In this episode, I interview the financial expert Jackie Mazur. As a Certified Divorce Financial Advisor, Jackie understands what it takes to be financially ready for divorce. Not only is Jackie a financial planner, but she’s also been through a divorce herself; she understands what divorce entails. From her experience, Jackie discloses the 3 most important financial steps to take to get “divorce ready”. This is information that you cannot afford to miss!

Reach India at connect@indiakern.com

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For more information about my guest…

Welcome to the divorce recovery podcast. My name is India Kern. My intention is to encourage and guide you through the valley of divorce. It doesn’t matter what stage you are in because we all need a little help navigating the road from married to divorced. I’ve been there and I know how it is. So sit tight, listen up and enjoy the podcast. In today’s episode, I’m talking to my guest, Jackie Mazer, who is a certified financial planner and a certified divorce financial analyst and president of Guide my Finances. Welcome Jackie.

Jackie: Thanks. Thanks for having me today.

India: Of course. So Jackie’s going to help us understand why, what we need to know about getting our finances ready for divorce. And this can be extremely daunting. I know it was for me because I didn’t handle the finances, so I was incredibly intimidated and insecure in this department. So first off, Jackie, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Like what do you do as a CDFI? Maybe tell them what that even means.

Jackie: Yeah, definitely. So I’ve been a financial planner since 2003 and I went through a divorce myself back in, it was around 2009, and as I was being approached with all the information that the attorneys were asking me for, I realized how daunting this situation might be for people who didn’t work in finance. And so a couple of years ago I decided to look into becoming a certified divorce financial analyst or CDFA, um, so that I could help other women and just other individuals going through divorce understand a little bit better how the intricacies of the finances work during the divorce process. Um, and so what a CDFA does is essentially help individuals through figuring out the financial aspects of divorce. When clients come to me before the divorce process, very often I’m helping them determine whether they can even afford the divorce.

India: Right.

And if you can believe it, some people will say, you know what? I can’t afford to do this. I’m going to try to make it work for a little bit longer and see if I can, if I can make this work.

India: Right, right.

Jackie: Other people will say, okay, I know what I’m dealing with now. And so I know that there’s going to be some changes, but I can afford to make it work.

India: Okay.

Jackie: So number one would be before you even broach the subject of divorce, what does it look like?

India: Right, right.

Jackie: Um, the area that I work with people most often in is during the divorce process and they’re trying to figure out what assets should they ask for? What sort of income do they need? How do they structure the financial settlement?

India: Right.

Jackie: And so what I’ll do is sit down with one of the parties and look over everything and create an equalization basically, um, proposal for my client to bring into mediation or to bring to their attorney to show what assets and what dollar amount from an income standpoint are they looking for.

India: Right. Jackie, you deal with getting a person’s finances ready for divorce. So from your experience, what do you think are the three most important financial steps to get a person ready? Divorce-Ready?

Jackie: So probably the first most important step is figuring out how much money are you going to need to live. And that sounds really easy to do, but of course we know it’s a lot more complicated than just writing down a couple numbers on a page and knowing how much you need. Um, so really the first step is figuring out, one, what are your housing costs going to be? Moving forward, where are you going to be living? What are the costs associated with that home? And I know for a lot of us, we want to stay in our home, but in a lot of cases we’re going from one income or, or a joint income supporting one household. And now that same amount of income is going to have to support two separate households.

India: Exactly.

Jackie: So we have to be realistic about what we can afford. And it may or may not be the house that you’re currently in. So figuring out what are you paying for that, you know the numbers every month. So if you have a car payment that should be really easy to find, your house payment or rent payment should be pretty easy to locate and the things that are basically fixed every month. Then you’re also going to have some variable expenses like groceries, those might change from month to month or um, gifts around the holidays. That’s going to change from month to month. So figuring out is that a monthly expense or an annual expense and really adding up collectively for the year, how much money are you going to need to live?

India: Right.

Jackie: And we could do a high end and a low end, right? There’s an ideal of what you’d like to spend and then there’s a low end of what you absolutely need. And that’s really probably the very first step that we need to figure out. Because before we can even create a proposal for what you need, we need to know what’s needed, what you need, right?

India: So you’re creating a budget. So I have a question for you. When I was facing divorce, I was in a position where I was 100% stay-at-home. Mom, I didn’t write a checks, I didn’t deal with the finances at all. So it was very intimidating for me to even come up with a budget. So for those listeners that were, are in that position right now, how do they begin? Like what is your advice? How do you start to begin making a budget?

