Show Notes

Transparently discussing money and finances in a relationship has long been a point of contention between many couples. In this episode our good friend and renowned Financial Planner, Stacy Francis, breaks down in plain terms what it means to be financially responsible and accountable, and what it takes to secure your financial future, married or divorced.

 In this episode we cover:

• Investing in yourself

• Going on Money Dates

• Financial Disparity in Relationships

• Financial Education

• Savvy Ladies

Transcript

[Producer] Rich Hackman (00:01):

Hey, Love Me or Leave Me Listeners. We'd love to hear from you. We understand that some of the topics we address on the show can be a lot to try and cover in such a short amount of time. So we'd love to hear your thoughts and your reactions to any and all of the conversations. Was there something that really spoke to you or did we miss something? What other issues would you like us to discuss? Send us an email at love me, or leave me podcast@gmail.com or leave us a voice message on our website at love me, or leave me podcast.com

Stacy Francis (00:38):

Because I feel like as soon as you say finance, you lose half the room. And I know I am a financial nerd and I had completely acknowledged that. So I might be a little bit more excited about this stuff than, than most people, but I do have to say this stuff could be a lot of fun and the more, you know, the better it gets.

Meredith Shirey (01:05):

Hey everyone, I'm Meredith Shirey. I'm a licensed psychotherapist specializing in relationship issues.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (01:10):

And I'm Isaiah Vallejo-Juste, a divorce attorney.

Meredith Shirey (01:13):

This is a podcast about filling in the gaps of our relationships, the deeply personal choices we make for our families and ourselves,

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (01:20):

And the impact that our actions have on the rest of our lives. This is Love Me or Leave Me.

Meredith Shirey (01:32):

Hey everyone. Welcome back. Thank you so much for your patience with us. While we were taking a little bit of a break, we are back. We're so excited to be here, and this is an incredible episode and a great place to jump back in because so many of our past episodes have talked about finances. And we've said if we said it, once we said it a thousand times, that you need to talk about these things with your partner, whether you are newly coupled thinking about getting married, thinking about getting a divorce divorce, co-parenting wherever you are, finances are such an important part of it. And so today we have an incredible guest she's going to be able to move us past just the, what we need to talk about, but more of the how and how this looks in some more of the specifics. So hopefully we'll answer a lot of those questions.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (02:16):

Yeah. We are super excited to have Stacy Francis on today. You know, Stacy is the CEO of Francis Financial, also the founder of Savvy Ladies. She's the host of her own podcast, Financially Ever After, certified financial planner, certified divorce, financial analyst. But you know what, she's a lot of fun too. In my industry. You haven't been to an event unless you've been to a Stacy Francis event, they're actually exceeded by her generosity and her want to help people. So I'm excited to have you on Stacy.

Stacy Francis (02:48):

Thank you I'm excited to be here. And I think the generosity comes from working with great people. Like the two of you, you come home at the end of the day, or right now working from home, leave the office and go to the room and you just feel so full in life. And so my goal for today is to do a download of as much financial information as we can, but also trying to make it a little fun because I feel like as soon as you say finance, you lose half the room. And I know I am a financial nerd and I completely acknowledge that. So I might be a little bit more excited about this stuff than, than most people, but I do have to say this stuff can be a lot of fun and the more, you know, the better it gets.

Meredith Shirey (03:27):

That's what we love to do right. Is had some levity and so that we can take the fear out of these conversations and make them a lot more approachable and palatable. So on that note, Stacy, would you mind telling everyone a little bit about your background, how you got into this and how you became just the incredible boss lady that you are?

Stacy Francis (03:43):

Oh, thank you. I never expected to become a financial advisor when I grew up. In fact, I was the little girl who sat on purpose in the back of the math class and did not raise her hand. And then to even make it even more apparent to my parents, I decided to major in French and Spanish in college. And that's, you know, as far from numbers as you can get, but I had an experience that really changed my whole life and drove me to do this work. One of the most important people to me in my life, uh, was my grandmother. And she was the kindest sweetest woman you could ever meet, um, smart, outgoing, but she had a secret. And that was that she was being physically abused by my grandfather. And it was not a secret to our family because we could see the bruises.

