Then Comes Marriage: How to Merge Your Financial Lives

Cody Niedermeier: [00:00:00] Hello, and everyone, and welcome to our second installment of our webinars series here at BFG financial advisors. Uh, for those who attended last time, it’s nice to see you again. And for those that are new. Welcome, my name’s Cody Niedermeier and I am an associate at BFG, and I’m really excited to have you all here for our second.

Cody Niedermeier: Today we are lucky enough to have one of my favorite people in the office. Don’t tell anyone, Lena, and those that are watching, I’m sorry, but we have Lena Nebel, who is one of the principle owners of BFG, and also has more than 20 years experience in the field and across various topics, including the one that we’re going to talk about today.

Cody Niedermeier: So what we’re going to be looking to talk about today. Merging your financial worlds and speaking everything from the start of marriage to hopefully not the end, but everything in between, but Lena welcome. We’re so happy to.

Lena Nebel: I’m [00:01:00] happy to be here too. Cody I’m excited to be talking about money and relationships right before Valentine’s day. So the timing couldn’t be better.

Cody Niedermeier: It seems fitting. Right? Right. Well, without further ado, I think we should get into it. And I want to preface this by saying that we are going to talk about, um, the premarital process and the idea of things such as. Engagement rings and those tough conversations that you should probably be having before moving forward with marriage, but we’re going to spend a bulk of it on when you finally tie the knot you’re married and you know, those steps that you should be doing.

Cody Niedermeier: And if you haven’t done them yet, you know, maybe it’s time that you start having that conversation and taking a, taking a look back at, you know, your entire financial world and where you’re trying to go and accomplish those goals. What should we be looking to prior to becoming married? Um, I think we should probably start off with, you know, how do we talk with the person that we’re, we could see our [00:02:00] rest, the rest of our lives being with.

Lena Nebel: Yeah, I think that, you know, before you’re getting engaged and obviously you’re thinking about spending your life with this person, you want to have a full disclosure of your financial worlds. It’s in, it’s important to talk about income, debt savings accounts that have already been established. And you know, you don’t go on date one and asking, well, what’s your salary, but over time, those are the conversations you want to have.

Lena Nebel: I think we all know. Um, that a lot of relationships can dissolve because of, um, money issues, money problems. And so that a lot of that has to do with the fact that people aren’t being honest, they’re not sharing. Um, so again, as you’re transitioning into that next phase of your relationship and getting engaged, it’s important to, to have those conversations.

Lena Nebel: I’m hoping my husband’s not listening to this webinar because I know I’m going to share a lot of personal stories. And, um, in thinking about this topic, uh, ahead of time, I started thinking about my own personal situation. [00:03:00] And I know when my husband and I, um, were together for a while before we got engaged, you know, we would have those conversations.

Lena Nebel: You know, he had every credit card imaginable from the department stores just to get the 20% off. So we sat down and we closed all of them, cut them up. Um, but those are the conversations you want to have. You, you want to be honest, you want to, you want to share, if you can’t have those money conversations with the person that you want to spend your life with. Um, it’s going to be tough to be able to have other conversations. Yeah.

Cody Niedermeier: And I think that makes complete sense. And I know during our last webinar, when I was talking with Eric problem, and one of the other principle owners of BFG, we talked about, you know, there’s, there’s no better time than now to have those discussions.

Cody Niedermeier: Kind of not a joke on it, but I mean, with everything going on with the band DEMEC, and there’s not much we can be doing in the world, you know, this is the type of thing where you can have dinner and you can have these talks and try to figure out, you know, what makes sense for the, both of you and your relationship moving [00:04:00] forward.

Cody Niedermeier: Um, I guess to kind of an idea of protecting this and you know, you’ve come to this conclusion, you guys are on the same page and you’re looking to move forward. One of the tough subjects that comes up is the idea of. And kind of protecting your financial world and protecting the financial world of, you know, that person that you see the rest of your life with, but, you know, times have changed and things happen and people kind of move their separate ways.

Cody Niedermeier: I guess what I want to know is how do you bring up that conversation? And then if we could break down exactly what is a postnup, what’s a prenup and kinda kind of build off those together.

Lena Nebel: No, I think this is an important conversation to have and probably 20 years ago. You know, uh, a prenup was kind of a dirty word because it’s, you know, you’re already going into the marriage thinking it’s going to fail.

Lena Nebel: So, um, people would shy away from having that conversation. Whereas now it’s absolutely more common. Um, more individuals are becoming, uh, more financial, uh, [00:05:00] literate with a lot of the topics that are out there. So a prenup is now more common than what it used to be. Um, so what a prenup is, it’s basically a document that’s laying out the financial agreement, right, should the marriage dissolves, should that relationship end. Then it’s a way to protect both spouses. It’s a way to, um, also protect if there’s children involved in the relationship. Um, and then the post-nup would be you two are already married. Um, maybe there’s a windfall that comes in, there’s an inheritance or there’s something that changes in your financial world and you want to put that post-nup together as well.

Lena Nebel: So that’s where you would meet with a family attorney. Having those documents drafted, um, each state varies on the rules. So you want to make sure that, um, the attorney that you’re meeting with is familiar, um, and is, you know, practicing law in that state, uh, state of residence. But, um, both are very important documents.

Lena Nebel: We see prenups a lot in a second. Um, just because assets have already been established. [00:06:00] And unfortunately that they’ve already been through marriage number one. So a prenup is extremely important. Um, also if there’s businesses that you’re dealing with as well, you want to make sure that the businesses are protected.

Lena Nebel: So that’s where those agreements can come in.

Cody Niedermeier: If, if where you were, I’ll use myself then as an example. And if you need to use anybody, feel free to use me this entire time, I’ve got no shame, so please bring it on. But, um, let’s say I’m getting married. I get a prenup, I get married and we’re living in Maryland.

Cody Niedermeier: And you know, we pick up, we moved to Virginia. Do I have to alter that agreement or is it good for Maryland? Cause I know you were saying it’s based on a state by state basis.

Lena Nebel: No, that’s a great question. Um, whenever you change your state of residence, you want to meet with the attorney to see if any of your documents are still valid.

Lena Nebel: There may be something that has to get tweaked. Maybe there’s some thing that would have to be added to the document, whether it’s state documents, which I know we’re going to talk about in a little bit, or it’s [00:07:00] these, um, pre or postnuptial agreement. So anytime you’re changing a state of residence, you want to make sure that everything is up to date in that state.

