Divorce And Your Money - #1 Divorce Podcast

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here. In this episode and the next couple of episodes, I want to get into the top 10 must follow divorce tips. I want to cover a bunch of different areas quickly so that you can... If you only have to focus on 10 things, these are the 10 items to focus on. And I'm going to cover them and get into them, and in this episode I want to cover three areas of the top 10 in particular. The first is face reality head on, the second is know you can do this and the third is to get organized. The first tip is to face reality head on. When it comes to divorce and it comes to planning for a divorce or being in the middle of divorce, one of the things that you have to think about is understanding and accepting that this is happening. Yes, it's happening to you. Yes, this is your life and this is real. And many times during this process, it can be easy to want to feel denial. Feel like you're n

Get the new book here: https://divorceandyourmoney.com/book/ Avoid Costly Divorce Mistakes Ending a marriage may be the most challenging life event you will ever face. Whether you’re contemplating divorce or in the middle of one right now, you need to be prepared to face the tough questions: What’s going to happen to your lifestyle, money, and retirement? What pitfalls should you avoid, and what steps do you need to take to move forward? How do you protect your family, your children, and your future? If you’re overwhelmed by the prospect of divorce or you’re simply fed up with one-size-fits-all online articles and advice, you need Divorce and Your Money: How to Avoid Costly Divorce Mistakes. Written by Shawn Leamon, MBA, Certified Divorce Financial Analyst, and host of the #1 divorce financial podcast, Divorce and Your Money, this no-nonsense, user-friendly guide provides a complete plan for facing the tough decisions in your divorce.  Shawn’s work has been seen in Time, USA Today, Yahoo! Finance, Nasdaq, S

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   In this episode, I want to focus on discussing the ins and outs of debt. It's a very controversial, and frustrating, and challenging issue that can pop up during divorce. I haven't covered it in a while, so I want to make sure that you understand the essential items when it comes to how to deal with and split debt in divorce and provide some tips so that you can make the right decisions and do what's best for your specific situation.  When I think of a debt, the most common of course is credit card debt. Other things can be personal loans. Medical bills are common. Auto loans fall into that category. Student loans, mortgages, I'm going to exclude student loans and mortgages for the moment because they have some different intricacies than debt overall. But even if you're thinking about student loans and mortgages, many of the core principles that I'm going to talk about h

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   One of the challenges in divorce is making sure that separate property stays separate. And it could be the case that you're trying to prove what's being claimed as separate property is actually marital property. Now it's a bit of an advanced topic, but an important one, and just a reminder, and I said this in the previous episode, if something is marital property, it means you have to split the value of it between you and your spouse during divorce. And if it's separate property, then the person whose separate property it belongs to gets to keep it and you don't really discuss it at all as far as the divorce goes. One of the most common types of separate property is an inheritance where the parents of one spouse gives them a bunch of money. He may be married or not married at the time and that inheritance is a common type of separate property that exists. Another time it

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   In divorce, one of the big questions is whether something is separate property or marital property. If it's separate property, than the person who had it before divorce keeps it. And if it's marital property, the value needs to be split amongst the people divorcing. And so, one of the questions that we deal with a lot and I help people navigate is how do prove whether something is separate property or marital property. And what do I mean? Well, the most common is an inheritance. If an inheritance was given to one person, is that still considered separate property or is it marital property? Inheritances, sometimes they're small, but sometimes they are very big because they can be a parent's lifetime of savings. Could be something like a retirement account, where there was money in the account before you got married and then it grew during the marriage. But how much of tha

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   Shawn Leamon: As I record this episode, there are about four months left in the year, and you may be at a time crunch trying to wrap things up before year end. I want to give you some tips on how you might be able to do that, regardless of where you are in the divorce process. Some of you might not have even filed, I've talked to a few of you who are thinking about filing and wanting things wrapped up by year end, and others of you are preparing for settlement negotiations and other things so that you can have it in before the end of the year is out. Of course, there's many reasons to want the divorce to be finalized as the year wraps up. The main reason, of course, just being sanity sake. You get to start the new year a fresh, you get this divorce process behind you, and it gets put into the rear view mirror. Shawn Leamon: There are practical and family considerations.

