In this episode, we explore wealth and divorce with Jamie Lima, focusing on his creation of Woodson Wealth Management and Allegiant Divorce Solutions. He discusses the importance of financial knowledge in these domains, emphasizing personalized management, particularly in middle age. We address estate planning, asset protection, and managing finances amid divorce, stressing the need for careful planning and an emergency fund. Our talk underlines the importance of financial education in attaining stability and striving for financial freedom.
📺 You can watch this episode on Moses The Mentor's YouTube page and don't forget to subscribe: https://youtu.be/IWyUZyVZ9lo
🎯Connect with Jamie Lima @jamiemlima on Instagram and visit his website allegiantds.com for Divorce Services and woodsonwm.com for Financial Planning
🎯Connect with Moses The Mentor: https://mtr.bio/moses-the-mentor
☕If you value my content consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mosesthementor
📢Support Money Focused Podcast for as low as $3 a month: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2261865/support
🔔Subscribe to my channel for Real Estate & Personal Finance tips https://www.youtube.com/@mosesthementor?sub_confirmation=1
In this episode, we explore wealth and divorce with Jamie Lima, focusing on his creation of Woodson Wealth Management and Allegiant Divorce Solutions. He discusses the importance of financial knowledge in these domains, emphasizing personalized management, particularly in middle age. We address estate planning, asset protection, and managing finances amid divorce, stressing the need for careful planning and an emergency fund. Our talk underlines the importance of financial education in attaining stability and striving for financial freedom.
📺 You can watch this episode on Moses The Mentor's YouTube page and don't forget to subscribe: https://youtu.be/IWyUZyVZ9lo
🎯Connect with Jamie Lima @jamiemlima on Instagram and visit his website allegiantds.com for Divorce Services and woodsonwm.com for Financial Planning
🎯Connect with Moses The Mentor: https://mtr.bio/moses-the-mentor
☕If you value my content consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mosesthementor
📢Support Money Focused Podcast for as low as $3 a month: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2261865/support
🔔Subscribe to my channel for Real Estate & Personal Finance tips https://www.youtube.com/@mosesthementor?sub_confirmation=1
Welcome to the Money Focus Podcast. I'm your host, Moses the Mentor, and in this episode I'm hosting Jamie Lima. He's the founder and president of Woodson Wealth Management and also Allegiant Divorce Solutions. Growing up in a family facing financial challenges, Jamie turned his passion into financial literacy into a thriving career helping mid-career professionals and those navigating divorce achieve financial freedom. So join us as we explore Jamie's journey, his approach to wealth management and how he's helping clients live stress-free financial lives. Let's go. Thank you, Jamie, for taking the time to join us on the Money Focus podcast. Really appreciate it. And so this started off with. My first question that I always ask is talk to us about your career journey and, ultimately, how you started your business and, in your case, businesses.
Speaker 2:So the floor is yours started your business and, in your case, businesses, so the floor is yours, absolutely. I've been in the financial services industry in some form or fashion for about the last 20 years of my life, and I mean, I guess, if you go way back in the time machine, so to speak, where I really started to get an understanding of finance and the impact money can have on people's lives was really when I watched my parents go through a divorce themselves in 2000, when I was like seven or eight, right, and then I went through my own divorce in 2017, which we can get to in a little bit but when I watched my parents go through that experience and I was very young at the time my parents God bless them they had me. My mother was 20 years old when she had me. My dad was 22. So they were very, very young and probably doomed from the start in many respects. But I remember specifically there was this one event where the divorce. I don't know if the divorce was over at that point or not, but I remember one of my friends, my very good friend, close friends at the time his family and they brought over boxes of groceries to put in our pantry and I specifically remember the box being put on the counter and I remember in that moment I thought, wow, this is going to be really difficult. My mother was working multiple jobs, my dad's working multiple jobs just to keep food on the table and they were still struggling. So I think that was kind of the first experience I had with the strain and stress that money can have on family.