Cody Niedermeier: Okay. So basically the same thing, as, you know, having that relationship with your financial advisor, you want to have that relationship with your attorney. So it’s, you’re not picking up and move in and then saying, Hey, I did this. You’re rather preparing for that situation and knowing all the details before you do actually proceed with whatever action you may be taking.

Cody Niedermeier: Correct. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to start off this webinar, you know, knock out the prenup and the post-nup discussion and then kind of get into some more fun categories of the getting in, uh, getting married.

Lena Nebel: So your girlfriend agreed to the prenup, right? And now we’re about to get engaged. We

Cody Niedermeier: folder into the prenup.

Cody Niedermeier: Yes. Uh, so we’re ready to get engaged. I’m spending my nights, um, looking online, making calls, any family, friends, or anything like that. I’m looking at what some might think the dreaded engagement ring. Um, I know there’s the [00:08:00] old folk tale of three months salary is what it has to be and kind of going into that situation no matter, you know, if you’re at the lower spectrum of a salary versus the higher spectrum and kind of figuring out what makes sense for, you know, This thing I want to give my future wife that represents, you know, my love for her or anything like that, moving forward and the idea of how much should I save and what I should be doing when I do actually purchase the ring.

Lena Nebel: Um, this is usually, I think time that, um, couples really talk about finances is when they’re actually talking about what to spend on an engagement ring, which I always find interesting when, when you have that. Um, but first Cody, the size of the ring, doesn’t describe the love that you have for your girlfriends.

Lena Nebel: We don’t want to set that expectation. We want to set reasonable expectations of, um, you know, what both of you want, right? Because you don’t want to go into debt in having to purchase [00:09:00] a ring. I think some people can be a little sticker shock when they, when they look at that price, um, on average and engagement ring can cost around, you know, six to $8,000.

Lena Nebel: And, um, for some people that that’s absolutely a lot of money. So you want to make sure that you’re setting aside. Into a bank account. Um, you, you know, setting reasonable expectations on timeframe on when to get engaged because you don’t want to spend everything on that ring when it could be used towards possibly the wedding budget or some other things that the two of you wanted.

Lena Nebel: Um, also, you know, it’s, it’s a big purchase, it’s an important purchase. So you want to be able to protect that purchase. So that’s where you want to be able to look at getting it insured. So, um, you could have it appraised at the Juul or, uh, you provide it to your insurance company and then they’ll put aside again, a separate policy to help ensure that if it becomes damaged or it gets lost on your honeymoon, um, you want to make sure that you have that protection.

Lena Nebel: As well, but the, um, the engagement ring, uh, unfortunately can set the [00:10:00] stage for a lot of, uh, conversations as you’re starting to plan the wedding and everything as well.

Cody Niedermeier: And you answered one of my big follow-up questions is, you know, once that ring is purchased and in my mind, I’m going to be thinking about her, walking around with that ring on her finger.

Cody Niedermeier: And, you know, she takes it off for something and all of a sudden it disappears. What do, uh, what do we do? You know? Cause like, If you look at your homeowner’s insurance policies, they cover up only a certain little amount that a lot of people aren’t even aware of, but having that access. Uh, insurance based on appraisals is, is huge just for the ease of mind and, you know, ensuring that thing, like I said before, it’s a representation of, you know, the commitment you’re making

Lena Nebel: and it’s not just for, you know, the women’s ring, but it’s also for, um, you know, the husband’s ring could be any ring quite honestly.

Lena Nebel: A few years ago, my husband was on the golf course and he basically took off his ring. He was putting on his glove and forgot to put his ring back on. [00:11:00] And so he actually, a day later, went back to the golf course and asked him, you know, did you find a ring anywhere? Which I thought was a shot in the dark.

Lena Nebel: Um, but the individual actually pulled out a box of hundreds of wedding bands guys had lost on the golf course. Um, so it literally is like a needle in a haystack. Um, but you know, you, you lose a ring there is some type of coverage, uh, typically on a homeowner’s policy and there could be a deductible with that.

Lena Nebel: Um, but then you’re able to go out and get another ring. So, um, again for large purchases like that, you definitely want insure it.

Cody Niedermeier: Absolutely. And I am sure he was using that ring as an excuse for a couple of slices and draws and some things he wasn’t trying to do on the golf course. But, um, so we’re looking forward and, you know, we got the ring we’re engaged and we’re one of those couples who, you know, want to move in together before the wedding.

Cody Niedermeier: And the idea of [00:12:00] whether I have my house and she’s going to move in with me or she lives in an apartment and I’m going to move in with. Um, how do you have those discussions about, you know, where are we going to live? How are we going to split those bills? Like, what’s the process going to be of us, you know, kind of merging our lives less in the financial sense, but also included, but more just merging our lives of being together, waking up together in the morning and kind of progressing through our day like that.

Lena Nebel: Yeah. I think, um, those conversations, you bring up a lot of good. Good parts because you know, whether you’re you’re renting or you’re purchasing or you have a house and someone’s moving in with you, um, there’s bills that have to be paid. Right? So who who’s responsible for those bills? Is it you Cody because you have a house and she’s coming in to live with you.

Lena Nebel: So you’re contained. To make your mortgage payments, and she’s just giving you some money for utilities. There’s, there’s a lot of those conversations that again, they, they need to happen before you even move in [00:13:00] together. Don’t have the conversation on day. One of, uh, living in the, uh, whether it’s the apartment or the house, but you also want to be able to protect each other.

Lena Nebel: If again, it doesn’t work out. Um, if let’s say you two, decide to purchase a house today, You know, are you selling a property? Are you, um, using your savings to contribute towards that down payment? And if that engagement breaks up, how are you getting your money back? You know, what agreements do you have in place to be able to protect each other?

Lena Nebel: Um, but it’s not just about the rent payment. There’s, you know, utilities, there’s insurance, there’s a homeowners association. There’s all of those expenses. Uh, to this day, um, my husband and I joke about how, uh, I had an apartment actually just down the road from our office and he moved in with me. Um, so he would give me money towards rent.

Lena Nebel: And within two months, I think I increased his rent a little bit. Um, so again, you want to have those conversations ahead of time. Uh, I wouldn’t recommend getting a joint bank account at this stage [00:14:00] because again, you’re not married. Um, and again, if you just starting this process, uh, today, a lot of people have PayPal.

Lena Nebel: They have Venmo, there’s very easy ways to be able to transition money, transfer money, to and from each other. Um, and I think that’s the best thing to do, whether you’re paying for rent, mortgage utilities, et cetera. Um, but the house definitely makes it more complicated just from a titling standpoint. Um, and how to protect, you know, the two of you.

