Doing Divorce Right By Chief PeaceKeeper™ Scott Levin

Divorce Math Made Clear

• Scott Levin Divorce Mediation Attorney

Share episode

The financial decisions you make during a divorce can have long-lasting effects. In this episode, we talk with Ryan Finley CPA and Divorce CDFA, and valuation expert who works across the country. He explains practical steps to help you turn a confusing balance sheet into a plan you can follow. Ryan covers how to list your assets and debts, explains tax rules in simple terms, and shows how understanding the numbers can help you feel more confident about your choices.

We talk through real-life choices, like deciding whether to buy a home with cash or take out a mortgage while keeping a Roth IRA invested. Ryan explains how to think about current interest rates and plan for the future, and why a $100,000 IRA is not the same as $100,000 in cash after taxes and penalties. He shows how to look at different scenarios for cash flow, risk, and long-term growth, so you can find stability without giving up future opportunities. We also discuss prenuptial agreements, support waivers, and the risks of mixing separate property, such as how adding a spouse to a deed can change ownership and outcomes for good.

A lot of mistakes happen in the details of dividing assets. We explain QDROs and the expensive error of transferring too much into retirement accounts if one person plans to cash out. We also cover why it’s important to split investments by tax lots to avoid unfair capital gains. The answer is to use clear settlement language that tells custodians to divide each lot fairly. Ryan reminds us that divorce is a math problem with real-life consequences, and he offers a steady, practical approach to solving it.

If you are going through a divorce or helping someone who is, this episode will help you understand all the key issues: taxes, timing, housing, investments, and the emotions that affect decisions. Subscribe, share this episode with anyone who needs guidance, and leave a review with your hardest money question. We might answer it in a future episode.

Why You Should Listen
Divorce is not just an emotional or legal process — it’s a major life transition with financial consequences that last for decades. Ryan and Scott bring complementary expertise to help listeners understand their options, protect what matters most, and plan strategically for life after divorce.

📩 Guest Contact & Booking Info

Ryan Finley — Freedom Financial Services Group
📞 941-745-2846
📧 info@freedomfsg.com

🌐 https://www.freedomfsg.com/

Learn more about California divorce mediation and family law with Scott Levin:
https://www.sandiegofamilylawyer.net/

 📞 858-255-1321
 📧 scott@sandiegofamilylawyer.net


Thanks for listening and I hope you'll continue to learn more about how you can peacefully divorce.

As a divorce mediation attorney in California, Scott Levin helps couples figure out the settlement terms and draft enforceable settlement agreements so they can divorce fairly without needing to go to court. Obtain closure peacefully through an amicable divorce. process that protects families and kids.

Visit San Diego Divorce Mediation for more information and to learn more about our mission to help divorcing couples make informed decisions and fair agreements through mediation or book a free virtual consultation.

Scott Levin, attorney, mediator, CDFA®
Chief PeaceKeeper
scottlevinmediation@gmail.com
858-255-1321
San Diego Divorce Mediation & Family Law
www.SanDiegoFamilyLawyer.net




Scott Levin Divorce PeaceKeeper:

Hey everyone, this is Scott Levin, Chief Peacekeeper, and appreciate you being here today. I'm here with Ryan Finley. Ryan is with uh Freedom Financial Services Group, couple offices in Nashville and in Florida. Saratoga. Sarasoga.

Ryan Finley CPA:

Yes, that's correct. Yes.

Scott Levin Divorce PeaceKeeper:

Okay. And uh but you work nationwide, Ryan, or are you state specific?

Ryan Finley CPA:

I do. I work nationwide. I've got customers all over the country or clients.

Scott Levin Divorce PeaceKeeper:

Yeah. And so you're a CPA and a CDFA, but you're pretty much all in the family law divorce world?

Ryan Finley CPA:

Yes, that's what I yeah, primarily. I'm a CPA, CDFA, mediator, CBA, a little bit of everything. So okay.

Scott Levin Divorce PeaceKeeper:

Do you do um is your is your is your niche on the financial side?

Ryan Finley CPA:

Exactly. Yes. So that's what we do. There's uh most of our clients uh are I would say 80% of our clients are are women. We handle men as well, but it's primarily women that we handle.

Scott Levin Divorce PeaceKeeper:

And so, like, is it is it um a situation where like someone is um like uh one of your clients is going to is kind of not like the primary financial person in the marriage, and they're gonna be coming out of the marriage with some significant assets, or you're evaluating, you know, how to divide an estate so that they're you know best off at the end, not just like your year one, but projecting down the road tax-wise and things like that.