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   One of the questions that comes up often that is a source of confusion, is how does life insurance work during the divorce process and actually afterwards. I want to take some time and clarify how it could work and how it might apply to you. I'm going to start with how it works during the divorce process. Then also talk about the role after the divorce process because it's not always intuitive and it's usually not what people think. The first element is, during divorce the question that people ask, is life insurance something that's split or how does that work? Does it have value? Generally speaking, it depends on what kind of life insurance policy you have. Most life insurance policies, not all, but most life insurance policies are what's called term life insurance, which is a policy that exists for a certain term or certain number of years.   You buy this life insuranc

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   As anyone who listens to the show regularly knows, there's a lot of different moving parts to be thinking about as you go through the divorce process. Sometimes there are some things that are less obvious that you may want to consider as you are filing for divorce, living your life and just doing some of the normal financial things that you should be doing. One of the questions that comes up, only on occasion, but it's a very important question when it does arise is while you're going through the divorce process, is it better to file your taxes as married filing jointly or married filing separately? While you are still married, you have those two options as a status to elect when you file your taxes. It can be an important question. I'll get into the reasons some of you might consider filing separately in a moment.   But historically, most couples file married filing joi

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here. As you go through the divorce process, one of the most important things that you can do that's easy to overlook is really understanding all of your legal documentation and reading it. Even though most of you going through divorce aren't lawyers, you should be able to read and understand the legal documents that are getting passed back and forth and that ultimately you'll sign as part of a settlement or if you got a temporary order from the court or whatever the case may be needs to, you need to read every word and you need to understand it. One of the things that I want to talk about in this episode is what kind of things you should be looking for as you try and read and understand and go through all of the legal elements of this divorce process. Just one important note to remind you or as a reminder is on the divorceandyourmoney.com/coaching page, we have a call that you

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   There may come a point where you need to fire your divorce attorney. And I want to talk about how you do that, what the mechanics are and some things to keep in mind. Now before you fire your divorce attorney, that's what we call a last step in the process. Not the first thing that you need to do. It might be something, if your relationship with your attorney is not going well there are many ways to repair it or to make your comments known and just to give you a heads up I have about seven or eight podcast episodes on how to manage and get the most out of your attorney relationship in the Quick Star Guide and that's just in the Divorce and Your Money store. You can get a lot of great information that will save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars just from that section on managing your relationship with your divorce attorney but one of the things I want to cover in t

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   One important topic that comes up on calls is how do I stop my spouse from spending all our money? Now, this question comes in many flavors. It could be frivolous purchases, vacations, money spent on an affair. I've heard people spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on prostitutes. Sometimes there's just a spouse that's terrible with money, and one spouse likes to go shopping, or might even quit their job and just spend a lot more money than they used to all of a sudden as part of the relationship. I've had cases where spouses are sending money to family members for questionable purposes. I've had cases where spouses take money out and invest it into terrible business ideas. I've had people who spent a million dollars or more investing in some latest fad and losing it all. Could be gambling, could be drugs, could be any number of situations as to when a spouse is was

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   Thank you for listening! Find a transcript of this episode below. In this episode, I want to discuss a question that came up recently, and it's a subject that while not exactly a specific divorce topic, it's very important when you think about planning for your financial situation, and has a big impact on how you think about budgeting and finances in general. It can impact what you think about agreeing upon as part of the divorce settlement. Many of you have retirement savings, or if you've listened to other podcasts, you might be getting a lump sum distribution or trying to negotiate a lump sum distribution as part of your divorce settlement, and as you may know, is one of the things I advocate for particularly. I think it makes sense many times and is underutilized, a lump sum distribution, because both parties oftentimes benefit. If you're the person receiving that lu

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   To learn more about Janet McCullar and the custody process, visit her website at: https://janetmccullar.com/.   Thank you for listening! Find a transcript of this episode below.   Shawn Leamon: Shawn Leamon, here, M.B.A. and certified divorce financial analyst, here with Janet McCullar, board-certified family law attorney in Texas and author of the new book The Custody Lawyer. Janet, it's great to speak with you today. Janet McCullar: Thanks, Shawn. I'm glad to be here with you. Shawn Leamon: Why don't you give us a little bit of a background on you? You just wrote this great and informative book called The Custody Lawyer, but tell us a little bit about how long you've been practicing and why you wrote the book. Janet McCullar: All right. I've been practicing for over 25 years. I was a teacher before that, then went to law school. Not too long after I finished law school