Speaker 2:And I think at that point I was like you know, and I remember early on I was like you know, if I ever have a family of my own, I want to make sure that my kids never have to go through the same experience, and because it can be very, very stressful for young kids because they can't process that, they don't really understand that. You know what's going on. So when you lack something in your life, I feel like you tend to sometimes gravitate towards it, right, whether it's love or money or relationships, whatever. And I feel like that's kind of what propelled me in this direction, you know, and I had always had a desire to learn more about business and running businesses and managing businesses and so on. And when I started making some reasonable money, I wasn't making a lot of money, but a reasonable amount of money. That's when I started to learn about investing and opening up my first Roth IRA and brokerage accounts. And I don't know if you remember there was a company called ShareBuilder which was one of the very I think it's through ING now, but this company was one of the first where you could buy you could take $5 and buy a fractional share of a company and if I had $20, $25 to invest, I would do that and do that and that's really how I learned about the investing piece of this and how stocks work in the investing world.
Speaker 2:And then I finished my degree in finance and I had an opportunity to join a big name firm, a company called Morgan Stanley, way back in 2005, 2006. I was there for about five or six years. Everybody knows that company. I also went to Fidelity Investments where I was there for about nine years. I managed a pretty sizable load of client relationships about 450 clients that I was working with there client relationships about 450 clients that I was working with there.
Speaker 2:And then I kind of got tired of that because I felt like we were just skimming the surface on the work that we do and never really building strong relationships with our clients. So about four years ago now, I decided to launch my own investment company wealth management company called Woodson Wealth Management, which is at the base of Mount Woodson here in San Diego, california, which is where our namesake comes from. And I never looked back, man. I mean it was a struggle building. We launched in the middle of COVID, zero clients, zero revenue, zero assets, and now we're in 15 or 16 different states. So we have five advisors on the team and we're continuing to grow and grow and grow and scale from there. So it's been an interesting journey. But I think really, to fully answer your question, where it really stemmed from was my early experiences and then I've used them kind of as the fuel, so to speak of the fire, to help other people never have to go through that same experience, through that same experience.
Speaker 1:So you know, working for those, you know, major companies like Fidelity and Morgan Stanley. What were some of the things that you, you know, took from that experience that helped shape your vision benefits that you've acquired over the years by working for them?
Speaker 2:Well, I learned a ton. I had great mentors and great friendships and built great relationships with the people that I worked with, and I learned so much in those environments. The main reason why I decided to and I probably would still be there today if it wasn't for this but the main reason was that I decided to go in a different direction. I had 450 relationships that I was responsible for. You're basically drinking from a fire hose every single day. You're basically drinking from a fire hose every single day, never mind knowing what you and your loved ones, what you did for work.
Speaker 2:Forget about the goals and objectives and your kids' names and when they're off to college and all that stuff. You can't remember those types of details that are important to help provide people with fiduciary financial advice. You just don't get to know them at the level that I get to know them now. Right now, I only work with 60 clients and that's it. So it's a lot, big difference. Yeah, big difference, big difference. We're there to help celebrate babies and weddings and, unfortunately, we've been there for a couple deaths that have come along, and it's just a different experience altogether, I think, for the client. It's certainly for me. I have much more bandwidth every day to be able to provide the level of service that I think that people deserve.
Speaker 1:Sound like you've enjoyed the experience since you transitioned and started your own company. What? What has been the biggest obstacle, though?
Speaker 2:The biggest obstacle, and growing a business and building a business is is incredibly challenging. Anybody that does it, you know. Kudos to you for taking the risk and doing it along with myself, because it is gnarly for sure, along with myself, because it is gnarly for sure, the biggest thing for me was in my old life. We would meet face-to-face with people, kneecap to kneecap, and have an opportunity to sit face-to-face with them and work with them in office in person. Then COVID happened and then we all went to this environment, this virtual environment, and it was a little bit of a struggle for me to try to figure that all out. At the outset, people were trying to get used to opening accounts online or transferring money online and conducting meetings and just really trying to build an experience. A personalized experience for people where I feel like they can know you as a person in this environment can certainly be a challenge. And that has actually turned into a blessing for us, because again in the old days, I had to be geographically pigeonholed to working with people 20 miles outside of the radius of my office. Now I'm in San Diego, we have clients in Rhode Island and Massachusetts and Virginia, and my relationship manager, my operations manager. Her name is Sierra, amazing support person for me. She's in your neck of the woods in Georgia, right, and we're all over the place now, and it's we now to work with help people outside of the boundaries of the geography any longer, and it's really turned into a blessing.