Lena Nebel: So let’s take you Cody as the example, and you have a house and your girlfriend moves in with you. You’re together for a few years. You, you plan on getting engaged, but unfortunately it just doesn’t work out. Um, how is she protected with maybe she helped to contribute money for a bathroom renovation? Um, how would she get that money back?

Lena Nebel: Those are the things that you want to make sure that you do have that conversation and that you two are both again. Um, you’re realistic and you’re both honest in those conversations. [00:15:00]

Cody Niedermeier: Yeah. And I guess one of my thoughts about it was, you know, if sh if she were to move in and let’s say something did happen to me and, you know, I have my estate planning documents in order and all of that.

Cody Niedermeier: And you know, she’s not all of them at this point, which we’ll talk about that later, as you’ve already alluded to as well. But you know, what happens to her, if my house is left to my sister or my parents or something like that, All of a sudden she’s not covered. She’s not on the deed. She’s not on anything of, you know, that’s not her home anymore.

Cody Niedermeier: And when you’re moving in together, you want to make sure that, you know, it’s a home for both.

Lena Nebel: Yeah, we see that, um, a lot at the office, which is a couples who have been together for many years. There’s no intention of getting married, but you know, they, they share finances. They, they share their roof. Um, but the property may be only in one person’s name.

Lena Nebel: So it’s important to have a document set up on, if let’s say Cody, you pass away, [00:16:00] um, your girlfriend, your fiance couldn’t stay in that property. Um, for as long as she likes and here’s the responsibilities that she’s going to have if she’s taking over the mortgage, you know, everything else. And then. There could be a time period set up with that, or when she decides to leave, then that property reverts back to let’s say your sister or your parents, um, otherwise your sister or your parents in essence become her landlord.

Lena Nebel: And if they don’t like her, they can just kick her out. There’s no protection for her. And like I said, too, from a financial standpoint, if she has contributed money towards any type of renovations in that property, how does she get that money? So those are the things that, um, again, they’re not fun conversations to have sometimes, but you want to be able to protect each other and hopefully you never have to, um, use any of those documents.

Lena Nebel: And, um, and it, again, it, it works out and, you know, um, those are the things that we have to talk. [00:17:00]

Cody Niedermeier: Yeah, no, absolutely. Uh, I completely agree with you. Uh, these are tough conversations that need to happen. Um, the last thing I do want to talk about that I think everybody that’s listening is also curious about, for those who are not married yet, is the idea of, you know, planning for that special day.

Cody Niedermeier: You know, you’ve got your dress, you’ve got your suit, you know, all your friends are coming, the bachelor and bachelorette parties are done, right. And, you know, it’s, it’s time to really plan and, you know, make this picture perfect day that you’ve kind of always imagined or always thought about. And the idea of what do we need to do?

Cody Niedermeier: What do I need to save and kind of ideas of what’s important and what’s not important for that wedding day.

Lena Nebel: I, I think you, you said it perfectly Cody, you said that picture perfect day, right? It’s one day. Your wedding is, is one day. Ideally your marriage is going to last a lot longer. So careful on [00:18:00] how much you spend on that one day.

Lena Nebel: And again, you want it to be memorable and perfect. Um, but it can be expensive. You know, the average cost for a wedding is around $35,000 in doing this for as long as I have, I have yet to see a wedding that costs under 35,000. It’s usually. Way north of that. Um, and that can be dependent on the culture, the expectations, uh, destination weddings, things like that.

Lena Nebel: Um, obviously with the pandemic going on, there’s been. A lot of zoom, weddings or backyard weddings and people have improvised and, and cut down their budgets tremendously. But I think that’s temporary. I don’t think that’s going to be the norm. I think people are going to jump back up, um, into those higher, higher price weddings.

Lena Nebel: Um, Again, just another personal story of ours. Um, you know, I didn’t spend, we didn’t spend a lot of money on flowers cake or even my dress. I mean, flowers typically die unless they’re fake. And [00:19:00] then you just have all these centerpieces and I don’t know what to do with that. A cake is absolutely going to get eaten.

Lena Nebel: Um, and then the dress, you know, ideally you’re just wearing it, that, that one time. Um, but what lasts are pictures and videos? So what we chose to do is we chose to allocate our wedding budget more towards the pictures and the video. Um, I know that, you know, people can take videos on their cell phones and they can live stream, but it’s still.

Lena Nebel: Um, each year on our anniversary, we actually watch our wedding video again. And 16 years later, we still touch things that we never saw. And we watched the video now with our children and we have family and parents and friends and grandparents who are no longer with us and being able to see that on the screen.

Lena Nebel: That’s there forever. And so for us, that was important. And that’s the bottom line you want to plan? What’s important for the two of you? Um, I think many of us may have envisioned what [00:20:00] our wedding looks like and what it would be, but then you have to attach the dollar figure to that. And that can be again, sticker shock.

Lena Nebel: $35,000 is more than many individuals one-year salary, and that’s a scary number. And you don’t want to go into debt to be able to pay for this. So you want to be smart about how to do it. Um, you know, traditionally I think, you know, the, uh, the bride’s family would pay for the wedding, but times have definitely changed.

Lena Nebel: They, um, they’ve changed in an amazing way to where a lot of times it’s both couples that are contributing, the families are contributing, but the couples are also contributing. Um, I’ve had a lot of people to where they’ve given their children a budget. And they can use that. However they want. Um, I’ve had clients to where they’ve said, we’ll give you this amount of money towards a wedding, or we’ll apply it towards a down payment on a house and let the couple choose to, you know, set their own budget for a wedding.

Lena Nebel: [00:21:00] So they have more responsibility in how they’re spending the money. Um, but that’s one of the things that we do here for obviously a lot of clients is they, they want to factor in a wedding for the. What does that look like? How would we say for it? But for Cody, let’s say for you and your girlfriend, you’re saving for that wedding on.

Lena Nebel: You want it to be important for the both of you. You want it to be magical. You want it to be memorable. Um, but you want to make sure that you can still have fun the next day that you’re not strapped for cash the next day. Um, so keep all that in mind you guys want to do, what’s important to you, but kind of stick within a reasonable budget.

Cody Niedermeier: I don’t think you can put it better than that, because I was going to follow up and ask you, you know, you know, it’s just as her dad still gonna pay. I mean, in an ideal, if he likes

Lena Nebel: you, if you’ve passed,

Cody Niedermeier: uh, we got, we got tests to pass. Then I finally, I finally made it down the aisle. You know, the, I do’s, you know, it was a beautiful [00:22:00] ceremony and now we are married and now is the time where I’m thinking.