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   Thank you for listening! Find a transcript of this episode below.   In this episode, I wanna continue discussing creating a marital history. Now, if you didn't hear the previous episode, you should go back and listen to that one because it has a lot of good information about the overview on why you should create a marital history, and some important questions you should be thinking about when you create said history. And also, some alternative methods to create a marital history and why it's so important to do. And in this section, I want to continue with the marital history and provide some other areas for you to think about. This next area is called the health history, the health section. And, what should you be thinking about in here to include? Well, if there are any mental or physical problems that have happened in the past few years, particularly for either of you,

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   Thank you for listening! Find a transcript of this episode below.   I'm going to discuss a topic that I haven't brought up on the podcast before. And that is creating a marital history. Now, this is something that I've talked about on one-on-one coaching calls, but not something that I've brought up on the podcast and I think it's a really important subject that everyone should listen to. And perhaps, everyone should create. One of the challenges when you are getting divorced and you hire someone like me or you go to your attorney, is trying to catch up on everything that has happened. And of course, a lot has happened, particularly, if you are contemplating separation or divorce and are going through that process. And so, one of the things that can help us and help you and help everyone, is what I'm going to call a marital history. Some people might call it a marital hi

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   Thank you for listening! Find a transcript of this episode below.   When you think about divorce, it is indeed a process, and as part of that, I get to work with you through all stages of the process. Sometimes it's months or years before you file, and you're trying to figure out the key items. Other times during the divorce, you're trying to figure out what path makes the most sense for you, and sometimes, it's even after divorce is over and whether or not it makes sense to pursue a modification or trying to enforce a part of the agreement that's not being taken care of promptly. In this episode, I want to give you some considerations for those of you who are still considering filing for divorce, and in particular, when you should file and whether you should file first. There are reasons that you might want to file first, but the end of the day, if you can control it, y

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here. Thank you for listening! Find a transcript of this episode below. As part of my job, just about every day I work with attorneys all across the country. And I wanna communicate as often as I can important lessons I learn from working with them, the good, the bad, the ugly. Since I get to see so many styles, and cases, and jurisdictions, is kind of telling you what's normal, or what to look out for, and make sure that you're making the appropriate decisions, and have a good working relationship with your attorney as you go through the divorce process. Most of the people that I talk to and work with don't go through divorce every day, hopefully not, and it also means you don't have to interact with lawyers every day. So one of the things that is difficult at times is trying to figure out if the behaviors that you're sensing with your lawyer are correct. Ether or not you need

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   Thank you for listening! Find a transcript of this episode below.   This may be the one of the most important episodes that I've ever recorded. I spent a good chunk of my time in December at a conference for lawyers and a lot of the top family lawyers in the United States were there. And one evening we all went out to dinner and we spent three or four hours together, just discussing what's going on and what's going on in everyone's practice. What they're thinking about, whatever. It was fascinating because all of these lawyers, they're the top in their respective cities and states, from California to New York to Florida, and everywhere in between. They all universally had one big issue. One very important issue that they wish that their clients understood so people like you listening to this podcast.   They wish that everyone would get a better handle on and understand a

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   Thank you for listening! Find a transcript of this episode below.   Chris: Hey everybody, it’s Chris Denmon with Denmon and Pearlman out of St. Petersburg, Florida and today I’m with Shawn Leamon. Did I pronounce that right Sean?Shawn: You got it right.Chris: All right. Shawn Leamon, who is a certified divorce financial analyst and the host of a podcast which is Divorce and Your Money. Which is how I found Shawn and we’re continuing our series today. We’re interviewing tangential professionals in other professions that can help our clients get through the divorce process in the best possible way and help them move onto their lives in the best possible way. And so Shawn, you’ll be talking to some of my future clients and my current clients. And take it away, what did I miss? What else about you should we let people know?Shawn: No, I think that’s great. I’m a certified div

Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Learn about coaching services here.   Shawn Leamon: I want to start this episode off with a quote from Yogi Berra, in which he says, “If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up someplace else.” I think that's a good theme, particularly as we're starting the year, and thinking about the divorce process, or regardless of where you are. I want to discuss a little bit about setting goals. Shawn Leamon: It's the beginning of 2019, at least when I record this. There's almost 200 episodes of the podcast, and 100,000 people listened in 2018. One of the goals I have, at least for the podcast, is to help as many people as possible go through the divorce process, and make sure that I can do it in an affordable, cost efficient manner for most people. One of the ways that I can do that, is having regular coaching calls, and for some people working in greater variation, and more hands on with others. Shawn Leamon