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Hey sis. Welcome back to Sis, Mind Your Money. I'm Bridgett Dickey, your wealth educator and strategist. Before we dive in, I have some exciting news I want to share with you! Our second annual Mother's Day Awards brunch is happening May 9th, right here in Houston, Texas. We're excited and celebrating women who are winning with their money and honoring their mothers. Registration is open now. Links are in the show notes. Go grab your seat. We are at our final four episodes of our series, our four part series, and so I have covered all things, the four Ds nobody wants to talk about. So I've talked about drugs, how it affects your financial life. I've talked about disease, how it affects your financial life, how does death affect your financial life? And today in our final episode for this series, I am talking about divorce. Divorce is one of those devastating events in your life. I pray no one goes through it, but I've, this one hits home for me cause I've been through a divorce, I've lived it. Have the t-shirt, have the hat, the bumper sticker, and the key chain and, this is not textbook. This is real life about what I'm gonna share with you, whether you're in it, you're healing from it, you're trying to protect yourself before it happens. This episode is for you. So let's talk about the legal fees that comes with it. Attorney calls mediation, court filings can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. Now, because I'm a business owner, I didn't wanna go this route. So the route I took was uncontested. Uncontested in the state of Texas was, I think altogether came about 500 dollars, and one of the biggest saving graces I had was legal shield and I had legal advice and legal counsel, someone that I can talk to and make unlimited phone calls to about my situation and what do I need to do because when it comes to divorce, you gotta divvy up the retirement accounts. Home equity, who splitting the house? What's going to happen to your credit? We have accounts, we have joint debt. The housing. How is that going to work? We gonna sell the house. You gonna keep the house? You gonna buy me out of it? What's going to happen if you have children who's gonna take care of the kids? Child support? Are you able to pay child support? It's all the things, and then when you are starting over in your forties, your fifties, or your sixties, and I've met some in the seventies, rebuilding at that age can look doom and gloom, and what do I do? It takes an emotional toll on you. So I would say the first three months after divorce, you are in survival mode. I'm a business owner, sir, at this point you may be the mom, single mom now, or single dad. You're no longer How do I what, what happens? And it was some things financially like I knew. Certain things and it did help, but I didn't realize the emotional toll it took on me, the drama that came from the divorce, the drama that was happening throughout the divorce, after the divorce. 'cause I'm thinking the divorce is over. I shouldn't still be dealing with you, but I still am. That takes the financial toll because now you are, personally, me, I was in survival mode. How do I what am I supposed to do? okay, I got this business. I got employees. How do I make this work? I gotta make payroll. I gotta find somewhere to live. It's not just about me. So how do I make all this happen? So some of the decisions that I made. Cause I was just so emotionally drained. I was full of emotions. I was glad it was over. Now I have to start over, find out who I am. Now I gotta rebuild where I am. I had to take on debt that I didn't think I was gonna have to take on. It was things happened that I did not foresee. As much as I tried to, do the uncontested route, but I still came out, with less meaning the financial strain of debt on me because when you do an uncontested, you really sit down and y'all gotta agree to say, look, you going, you gonna keep your retirement? I'm gonna keep my retirement. You going to keep your debt, I'm gonna keep my debt. Whatever's in the savings account, you get half, I get half. You come to the agreement or go through mediation and get help to you come to the agreement because the moment you decide you, I don't agree with any of this. Now that's when you looking at tens and thou, you looking at 10 minimum starting off. When that attorney said, now you want to keep fighting this, if you okay, then that means you minimum you gonna start off at 15 k, and in my mind I'm like, no, that's taking money away from the business. I want to be done. So it's really getting that legal counsel. I'm gonna say this to you if you're thinking about a divorce, the first, it is two people you need to talk to. Two people, maybe three, but definitely two. Your attorney first contested uncontested. You need to get legal counsel, and you need to also speak with your financial person. If you don't have a financial planner, you need to get one. You need to have someone to help you with your financial life. How is this, if I decide to leave what in my new budget? If you could have those things prepared early on, have a financial plan. 