Cody Niedermeier: Oh, well, I have my checking account and she has her checking account and I have this investment account and she has her investment account. And I think it’s important to look at the money side of things as everyone can see on our slides. And you know, what should I be looking at with, you know, those bank accounts and possibly consolidating and looking to really merge the financial aspect of our world.

Cody Niedermeier: Now that the physical aspect is there.

Lena Nebel: Hmm. Yeah. I, I don’t think anything has to happen overnight. Doesn’t have to happen on day one or month one. Um, but kind of coming full circle back to the conversations. It needs to be discussed on how to handle everything. Um, it really comes down to trust and comfort level.

Lena Nebel: Uh, you know, for some individuals who get married later in life, they’ve been financially independent for a long time. It’s very hard to. Um, kind of merge things together and you don’t want to do [00:23:00] that for the sake of doing it because you’re married. Um, so start small and maybe just create a joint bank account to where, um, a portion of your paychecks are directly deposited into that joint bank account.

Lena Nebel: And that can be used for whether it’s paying bills or saving for other goals that you have. Um, so again, you want to be comfort with the both of you. Um, and you also want to, again, look at the titling. Uh, so Cody, you could have an individual account, your girlfriend has an individual account. You can add each other to that account.

Lena Nebel: Um, you can add each other as an owner, or you could add each as let’s say that it’s payable on death, which is basically adding a beneficiary designation. To a bank account. Um, so those things take time because you just, again, you don’t want to kind of jump right in and all of a sudden you’re starting to co-mingle everything you want to make sure everybody’s comfortable.

Lena Nebel: Um, through that process. Um, what I would recommend though, is to have one banking relationship. You don’t want to have multiple [00:24:00] banking relationships because when you consolidate accounts, So even if let’s say one person bank up Wells Fargo and one person bank got M and T you could choose, okay, are we going to use Wells Fargo or M and T and still keep your bank accounts separate, but you have that one relationship.

Lena Nebel: That one relationship can help you get better rates on the savings accounts or CDs money markets. It can help you get better rates on your loans. If you’re taking out, let’s say a car loan or a mortgage to buy that first house. Um, so I would say. Create one joint bank account. If you’re not comfortable, co-mingling the assets.

Lena Nebel: Um, and then try to, uh, have one banking relationship as well, kind of keep things simple. Yeah.

Cody Niedermeier: Uh, I think that makes sense. And I guess while you were talking, I was also thinking building on just the bank accounts is, you know, 401k plan. You know, my previous beneficiaries, my parents, or my sister and everything like that.

Cody Niedermeier: I mean, now we’re [00:25:00] married. I want those assets. If something were heaven forbid to happen to me to be provided, you know, to my family and my new wife. So how do I go about, you know, making sure that she gets those funds. I know you said you can kind of add a beneficiary to these bank accounts, but what’s the process of adding that to those retirement.

Lena Nebel: Yeah. So you want to look at whether it’s retirement accounts at work or outside of work, and it’s not just retirement accounts. It’s also life insurance policies too. And adding beneficiary designations. Um, I know, like I said, we’re going to cover some on the estate side, but it is important to be able to protect your spouse right.

Lena Nebel: Potentially a mortgage where you have rent expenses, there could be a difference in your income styles and everything. Um, so, or in your income level. So you want to make sure that each of you are protected from that standpoint. So adding a primary beneficiary, also adding a contingent beneficiary, if something [00:26:00] should happen to both of you.

Lena Nebel: So, um, usually updating beneficiaries, it’s just paperwork that’s involved. It’s very simple, but people forget about doing that. So. We go through beneficiary designations annually. We look at who those beneficiaries are, um, and to see if anything needs to change. Also, if this is, let’s say a second marriage, your former spouse could still be a beneficiary on those.

Lena Nebel: So you want to make sure that it’s updated to the new spouse as well. Um, but then beneficiary designations again, doesn’t have to happen overnight. Doesn’t have to happen on day one, but you want to make sure that those assets are protected so that, um, the money that you’ve been saving for the two of you, it’s not going to your sister or your parents it’s it’s going to yeah.

Cody Niedermeier: Yeah. And I think you might have a little bit more jump in your step to get it done if it is one of those ex spouses. Uh, but everybody’s scenario is different. And I think you really just got to evaluate and get things in order to, in order to execute these updates that we’re talking about. [00:27:00] You already alluded to the life insurance.

Cody Niedermeier: And I talked about the retirement accounts and a lot of those are offered through, you know, employers and there’s certain group benefits and different things like that with employee benefits. And I know if you get married, you know, there’s a possibility that let’s say my now wife works at a hospital and she’s a nurse and she might have better health benefits that it would make more sense for me to get.

Cody Niedermeier: What should we be looking at in the employee benefit realm and kind of evaluating when we’re making those choices?

Lena Nebel: Yeah. So a lot has changed, um, over the past few years with the healthcare affordability act, which is commonly referred to as Obamacare. So some employers could actually assess a surcharge on the employees benefits if they’re bringing on their spouse, but their spouse has the option to have insurance through their employer.

Lena Nebel: So again, um, let’s take you Cody. You want to bring your spouse [00:28:00] onto your insurance here at work. But she has the ability to get her own insurance. Your employer may charge extra for the privilege of having your spouse on this plan. And so that’s one of the things you want to look at. Are there any penalties?

Lena Nebel: Are there any surcharges you don’t just want to compare the cost. You want to compare the benefits as well? Is there a health savings account that’s available for one employer versus another? Um, there’s also wellness programs that are offered through an employer, whether it’s credits towards your HSA account like we have here.

Lena Nebel: Um, my husband’s employer would give a reimbursement up to a certain amount for athletic equipment. Um, if you want to have a couple, I mean, if you’re a couple and you want to have a family, what does the maternity coverage look like? What is pregnancy consulting? Um, is that available? That can be a great resource.

Lena Nebel: So you don’t want price to be the main, uh, factor when evaluating, uh, insurance coverages. You want to look at. Everything. Um, when [00:29:00] we engage a new client here at the firm, we’re always asking for their, for their benefit information. Um, these booklets, uh, you know, they have a wealth of information about the company of what the company can offer.

Lena Nebel: And those people tend to just focus on. Well, what’s the healthcare. And do I have a retirement plan? Um, it’s unfortunate because there’s a ton of valuable benefits that are there that individuals may not be taking advantage of. So you want to evaluate both coverages, not just the cost, but look at kind of the big picture and then you can make the decision on where you want to go.

