Hey, sis. Welcome back. You're tuned in to Sis Mind Your Money, the podcast where we talk all things money, wealth, and financial freedom without the confusion and without the judgment. I'm your host, Bridgett Dickey, wealth educator and strategist, founder of Dickey Financial Services and Wealth Management Firm, and the creator of Girl Mind Your Money movement. My mission is simple, to educate, empower, and equip women like you to take control of your finances and build real, lasting wealth. So grab your favorite drink, get comfortable, and let's get into it. Now if you've been listening this, you know, this is a four part series. Now we are in the second episode, and this one is for my engaged sisters. If you got the ring, congratulations. Now let's talk about what comes with that. And when you are engaged, this is a time everybody is so excited. We wanna plan out the venue, the food, the vacation, the gown, all the things, all the pretty things. And most couples spend nine months to a year, depending on situation. I've seen some in three months, but they spend all this time in year, sometime a year and a half, planning for. Not even one day, 30 minutes, and you do all of this planning. You spend all of this money, and you do all of these things for this day so you can look good, the hair, the makeup, the nails, all of this. And you spend no time planning your financial future. You spend no time planning what life will look like financially. And this is the biggest part because I've seen it. I've seen it when you don't plan and we think we have all the time in the world, and today we're gonna fix this. Today we are going to fix this problem that most people are not paying attention to when they are engaged. Now, when you're dating, now, I said this to my single ladies, when you're dating, you need to learn about this guy. You need to understand who he is, what he's doing, how he spends his money. How does he care for himself? He pay his bills on times. You can know all of this while you're dating. The moment you get those red flags and you see that this is a behavior, this is a habit you run. You don't try to fix, you don't try. You run just as I am telling you to get you together. They need to do the same thing. Now when I got engaged. We sat down and we were a hundred percent transparent. We pulled credit reports. I showed my credit report. I looked at his credit report. I asked, is there any back child support? I asked all the questions. Now, some of this stuff I knew before, but this some, what I'm telling you now are things that you, this is your deep dive. I knew some of the stuff before, but this was really getting into the details of everything, having that conversation. Hey, if you become ill die. How do you want to be buried? Do you wanna be cremated? What do you want? How do you want your funeral service? Have all of those questions answered? How do we handle our money every month? What do we do as a couple? Have that money conversation. You need to know these things. If both parents are still alive, say one parent becomes ill, one parent passes away. How do we handle this? Do your parents have life insurance? Are they expecting us to pay for this? Have those conversations. We had every last one of those conversations. I knew exactly what to do. I knew how to handle it, making sure what he had at work, what I had at work. During that time, I was building the business. When he met me, I had just started building the business. But one thing, one of my great mentors during that time told me is to have everything outside of work. And that's what I did. I had health insurance. I kept the health insurance at work, but I had disability, I had life insurance, I had everything. Hospital insurance, you name, everything that you could have at work. I had it outside of work because I knew I was going to go into entrepreneur, you know, being an entrepreneur, being a business owner. And so I, we had those conversations. Hey, I eventually want to fire the boss and do my business. I talked about my dreams and what I wanted. We talked about his, what do you want to do? And those are the conversations, what you need to find out. Now, I'm gonna tell you this. This is a good time. Now you're saying, well, I'm engaged. I'm about to get married. If you find out during this time. The mistake a lot of women make. If you find out some things that you did not know that financially is devastating, some traits, some habits, some things that you're seeing, this is your time to bow out. This is your time as to vacate the building exit stage left. This is your time. Do not go into a marriage. Thinking that this is going to change because it will not. This is your time for you to say, ah, no, that's not the life I want. Because if you say you marry, you know you gonna marry someone. This is def do us part. We gonna ride this train until we can't ride it anymore. So if you see red flags. Yellow flags, orange flags. Doing this time, even though you are engaged, you give yourself permission to walk away, know what you want. This goes back to what does success look like to you. You will have things that you will do as a couple, but do go back to never lower your standards. Keep what you want. I don't wanna have the hard conversation. We are so in love. It's just gonna ruin the moment. Love and the words of Tina Turner have nothing to do with this