and then they're trying to actually get the questions and in this scenario the husband maybe is trying to hide something, what would be the next steps that somebody should maybe take in that scenario?
Speaker 2:when your gut says that your spouse is absolutely hiding something from you, the number one first step to take is gather more information. So every account that you have legal access to start downloading statements, put those statements in a safe place, either virtually or on paper in a safe place. That is really where you're going to provide yourself with the best protection if things do go south in the marriage. So that's step number one. Step number two is make sure that you have accounts in your own name where you can protect some money, protect some available credit if you would need that.
Speaker 1:I think that's so interesting because a lot of times people are making the other spouse an authorized user, but then you can just kick them off if you don't have your own credit. I mean, there's so many things, especially I'm always thinking, of course, from the women's perspective of have your own money, have your own accounts, protect your credit score right, because if you needed to go somewhere, that's going to be able, that's going to give you access, it's going to give you options and I know, tracy you, you feel very strongly in that sense as well.
Speaker 1:I've we've had those conversations, but, um, are there things you know? Not everybody's approaching divorce. People are in happy marriages and I think there is a maybe uh, I don't know how to say it, but like people are starting to want to take more accountability and have access and information to the finances. Right, maybe it was okay I was hands off and I was letting him handle it. I don't think he's cheating, I don't think there's anything going on, but I do want to be involved. Do you have any suggestions on how to have that conversation without it being? I think you're up to something. I want to tell me all the things right, like how, how would you suggest somebody actually, if it's a coming from a good place of, I just want to be more involved. I want to have insights that I don't currently have. How would you approach that?
Speaker 2:We don't want our spouse to have to feel defensive about it. We don't want them to think that we're accusing them of anything, when it's truly we're coming from a position of we just want information. It's all about how you approach it and how you have that conversation. For me with my clients, the easiest way that I found to approach this is hey, I was thinking about it and I realized that I really don't know a lot about our finances.
Speaker 2:I don't know exactly where we have all of our accounts. I don't know how many credit cards we have. I'm not quite sure where all our investments are and I'm worried because what if something happened to you? God forbid, you have a heart attack or you are in a car accident and you end up in the hospital or something even worse? I want to be able to focus on you and our kids if something like that happened. I don't want to be focused on trying to figure out is the mortgage going to be paid next week. So if I could start understanding now where we have our money, what's on auto pay, what the accounts are, I would feel so much better about being able to step in in a pinch.
Speaker 1:That's a great approach, because you're really saying you're coming out from a place of concern for the family and you know, heaven forbid, something tragic happened. You want your focus to be on your partner, not on statements, so I think that's a really great way to approach that.
Speaker 2:What spouse can really say no to that? No, no, I don't want you involved in that. Now to be clear, there are plenty of times where the spouse says I have a guy, our financial planner will handle it, and for me, the response then is I am so grateful that we have a guy who knows what's going on and is willing to help. Can the can the two of us have a meeting with the guy so I can understand what he's handling and what we have? Right? You've got to keep keep with the pushing.
Speaker 2:And I will say this I get that there are high conflict marriages. I get that there are relationships, dynamics in play, there may be abuse situations and there are enough marriages where this conversation is going to be very difficult to have. You're going to get a lot of negative pushback and you're going to have to handle it very carefully. So I know for everyone it isn't as easy as saying gee, honey, I want to know what's going on with the money. I'm mindful of that. But hopefully the tips that I'm giving can help you at least start the conversation and find a less threatening way to open up the lines of communication.
Speaker 3:So, you know, go on a limb to say that if you're in that scenario where you know it is hard to have that conversation and there is so much pushback, obviously everyone's situation is different whereas you know you just can't up and leave. You may have fear for your own safety, your kids safety and everything like that. But that also should be a clear sign to you that, hey, maybe I do need to start taking some steps to get out of this relationship and do what I can. Some steps to get out of this relationship and do what I can. Because, like you said, the way that you frame the question, what man can actually say no to that?
Speaker 2:and not have alternative motives behind it. Right, there are some you know old school ways of thinking where it's oh honey, don't worry your pretty little head about that and the response can be I appreciate that. I appreciate that you have been taking care of us all these years and I know that you have great pride in managing our family budget. I'm so grateful for that. But I really feel like now is the time for me to start getting an understanding. This is really important to me and I wouldn't feel good about our family's financial security unless I knew that I could step in if I needed to.