Cody Niedermeier: Okay. Uh, would I be able to get any type of life insurance if I were on her plan? Like, is there an opportunity for spousal?

Lena Nebel: Yeah. So if you are, if you are married, um, some employers do offer spousal life insurance. It’s minimal amounts. It’s usually like 10,000 or $25,000. Um, there’s no underwriting, that’s involved.

Lena Nebel: It’s typically an [00:30:00] expensive, but it’s more advantageous to get that spousal life insurance outside of your employer plan. Because you can get more for less on a, you know, per thousand, uh, insurance death benefit. Um, you would have to go through underwriting. So if there was some type of underlying health issue that would prevent you from getting, uh, approved, then maybe you would use the spousal insurance, but traditionally it’s, um, more cost effective in getting the insurance outside of your group plan.

Cody Niedermeier: Okay. A lot of sense. So it’s really, you know, reading through those fun booklets and really having better understanding of each of your benefit offerings and kind of evaluating and making those decisions on, you know, what makes the most sense based on couple and every couples individualistic of there’s no blanket statement that this is right for you.

Cody Niedermeier: This is right for them. It’s, you know, you got to evaluate each one individually. You know, as we get [00:31:00] further into this year, um, we’re getting closer and closer to that tax deadline and you know, I’m married now and I’ve been, you know, filing single and you know, is, is now the time that, you know, I jumped and I just say, yep, I’m married, filing jointly.

Cody Niedermeier: Or is there some things we need to weigh against each other and making those decisions?

Lena Nebel: Well, if you’re already married, you’re going to either file married, filing, jointly, or married, filing single or separate. Um, that’s going to be something that either, if you’re using your own tax planning software or you’ve engaged with a, with a CPA, a tax preparer.

Lena Nebel: Um, they’re going to help you make that decision, but it’s important to understand that the year you get married is the year that you file that way. So let’s say you get married on December 31st, um, and you made some taxable transactions in the beginning of the year. That’s all gonna go under that.

Lena Nebel: Married filing, let’s say you’re jointly, married, filing jointly will. And the reason that that’s [00:32:00] important is because for some people, there may be certain strategies that they’re engaged in. Maybe they’re making Roth IRA contributions. Or they’re rebalancing their portfolios. So there’s capital gains, but they’re in a lower tax bracket.

Lena Nebel: Then they get married and their spouse may have a business, may have higher income. And it just pushed that individual up into other tax brackets to where they’re no longer eligible for the Roth contributions. They’re paying higher capital gains taxes are getting phased out on a variety of things. Um, it can have a big impact.

Lena Nebel: So it’s important to kind of talk about, okay, what are the strategies that I’m no longer able to do? Or, um, that I have to change based upon the two of you coming together, especially if there’s a big disparity in income.

Cody Niedermeier: Okay. So it, it really is a look back and, you know, I won’t plan on getting married and later in the year now.

Cody Niedermeier: So thank you for that. I get it when the time does come. Um, but. I should’ve started with, this [00:33:00] was the idea of, you know, we’re filing those taxes taxes, and she has a CPA, or I have a CPA and, you know, we’re not using one of those services or, you know, possibly even the discussion about the employee benefits and evaluating what’s best.

Cody Niedermeier: And you know, a lot of that goes over some people’s heads and not necessarily not being smart enough to know. But, you know, just lacking that understanding cause they were never really taught it and speaking with a financial advisor or a CPA, um, should we go to hers? Should we go to mine? Um, you know, what’s the best way to evaluate who do we talk to?

Lena Nebel: Yeah. Um, you know, I see this frequently in, um, second marriages because they’ve already established relationships with a CPA or a financial advisor. Um, and this can be a tricky one because you’re dealing with money and money is emotional topic. Um, and if you’re like one of our clients, you know, you develop a relationship with the person who’s managing your [00:34:00] financial world.

Lena Nebel: So it’s best that you and your partner meet with both individuals to discuss your current relationship. Um, for some advisors, they may charge another engagement fee to bring on the spouse. Um, others may reduce the, their advisory fee on managing the money because maybe. More money that that advisor is going to be managing.

Lena Nebel: Um, in the end, you both want to be comfortable in the process. Um, for CPAs, the cost to prepare taxes may increase because maybe there’s more complexity. Maybe there’s a business involved. Maybe, maybe there’s an additional investments to account for, rental properties to deal with. Um, so again, having a meeting with each CPA to discuss what that change will look like and making sure that each of you are comfortable, um, I will say.

Lena Nebel: Deciding to maintain two advisers is extremely challenging, um, because the other advisors really don’t have eyes on what’s going on on the other side. So there could be taxable events that [00:35:00] happened that when it needed to happen or maybe somebody allocated in an inappropriate way. Um, so it’s best that both spouses are involved and working with one advisor for overall planning.

Lena Nebel: That’s just going to be. Everybody make that process smoother and easier for everybody involved.

Cody Niedermeier: Awesome. Awesome. That really does make sense. And I think just creating that transparency by having that knowledge is, is how you make those decisions. Looking at, I know we’ve already talked about beneficiaries and kind of touched on the life insurance aspect of possibly a spousal included employee benefits.

Cody Niedermeier: How do we protect each other? And, oh, I’m sorry. I think I actually went a little bit ahead on these slides. So I’m going to go back, but, um, how do we protect ourselves with insurance and what, what should we be looking at with, you know, life versus disability? Should I be having a discussion now about possible long-term care or is that going to look completely different in the future?

Cody Niedermeier: And, you know, we’re [00:36:00] kind of waiting on options to hear, you know, the best course of action to protect what we’re doing.

Lena Nebel: Yeah. Um, again, this is those topics where you’re thinking of, um, you know, what happens when somebody passes away? What happens if there’s some major medical event and it’s emotional, and it’s hard to think about those conversations, but they need to, um, they need to get done.

Lena Nebel: This is a situation with within a month of getting married. I actually went through the underwriting process, both my husband and I to get new life insurance and everything, because we were planning on, um, buying a house. We were planning on having a family. We were young and healthy. So we knew that the price would be cheaper and we were planning ahead.

Lena Nebel: So we decided to do that. Um, thankfully that did not scare him away when I was already thinking about life insurance on him. Um, but you know, it’s an important conversation because you want to make sure that your income is being replaced for that other individual. You want to make sure that [00:37:00] debt is getting paid off, that you’re still able to fund for those various goals and everything as well.