Stacy Francis (04:31):

And, and I grew up as a little girl witnessing this and I finally was able to, to get the courage, to talk to her about it. I was a freshman in college and, uh, she, she explained to me why she stayed and Meredith. It was because she felt financially trapped. All of a sudden my future, I thought I was going to have for myself changed because I realized that if I don't understand finance, if I don't empower myself, my God, this could happen to me. And I went back, I changed my major. I went into, uh, economics and finance. I actually ended up going to New York City. And that's how I got here from Michigan. And I did an investment banking job. I was doing it to be honest out of fear because it scared me. So, and what I did find though, as I went down this journey is that there's nothing to be scared about money. And I say this to your listeners. If I can learn this stuff, if I enjoy this stuff, everybody can, and it's not that you have to become a financial advisor or a certified financial planner. That's not what we're talking about, but the more you invest in yourself, like you go to the gym and you invest in your health well it's financial fitness. And the more you do that, the better life you're going to have. And the more peace of mind that you're going to have, which is so important.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (06:03):

As a married person, myself, obviously who have some level of finances, you know, good or bad, you know, I certainly can relate to the finances being scary. Right. You know, you've got the credit card billing. You want to close your eyes. Like I'm not looking at this month. I'm not looking this month with do the minimum is paid automatically, right? So it's, it's like, how do you start those types of conversations and thing about how to kind of delve in there and you get over the fear of finance.

Stacy Francis (06:30):

I will say, uh, and I'm going to share my, my personal relationship. Uh, my husband and I have been together 22 years. It was not always easy. I will be very honest. Um, we have completely different money DNAs, and he will admit this. If he has a dollar, he will try to spend three. If I have a dollar, I try and save two. And you put those two people and it's a little bit like, um, you know, oil and water, right. It doesn't really, we don't really mesh. And we went to therapy and thank God we did because we would not be the couple we are today. And one of the things I learned in therapy was that you have to talk about this the longer you wait to talk about this, the more damage you're going to do to your relationship. And so thank goodness.

Stacy Francis (07:22):

We were young enough to start to talk about this and we do money dates, and that has been a staple of our relationship for decades. And I will tell you that we've been able to figure out a way that he can have the things he really wants and feel excited and happy and not deprived. And I can save the amount of money that makes me feel safe, because you can understand where I come from. I look at money, I put so much emphasis on it. I look at it as it physical safety, right, because of the way I was raised. And so for me, it's this very important need to have money that I can access because I feel physically safe. And it's not that, you know, he's mistreating me. That's not, it. It's just, that's what I need. And so these are some of the things that have helped us through therapy, through money dates, to really understand how to work together.

Meredith Shirey (08:25):

Something that I see, I couldn't even tell you how many times as a couples therapist is that people know that talking about money is difficult for them, but when they come to actually have the conversation, they shut down very, very quickly because it is so triggering. And I think you and I have actually talked about this before that it's not about this arbitrary number in your bank account. It's about what meaning it has to you because money is actually weirdly emotional and, and yes, for some people, it means freedom for some people, it means security. And so for you and your husband to come such opposite ends of the spectrum and actually come and have this beautiful, happy, successful relationship from that. And you can talk about finances and it's not like, you know, world war three. That is so incredible. So if you can share any of your secrets, that would be so appreciated.

Stacy Francis (09:10):

So in the beginning we actually made them true dates. We would get a babysitter, we'd go out for dinner order a really nice bottle of red wine. And partially we needed to do that because both of us around money were pretty triggered. And what we would do is we would first talk about how are you feeling about our financial situation? So we both would share that that was the first thing. And if one of us wasn't feeling comfortable, we would then ask, tell me more about that. Not the, well, if you didn't spend "X", we wouldn't have to deal with that credit card bill, right. That doesn't work. We try to really unpack that and not blame and then get to the next place of, okay, based on this, what can we do together to make that better? We have a trip coming up with your family to Ireland.

Stacy Francis (09:57):

And I know we're paying for a lot of the hotel costs. That's making me really uncomfortable and nervous. What can we do? So we would talk about it and we would problem solve, and we would figure it out. Most importantly, do it together. And eventually we were able to have money dates at our own house. We didn't need the bottle of wine, which was nice. And we would, again, start that. How were you feeling? And then of course going into the actual, well, this is what our current spending is. This is what it was last month. What does it look like for your bonus this year? Does it look like it's on track? What about you, Stacy? How's the business going? What does your income look like? And then we would talk about the bigger pieces of, are there any upcoming, large expenses out of the ordinary that we might need to talk about?