Speaker 2:The other challenge I think that a lot of business owners can probably are up against, just like myself, is when you launch a business.
Speaker 2:When you launch a business, there tend to be a lot of people out there that want to get their hands in your pocket. You know these marketing gurus or these sales gurus, or this person that wants to help you with your SEO, or this person who wants to improve your website. They're all over the place. I get 15 emails a day on people that want to help me do something and not succumbing to that is an incredible challenge, and I made some early mistakes where I handed over the keys to my credit card a couple times thinking that it was going to be. It was going to take some work off of me and a load off of me, and I was going to put it on somebody else and get some results and it just didn't happen. So you have to be, you have to ask a lot of questions and and and really know what, who you're, who you're paying and what, what the expectations are, if that's, if that's you as a business owner.
Speaker 1:You have to be patient, you know, with the process. You know, because you know you start a business. You obviously have a passion, you want to help people. You know you want to see that success, but you know you can't steamroll your way through the door. I mean, you got to really build your relationships up, take the time to grow your business, because you know if it was that easy, everybody would be doing it, you know.
Speaker 1:So I get those emails to hey, I checked your website out, it's not getting enough traffic, let me help you. Or your podcast is not getting enough views, let me help you. And honestly, I just say, hey, I'm just embracing the journey. And you know, I just say hey, I'm just embracing the journey and you know, with every you know interaction that I have, whether it be a guest, whether it be a listener, I just want it to be a great experience and hopefully, you know things will, you know, kind of snowball from there with growth. But yeah, I agree with you 100 percent. I'm sure there's some legitimate you know services out there, but unfortunately it's just overrun with people that are making these promises and they're not going to do a um, uh, an agreement based off results. So if someone wants to, you know, hit, hit me up and you want to promise me results and you get paid once those results happen, then I'll do it, but otherwise, no, I'm not doing it.
Speaker 2:I've decided that's the only way that I'm working with another vendor, right? Yeah, especially especially people that are out there. You know I've I've spent gobs and gobs of money on marketing and Facebook advertising, help and all this other stuff, and none of it ends up in any real results. So, yeah, you know, if you want to guarantee me a certain level of number of clients and revenue every month, you're certainly welcome. I'll pay you all day long.
Speaker 1:I'll pay you. It'd be worth it. So I'm with you. Let's talk about just some advice, some wealth advice that you can share for a young professional.
Speaker 2:Well, there are a lot and I don't we don't have to spend our entire conversation talking about this, but I think there are some key things. The first is understanding the fees that you're paying right, and this kind of ties into what we just talked about, but understanding the fees that you're paying. I've met with a husband and wife this past week and they're with a big name company. I won't name the name, but they're paying 3% of their portfolio value to have somebody that they don't even know manage their investments for them and it just kind of boggled me and they, happily, were writing the check to that company for many, many years and it just made me think like wow, like people don't understand what kind of fees that they're paying.
Speaker 2:And a lot of these companies that are out there. They don't want to work with people like me and you who are the mid-career professionals. We're young dudes who are just trying to get our build, our wealth for ourselves. They want to work with 65-year-olds, 70-year-olds who already have their wealth and they're kind of on autopilot because it's very easy. There's not a lot of heavy lifting and then they can take their 1% and fall asleep at the wheel effectively. So if you're out there and you're considering hiring a financial advisor. There are advisors out there, like ourselves, who focus on people that are somewhere between the age of 30 and 50 years old, that we work with a much younger crowd between the age of 30 and 50 years old, that we work in a much younger crowd and we are what's called fee only, and we're a fee only advisory firm. We don't get commissions. There's no sales quotas. We don't sell insurance None of it. You only pay us for the advice that we give. That's how this works, and there's no conflict of interest, so on and so forth. So I think that's like understand the fees that you're paying, and if you are in the market for a financial advisor, I would recommend a fee-only advisor, simply for the fact that we are required to avoid conflicts of interest.
