Marrying Your Finances: Navigating Engagements, Marriages, and Divorces as a Couple (Rerelease)

[00:00:00] Eric Brotman: Welcome to Don’t Retire… Graduate!: The podcast that teaches you how to advance into retirement rather than retreating. I’m your host and valedictorian Eric Brotman and today I have a special guest from the BFG family. My business partner, Lena Nebel is here. Just recently she and our associate Cody Niedermeier put on a webinar relating to marriage and the financial planning impact that marriage can have and how to plan for marriage. And so we wanted to do a show all about that topic. So Lena, welcome to Don’t Retire… Graduate!

[00:00:33] Lena Nebel: Thank you, Eric. It’s great to be here again.

[00:00:35] Eric Brotman: Marriage. Let’s talk about it because first of all, just for the record for our listeners, we are in fact both married, not to one another.

[00:00:43] Lena Nebel: At this time, correct.

[00:00:44] Eric Brotman: At this time we are not currently married to one another. However, we’ve both been through this before, and we’ve certainly been through it with hundreds of clients and their parents and their kids and marriage and divorce and all the different things that come along with that. So let’s begin by I guess why that topic was exciting to you and why you were looking forward to doing a webinar on it and, and then we’ll start digging into some of the, the, the do’s and don’ts.

[00:01:07] Lena Nebel: Sure. Well, the the timing of the webinar I think was great because it was right before Valentine’s day. So I’m sure during that time period, there was a lot of. The questions that were asked to loved ones and everything. And I think it it allowed for an opportunity for people to think about not just the actual wedding day, which as I mentioned on the webinar is just one day versus your marriage, which is ideally it’s going to be a lifetime.

So I think it allowed for an opportunity for people to think about how to manage the finances together. Dealing with titling issues, talking about big purchases down the road, goals, all of those things, but also how to deal with it on the front end. How do we plan for a wedding? How do we save money? What’s reasonable? And just some of the conversations that a couple should be having together, even if the couple decides not to get married. They’re going to stay together and they want to manage and merge their finances together. What are some of the items that they should be prepared for? So I agree, Eric, we have had these conversations numerous times. We’ve seen good, bad, and the ugly as it relates to relationships. So, part of our job, I think, is to also be that therapist, that counselor when needed.

So I did, I really enjoyed the, the topic and I, I enjoy talking with Cody about all those, all those various things, and also sharing some of my personal stories, which I told my husband, Joe, ahead of time. Please don’t listen to the webinar because there may be some embarrassing things I share.

[00:02:35] Eric Brotman: Well, you know, that, that makes me want to listen to it again and make sure I send Joe a message. So, so let’s begin at the beginning. You are we’re, we’re talking to folks who are contemplating maybe engagement. And one of the first steps, and I don’t mean the first steps in the relationship, but the first big financial step, a lot of times is an engagement.

And that’s a major purchase having, having done it now, myself twice. Sadly. I can say it’s a major purchase. What are the best practices around that? Particularly for let’s let’s, let’s start with younger couples. Folks who are folks who are high school or college sweethearts or, or met early in their twenties and, and are now ready to go down the aisle.

[00:03:17] Lena Nebel: Well, I think the ring is usually the the time period when people start talking about finances because they’re talking about that, that big purchase. And and I wouldn’t agree that that would be the first time that you talk about those finances. You have to start that conversation ahead of time so that individuals understand how much they should be saving, where their money is going, because when that purchase comes up, that can be a significant purchase.

The average engagement ring can cost between six to $8,000. We’ve seen people who have spent substantially more and of course also less. So I think for a couple, they need to determine, all right, is that where they want their money to go? I always say you have room to upgrade over time, so you may not want to start at the $15,000 price tag and on anniversaries and special occasions, you can always enhance that purchase if needed. But one of the things with the ring that is crucial, that Cody and I discussed, is you want to also ensure that ring. It’s a big purchase. If it gets lost on honeymoon or something happens to it, you want to make sure that you’ve contacted the insurance agency. You know, it’s usually your property and casualty agency where you can add that a rider on. There’s usually some level of jewelry coverage on your homeowners policy or renter coverage. But you want to be able to add a separate rider on that and have it appraised so that it’s insured for the proper amount.