because how you live life together financially, and the things that you do will affect the love. Or if you like him that day, if you learn some things, this is the number one thing I see. A lot of couples go through major debt for one, not even one day before you're married. Now you have 20, $30,000 in debt because you're trying to pay for some elaborate wedding. This is a no-no. You're starting off in the red. This is a no-no. Assuming that, oh, when we get together, we'll figure things out. Once we get married, we get in our home. No. Have your have that financial conversation. Now, if you are a business owner, if you need to have a prenup, get a prenup. If it's certain things, it's nothing wrong with having these conversations. If you're a man for love, then this financial thing should not matter. Of course you're gonna build things as you get married and once you marry and do things together, but have this together just as you're planning the wedding and this beautiful day plan for the financial, that should be the number one conversation. How are we gonna pay for this? Not going into credit card debt. This is the number one conversation. When I learn that my client's, children or grandkids are getting married, I offer my services to them. That's something that you should be talking to someone with. Having that conversation, getting a professional to help you navigate this, Hey, this is a new part of your, you know, a new journey, a new part of your life. Let's make sure we are, you do it financially responsible. The worst thing is that you learn that income on top of debt is not right. Things you, and then we gonna go and spend 20, $30,000 on a wedding and then now you have debt to pay for that. That will cause issues. I have met people that's been married for 10 years and still paying on wedding debt. That's not how it was supposed to be. When I did get married, my budget, I don't even remember how much it was I set a budget and that was the budget. That's how much you spend on the honeymoon. That's how much you spend on the wedding. Everything was paid, owed nobody. When it got on that plane and to go to the honeymoon, didn't owe anybody, came back debt free, didn't owe anybody. Everything was paid. Everybody got paid cash. We were done and so you want to walk into the marriage that way. Maybe you don't come from a family or your parents are not able to afford the wedding or pay for the wedding. For you the wedding it is because it's the two of you. What do you want? So it's so important. Look at your debt picture from the two of you. You need to sit down and see how much debt that your spouse owes. If your spouse is owing 20,000 plus and that's man or woman, it does not matter. You need to have a conversation. How is this gonna get taken care of? If it has not been done, then why would you go and take out more debt? So looking at a full picture of the debt, credit, what's your credit score? What's my credit score? Pull on credit report, see what's going on. If when you pull that credit report and somebody's at a hundred thousand, 50,000 now student loans is not bad debt. Now, I don't want you to discount them, but if we looking at credit card debt or they file for bankruptcy, these are the things that you should be asking. How do you need to learn? How do they spend? How do they save? How do they earn their money? Are they behind? Do you owe the IRS? All of this is a part of the conversation. What are your financial goals for the next year? Year three and year five. These are questions that need to be answered. Do not go past goal. If this is not taken care of, don't start going get a dress, put down a deposit on the venue going, hiring a photographer. Get past this. Know this. This could be a deal breaker for you. If there's no plan, if they haven't figured it out, so then you're going to get married. You want to purchase a home probably if you haven't already. How is this gonna be taken care of? But that is their responsibility to figure out women. We love to take care of men and help them, and I need to show them, and I need to guide them, and I need to know. It is their responsibility to figure out and for them to come back and say, Hey, this is what I'm doing. This is what's gonna happen. How long is it going to take to get out of this debt situation? You need to have a plan on how this is going to happen. Also, what is their mindset around money, the upbringing. A lot of times women are so shocked when they learn that well, he won't allow me to get access to his bank account. I don't know how much money he earns. He won't tell me. If you would've had this conversation during the single or engaged stage, then you would've found out a lot of things you would've learned that he'll never give you access. And are you okay with that? Are you okay with never having access to his bank account and knowing how much money he makes? Are you okay with never filing a tax returns together? Are you okay with that? These are questions, the probing questions you need to be asking upfront. Know the answer. Do not feel ashamed, embarrassed not to ask what you for, what you want, go after for what? Say what you need. This is what I need, this is what I want. If they're unable, unwilling, won't do it, then that's your answer. You can't change them. But I need you to know these things so you can make a decision if this is something