Speaker 2:And then I think the second thing that's really important for people our age is to ensure we have a proper estate plan. It's boring, it's plain vanilla. It's not sexy. You're not going to be talking to your boys over the water cooler about it, because who wants to talk about trust and wills and things of that nature? But if you are 25, 30, 40 years old and you now have a real job, you're starting to earn some real money, you maybe have some kids and a spouse and so on.
Speaker 2:If you don't have those documents in place, you are doing a tremendous disservice to your loved ones. It doesn't take a lot of time, energy and effort. You can go online. There's a bunch of you can go to. You know we use a couple of different companies, but you can go to any of these and just to put any of these companies, just to put a baseline estate plan in place, is going to be better than nothing. And even the people that are out there they're listening that are 19 years old, 20 years old Mommy and daddy can't make decisions on your rehab any longer. They're not going to be able to tell the doctor whether it keeps you on life support or not if something were to happen to you. They can't open up or transfer money on your bank accounts or pay your bills if you get in an accident and you're in the hospital for three weeks. And anybody over the age of 19 should have them in place. So I think those are kind of the two big ones that we see a lot. I mean, there's a thousand other things I could talk about, but those are two that tend to be overlooked, but we do see a lot. There's four key documents.
Speaker 2:So the rule of thumb here in California is if you have over $160,000 worth of assets, you should have a trust-based estate plan, and the trust simply just means that if something happens to me, I'll use my example. If something happens to me, my wife can step into my shoes and handle my financial affairs. If something happens to the two of us, there's another person that we name. It could be you as a friend, right that we say, hey, we're no longer here, but I want you to take care of our stuff. I want you to make sure our kids get what's rightfully due to them, pay our remaining bills, sell our house, do those sorts of things, and you can handle all of that through a trust. There's a will that's involved, which is for anybody that has maybe just starting off and maybe doesn't have a lot of money saved just yet. You can use a will, which is kind of the same thing. But the way that I explain the will versus the trust is a will is really more for like, hey, I want my cousin Tommy to get my baseball card collection, or I want my brother to get my 1964 Corvette, those types of things. So the will is another important document and then the other two which people miss all the time.
Speaker 2:One is called a financial power of attorney and then also a healthcare power of attorney or healthcare directives, and what the financial power of attorney allows people to do is to if you cannot do it on your own, you're incapacitated.
Speaker 2:They can pay your bills or they can call the credit card company and get answers to questions they might have, or they can go over to a bank account at a bank for you or a brokerage account at a brokerage company.
Speaker 2:The healthcare power of attorney or the healthcare directives is the last one, where that's where somebody would come in and speak on your behalf from a healthcare perspective. Where that's where somebody would come in and speak on your behalf from a healthcare perspective. If you're in an accident and you're on life support, they can decide whether they're going to, you know, keep you on life support or take you off Surgeries, things of that nature. They can speak on your behalf and get your access to your medical record. So you know, just to recap, you have your trust, for you know, when you have a little bit more wealth, you probably want to have a trust or a will-based plan. If you're just starting off, then you have your healthcare power of attorney and your financial power of attorney All incredibly important documents, and that's usually one of the first things we work on with all of our clients once we get them onboarded.
Speaker 1:You said, those documents, to put those together are relatively low cost right.
Speaker 2:If you go to an attorney, you're looking at probably $3,000 to $5,000. We use a couple different companies that are all digital and it's under $1,000.
Speaker 1:Well, no, that makes sense and you know, whatever you know, if someone is comfortable doing it themselves, they sound like they could save some money. But if you just want the hands-off approach, I think, off approach, I think three to five thousand, you know, is reasonable to really protect yourself and protect, because it's not like you have to you, it's not like you have to refresh these documents every year.
Speaker 2:It's usually once every 10 years, unless something, something drastic is changed. You know, in my life and we were talking before we jumped on we have very similar lives from a family perspective and in my case we have five kids between my wife and I. We havea blended family of five kids and we've had to make some changes over the years because you start to see personalities come out and who's going to be more responsible with money versus others and you just have to print the documents again and get them notarized or whatever. But unless you get a divorce or something major happens, usually it's once every 10 years.