And that’s not just for the engagement ring. That’s also for each of your wedding rings as well. I actually shared the story of my husband playing golf one day and he took off his ring when he was putting his glove on and completely forgot about it. So he went back the next day and the individual at the clubhouse actually pulled out a shoe box with hundreds of wedding rings. So it was literally trying to find a needle in a haystack. And he did not find it.

[00:05:02] Eric Brotman: He couldn’t find his own ring? It wasn’t engraved? It didn’t say “to Joe, you’re the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Love, Lena?”

[00:05:09] Lena Nebel: It does now. It does now. But it’s just funny, you know, you don’t, you don’t think about those things on the on the guy’s side, but you do want to make sure that what those rings are insured.

[00:05:19] Eric Brotman: Wow, which makes me wonder why all those men take their, their rings off when they go golfing with th with the guys. But that’s a show for another time. Might be–

[00:05:27] Lena Nebel: That’s a late night topic.

[00:05:28] Eric Brotman: That’s a different show. Okay. So you mentioned that this maybe shouldn’t be the first time that you talk about finances and, and I would totally agree with that. When you propose to someone you are marrying, not just them, but you’re marrying their history. You’re marrying their families. You’re you’re choosing, when you propose to someone, you’re choosing your future in-laws for better or for worse. And we could, we could do a whole show on that and it would be a comedy bit, I’m sure. But coming up with the conversations that you’re going to have, these are awkward conversations because you want to know if your, if your future spouse is saddled with student loans or has a disastrous credit history or has liens against them, or has a bankruptcy or, or any of the kinds of things that could be detrimental to, for example, buying a first home together. How do you, how do you approach that? What is the is it better to do that with a financial advisor to guide you through it? Or is it better to sort of throw caution to the wind and, and open a bottle of wine and have a conversation just, just one-on-one?

[00:06:28] Lena Nebel: I would absolutely start with the bottle of wine. And it’s not something, obviously, you’re going to say on a first date sharing all of your financial information and your financial health, but over time, if this is something that the two of you are looking at building a future, then you’re going to have the conversations about income and expenses and debt.

And you know, kind of what the future lies for the both of you. What your goals are as well. I think it’s all kind of tied together. People will talk about if they want to have kids or not, but do they want to kind of start a business? Do they want to get involved in their family business, which could be in a different state?

You know, so I think having those conversations as you’re starting to see that you’re building a life together is helpful. I think the financial advisor can come into play after those conversations have happened so that it’s not a surprise in that first meeting. And sometimes two individuals may already be working with a financial advisor so having that conversation of, well, whose advisor do we go to? Cody and I spent some time on the webinar talking about that topic as well, because that’s something that we see often, especially in second marriages. Individuals have already established financial independence. They’re, they’re working with their own CPA. They’re working with their own financial advisor. So how do you merge those relationships together is going to be crucial over time as well. But I agree. I think a lot of the issues people have with marriages when it’s dealing with money, it all comes back to not being honest, not sharing that information.

So the more open and honest conversations couples have, the better the dialogue will be. And the less stressed money-wise individuals can be to in going through their marriage.

[00:08:08] Eric Brotman: So you talked about briefly second marriages and how they can be different than an initial marriage, particularly if there are kids from a prior marriage, which is a whole nother, a whole nother ball of wax let’s talk about the most romantic part of getting married, which is the prenuptial agreement.

Prenuptial agreement is the, I love you very much, but if, if one of us ever changes our minds, we need to have a plan for that. It’s the least romantic thing I was being facetious. Of course it’s the least romantic thing there is. And it can be a really difficult thing to navigate. But in second marriages, when, particularly when there are kids for one or both parties or when there’s an incredible amount of wealth disparity. Even for young people, if, if the families are coming from very different places, sometimes that becomes an important thing.