Speaker 3:And also in this scenario, is that majority of the time the women outlive men, so at some point in time they are going to be the ones that have to handle the finances. And I've seen it firsthand where my grandfather this is. Before I got into finance, my grandfather was the one that handled all the finances he passes away. My grandmother is in the early stages of Alzheimer's, doesn't know where everything is at, and you know my mom watching her have to go through all these different paperwork and everything like that to figure everything out, whereas if steps had been taken prior to, that, which he would have probably been open to is just, you know, a matter of just. It was never brought up taking the steps necessary to make that transition easy. So, like my mom and my grandmother are dealing with my grandfather not being here, but then, on top of that, my mom's dealing with having to take care of her mom in addition to the taking care of the finances as well.
Speaker 2:It was a lot. I have seen that scenario happen so often as well, where you have a spouse who doesn't even know how to pay a bill and they're thrust into this, where they have to figure it out really quickly. And I know there are listeners saying to themselves well, we're younger, we're more on top of things. This isn't going to be me. You still need visibility into the finances and again, like Jessica and Brandon, you have some finances that are separate, but you still have visibility into each other's stuff and that's so, so important.
Speaker 3:And I'm a huge proponent like where I basically will not work with a couple If they're both not going to be involved. More like if a man's like oh I got this, no, your wife needs to be here, or else you can find somebody else.
Speaker 2:And it's so interesting, isn't it? If you are able to bring out a client like that who hasn't had their spouse involved before, and now the spouse is going to come in have that first conversation with you. I bet you hear some amazing things and there are some light bulbs that go on for that spouse who was never involved before, and they'll ask some good questions and be like wait, I had no idea that this was the case. I had no idea we had this much money. Wow, maybe we have some opportunities that I didn't know we had in life.
Speaker 3:Definitely.
Speaker 1:Well, and then, or the opposite, where you can very clearly see that people are not on the same page. They haven't talked about money, they don't have a shared vision and shared goals and you have to you know really work with them to get them at least having the communication to see. Can we get on the same page and it's okay for you to have separate goals from your spouse. I mean, it's probably even encouraged and healthy, right, like you don't have to be the same person. But communication, I think is always, is always key.
Speaker 2:This is why I'm such a big proponent of having these conversations early, like. People ask me when is too soon in the dating path to start talking about money, and I like to say it is never too soon to start talking about money. You're on your first date. I love a question like if you want a million dollars tomorrow, what would be the first thing you did? It's a fun dreamer type of question. There's no, you know. You're not asking them for secret information about them. You're not crossing any lines. But it starts to open up the lines of communication about money.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean so, like my, I have a younger brother who's two years younger than me and he's still single and luckily, you know, through conversations with him I've said, like you know, it's okay to have these conversations early because you're at a stage now also where you don't want to waste your time.
Speaker 3:Right, we're in our forties, like even if it's a first date, I'm not just looking for fun, you know. So if you don't align on like some of the basic money principles that would, if you guys did get together, wouldn't, you know, govern your relationship, then this person's probably not the one for you. And he has definitely gone out on dates and had conversations early on. You know, the first few weeks of dating and the way they view money, the way they want to handle money are polar opposites and he's like, yeah, that's not for me.
Speaker 2:Well, some people might say well, I don't want to feel like I'm being judgmental on the first date. Yes, you do. Stop wasting your time and their time.
Speaker 2:That's literally what the first date is judging each other Right and all along in the dating process, you want to find out are we aligned on things that matter the most to us? And money is something that matters the most? Even if you say, oh, money doesn't matter to me, I make do, it's fine, money is still an important topic. Even if it's not your number one goal in life to make a bunch of money, it's still an important topic, because you need to be able to pay the rent and feed yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely I feel like I don't know what I don't know in this situation and obviously I'm not a CPA, I'm not a forensic accountant. What else should we have asked you today? What else do you want to share? I guess?
Speaker 2:you guys were so good at asking me questions, right, you hit all the high spots. What are some things to be cautious of? What are some great ways to communicate? I want people to think carefully about how they manage their finances together, whether that's separate accounts, whether that's everything together or whether it's somewhere in between that. But make sure that you are prepared that, if something goes sideways, you still have some financial security, whether that is one person passing away unexpectedly, whether that is getting divorced, whether that is having a long and happy marriage. Go through those scenarios and plan for those. I tell people you need a love and money plan.
Speaker 1:That, okay, I want to end on a juicy note.
Speaker 3:Can you?
Speaker 1:share like what is the juiciest divorce case you've ever worked on?
Speaker 2:I get asked that a lot, and it was a divorce for a billionaire, a very well-known billionaire, yes, and so I had to go through his family's finances for a period of five years Every dime that they spent. Five years, that's a lot.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh my gosh, that's a lot of info, that they spent five years. Yes, oh my gosh. Yes, and what we were looking for was what does the lifestyle of the children cost? Because there was a prenup in place that we were pretty certain was going to be upheld. Of course it, you know, they fought over it, but we thought it was going to be upheld, and so the only financial issue that was going to be left to sort out in court was child support for three very small children. So the question when you have an extremely high earner is what does the lifestyle cost of these kids every month? And so it was interesting seeing the cost of the private jets and trying to figure out what part of that I thought you were going to say private schools, not private jets.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, the private schools too. I'm not thinking like a millionaire.