Speaker 1:And you know, since you said the D word, let's talk about divorce. Yeah, and you know, before we jumped on, you know we did. You know I share with you that. You know I had been divorced before, my wife had been divorced before. So we both understand and also how important a healthy marriage is. But we also, on the flip side, know that a divorce can happen. You know, unfortunately, right, right, and so when a divorce happens, it's that emotional. You know side and aspect of it, but it's also that financial impact and it sounds like your company is there to help people heal from that or prepare for that. You know, and I want to give you the floor and allow you to talk a little bit about your company and I'll follow up with some questions after that.
Speaker 2:In 2017, I went through an incredibly challenging divorce myself Very emotional, very financially draining, and even though I was in the financial world at that point I had I don't know 13, 14 years or something. At that stage of the game, I still made mistakes in my own divorce related to finances. And, looking back, I feel like if I had more of this education and I have been doing this work longer than I've been doing now I probably wouldn't have made some of the same mistakes. And if I made those mistakes and I know colleagues of mine that do this type of work have made their own mistakes so it's not just me, the average person out there. That's a lot of your listeners that are out there that have experience in so many other areas of the world that I wouldn't have any knowledge of.
Speaker 2:If they're going through this exercise, guaranteed they're going to make some mistakes as well, through this exercise, guaranteed they're going to make some mistakes as well, and that's where our job is to help be the lead block, so to speak, and ensure that they're not going to step in the same landmines that myself and other people have stepped on in the past, and the beauty of this work is that we can work in all 50 states, which is amazing, especially because we do everything. Everything is virtual these days anyway. Even court hearings are all virtual. So we've been able to work and help people all over the country at this point and it's been a blast.
Speaker 2:It's very challenging, very emotionally draining, it can be very stressful at times, but I feel like we are doing such noble work in really truly helping people make decisions relative to the financial life that they have today and try to get a fair and equitable settlement through the process. But because I'm also a certified financial planner along with being a certified divorce financial analyst, marrying the two together I think puts me in a unique position because I can not only help somebody today with their divorce and help them understand how the decisions they're going to make are going to impact them today, but also how that's going to impact them 5, 10, 20 years into the future. And I think it puts me in a situation where I have a unique perspective on it. And I'll tell you, man, I wish I would have started doing this work 10 years ago for sure.
Speaker 1:Tell us about some of those unique challenges that you help your clients with.
Speaker 2:A lot of them are around understanding how to divide up assets in a fair and equitable way. You know, people don't understand the tax implications that are associated with some of the decisions that they're going to have to make. They don't understand the tax implications that are associated with some of the decisions that they're going to have to make. They don't understand, once they do decide on something, how to handle the transfer of asset.
Speaker 2:When you went through your divorce, I don't know what your experience was like, but we divided up retirement assets and that type of thing, and there's a particular process you have to go through in order to make sure that you could do that and not get hit by the tax man in doing it, and people miss those types of things all the time. So we're there to help guide them through that process. And I don't want to come off like I'm sounding sexist here, because we work with people of all shapes, sizes, colors, whatever. But 99% of the people we work with are women and they were usually not the financial decision maker if they weren't the breadwinner. And our job is to help educate them on, first off, what they have, because some of them don't even understand what they own and then secondarily what that really means for them moving forward. And that could be a real challenge because in my experience there's usually one person making all the financial decisions in the relationship and that can come back to haunt people later on.
Speaker 1:So if you're listening and that is you and you're not participating in your family conversations around money. You better start doing it because it could come back to haunt you later. I don't know the way I've heard it, but I heard you can confirm or just weigh in that it's a bad decision to move out of the house. You know, like you know. Even if you know so, let's say, hey, you know someone's getting a divorce and one person decides to move out, does that, does that person lose, like leverage as far as selling the home or something like that? Is there a reason why that has been out there for people to say, hey, don't move out the house, even if you have to sleep on the couch, sleep in the basement, sleep in another room. What's your opinion on that?
Speaker 2:I've heard that, before Abandoning property, can come back to haunt people. I've seen that happen. There are some situations where it's impossible to stay in the home, especially when you're related to financial, emotional, verbal, physical abuse. It's very, very impossible. So I think the rule of thumb is safety first. The second rule of thumb is document, document, document.