How do you address that without causing, you know a lover’s quarrel in your office when you’re, when you’re working with folks?

[00:09:00] Lena Nebel: So I think prenups was kind of that dirty word, that taboo maybe 20 years ago, but now it’s become more common because I think we all know while we wish and hope for the best.

Anything can happen and people need to be more realistic. They need to be able to protect themselves. And so prenups are becoming more and more common and not just the prenup, but the postnup as well. If a prenup was not documented or taken care of on the, for the marriage during the marriage, if somebody got inheritance or there was some significant windfall, you could put a postnup together as well, which is also becoming common.

But again, those are those conversations that you have and, and begin to address how do we protect each other? How do we protect children if they’re from a former marriage? And that’s, that’s the key. And that kind of comes back to estate planning conversations as well, and looking at beneficiary designations and registrations because in the end it comes down to protecting each other and also protecting, you know, the loved ones are the other ones that are impacted by our finances.

And once you have those documents taken care of, you just set it aside and hopefully you never have to pull them out again, but at least you took care of it.

[00:10:11] Eric Brotman: So I think that’s Sage advice, and I do think these are becoming more common for sure. There’s also you know, if we look back many, many years, maybe even generations, there were very obvious for better, for worse were very obvious delineations of roles in a household which has changed over the years in lots of ways and I think for the better. But one of the roles that happens in any household is someone is usually responsible for paying the bills. And I, you know, in my experience, I have not seen that to be one spouse or the other based on gender whatsoever. I think it’s based on aptitude and interest and, and, and who has the time to do it.

But how do you handle bill paying when you have two young people who are used to doing it themselves and doing their own? How do you deal with suddenly a shared mortgage payment? If these are two young people who are both earning for example, or or, or one person’s car payment versus the other? How do you navigate some of that and who’s going to handle the day-to-day operations financially at the household?

[00:11:13] Lena Nebel: I I’d have to agree with you, Eric. You know, some of the things that I’ve seen and it really doesn’t come down to gender, but who is more comfortable with it. Who wants to kind of take control of that bill paying. For individuals who get married later in life and who have already established some type of financial independence it doesn’t mean that they have to combine, consolidate all the bill paying or the bank accounts. And so what may happen is that individuals may still have separate bank accounts, but they may have this one shared account for those shared expenses, like a mortgage payment, as an example. And that, again, it, it comes down to having conversations together and, and discussing who’s paying for what, when and how.

I just had a meeting yesterday. A couple of, they had gotten married later on in life. They have his and her money. His and her bank accounts. So we make sure that they’re titled appropriately, but they have that one shared bank account that they both kind of funnel money in at a certain day of the month and then automatic bill pays of their mortgage, or maybe any other joint expenses that they have. For them, it works out very well and it minimizes the financial arguments that could happen if they consolidated everything together. So while some people think that they have to merge finances, they don’t, and for some individuals it’s best to keep it separate.

Best for maybe each of them to pay their own bills, but not to hide it, but to communicate it. So in having that financial meeting with, let’s say, your advisor, that’s where you’re going to share and go through all of that information. Just again, personal story for my husband and I. Obviously just being in this line of work. I handle the majority of the finances, the bill paying, and everything else. But we have a financial advisor here at the office that meets with us a couple of times a year. And it’s an opportunity for Joe to be able to see where everything is. It’s an opportunity for us to engage in conversations of what our goals are, where our spending is coming from. What new expenses do we have coming up that we have to handle? And I think, again, I keep saying it, it comes back to open and honest conversations, but. Little things like a car payment or a bank account can turn into big conversations if not handled appropriately. So each individual really needs to be comfortable in how things are getting paid and in the control of those assets as well.

Growing up, and this is probably why I got in the line of work that I, that I’m in. My family fought about money all the time. And it was because it was living paycheck to paycheck. So it was very stressful. But you know, my, my dad didn’t like handling the money.