Ryan Finley CPA:

That's exactly right. Most of our clients, and just to give you a brief scenario, you know, when you have two people that meet, they get married, they have kids, they both have careers. One of them drops off and takes care of the family, the other has their career, and then 10 years down the road they get a divorce. You've got one spouse that their job is to take care of the kids and the family, and it's just as important as the other job. And, you know, they're not involved with the financial aspects of the of the family. And so a lot of them are our clients. They come to us and they don't understand what's going on. They don't understand their financial picture, they don't know what the bills are, they don't know what investments they have. And so a lot of that is just reassuring them and educating them on what they actually have, getting my arms around their financial picture and being able to explain that in a way that they understand it and come up with a plan that, okay, here's what your living expenses are, here's what your expected income is, you know.

Scott Levin Divorce PeaceKeeper:

Yeah, that income expectation. Like I have a client right now where she I'm doing the mediation, but she's talking about um, she's going to end up with around like 2 million or so in a Roth IRA, but she's pushing for more cash because she wants to buy a home for cash. Um, and she's got a uh kind of a an adult dependent, but so she needs some space. But um, you know, I'm sitting there thinking, like, um, I should have someone run the numbers for her so she understands, like, if you have a Roth IRA, and let's say you take $400,000 of it and you put it as a down payment, and then you have a mortgage, and then you put that the Roth to work for you, and it spits off income and dividends and interest, and you have that scenario versus taking $2 million and just putting it into a house and eliminating that entire that entire pile. I just like though that's the sort of work that I would I I that I think that I really depend on CDFAs to do or to and to help evaluate like those decisions because they're like so impactful. So you're not only doing the divorce, but then you're thinking, what am I gonna do with the money? And you're doing it all at once and you're doing it without like the guidance. It's a scary situation for people, I think.

Ryan Finley CPA:

It is, and there's some people I I've got clients like you described as well, where they have they suddenly come into this all this money and they don't know what to do with it, how to invest it, and you know, whether they and the scenario you proposed is exactly what you see a lot. You know, do I cash this in to buy the house? You know, and it's an individual decision if it's just making you know 12% or 10% or whatever it's making, and and you can get a mortgage for six percent. Why would you take that money? You've got a spread of five or six percent on there that this money is earning money for you. Why would you cash that in and you know, spend it? I I know it's peace of mind, and it could be a cash flow is where there could be cash flow reasons why you wouldn't do that, but for the most part, you know, a lot of people don't understand that. And a lot of people make emotional decisions, and and I'm sure in your situation, you're aware of this too. It's they look at what six months or a year down the road, my kids in this school, I want to keep them in that school. They don't see the financial impact of what that is 10 years down the road when their kids out and on their own. And what do they have as far as income?

Scott Levin Divorce PeaceKeeper:

Yeah, I mean, and they're also making decisions like you know, a lot of my clients trying to keep the home. That's always a traditional thing, especially with kids. Um, and we get very creative in my in my practice with the home and how to how to, you know, co-ownership or buying out, uh, structuring those buyouts, but you know, keeping the home for the kid, but and they're looking at this interest rate and they're like, I have a 3.25, like that's an asset. And I'm like, yes, of course it is. But you're looking at in the purview of like a four-year period, you know, but we hadn't seen six or seven percent interest rates on like a on a primary, you know, mortgage in a long time before you know 2020 or whatever it was. So, like, you know, in the spectrum, we could go back that route and we might not. I know a lot of people say we're not, but who knows? So, like you're kind of making like these narrow decisions like in the moment. And um, you know, one of the things, Ryan, um, that I deal with a lot, I'm doing a lot of prenuptial agreements, and I represent a lot of um the a lot of uh uh primarily females that are uh marrying into like significant wealth, but these prenups are awful and they're so impactful. I've done so many divorces with prenups where the the people don't even they're they're like, Yeah, I met my lawyer once and uh I signed it, and uh you know, now 28 years later I'm being held by this people piece of paper, I'm 56 years old. Um, when people are waiving spousal support, I I'm a huge proponent of not doing that in a prenup. But I wonder, like, um, like, are you are you able to project, like, is there a mathematical like process or calculation where you can show somebody like here, look, this is what like a waiver of spousal support could mean to your lifestyle in the future?

Ryan Finley CPA:

Yeah, and that's what I try to do. Yeah, like like you said, every situation is different, but you try to analyze what that person's situation is and the future impact of it. You know, I I've had some cases where um, you know, they they get married, they they've got a trust in their spouse is trying to convince them that we're you know, we're gonna be married forever. Just, you know, put my name on it or put some of that in here. And it's like, you know, it it's it's like a premarital that's separate property for now, but the minute you commingle that, it's not gone to that. And so a lot of my advice it to them is just, you know, let's let's think about this first, you know, that you can pull money in, but you can't move money back and forth, you know.