Speaker 2:And if you're in a situation where you just cannot live in that home anymore, what I would be doing is I'd be sending an email to my ex-spouse saying hey, listen, I've done my best to stay in the property as long as I possibly can to help you, support you in the upkeep and the maintenance, and so on and so forth, in the upkeep and the maintenance and so on and so forth, but given the environment that has you know, you know has been created I can, I no longer feel safe to be able to do that.
Speaker 2:I no longer feel welcome, whatever verbiage you want to use just to document that conversation, because if it does come back in court or, you know, the opposing counsel wants to bring it up that well, you don't really care about the property anyway, because you just left. You could say, well, on February 4th of 2022, I had finally had it. And here's the email I sent to your client and hopefully paint a picture to the opposing counsel and to the judge, if it comes down to it, of why you did what you did Just walking away from a property and running off with your significant other, your new significant other, your whatever, or just because you're like I've had enough, I'm going to move to Mexico. That can be a problem, so you don't want to do that, but you do want to make sure you cover your rear end if you do have to leave.
Speaker 1:Would someone realistically need a service like yours? If they have a divorce where they have no children, they don't have any assets together.
Speaker 2:The more simple cases that you just outlined, maybe a young couple who doesn't have any kids yet and they really haven't saved all that much just yet. We actually do. We also do mediation. So we provide a mediation service as well, where we literally are a financial neutral, a neutral not even related to the finances, just totally neutral. So in that particular case, we may meet with one, we'll meet with both spouses, we'll create an agreement based on what their desires are.
Speaker 2:Does one person keep this account or that account, or there's a lot that can tend to sometimes be sometimes be arguments over who's going to keep the animals right. Yeah, pets are a big deal. Pets are a big deal, especially for dual income. No, kid families. You know, pets become a big thing because they are the kids in the relationship. And we provide mediation services where we can go and just sit with you and say, okay, we're not going to take any sides here. What do you want? What do you want? How do we make this work?
Speaker 2:And we'll draft up what's called a memorandum of understanding that outlines everything related to kids and pets and household items and whatever property does exist vehicles, you name it and we'll just draft that document and then you can take that document and take it to. If you want to go to a legal document preparation service to file with the courts, you can do that. Most courts will just take our memorandum of understanding and sign off on it and then boom, you're divorced. And then we can do that in just a couple of sessions and for maybe $600, maybe $1,000, somewhere in that range, you can be divorced and we can do it in just a couple hours. Yeah, super clean. And then you have the more complicated divorces right, and then that could take us six months to a year to work through. And we do it all. We do it all. We do it all, whether from more of the more complex cases to also the very simple, and we have a service that we can match for all of them.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about from the time that the divorce happens right. So what are some of the first steps that you might recommend to someone to get their finances in order post-divorce?
Speaker 2:I am biased, of course, but I recommend working with a financial planner just to help you understand the lay of the land, so to speak. So to speak, you want to understand day one of your newfound single life, the things you need to do to put yourself on a nice, firm financial footing. And if I wasn't in this line of work, that's what I would do. I would sit with somebody and say, okay, the dust is settled, this is what I've received in the divorce, or this is what I wish I would have received, but I didn't get. This is what I earned, this is what I spend, this is what I wish I would have received, but I didn't get. This is what I earn, this is what I spend, this is what I've saved so far. Help me understand what the next steps I should be doing, based on my particular situation, to ensure that I have a solid plan moving forward to really build wealth and be able to take care of myself over the next 5, 10, 20, whatever many, however many years are left in my life, and I mean for an action item. I think the first thing that I would do if I would recommend this to anyone is you want to make sure you have a solid emergency reserve in place. You don't need to worry about buying crypto or maxing out your 401k or contributing to an IRA or buying the next hot shiny thing that they're selling on CNBC.
Speaker 2:You want to have six to 12 months worth of emergency cash on hand to cover six to 12 months worth of expenses.
Speaker 2:If you have $3,000 a month in expenses, you should have $18,000 to $36,000 in cash cash sitting there in order for you to tap into it if an emergency arises.