My mom took care of it, but didn’t do it the way that my dad would have done it. So it was kind of this back and forth argument that they would have on what’s the best way, what’s the best way to do that.

[00:13:56] Eric Brotman: So, so now your husband can’t listen to this episode and your parents can’t listen to this episode. Let’s see if we can rule out any other potential listeners while we’re here today. It’s true. We all grow up learning lessons about money. And one of the most challenging things financially about marriage is the fact that each spouse brings that baggage. And for you, it was paycheck to paycheck and fighting around money.

In some households it’s about poor spending habits and constant debt. For some it’s about putting every penny in, in the bank and never spending anything and, and, you know, so there’s a tendency, some people are natural savers. Some people are natural spenders. It’s best to have some, some balance of course, between the two when two spenders marry one another, it’s a recipe for, for serious trouble.

And on the other side, if two savers marry each other, it’s a recipe to not have very much fun. So how do you draw that delineation? What is the, you know, in, in the book, Don’t Retire… Graduate!, we talk about paying yourself first and we talk about making sure that you’ve put away what you need to for, for the longterm, so that you can do whatever you want with the other monies.

What is your best advice to folks who are trying to navigate that, particularly for the first time, in terms of who’s the spender, who’s the saver? How do we make big money decisions and so forth?

[00:15:13] Lena Nebel: Well, I, I think a lot of that comes down to kind of mapping out what each person is trying to accomplish and individually, as well as a couple. Are we trying to save for a house down the road? Do we want to have children? Is there daycare? College education? Do we have home improvements? Car purchase? Do we like to travel and we want to go on a big vacation every year? Do we buy a new car every three years or do we just run it into the ground? Trying to understand behavior and money habits is important, but then starting to put that to paper and mapping out what we want to accomplish as a couple is crucial so that we can look at it and say, well, if this is the goal that you have, then we have to be consistent with our saving.

And I think that there’s some, you know, median as far as being able to save some money and of course spend some money and have fun. You know, I had this one client to where he spent everything and he didn’t want to save for his future. He said, he’ll figure it out when he gets there. And of course he got there and there wasn’t enough money set aside for him so he couldn’t retire. He had to keep working. And I think there’s this blend of how can I enjoy life now and how can we enjoy it in the future? And so there’s not, in my opinion, there’s not a magic number of you should absolutely save this percentage of your income because everyone’s lifestyle is going to be different.

And when two people come together that may have different expectations on lifestyle, we have to find a way to get to a happy place to where both people can accomplish the goals that they have now and accomplish them in the future. I have a lot of engineering clients and engineers love their spreadsheets. Love tracking all of the different expenses to the penny and their spouses I don’t enjoy it at all. It has become a, you know, almost an argument when it’s time to talk about the dirty word that is a budget. So we try to look at the big picture of what we’re trying to accomplish and how we can not necessarily adjust behaviors, but adapt to the behaviors of both parties.

[00:17:20] Eric Brotman: Every state in the U.S. has its own set of rules around marriage and money. Some states are what are called community property states, where essentially once you’re married, everything you, you bring into the household becomes a marital asset with very few exceptions. Some states aren’t like that. They’re common law. And then you have Louisiana, which is just completely different than everybody else. In a community property state which Maryland is not you, you run into you run into this situation where whatever you bring into the household, whoever brings it into the household, is a marital asset if you were married at the time. Typically, and I’m using a blanket statement, but that’s pretty close. And prenuptial agreements can be effective there so long as they’re adopted and written in a community property state. And, and, you know, your estate planning attorney needs to be licensed, of course, in the state where you reside and so forth.

But let’s talk about another interesting marital issue relating to money and that’s inheritance. You know, you and Joe, if you and Joe are going to inherit any money, and I don’t know that you’re going to. It’s funny. Most clients, when we, when we ask, is anyone in your family predictably going to leave you money or cost you money?