Stacy Francis (10:45):

Whether it's, you know, going on a big vacation or things aren't going well for our son at public school, do we need to look at private? So we would go and talk about just again, the feelings. And then we talk about how was the spending this month versus last month versus the month before we would then see kind of where we are with our overall finances. And if there are any things that we needed to plan for in the future. And it was really nice and it continues to be really nice because both of us are on the same financial page. Each of us knows exactly what's in the different accounts and we're supporting and we're pulling for each other to try and make it as good as we can. And, you know, things may come up where you do have a surprise where someone loses a job. And my gosh, that foundation of the work that you've done before is going to help you through those, those really difficult times.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (11:36):

You know, Stacy, I am so doing that, like Ian and I are going to get a bottle of red wine with some popcorn. We spoke about the popcorn and the previous episode we're doing the money day. I love that idea as a, as a matrimonial attorney. You know I often see couples coming into my office or rather one part of the, and there's some type of financial disparity, couples tend to divide responsibilities, right? So sometimes you have one spouse is more responsible for taking care of the bills, you know, and the other spouse is more responsible for maybe incurring more of the expenses, like getting the food and, you know, and taking care of all of the kids in the home and all that type of stuff. Like in my house, I make sure everything gets paid. My wife takes care of a lot of other things. I don't want anything to do with all that other stuff that she's got going on. It's a lot, it's a lot for a person to handle, right. But I can handle kind of putting stuff together. But in those situations, you know, particularly if you're going to go through a divorce or something like that, I would imagine that it's very scary for the person who hasn't traditionally done those things. And now they have to figure out, well, how am I going to live?

Stacy Francis (12:42):

It's really frightening. The typical diversion of labor that we see is that the female partner is doing the day-to-day bill paying. And the gentlemen will do that often too. But what she doesn't do, she tends not to be nearly as involved or experienced in the investing piece, the long-term financial planning. And so for women who are facing divorce, it can be frightening, very overwhelming. I mean, one of the biggest pieces that I just say is that I understand the division of labor. I understand having children and a busy life, but this is one of those things where you can't delegate to your husband. You can't tell your husband to go work out at the gym for you. It doesn't work. I wish my God, that would be wonderful. If it, did you imagine how much time we would save and how fit we would be, but, um, you can't do that. So it's the same thing here. And, you know, eight out of 10 women at some point in their life are going to be solely responsible for their finances. Those are the statistics and they don't lie. And so it's not a nice to have. It's a, it's a must, it's a must have. And if you value your relationship, you really want to make sure that you guys are a true partnership. And part of that partnership is, is an economic partnership and helping each other.

Meredith Shirey (13:50):

You know, that is something I think we'd referenced in one of our previous episodes about conversations before you see, I do. We said that you need to have some baseline understanding, but I think what you're talking about too, with this division, and even in that understanding what's going on, what would you suggest to couples maybe about what's the minimum that they need to know and to know about their financial situation and then what are maybe parts of it that it's like, ah, that's, that's cherry on top, but I guess the question is what is that minimum threshold? Because I can't tell you how many women have come into my office and are contemplating divorce, but they don't even know the log into the bank account, you know? And that's so scary, right? It's so scary to think. Well, I have no idea.

Stacy Francis (14:31):

I call It an I love you letter. It is a list of all of your accounts that is checking savings, insurance, brokerage accounts, retirement accounts, and credit card accounts. And it's also their username and passwords. And also, you know, information, if you need to access the, uh, security deposit at the bank, the key is here. You know, the, the code to the file box is here. My letter has how to turn on our TV, cause I can't figure out we have so many buttons to press. I feel like you need a PhD to turn on our TV with all the bells and whistles. So it includes that in there, but all the things that you really truly need, um, if God forbid your partner was not there to make sure that you know what those finances are and you know, it may be a problem if you and your spouse are not getting along to bring this up. And so what I tell individuals is watch a movie where the main character, preferably, you know, your husband, isn't really giving that information, the husband dies, and isn't a coma. It's, it's really traumatic for the wife. And you watch that together and say, look or vice versa. There's ones with women, again, that the wife goes into the coma. You watch that it starts the conversation. So if you're nervous about bringing that up, that's one way to do it

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (15:51):

Up on that. When it comes to maybe people who aren't getting along necessarily, or maybe one spouse really isn't as informative as the other, is it okay to trust? Let's say you have been filing joint tax returns for a year. Is it okay to trust the accountant? Is it okay to try stuff, financial advisor, or should you really be getting your own independent advice?

Stacy Francis (16:12):

I wish I could say it's okay to trust them. It's good to have that joint tax return. But if you're nervous that what you're receiving from your spouse is not correct. Then what I encourage you to do is order from the IRS. It's extremely easy to do. You can just go around the IRS website, they are going to send it to your home address. So you do need to, you do need to know that that's where it's going to be sent. So if you're nervous, get your own copy. The financial advisor, working with you and your husband. Typically 80% of women leave their financial advisor the year after a divorce. And it's usually they tell us because they feel like the relationship was more so with their husband and not them. And so if that's the case, then you most likely, uh, want to make sure that you get your own advisor.