Speaker 2:Cash cash sitting there in order for you to tap into it if an emergency arises Even $100 a week just start stashing it away, because when the water heater breaks or the roof starts to leak or the car breaks down or the kids need this thing or the kids need that thing, you have a place to go to be able to get the money that you need to pay for that particular thing and you're not putting it on a credit card getting 29% interest charge to you every month or every year. It's one of those things like the estate plan. It's not sexy, nobody wants to talk about it, nobody's going to tell their buddies over the water cooler about it, but I've seen time and time again that one foundational financial planning thing, that little nugget, can save so many people so many headaches over the years because they have it in place. People, so many headaches over the years because they haven't in place.
Speaker 1:That's the thing, Like you know, give some basic fundamentals for people, just make it really relatable, easy to understand, Because if you do that, even doing something like that, I mean you're so far ahead of the average American right now.
Speaker 2:It's tragic, but it's the reality and if you have money saved cash, cash you're doing much better than most, for sure.
Speaker 1:My car is in the shop right now. It's an older car. I haven't had a car in ages. The guy quoting me says $1,600. So $1,600 for a car that's a 2006. And I wear the car like a badge of honor.
Speaker 1:I could have been bought me a new car, but it's like it works. You know, this is where I'm at. I'm like it works. It's a 2006 Dodge Durango 285,000 miles. Like I've driven this car, I'm going to drive it until the wheels fall off. You should, yeah, yeah. So I thought you know. I said, man, $1,600? Okay, you know.
Speaker 1:And the guy who called me, he thought I was going to say no, because he's like, you know, normally most people with a car this old, with this many miles, they just say, ah, forget about it. I'm like, no, let's go ahead and fix it, because to me that's two to three car payments. You know, average car payment, what? $600, $700 these days, even more, yep.
Speaker 1:So if I had fixed that, see, the difference would have been like if you would have said, hey, you blew a head gasket or your transmission is toast, I'm like, okay, like that would have been different, because that's the core function of the car. You know, these smaller pieces that break are designed to be defective over time. Okay, I fix them and I keep my car on the road. That's the type of you know financial decision that more people have to be in position to do, because you know, yeah, you go get the new car and it's shiny and a new car smell, but you have a $600, $700, $800 car note for 60 and now up to 84 months, where I just make this one-time payment of $1,600 and I'm back on the road For another five years.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying. For another five years, easy, exactly, yeah, easy, I agree.
Speaker 1:I agree, yeah, easy, I agree, I agree, yeah, so no, I appreciate you giving that those, uh, those tips. I think it's important for people that are going through a divorce, post-divorce, or just for anyone really. I mean, just really get your finances in order. Um, just speak to a certified financial planner, if that's something that would truly help. If you are really kind of oblivious of a lot of these principles, yeah, definitely get some professional help. It's a reason why they're in play. So, you know, take advantage of those services. So, before we go, I just want to give you the floor to offer the audience any final advice or final thoughts, and then also shout out your companies and share your websites and social media, how we can reach you, and you know, just close us out. Floor is yours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate that. Thanks for having me. It was a great conversation. They recovered a lot in a very small, small period of time. So so thanks again for that.
Speaker 2:But I think, if I could leave anyone with anything is because 50% of the people that we know and love are going to get divorced. That's just the reality of it. And then for those of us that are married for a second time, like me and you, we've got to be on our A game man, because it's like 67%, yeah, so we've got to be very careful. So there are a lot of people out there that need the help, and I feel like if I had any message for anybody that is on the verge of going through this and considering it themselves, the very first, the people that are going to be important in your life to help you get through this process, because it will be a process and, it doesn't know, it's not always amicable, it can be very emotional, it can be very challenging. So you're going to need these people. The first person I would, of course, I'll mention myself first, right, because I'm biased, right? So you should probably have a financial person in your core, someone like myself that can help you navigate the financial nuances of the divorce. You should also have, if you need it, an attorney. Now, I'm not saying that the first phone call you make should not be to an attorney. The first phone call you should make should be to somebody like myself who can guide you in the right direction and tell you whether or not we think you're going to need to hire one to begin with, because the other alternative is hiring somebody like a divorce coach.