Lena Nebel: So again, whether you’re looking at life insurance, disability long-term care, you want to be able to protect your income assets. And also if there’s heirs, um, I know we’ve been using you as an example, and, and with you being young, obviously long-term care, isn’t going to be on the horizon for you for quite some time.

Lena Nebel: But for individuals who are getting married later in life, That would be an insurance that you would explore. Um, going back to the work benefits, a common benefit that people wave and don’t elect is actually short and long-term disability. And the reason that that’s so common that they exclude that from their program is because everyone thinks, you know, nothing’s going to happen.

Lena Nebel: Right. Right. I’m never going to get into an accident. I’m never going to be disabled. Um, they don’t want to also pay for the insurance. I can save a few dollars per pay by not having that insurance. Um, but disability insurance can cover pregnancy leave. It could [00:38:00] cover complications during pregnancy. If you have a car accident, if you’re out in the water and you have an accident and, you know, break a leg or something and you can’t come into work.

Lena Nebel: Um, and then obviously right now with what’s going on with COVID. Disability insurance could be extremely beneficial to have. So while disability won’t protect a hundred percent of your income, it’s going to provide some form of protection for you and for your spouse. And that income can still help to fund your long and short-term goals can still have to pay for expenses, maintaining standard of living and everything else.

Lena Nebel: I, I had a girlfriend, um, she, um, you know, her income wasn’t that high for them, you know, it was kind of tight and they decided to have a family, um, She had not elected any type of disability insurance. So she didn’t have any of her pregnancy, her maternity leave, um, be covered. And it was setting the stage for, um, uh, financial stress for the two of them after they just had a baby.

Lena Nebel: Um, because then you don’t have that [00:39:00] income that’s coming in when you want to take off of work. So again, I encourage everybody when you go through your open enrollment, which are typically in the fall, Take a look at your disability coverage. See what that short and long-term is. Sometimes it’s already there.

Lena Nebel: It’s employer paid, which is great. Other times you have to elect it or you can elect additional insurance. So when you’re starting to plan for your future, again, those employee benefits are a huge part of that future.

Cody Niedermeier: Okay. I think that makes a lot of sense too. Um, I guess building on that would be the idea and I, I keep bringing them up, Eric last week..

Cody Niedermeier: Uh, when we were talking, we definitely spoke about, you know, estate planning documents. And, you know, as soon as somebody turns 18, you want to get at least a generic something down in order to protect them in case something were to happen. Um, I think this is becoming married as a significant event that is this the time that we need to relook at everything and, you know, create new wills, powers of attorney [00:40:00] financial powers of attorney, medical powers of attorney and all that, um, is now the time?

Lena Nebel: Absolutely.

Lena Nebel: Um, and again, it’s, you know, sometimes people think about, uh, I need to be wealthy. I need to have all this money to have an estate plan.

Lena Nebel: And an estate plan is not just about what happens when you pass away. It’s what if you become incapacitated as well? So, um, just spending it a couple of minutes on what each of those documents are and the importance of that. Um, you know, you have a will, which is basically just describing, who’s going to take care of your estate, your stuff.

Lena Nebel: Um, do you want to be cremated? Do you want to be buried? Who’s going to be the guardian of any children or their stepchildren that are involved. Um, if you bought that big wedding ring, do you want it to pass to a family member? Those you can leave bequests, you, so again, the will kind of describes all of those things that you want to have happen when you pass away.

Lena Nebel: Um, keep in mind though that whatever you name in [00:41:00] the will um, if you have accounts that are, that go by beneficiary designation, the beneficiary designations are going to override whatever the will says. So coming back to my example of you’re in your second marriage, your former spouse, your ex spouse is still the beneficiary on those accounts, but you updated your will to reflect your new spouse and you pass away.

Lena Nebel: Your ex is getting that money. That’s not going to be a healthy dynamic. So you want to make sure beneficiary designations are in alignment to your will. Again, that’s something that we always do is when we get a copy of that will, we want to make sure are there any beneficiary designations that need to be updated?

Lena Nebel: Um, so you want to make sure that the individuals you listed as your beneficiary or personal representatives that they’re updated across the board. A financial power of is basically who’s going to pay your bill. Um, who can access your accounts if you can’t do it for you? Uh, we had a client years ago that had a horrific bike accident that ended up in a coma and her parents had to petition [00:42:00] to the court.

Lena Nebel: To be able to have access to her money, to be able to make her mortgage payments, to have questions about her health insurance. Um, so you would want to name your spouse to be able to have all of those rights, especially if you don’t have assets titled jointly. So your bank account question, um, your spouse, wouldn’t be able to go into that bank account to help to make those mortgage payments.

Lena Nebel: If you have separate insurance, you didn’t go on her plan. Um, she doesn’t have rights to access your health insurance. So having that document in place is crucial. Um, a medical attorney and PA and medical directive, medical power of attorney. Um, that’s basically, you know, who’s making the medical decisions on your behalf.

Lena Nebel: The same client. Again, the family had to petition the court to be able to take control over her body. Um, what medicine was getting injected? Did she want life support? Those documents are crucial. Um, they’re horrible. And they have to be used. Um, I had that experience with my father-in-law, where we had to get his [00:43:00] medical directive on, you know, are we continuing life support and everything else.

Lena Nebel: Um, but we honored what his wishes were. Um, in that moment, there’s so many emotions that are happening. You want to go to that document so that you’re fulfilling their wishes. Um, so again, those are the three core documents that you want to have, um, in place. And again, Cody, uh, it’s good. You and I didn’t get married because again, after the first month, I had Joe, we were getting our state documents done too.

Lena Nebel: So again, day one, we did life insurance and estate planning because it’s also what I do. So, um, we, we got, we, we got our wills power of attorney medical directives. And in that medical directive, that’s more of your emotional questions. And in, there was questions on if you were pregnant and the doctor has to choose between you and the baby, because there’s some type of medical complication who’s taking priority?

Lena Nebel: Right. Those are things that you really don’t want to have to think [00:44:00] about, but you need to be able to have those conversations. And once everything’s done, you put it away. You don’t even think about it until something changes in your life. You have another child, um, you have an inheritance, uh, and an estate tax law change that impacts you.

Lena Nebel: That’s when you pull them back out again and update them as you see fit. But again, um, risk management, estate planning, not fun conversations, but they need to happen.

Cody Niedermeier: Well, we’ve worked our way through the not fun conversation. So I think it’s, uh, I think it’s time. We, uh, we move on to something that’s a little happier and kind of exciting.