Stacy Francis (16:59):

If you're looking to your advisor, to advise you financially through the divorce, you're making a mistake because that advisor ethically cannot advise you nor should they be advising your husband because they have a conflict of interest because both of you are their client. And unfortunately this is not something that's always practiced by the book. And I've even seen naughty things happen that when there is a division of assets that funny enough, the assets that have very low basis, meaning that they're going to incur the greatest taxes. When sold funny enough are the ones that get sent to the spouse, that it does not have the close with the financial advisor, just like you would go. And if you're having heart surgery, you would get a second opinion. I would do the same thing and have an outside financial advisor. If you're going through divorce, that designation, you're going to look for as a certified divorce financial analyst, because you know, like heart surgery, you don't want to go to someone. Who's a great pediatrician for heart surgery. Same thing with this situation, there it is a unique specialty. And there is quite a bit of very specific information that you need to know when it comes to divorce.

Meredith Shirey (18:23):

Is there another way to, to either talk about, or to find out things, if you feel like your spouse is not being truthful or maybe they're not being fully disclosing?

Stacy Francis (18:31):

One party, having more information about the finances sometimes can give them a sense of control. There are so many pieces that can go into that. Leaving the other uninformed spouse out that spouse, that is the out-spouse. It's really up to them and they're going to have to work a little bit harder. And that means they open the mail. If something is jointly addressed to the both of them, then they open it. If it's addressed to just themselves, they open it. If it's addressed to just their spouse, take a picture of it. You can't necessarily open it, but take a picture. And so that you can start to see what financial institutions are you getting mail from on a regular basis, because that starts to give you more information about where those assets are. Look through your will. I mean, when you're doing a will, all the assets, pretty much all the assets have to be disclosed because they're listed in the will.

Stacy Francis (19:21):

So look at that well, and if it hasn't been updated, this is a great time. Let's say we should update our will because I heard that there are tax laws and some changes in the state planning, which FYI there are. We should do that and starting to get as involved as you can. And maybe even the, I know how busy you are at work. Can I help and take over with the everyday bill paying? And I jump in and meet with a financial advisor because I don't really understand what's going on with the accounts again, trying to do it in a way that isn't provoking so that you can gain access to more information.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (19:58):

When people come into my office. Sometimes, you know, you know, people have done a fair amount of research, you know, on Google and it can be difficult sometimes to set expectations when it comes to the finances you look on and you'll see marital lifestyle, marital lifestyle, marital lifestyle is going to examine what the marital lifestyle was. And the goal is that everybody's going to have the same marital lifestyle in the event that there's a divorce, but you know, it's a quote and I'll retired, New York state judge, where there was one home there's now two. How can it be that you still have the same now the lifestyle?

Stacy Francis (20:28):

Yeah, exactly. There's a great paper that came out called the divorce revolution. And it looked at lifestyle changes after divorce. What they did find for both parties. Lifestyle goes down for men. It drops by about 10%. And for women, it's almost a third, a drop in a lifestyle. And that has some pretty big implications. It means that if you have not worked in the marriage, you most likely are going to need to look at doing so if you want to stay in the primary home, you need to run that analysis to see, can you really truly afford the mortgage? The upkeep, the repair, the real estate taxes. Does this really work for me now? You know, looking also at which assets that you take from the marriage, and most likely you are going to need to make sure that you have assets that are going to truly grow for you.

Stacy Francis (21:22):

And that they're in brokerage accounts and that they're invested for growth in income, because if you thought your money needed to work hard for you in your marriage, your, your money needs to work even harder as a single person. And we are seeing the trends that actually the population with the highest growth of divorce is above age 50. And while you still have a beautiful long life, 30, 40, 45 years yet to live, you don't have as much time in the workforce to recoup. And so the individuals that I see that succeed after divorce, funny enough are not the most wealthy individuals, although you would expect that the people I see that succeed are the ones that truly understand their expenses. They've taken the time to really look at all the expenses. And they've made very sound decisions about how they're going to live their life post divorce in a way that is putting them on track to be financially stable. You know, I, I wish there was better news about life post divorce. You'd just have to realize the standard of living is going to go down unless you are going to go back to work or there's going to be some other lever that you're going to pull, but it's not going to be easy.

Meredith Shirey (22:47):

What's more important than this number you get from the divorce settlement is, are you educating yourself? And do you know how to make that number stretch? Because it's not going to mean the same thing as it did when you were married. Am I hearing that correctly?