Most of them laugh and immediately they say, well, no, one’s leaving me anything. And so I think we see a lot of that. But let’s assume that there’s going to be some form of inheritance. The best practices around that vary. They vary by state. But typically in most common law states, if you receive an inheritance and you put it in your own name and you never commingle it with joint assets, it is not a marital asset. Therefore the assets that come from one side of the family stay in that side of the family’s bloodline. And they’re arguably divorce protected. They’re there. There’s some kind of protection against the disillusion of the marriage that way. How do you navigate that when, when one of your clients inherits money and the spouse is wondering why it’s going in only his name or only her name and not into their joint pot?

[00:19:17] Lena Nebel: Sure, I’ll, I’ll answer that looking at it from two perspectives. So one when you inherit that asset, I think I agree with you, Eric. You know, we, we have to kind of treat that asset separately and it’s okay to keep that in an individual name, but you could still put that it’s a transfer on death designation so that it’s still getting passed to the spouse. I think that there’s the conversations that we have with clients in this situation on how we can use this money to help with whether it’s education funding, retirement planning, et cetera. So it’s not segregated from goals. But it’s segregated from an estate planning perspective. Just like years ago when the estate tax exemption, which was much lower than it is right now estate attorneys, financial advisors, purposely split assets out of joint name for those reasons.

And this would be a situation on why we would do that on, on keeping those assets separate. Again, both for protection and then some estate planning techniques. The other side that I would look at it is your, the, the parents who are leaving an inheritance and you want to be able to leave it to your son or daughter, but you’re not sure about their spouse. Or you’re not sure who they may end up marrying and if, if that’s a good decision for your, for your child based on their situation in life. So for some people, what they do, instead of just giving that money outright in an inheritance they may put it into a trust and they may put it into a trust to basically protect, you know, their child in the event that they get a divorce and they may want to make sure that that money goes to ultimately their grandchildren.

So there’s a couple of ways to look at inheritance, both receiving it as well as passing it.

[00:20:55] Eric Brotman: Once, once there are children, in lots of cases, I would tend to agree with you that that trust planning makes a ton of sense. Particularly if you’ve got minor children and you’re going to have guardianships or trustees and so forth, but also just because if you’re a young couple, if you’re a young couple you’re in your forties and both, you got two teenage kids or whatever it is, if one of you was to pass away at that moment, the surviving spouse is almost surely at some point, going to remarry or be in a new relationship at some point. We all think, oh gosh, I’m the only one my spouse wants. Guess what, again, that’s another show. But so my, my thought is that it’s okay to say I’m going to leave money behind to take care of my spouse if he or she outlives me, but the remainderment, whatever they don’t use that they need during their lifetime, will go to my children as opposed to potentially their next spouse or his or her kids or, or whatever comes out of that. I think that’s a very, very wise thing to do. And I don’t think it’s a difficult conversation. I think people can identify that without a lot of hurt feelings. Don’t you?

[00:22:01] Lena Nebel: Absolutely. It’s funny. You know, people think differently when you’re as a couple, when you’re thinking of divorce versus your spouse dying and remarrying. So, you know, you have the different conversations and people have different comfort levels with both of those. But I agree you, you don’t know what your spouse may do when you’re, you know, passed away. And for Joe’s situation, he knows that I will haunt him forever. So there’s that. I think we’ve incorporated that into our estate planning documents.

[00:22:26] Eric Brotman: Wow.

[00:22:27] Lena Nebel: But you do you want to make sure that the assets are going to go to where you want them to go in the event that you’re not here. And so estate planning allows for a lot of opportunities to put together your wishes, whatever they may be. And so while I, while I tease and joke about it, I think it’s very serious conversation that all couples should be having as they’re drafting their estate documents and recognizing things are going to change.

You’re going to eventually have children and your children eventually become adults. And then they have children. Where you live, you mentioned something about, you know, this, the state that an individual is in. If somebody moves from Maryland to Florida or to Texas, the, the rules are going to change. So you want to make sure that those documents are adapted to those new state laws as well.