Cody Niedermeier: And it’s the idea of, you know, planning for our future and what our future looks like. Okay. Um, I know we’ve talked about a house a few times, but a lot of times people don’t purchase their first home until they are married and they’re looking, you know, to buy that first house, how do we go? Planning for that? Saving for that? And you know, what steps do we need to take together in order to achieve that? Yeah.

Lena Nebel: Yeah, I [00:45:00] think, you know, the, the first step is really establishing the timeframe, right? Is the timeframe the next year? Is it three to five years? Is it 10 years down the road? Um, because that’s really going to determine where you want to put that money.

Lena Nebel: If you know, it’s in the next few years, you’re going to stick with the bank account. You want it say if you want it secure. Um, if you, our goal is a little bit longer than that, you could look at other types of fixed income offering. That maybe have a little bit more risk, but also can give you a little bit more interest as well.

Lena Nebel: Um, it’s also important to not just think about the type of house that you want, but what can you actually afford? So sitting down with a lender to get preapproval is important. Um, the lender is typically going to have a higher number than what you can actually. Afford. So bringing in your financial advisor, or if you do that yourself and looking at your budget numbers, kind of throw in what that additional expense would look like.

Lena Nebel: Um, but as you know, recently purchasing a house, it’s not just about the mortgage payment, there’s [00:46:00] moving costs, there’s furniture to fill the rooms. There’s decorations, there’s possible projects that are going to be happening throughout the house. So those are the things that you want to factor all of that together.

Lena Nebel: We made the mistake when we bought our first house that we furnished all the rooms immediately. Um, we bought furniture before we even moved in. And over time we realized that the rooms we were using them differently than we had planned on, and the furniture just didn’t make any sense. So then when it was time to purchase our second house, we didn’t take any of that furniture with us.

Lena Nebel: So then we had to buy furniture again, and we waited a few months, many months before we decided to fill each room. Um, we could have saved. A substantial amount of money if we just took our time in the beginning. Um, so that would be something I would look at when you’re purchasing a house. Don’t just think of the mortgage payment, think of everything else that would have to happen with that.

Lena Nebel: But traditionally you want to be able to save that money within a bank account. Um, depending on the time period of that house of when you [00:47:00] want to purchase.

Cody Niedermeier: Okay. And I guess to build on that is the idea of once again, you know, whose names are going on, the deed we’re married now, when we’re going into this together, does it make more, and is there a protection value, um, that could possibly change from state to state of having the house listed as jointly versus, you know, individually in one’s name?

Cody Niedermeier: Where if something were to happen? Could that house be targeted and assuming opportunity for someone after a fender bender on the house. Right.

Lena Nebel: So there’s a couple of different ways in which you can title the house jointly. Um, one, uh, titling could be joint tenants by the entirety, which is afforded just to married couples.

Lena Nebel: Um, it’s not though in every state. So you want to look at, you know, the state specific rules and that’s where the titling company can come into play and to kind of help with that. The financial advisor, the estate [00:48:00] attorney can also discuss that too. Um, and that’s basically a joint with rights of survivorship, but for a married couple, so right to survivorship can be for anybody, you and I could have a property together and we could title it right to survivorship.

Lena Nebel: And if something happened to you, I receive your share on the owner of that. Um, but tenants by the entirety does exactly what you had just alluded to it. It protects that those individuals in the event, that there was some type of. Accident or credit or protection, something like that. Um, the other option is joint tenants in common tenants in common.

Lena Nebel: You sometimes see on a second marriage to where that person share, who passed away actually goes to their estate. So maybe it’s then going to their kids, they’re passing along their share of the property directly, um, to their, to their children. Um, sometimes it makes sense to title it in the name of a tenant.

Lena Nebel: For other types of protection. Um, so again, it’s, it’s important to discuss it traditionally with your advisor and talking about, okay, how are we [00:49:00] one funding it, and then how should it be named, um, depending on what may happen in the estate world, as far as taxes, and if there’s new laws, um, it may make sense just to put it in one person’s name and divide property equally, um, versus having everything joint.

Cody Niedermeier: Okay. You know, we finally moved into our new house. We have everything situated and the fun topic that makes me squirm a little bit to talk about right now is the idea of, you know, children and, you know, pursuing that in the future. And what should I be doing?

Lena Nebel: So I think this probably makes you square up just because it’s a sticker shock.

Lena Nebel: When you think about daycare, you know, if you were, you know, having children and you both wanted to go back to work, um, daycare is expensive and you know, if your child’s a few months old, uh, expect to spend about $1,800 a month, that costs only goes down. Um, as they get older, typically once they hit two, you get a price break, maybe it’s about $1,500 a month, but [00:50:00] you don’t want to work just to pay the daycare.

Lena Nebel: So you want to make sure that your combined income can support your lifestyle and pay daycare and you have something leftover, so treat daycare expense, um, like a bill. So when you think of your emergency reserves on what you need to set aside, which is traditionally three to six months of your expenses include that daycare bill as part of, as part of that expense.

Lena Nebel: Um, sometimes it feels like you’re going to always be funding for some level because. College is going to be around the corner as well. So, um, there’s other vehicles that you can use to save for college, like the 5 29 plan they’re tax efficient. They could use it for private education, um, kindergarten through 12th grade in addition to college.

Lena Nebel: Um, but it’s important for the two of you to talk about. Well, how do you want to pay for college? Do you want your children to take on some student loans? Do you want them to work during school to help to pay that tuition or. Do you want to fully fund that [00:51:00] education regardless of where they go, whether they go to university of Maryland or they go to, um, university of Florida, again, depending on the different price levels, you both, both want to agree for what that funding level should be.

Cody Niedermeier: Okay. And you know, we’re getting a little close on our time, but I do have one more thing I want to talk about before grabbing maybe one or two questions that I’ve received during this, uh, this webinar as we’ve gone on. But, uh, just the idea of long-term goals. You know, what does retirement look like? And you know, how do we get there?

Lena Nebel: So you’ve brought up Eric a couple of times. Um, Eric has a fantastic podcast for those of you who haven’t listened to it before it’s called don’t retire graduate. And the podcast talks about how to advance into retirement rather than to retreat. And, um, both partners need to be present in those conversations.

Lena Nebel: Um, my husband and I, you know, we have a financial advisor here at the office. We get together twice a year to kind of talk about what our goals are. Um, we both want to [00:52:00] retire in different places, so we’re still working on kind of coming into the middle on where we both want to end up. Um, but it is important for both people to be present in those conversations.