that's, you know, if you had your boundary list, 'cause that's one thing I created when I was a single girl. What's your boundary? What's your non-negotiables? If this is a non-negotiable, then you don't try to move the line to accommodate. This is what you want. This is what you're going for, and so you don't change your mind because you don't wanna marry somebody. They're not, if they're not willing to change it now, they will not change it when they're married. And one mistake I made in doing, like when I look back at life now, some things I didn't know I should have asked, right? It was some things and I would say the things I didn't ask, like during that time when I look back at it, it was just some things during that time, even 10 years ago, I just wasn't armed with. Like I know today and it helps me better understand going forward what I need now. During that time, yeah, he didn't have any debt. That was wonderful, but what I know today is that what was the plan? How was he going to do it? We did so much of we, oh, let's do it together. We what we like, what we're going to do is that. It was things that he should have had together before, and I just now a little older, more mature life experiences have taught me some things. I mentioned earlier about the whole prenup, have the prenup conversation. I did, I had a pre I at that time, 'cause I had just started the business, so I didn't do the prenup, but I did a postnup. I had that conversation. I had the conversation about a post nup because I was dealing with grown children, and kids feel how they feel and they feel that they, you know, they see parent living life now. They feel that they should have a part of that, and I know it was my business. It's not like what I created, I wanted what I created. To benefit who it was supposed to benefit, and so those are conversations you need to have. Are you going to inherit your spouse's debt? Do you want that? If you're because you're going to inherit it. What expenses are you going to combine? What expenses that. Keeping the finances separate. What does that look like? This is not a cookie cutter. This is where you need assistance and guidance and help. This is something that a lot of times, most couples are not. I work with a lot of couples and this helps me to help them. So I work with engaged couples. I work with single people. I work with married people, I work with divorced people. You need this help. Because there's some things you just don't know. Planning a wedding without going into debt, that's the number one thing, and that was the agreement. That was the agreement I had with my ex, and did not have debt set financial goals one year from the marriage. Financial goals. For one year of marriage, how is this going to look? You need to have all this together. Whatever life insurance, estate planning, will trust, medical power of attorney, financial power of attorney, all this needs to be in place. Before you say, I do. Why? I know this because I had all of this. You can do this, all this before. You don't have to say I do. You can have all this stuff set up before. It's some things you do have to wait on if, especially if you're gonna change your name, but for the most part, all of this can be set up before you get married. Now the ring is just not the beginning. This is the beginning of the financial conversation that's gonna last the marriage. You need to have this conversation of, if I got sick or her passed away, died the day of tomorrow. We have children together. Who going to provide if we both die at the same time? Now we have kids. Who's gonna be the guardian? Who's gonna take care of our children? What's going to happen? All of this need to be in writing, not in theory, not in your mind, in writing. Having this money conversation is so important, not after you've, because you get so caught up. We're gonna buy a house, we're gonna have children, have this conversation before, and this is your life. This is your alignment with your spouse. No one else. This is that leave and cleave you leave. This is now, you are one. So this decision needs to be between the two of you, not you going back, telling your parents, telling his parents, no, respect each other, love each other enough to have the conversation and design the life that you want. This is no time to go and start telling friends and family what's going on and getting their opinion. You wanna cause some issues, that'll cause some issues. This is a time to set your foundation of what you want. This is a time for you to set the tone of your marriage, your future self will be so happy. Your future when you're married as a couple, the future couple will be so happy, and so this is a time for you to grow. This is a time for you to take your S off your chest. This is a time for you to be vulnerable. You're gonna feel so naked, but you're going to be thankful later. Trust me, you will. You will be thankful that you did it. And that's a wrap, sis. Thank you for tuning in to Sis Mind Your Money. I pray today's episode give you something real to work with. I'm Bridgett Dickey, your wealth educator and strategist, and I'll catch you in the next episode. Until then, go mind your money, sis. Before you go, think of one girlfriend who needs to hear this episode and send it to her right now. Text it, post it, tag me, just share it. We're building this community one sis at a time.