[00:23:09] Eric Brotman: Let, let’s be frank. There’s only two ways for a marriage to end. You just nailed them both. Marriages can only end one of two ways. It’s either death or divorce. That’s the, that’s the beauty of a marriage. It’s going to end in death or divorce. That’s the bad news. The good news is both of them are easy to plan around as long as you do it in advance. And whether it’s planning for widowhood and, and looking at life insurance or looking at benefits or looking at at other types of, of planning, even down to beneficiaries and asset titling and those kinds of things, or whether it’s planning for divorce and trying not to kick the heck out of each other to do it.

You know, we we’ve walked, unfortunately we’ve walked as many clients down the aisle I think we we’ve walked plenty of them into separations too. And unfortunately that’s just part of life. It, you know, it’s the cycle of life one way or the other. When folks divorce, it can be acrimonious. It can be ugly. It can be incredibly expensive or it can be, I dare use the term mature. It can be a an understanding that we’re not going to try and hurt each other and the last thing we want to do is hurt our children. I’ve seen all different types of those situations, but unfortunately you can’t talk about marriage without talking about how it ultimately could dissolve one way or the other.

What is the best practice, or the best advice that you would give a couple, who let’s say you’ve been working with them for a dozen years. You know them both. You have a great relationship with them. And for one reason or another, they’ve decided they’re going to split. How, how do you tell them to navigate that? Particularly if all three of you are in the same room or the same conversation at the time.

[00:24:46] Lena Nebel: Sure. I’ve actually, you know, unfortunately I’ve had this experience multiple times. And the first thing that I always recommend is let’s try mediation. Instead of getting each of their attorneys and everything involved where it can cost a lot of money.

Maybe the two of them can sit down with a mediator and start to map out what that separation agreement looks like, map out eventually the divorce decree. But it really depends on, you know, all of the, the variables that are at play. You know, the, the finances. Was one spouse at home, one spouse working? Is there an uneven amount of assets in one spouse’s name versus the other?

And then of course are children involved and, and what that looks like and debt structure and everything. And so the more complicated it is, I feel like that’s where there’s definitely more emotion involved. So we’ll, I always recommend, you know, let’s start with a mediator. Let’s see if we can work that way.

And then unfortunately, you really have to try to take some of the emotion out of it and look at the finances and making sure that everybody is comfortable with the distribution of what they’re receiving. And one of the things that I found all too often is women tend to want to keep the house. And sometimes they end up giving up some meaningful assets, whether it’s retirement accounts, pensions, et cetera to make sure that they still have the house.

So our job is to go through all the financial aspects and determine what that best option is. And that’s where I mean you have to take the emotion out of it. Even when kids are involved, it’s still important to make sure that mom and dad can financially survive and, and can support what their new life, what that next chapter may be.

[00:26:32] Eric Brotman: So we’re, we’re almost out of time. It’s interesting. We, I know we’re in a global pandemic and in the middle of COVID. When we talk about marriage at length and we cover the cost of engagement rings and the, and bill paying, and in-laws, and legal documents and we cover everything except a wedding. We didn’t even talk about a wedding, which is where people spend 10, 20, 50, a hundred thousand dollars on a party. And you know, we haven’t had one, I haven’t been to a wedding in a long time. And I’m curious when 2022 rolls around, are these things going to be like the roaring twenties and, and a wild rumpus, or are people going to sort of downscale some of that and maybe that’s a talk for another day, but just real quick, before we wrap up today best practices around particularly wedding spending.

[00:27:22] Lena Nebel: Absolutely Cody and I did go into a deep dive on this. So if anybody wants to circle back on the webinar we, we spent some time on planning and paying for a wedding. And I think my biggest piece of advice is spend the money in the areas that you know you’re going to walk away from the next day really happy with.