Lena Nebel: Even if one person is traditionally handling the finances. Both parties are funding and saving for the same goal. So you want to define what that long-term goal is? What is retirement? What does that actually mean? Um, so that, you know, definitely we spend a lot of time and, um, kind of pulling out that information from clients and having them think about all of those topics, but in the end you want both parties there.

Cody Niedermeier: Okay. That makes a lot of sense. I think we got one question from a Mandy and it has to do with, um, I believe she is asking about, she stayed at home with the kids and help raise the kids at home. And you know, her husband was still in the workforce. Are there opportunities for her to [00:53:00] continue to save for retirement, even if she is working at home?

Lena Nebel: Absolutely. So this kind of covers a few different topics that we talked about. So the first is looking at taxes, um, since they’re married and they’re either filing, jointly or filing separately, she can use his income to help, to qualify, to either make a deductible IRA contribution, a Roth IRA. Or maybe she can make a non-deductible IRA contribution on some of those types of savings vehicles though.

Lena Nebel: They are limited by income. So if their comp, if his income is above certain thresholds, she may not be eligible to make those contributions. Um, but in addition to asking about the retirement savings, um, there’s many women, um, and now there’s a lot of guys staying home to take care of the kids. People don’t end up, um, getting life insurance for that spouse that stays home because individuals look at it like, well, there’s no income that I’m protecting, but if let’s [00:54:00] say in a Mandy situation with that question, something happened.

Lena Nebel: Well, who’s going to take care of those kids. Do we have to now fund for daycare? Do we have to have somebody to come into the house to help to take care of the house? Because if you don’t have that person, then her spouse may have to stop working. And then we have a loss of income from that side. So even though there is a spouse that staying home, you still want to protect them from a life insurance standpoint.

Lena Nebel: And there’s still a lot of opportunities to be able to put money away for them to be able to build up retirement savings.

Cody Niedermeier: Okay. I think that definitely answers that question. Uh, we have, I think we’ve got time for about two more. So let me pull one more. And we have, uh, when we were talking about estate planning documents, where should those be?

Cody Niedermeier: Kept? Something happens to the house and you have your one will in that. It’s gone, you know, where should we have copies of those? Should we give them to our kids? Should we keep them in a certain spot? Um, I guess they want to pick your perspective on that. [00:55:00]

Lena Nebel: Okay. Um, so depending on who does the estate documents, um, we’ll also help to answer that.

Lena Nebel: So let’s say you meet with an estate attorney, they draft all the documents for you. They’re going to have a copy more than likely. They’re also going to register it at the court house. Um, That’s absolutely going to happen for the attorney, having the copy. You want to give it to your personal, um, uh, parties, your responsible parties.

Lena Nebel: So let’s say your executor would have a copy and then it’s always good to give it to your financial advisor as well. So those would be the main individuals. If let’s say you did this on your own, you went online and you just kind of put together some documents and everything had it notarized. You know, you would have a copy.

Lena Nebel: I would still give it to your executor. Um, and then there’s a lot of tools now to where there’s online volts that can be accessed. So whether it’s through your financial advisor or through your own, you know, kind of up in the cloud and that’s where you want to make sure that those documents are, but you want to let people know where they are as well.

Lena Nebel: So that’s why giving it to your [00:56:00] executor is important. Anytime you update that document, though, you want to make sure that you provide an updated copy to the children is a little tricky. Depending on the relationship that you have with the children. So, um, not all children are created equal. Uh, there could be some that aren’t going to handle money well, and you may incorporate a trust for that one person.

Lena Nebel: Whereas the other children are getting money outright. And if they have a copy of that, well, you know, emotions can get involved. Sometimes that’s not the best idea. Um, so I would leave it up to that. Individual’s, you know, personal preference, their comfort level on. Does it make sense, but minimally, I would say either some type of online storage facility or financial advisor or the estate attorney, and then of course your executor, your responsible parties.

Cody Niedermeier: Okay. And last one we got for today is. How often should spouses be having these financial conversations, I guess, as an entire view of what we’ve talked about today? [00:57:00]

Lena Nebel: Hmm. Um, the short answer is, you know, regularly, um, I would say minimally two times a year that you want to go through that process. Um, but obviously if there’s job changes or raises or bonuses, home projects, large purchases, goals, new children, you know, all these different things that are gonna come up.

Lena Nebel: Um, it’s important to have that conversation, you know, when you go through open enrollment, that’s a great time to have that conversation just to make sure there’s new changes, nothing that you need to plan for. Um, but I would say at least two times a year, I made the comment that my husband and I have a financial advisor here, we sit down with her and it’s a great opportunity.

Lena Nebel: To share. What’s important to both of us. Um, many times advisors kind of be a marriage counselor in talking about individual’s goals because that’s sometimes the first time the couples actually talk about what their plans are, right? I mean, you’re going through your, your job. You’re taking care of kids.

Lena Nebel: You’re doing everything day to day. You’re not thinking long-term, you have to take the time for [00:58:00] the two of you and think about what that future looks like. Um, articulating it to each other. So like I said, we’re still trying to figure out where we want to retire to, because we can’t yet come to an agreement on that one.

Lena Nebel: Hopefully in these next 15 years, we would have agreed, which means that he agrees with

Cody Niedermeier: me. I was about to say, uh, along with everything else we’ve learned today, I’m sure you’ll, uh, you’ll win that one as well, but, uh, I can’t thank you enough. I really appreciate you coming on and you know, talking with everybody, I believe on our next slide, we have your contact information, but.

Cody Niedermeier: I just wanted to say thank you. I think you provided a lot of great information for a lot of people today and yeah, it is appreciated. Thank you. No, thank you for having me. Yeah, of course. Just for all the listeners, we really appreciate you guys tuning in. Um, we hope that you’re able to take some things from this webinar and are looking forward to the future ones.

Cody Niedermeier: Uh, we have another one coming out next month and it’s going to be with Eric Brotman. Um, but as a [00:59:00] thank you for you guys tuning in today. Uh, you’re going to receive a follow-up email. It’s going to have a recording of this for you to share with anybody you think could, uh, pull some value from it. And there’s also going to be a reflected discount where if something we said today, um, interests you, and you know, you guys want to have a conversation about, you know, the possibility of moving forward with a, some sort of financial advising, or just have some simple questions for us.

Cody Niedermeier: Please send them in. Um, thank you all again, and we’ll hopefully see you next month during our next one.

Lena Nebel: Thank you.