Scott Levin Divorce PeaceKeeper:

So it's just it's in your practice in CPA. Do you have clients that uh most of your clients hire you together as or if you have like traditional CPA work? And do you and is there a scenario where you've had one saying, hey, like let's just you know put that put that in, you know, why don't you take 600,000 of that inheritance and put it in our joint account? We'll buy a house with it. And do you is there a scenario where you're like cautioning that person or explaining the repercussions of that work? Is that something that you have to deal with?

Ryan Finley CPA:

It is it I'm seeing more of it with my divorce work though. Just you know, people kind of explaining to them the difference between separate property and marital property. You know, people think that this is what I had going into the marriage, even though you know I bought my house and I put I put her name on it, but I made the down payment. You know, they're thinking that that down payment's separate property, and it's not, it's it's marital property because it's co-mingled and that spouses on the on the on the title.

Scott Levin Divorce PeaceKeeper:

Um, one other question I have for you is what's pop what's really popular uh uh for my clients uh the last year or so for whatever reason. I think I'm just uh I'm working with a little bit more of an older population, maybe um as I get older. Uh, you know, I have a lot of clients that are um basically to try to accomplish a buyout uh of or an equalization of their assets, they're taking a 401k and they're transferring it to their spouse via a quadro, but then they're overfunding that transfer. Let's say they're trying to get 200,000 to the to their spouse. Their spouse is going to cash out that transfer. So instead of it going into their own IRA, they're gonna cash it out in their bank account and they're and they're overfunding that transfer so that the person ends up after their income tax payment, they're they're they're arriving at that net figure. Do you have any advice or custom? Like, is that a is that if you I know it's hard as a again, it's a specific to each individual case, of course, but like is uh in general, are you a fan or does it concern you when someone is um doing that cash out process during the quadro?

Ryan Finley CPA:

It concerns me because, like you said, during mediations and and allocation of assets, you're trying to get it equitable. And $100,000 in an IRA account doesn't equal $100,000 cash for what you mentioned there, because there is a tax effect and a penalty if they're not if they're not $59 and a half. So uh yeah, we do see that quite a bit and we do advise on that. But I'm I'm more of a fan of making things equal. This cash equals this cash, this investment equals this investment. And the other trick that that's in there too, if you're dividing investments, is you know, this is kind of financial technical, but people may not understand this. But if you have an investment, let's say you have a hundred shares of Microsoft stock, you bought 20 of it 20 years ago, and you bought 20 of it 10 years ago, and then 25 years, and so that stock's not the same. You've got a different basis in this stock versus this stock. So if I give you the stuff that I bought a long time ago, you're gonna have a huge capital gain that you're gonna have to recognize when you sell that stock. So I'm a big proponent of one for you, one for me. If there's 10, 20 that were bought then, I get 10, you get 10. So that's more than about all the lots equally.

Scott Levin Divorce PeaceKeeper:

Yeah, that's really important. All the lots have to be, and you have to have uh the settlement agreement written by somebody that knows what they're doing, because um you're directing Vanguard or Fidelity through the settlement agreement, how to how to do that division. Um, and if one spouse is um, you know, if the new if the the spouse that's getting you know those half the transfer of those assets is setting up its schwab, but it's uh the assets are at Vanguard. Well, Vanguard is naturally like you know, they're essentially their client is the one staying at Vanguard, not the one that's sending them up to Schwab. And not to say that they would intentionally do anything, but if they're not being directed specifically to divide every equity, every lot equally, then you end up with the potential you know problem. And uh everyone, the the reason that we started this conversation, kind of just jumping in, is because my goal was to illustrate several different examples of how um you know Ryan helps people, how he can help people. There's so much complexity, but at the same time, divorce, and I don't know if you share this opinion, Ryan. Uh, I say it all the time, it doesn't have to be as complicated as as the internet makes it seem to be. You just have to form a team, and that team has to be um uh consists of people that can actually help and make your decisions simpler and easier. Uh, and uh I certainly think Ryan uh is able to do that. Do you want to let people know where they can uh kind of connect with you?

Ryan Finley CPA:

Yes, the best way to reach me, and and I completely agree with what you said, Scott. That's my philosophy as well. It doesn't have to be complicated. You know, it's it but it is it's a math problem that you have to solve, and you need a financial person to help you solve this math. Divorce is about dividing assets and children and different things, but it's it's a it's a big math problem. It is a big problem. People can reach me via my website. It's www.freedomfsg.com. And if the there's a uh schedule a consultation tab on there, and if they'll click on that and fill out the form, then I'll reach back out to them and be glad to.

Scott Levin Divorce PeaceKeeper:

Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining us, and uh, we'll see you guys soon.

Ryan Finley CPA:

All right, thanks, Scott.

Head Shot

Scott Levin

Host