And what I mean by that is flowers may die unless they’re fake, but who needs all those centerpieces? Your wedding dress, you should be only wearing it one time. Although myself, I did end up putting my wedding dress on for Halloween one time, but that’s again, another conversation and yes, there are pictures.

And then, you know, food’s going to get eaten. The cake’s going to definitely get eaten, but what sticks around are photos and videos. And when we put together our wedding budget, that’s where we spent our money. And every year on our anniversary, we watch our wedding video. It’s been over 15 years, we have parents that have passed away.

We have grandparents that have passed away. We have friends that have passed away, but they’re on that video. And it’s amazing watching it every single year. All the things that we pick up that we never saw before. And that’s something our kids watch with us now, too. So your wedding is one day. Your marriage is for the rest of your life.

So you want that wedding to be exciting and fun. But don’t go crazy on the spending. Be smart about where that money is going. And I agree, Eric, there’s not a lot of weddings happening. There’s, you know, maybe some backyard weddings or some virtual weddings, but I have a feeling that is not here to stay.

People are going to get back into putting a, a pretty dollar on those weddings. Just, just be cautious and again, have those conversations on what’s important.

[00:28:54] Eric Brotman: Lena, you’ve been an awesome guest. And, and a repeat guest now on Don’t Retire… Graduate! Pretty soon we’re just going to have to cohost this thing because because you’re, you’re a natural. In terms of an extra credit assignment for our listeners, I think because we’re because we work together, I think it’s appropriate we both give an extra credit assignment. I’m not going to put you on the spot without also putting myself on the spot. I’m even going to let you go first.

[00:29:17] Lena Nebel: Oh, okay.

[00:29:18] Eric Brotman: That’s the easier one. It’s like family feud. Coming up with that answer at the end, after somebody else had a shot is really tough. So it was what is your extra credit assignment for our listeners today?

[00:29:26] Lena Nebel: So one of the things that I would say, you know, a question you had in the beginning was how do a couple of start talking about this? The best way to start talking about this is when it’s time to enroll in your benefits at work. Sit down with your partner. Look at what all your benefits are for open enrollment. And that’s a great conversation to start with. What your income is. What insurance coverage is. How much are you putting away in your 401k? Do you have a health savings account available at work? What’s the health insurance plan look like? What are all of the other benefits that both of you may be able to partake on once you both are married? So dealing with open enrollment, which is usually around the fall time, end of the year, could be a great way to start those conversations.

[00:30:10] Eric Brotman: Great assignment. I’m going to take a slightly different approach. My extra credit assignment is to work together and to take inventory. I firmly believe it’s impossible to, to figure out how to get where you want to go, even if you know exactly where you want to go, it’s hard to figure out how to get there unless you know where you are. And a shocking number of people, particularly people getting married to one another, but, but even on their own, it’s an amazing thing how few people really know where they are financially and it’s helpful to take inventory. Whether you do it with an online tool or you do it with your financial advisor or you use the, the, the new Don’t Retire… Graduate! Workbook and put this together. Whatever your strategy, take inventory, know where you stand and then it’s a whole lot easier to build a map to where you. So that’s my extra credit assignment. Lena Nebel, you are an all-star guest and will certainly be back. Thank you for being here.

[00:30:59] Lena Nebel: Thank you for inviting me.

[00:31:01] Eric Brotman: And thank you all for listening. Please help us grow our show. Subscribe to our podcast, post comments and reviews on apple podcasts or other download sites. Don’t Retire… Graduate! is a book available in print, Kindle and audio formats, and a workbook with all the steps you need to build your own financial freedom plan. For more information, go to Brotmanmedia.com or buy your copy and leave us a review on Amazon. We’ll be back next week with another installment of office hours and in two weeks with another engaging guest. For now, this is your host, Eric Brotman, reminding you: don’t retire. Graduate!

[00:31:34] Narrator: From this day forward, let us begin visualizing our dreams and building our futures. Today, I implore you: don’t retire. Graduate! Visit our website at dontretiregraduate.com to subscribe. And please like us and post comments on social media.

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