Speaker 2:There are divorce coaches out there now, and this is a relatively new thing. Over the course of the last 10 years or so, I wish I had one of my own divorce, because it would have been incredibly helpful. But there are people that are out there that can help you navigate the legal system and understand how it works and what forms you need to fill out to be able to get divorced, and what mediation feels like and looks like and how to prepare for that, how to prepare for going to court, how to prepare to deal with your ex-spouse during this process and also handling the emotional aspects of it, because a lot of the divorce coaches out there are family therapists that have the psychology background to be able to help you navigate the emotional aspects of it because a lot of the divorce coaches out there are family therapists that have the psychology background to be able to help you navigate the emotional piece of this, and because you're going to if you have kids, you're going to have to handle. You know the emotions that the kids are dealing with too, so you have someone like me who can be a financial resource. If you have a divorce coach, it can be a process and an emotional support person for you Loved ones, your family members. I would surround myself with them because you're going to need a shoulder to cry on.
Speaker 2:I think, and again, if it comes to it, hire a good attorney to help you with the legal aspects of things. But don't make the mistake that I did. Don't pick up the phone once you decided you want to have it and get a divorce and start calling everybody in the phone book and trying to interview all these attorneys and everything, because you don't always need them and I appreciate the work that they do and I have a divorce attorney, a family law attorney, on my wealth management team. Her name is Amy. She's amazing and I have great friends that are divorce attorneys, but that doesn't mean they need to be your first call right, because it can get incredibly expensive really fast and sometimes it's unnecessary. So I would that's how I would if I had to do this all over again. That's how I would refocus and those are the steps that I would take myself. So hopefully it's helpful to people that are out there listening. You know you want to really want to take some time to create team you before you go down this path.
Speaker 2:You asked about how to contact me, so I think the websites are probably the easiest way, right? So my wealth management company is Woodson Wealth Management. It's W-O-O-D-S-O-N-W-Ncom. I'm sure you're going to put these links out there, so nobody needs to write them down. Yes, I definitely will. Allegiant Divorce Solutions is the divorce financial planning website. We have a whole section on mediation and what that looks like and what our financial planning process looks like. All of my contact.
Speaker 2:I don't have my cell phone with me right now, but my cell phone number is on the website so people can call me, they can text me. We don't do 800 numbers here. If you have a question, please, please reach out. We really are here to help and if I'm not the person to help you, you have my promise that I'm going to point you in the right direction. So you know, and all our social medias or social media stuff is up there. You're going to put links to it and everything.
Speaker 2:But you know we also one last thing. We have a Facebook group that we just launched a couple months ago, which has a couple hundred people in it already, which is amazing. It's called Preparing Financially for Divorce and it's just a way for us to commiserate with one another and I try to share tips and tricks along the way every day. We don't ask for email addresses. It can be totally anonymous, you don't have to. You know we're not pitching anything. It is really just a form for us to try to put information out there and help as many people as we can, because we're I'm only one person.
Speaker 1:So, preparing financially for divorce is our Facebook group that people should check out too. Yeah, and you know, uh, just for you reiterate that, yeah, I'll put all that information, cause you got a lot going on. So I know if, as far as you breaking it down on this, uh, this on this recording, it'll be a lot. So, for those that are listening and want to interact with Jamie and his businesses, you can look into the show notes. I'll have links there and, you know, I just really appreciate you, you know, coming on and talking about the relationship aspect of wealth management and helping people through a divorce. Wealth management and helping people through a divorce.
Speaker 1:A divorce is not an easy thing, but you know, the statistics show that it will. You know you'll be in business for a while. Let's just say that. So let's just make the best of it financially and you know not be, you know, flat on our face just because the relationship didn't work. So appreciate your services and thank you for joining the show. Thanks for having me, jamie.
Speaker 1:Thank you again for joining the show, sharing your insights into achieving financial freedom, growing wealth and then ultimately navigating the financial aspects of a divorce. Now, again, we hope no one needs that, but the data suggests that many people will, and you should tap into someone like Jamie that can help you through that process and not really just crater your finances when you're going through a divorce, because it's a very sensitive time emotionally. So let's make sure you take care of yourself financially. So tap into Jamie and his company and I'll be happy to assist you. Before you go, make sure to check out mosesdementorcom and also head over to YouTube and subscribe to Moses the Mentor. I really would appreciate that. So until next time, keep focusing on your financial goals, keep grinding, learn, grow and pay it forward Peace.