Speaker 2:Right, well, it was interesting. So we had an interesting issue. Mom thought that dad should buy a private jet and give it to her because the children had never flown commercial and they should continue to fly in private jets. Stop it, yes. And so the attorneys and I were talking back and forth on this and the attorney said listen here. And so the attorneys and I were talking back and forth on this and the attorney said listen, here's what we need to do. We need to figure out how many trips a year the kids take and we need to allocate five first class airline tickets and whatever that would cost on average. And it's the three kids, mom and a nanny, and that's what she's going to get. And I said I don't think that's appropriate. The kids have never flown commercial in their lives.
Speaker 1:It would traumatize them. We can't.
Speaker 2:Well, but okay. So for us normal people this is a little bit silly. But think about the lifestyle that they've created while they've been married for 10 or 15 years. The interest is in keeping that lifestyle reasonably similar after the divorce. And so I said, okay, we're not allocating first class airline tickets, we're not buying her a jet. Let's talk about something like net jets, a fractional jet service. How much would it cost for her to take those trips with the kids X number of times a year on a fractional service like that? How much, on average, is a flight going to cost for them? And let's allocate that? Wow, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:And did that. Was that the outcome?
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, that was. That was a great strategic thought on my part. I shall pat myself on the back for that. But let me tell you what was actually even more interesting in this case was just seeing what they spend their money on, seeing the sheer number of children's books that were bought from Amazon every month, seeing that one of the spouses bought a particular brand of shampoo that would be known as like a dime store brand. Like you make all the money in the world and you don't buy yourself fancy shampoo.
Speaker 3:It's so interesting, oh my gosh, that's how you keep your money Figure out what you value and all the other stuff and the children's books from Amazon.
Speaker 1:You would never think that is. I mean, my mind is blown. But also I didn't even think about like you're really. You're not just like, hey, what do you spend buying things on Amazon? You're like, no, what are you buying on Amazon? I mean you're digging into the details.
Speaker 2:In this case, yes, because we had to separate children versus mom and dad spending.
Speaker 3:Wow, that's so interesting, that would be interesting to see all the different transactions for a billionaire yeah, I love that?
Speaker 1:What about? You mentioned something. Of course they had a prenup in place. We now have a post-nup. People are getting prenups. It's becoming more of a. I think in our realm it's becoming more of a standard conversation, right? The negative stereotype of you're planning on your marriage to fail. That's becoming antiquated. People are much more open to the conversation. But it sounds like even with the prenup, maybe with the postnup, there is still a lot to dig into.
Speaker 3:Remember that with a prenup or a postnup that doesn't play into child support.
Speaker 1:It doesn't play into anything to do with the children. So do you come up against, or do you see, a lot of people who have prenups or postnups and they still need your services?
Speaker 2:Yes, because sometimes we're sorting out what is marital, what is not marital, where there maybe have been some lines blurred, things like that. We maybe have an account where part of it should be marital, some lines blurred, things like that. We maybe have an account where part of it should be marital, Part of it should be separate. How do we figure out what that is? So that does come into play still, and but I will tell you this, and I'm sure this has been said on your show before when you have had prenup experts on it that this old idea of, oh, prenups are always struck down in court. That's not the way it is anymore. Prenups have gotten so much better and they are most of the time upheld.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so positive. Tracy, where can people find you? What resources do you have available? If somebody hopefully that is listening is not going through this, but maybe they're just really curious, maybe they have a friend when can people find you and what resources do you have to offer to help people through these situations?
Speaker 2:They can find me all over the place at divorce money guide. So that's my handle on all the socials. The website is divorce money guidecom and if they want a free resource to help get these money conversations started to know some of the important things to think about to protect themselves, they can get my free love and money plan at loveandmoneyplancom.
Speaker 1:Oh, you got the domain. I love that love and money plan. We'll link all of your socials. You drop such great tips on Instagram. I love how you are really trying to help people get. I mean, if you're going to go through the divorce, you might as well get the most out of it, especially if you're in a situation where you know you're feeling like you're not going to come out with what you deserve. So I love the work that you're doing and thank you so much for sharing your insights and your juicy stories with us today.
Speaker 2:I always say that you only have one shot to get the right settlement in your divorce, so you've got to do it right. Thank you so much for having me and for helping to get the word out about this really important topic.
Speaker 1:Don't forget. Benjamin Franklin said an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. You just got paid, until next time.
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