'cause what happens is most of the time when women come to me and men come to me, it is after the divorce. If you could have had me before the divorce or during the divorce, it will help you tremendously. Because when you are in the thick of a divorce, it's just certain things that you are not preparing for or thinking about because you are just so, it's because every day is a rollercoaster. You don't know what's gonna happen. You don't know how things are going to transpire that day, but what I've seen is that when you don't, having things prepared, literally switching everything over. Updating all the accounts that y'all had together. Now you gotta remove off of bank accounts, retirement accounts. This is where I've seen people have been married, you know, was married then. Now they're divorced and been divorced 20 years, and then one of the spouses passed away and now that spouse is getting the other spouse's retirement account, and then the kids are like, no, that money's supposed to go to us. But because if you never change it because you are divorced, that divorce decree cover certain things, but if you've never changed it with the your 401k, your 4 0 3 B, your 4 57, your Roths, your IRAs, if you've never changed, they gonna give that money to the person who's on that account. That's so important to know that how do I rebuild the emergency phone, post divorce? Right now I have debt. My credit has taken a hit. I gotta take care of the kids. I gotta do all these things. I have to now create a budget. Now your income goes from two people to now down to one. Do I have to get another job? Do I have to start selling stuff? And women, number one thing I've noticed 10 years later, women are still financially struggling after a divorce. 10 years later, I've witnessed too many who have person come and help me. They divorced 10 years ago, and they're still financially struggling. They're still dealing with the divorce debt. They still dealing with the stress and the headache of the divorce. The credit is not right. They're still dealing with it. But if you had someone to help you, you had a plan, you had things in place, this would help you tremendously. This would not keep you in bondage and keep you bound in stress for year and year after year. You want to be whole. You want to be where you're not dealing with this, but when you have that help and support, having that village, it helps. Having that legal counsel helped me, having my tax person helped me having people that's in, I'm go, look, I'm the financial person. I needed help. Why I say that is because you are emotionally drained. It's some things that you are gonna forget even though you are the expert because you're life happens and it will take a toll on you, and what I want you to understand is when you have things in place and you have that village and that community, it helps you. So when the life happens, you know who to reach out to. I pray I never go through a divorce again. 'cause one day, I would like to remarry. If I do, I know now going forward into a new marriage, what to do and I'll share one thing with you never fought about money. The whole time I was married, never fought about money because we had the financial plan, we had things in place. Now we fought at the end because now you're no longer dealing with the person you was married to, you're dealing with someone else, and so I want you to hear this. Get the help and the support. Do not sit in shame. Call your creditors. Let them know what's going on with you? I went through a divorce. This is what happened. You will be amazed. At times when I was trying to figure stuff out with the business going through a divorce, I'm calling these credit, Hey, this is what's going on. Oh sure we can wait. Do you know how many times God sent his angels and someone was there to help me? cause my focus is the business That was the focus because that's how I ate. That's how I paid my bills. That's that was the livelihood. And so I was so focused on that. I started losing focus on other things, but call your creditors, call the cardinal people, call the bank, let them know what's going on, going through a divorce, it was so much. I learned that I can put on my credit report that the reason why if a payment was missed, if something happened. This person was going through a divorce. They told me to call all three credit bureaus, Experian, TransUnion, and, Equifax, and let them know, and they will put an official note on my record. That helped me because then when I was going and had to tell people what was going on, because now, we divide and ask this, we moving stuff around. I'm no longer on this. Okay, we have this on record. That has helped me along the way. Now I'm in the rebuilding phase of my life, getting me together. What is it for me? I had to sit down and redo everything. I had to go get help. How do I do this now? It's just me. Why? I'm a woman of a certain age. I'm in my forties. Now what? Now? One thing I know. It is scary, but you have to take one day at a time. You can only live for the moment in today, but get the help. Get the support. Don't do this by yourself. I don't know if you headed to a divorce. In a divorce or just coming out of a divorce, you need the help and the support. Getting the help before, during, and after. But I would say that after is crucial because often most people go into a spiral, a negative spiral, bad habits, and to get the help and the support during that time is crucial, it's so important. Now, this one hits home for me because I went through this, this was me, right? The divorce one I've been through. I've been through 'em all, and thank God I've never been through the drugs. I've seen what drugs can do, but personally it's never been me or someone close to me. I've never witnessed that. But the death disease, divorce, yes, I have. Now. This wraps up our four D series, drug Disease, death and Divorce. These are the four things nobody prepares for, but everyone faces. My prayer is that something in this series gave you the push to get your finances protected before life forces you to do so. You don't have to figure it out, out on your own, and you don't have to figure it out today, but you do need to take one step, book a call, open an account, write a will, whatever your one step is, take it. I'm here to walk with you. I love you. Sis. Before you go, don't forget our Mother's Day Awards brunch is May 9th in Houston. Seats are filling fast. Register today at the link in the show notes. Bring your sister, your mom, your best friend. This is a celebration you don't wanna miss. See you there. Now go mind your money. Bye sis.