Stacy Francis (23:00):

Exactly. And I will tell you Meredith the amount of course, that you walk away in your retirement account that matters. But the biggest thing that matters, the number one thing that tells us whether or not someone is going to outlive their assets and run out of money, longterm is their spending. And this is true of someone that walks away with 20 million that we run financial plans and they're running out of money in 15 years. And it's also true of the person who might be spending a lot less who have 300,000 and that lasts them for the rest of their life, that is the biggest trigger. And the piece that's very empowering around this is that there's so much we can't control. We can't control the stock market. Can't control what's going to happen with taxes and the election, but we control what we spend.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (23:44):

You mentioned financial education. What better way to talk about Savvy Ladies? Can you tell us a bit about Savvy Ladies?

Stacy Francis (23:50):

The warm part of the difficult story about and sad story of my grandmother is that it inspired me to create a beautiful charity in her honor. And Savvy Ladies is my love letter to her. And we work with tens of thousands of women each year, helping them with financial education. We have the only financial helpline in the entire country where you get matched with a certified financial planner or certified divorce financial analyst to work. One-on-one free of charge. And we have a Ted talk-like video library of hundreds of different topics that you can access, whether you're a man or a woman on everything you need to know about having a secure, happy marriage, you know, and we have ones about money dates too. And then also if you're looking at a separation or divorce, what are those financial things that you need to know to make sure you're going to be financially secure and every topic in between. And it's all free. Our biggest challenge is letting people know that we're here and that we're here to serve and we're here to serve all. It doesn't matter. What's in your bank account or not in your bank account. We are here to serve and we have some of the top financial experts in the country helping us. So please check us out - savvyladies.org. We are here for everyone to be able to use as a wonderful, wonderful resource.

Meredith Shirey (25:04):

Oh, wow, and talk about the generosity, right? Isaiah mentioned this at the beginning, but this just so perfectly embodies how generous you are, Stacy and how wonderful it is. I mean, what an incredible service. There's not a lot of things that we see in this life that come for free and you're offering your advice and your expertise from such a loving, beautiful place to people who need it more than anybody else. I mean, what an incredible gift to give to the world.

Stacy Francis (25:29):

Thank you. And thank you to everything you're doing here with the podcast. I would just say as parting words, knowledge is power. And I know for me personally, not ever considering myself, a numbers person, I took my first class and it was one of the frightening, most frightening things I had ever done. And then I took another class and another one, and I realized that, number one, this is not rocket science. It's really not. And it's really interesting and it's really fun. And the more that you invest in yourself, better life, you're going to have, the better life you're going to have. And we all deserve that.

Meredith Shirey (26:07):

Stacy, if people want to get in contact with you, how can they do that? What's the best way to get ahold of you?

Stacy Francis (26:13):

So you can check out. We've got both websites, www savvy, ladies.org, all of the services are free. And then I run a wealth management firm called Francis Financial. We specialize in working with women, going through divorce or women who unfortunately their spouse has passed away and you can reach me there at www.francisfinancial.com. And you can email me stacy@francisfinancial.com. And you know, any questions you have, if we can help, that's what we're geared to do. And I truly believe the more you give out, the more that comes to you. And I am about as blessed as can be myself. So I definitely am a living proof of that.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (26:51):

Well, guys, I know I'm taking from this. Let's get ourselves a bottle of red wine.

Stacy Francis (26:57):

I know right!

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (26:58):

Let's get some popcorn.

Stacy Francis (27:00):

Ready for it. Right. You know what's great. Is that because the popcorn has no calories, it offsets the red wine. Isaiah.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (27:07):

Absolutely. A little too much butter on it, but.

Stacy Francis (27:10):

Oh wow. ok well...

New Speaker (27:12):

I'm doing it. Let's get the red wine. Let's get the popcorn. Let's do this. Let's get a money date. And remember, there's nothing to be scared of. Finances are fun.

Stacy Francis (27:21):

Yeah. You got it!

[Producer] Rich Hackman (27:32):

Love me. Or leave me as a podcast production of the board brand. This podcast is for informational purposes. Only. It does not constitute medical or legal advice and is not a substitute for professional consultation, diagnoses or treatment. Always follow up with a licensed attorney or a healthcare professional who can address your specific needs. Thanks for listening.

[Producer] Rich Hackman (28:00):

Hey, love me or leave me listeners. We'd love to hear from you. We understand that some of the topics we address on the show can be a lot to try and cover in such a short amount of time. So we'd love to hear your thoughts and your reactions to any and all of the conversations. Was there something that really spoke to you or did we miss something? What other issues would you like us to discuss? Send us an email at lovemeorleavemepodcast@gmail.com or leave us a voice message on our website at lovemeorleavemepodcast.com.