Jackie: Yeah, so that’s super challenging, especially if you’re not sure what your mortgage or what your car payment is currently. Um, so probably the first step would be to, well depends on where you are in the divorce process. If you have already filed the paperwork, your spouse will have had to make some financial disclosures. They’ll have to say, what accounts do you have? How much money do you have? Where, um, if you know where all your bank accounts are probably downloading the last couple months of statements and looking at what are you spending, what are maybe just shopping expenses, what looked like car payments coming out of the checking account and really dive into the statements to figure it out. Um, there’s a couple of different resources online that are free. Um, one of the ones I’ve used in the past is something called mint.com.

India: Okay.

Jackie: It’s a free budgeting, um, program. It’s actually created by, well, it wasn’t created by intuit, but it’s now owned by intuit who does TurboTax.

India: Right.

Jackie: So it’s relatively safe, um, as far as online programs go. Right. Um, and basically you link all your checking accounts to that program and it’ll will show you how much you’re spending in different areas.

India: That’s a great resource.

Jackie: And so that’s a really great starting point. Um, but no, again, that just because that’s how much you’re spending now, that doesn’t mean that it’s the same amount that you’re going to be able to continue to spend.

India: Right.

Jackie: So some of it’s going to have to come from your intuition and your knowledge of what you think you’re personally spending in certain areas. And then some of those fixed expenses, if you’re not sure about, you should be able to draw from those statements.

India: Okay. So that makes a lot of sense. So we know creating a budget is necessary, but what’s another way a person can get divorce- ready, financially-speaking?

Jackie: Yeah. So really the next step is figuring out what assets are available. What do you have? Do you own a home? Do you have other rental real estate? Um, when clients have more than one property, a lot of times one of them is generating income. So it might be beneficial if you don’t have income to potentially take over that asset or to even live there depending on the cost. So having a really good understanding of what is available is very important. Um, from my perspective as a, as the financial analyst, it’s also important to know, well, number one, how much money you need today versus later, and then which assets we can make available for those income needs. So to give an example, um, a lot of times we’ll have different types of retirement assets. You might have stock, you might have houses, some of those you’re going to be able to use for income today. Others aren’t liquid, which means that you can’t sell them right away in order to create cash that you can live off of. So when we’re putting together a proposal for you to bring, one of the things we have to look at is which assets are liquid, which are not, how much liquidity do you need? Or is it better to have assets that are growing for the long term? So there’s a lot of moving parts that go into it. And so the really the second step is figuring out what do you have,

India: Right. So with that being said, again, if I look back, I really didn’t know what my assets were. So when would a person like me call you in the divorce process? So I’ve just found out that I’m separated. I mean we’re getting a separation. When is the most ideal time to call you?

Jackie: It would probably be when you know that you’re about to embark on the divorce process, most people call their attorney, which is great. The attorney is going to help you with the legal side of things. Um, but when it comes to the finances, it can be very helpful to sit down with a financial person versus the attorney. So the other thing that’s very helpful, not necessarily before you call, but that would be good to have or know that it’s coming in soon are financial disclosures. So to your question, you said, well I don’t even know what I have. Well, one of the first steps that you and your spouse have to provide to each other is a list of the different accounts and assets that you have.

India: Okay.

Jackie: So if you have no idea what you have currently, it might benefit you to wait until you have those disclosures in hand, which your attorney will help you with so that we know. So I have the information I need to put together the analysis. Now before you even start the divorce process, if you’re unsure of the honesty level of your spouse, you might want to do a little bit of research before you even start the divorce process.

India: Okay. How so?

Jackie: That’s difficult. Maybe logging into your bank accounts and taking a screenshot or you know, downloading statements that you know how much money is in the accounts at that time.

India: Just getting familiar with what you at the time have access to.

Jackie: Exactly. Um, and if you think that there might be money in a safe or you think that there might be safe deposit boxes, it wouldn’t hurt to go and take a picture of what it’s in there. Yeah, I’ve seen or heard stories where there’s been money in a safe deposit box or there’s been gold coins or things like that that disappear.

India: Right.

Jackie: And if you don’t have proof that they existed in the first place, that’s he said she said, and it’s pretty much a not an asset. So take pictures of things that you can take pictures of. If you can download statements for accounts and make sure that you know how much money is in those accounts so that three months from then if your spouse says, oh no, that that money was used to pay for this or that, you know, or at least you have the documentation to show makes to me open there. So not everybody is dishonest during divorce at all. I’ve seen so many really genuine people just wanting to help each other. But there are also cases where that happens. And not knowing is your biggest challenge because if you don’t know about something, then it’s a lot more difficult to prove that it existed or didn’t exist.

India: Of course. So, so we’ve established we need to create a budget. Yeah, we need to know our assets and what is “liquidable” and then what else do we need to know?

Jackie: So I would say probably one more thing that’s really important is to have your own advisors. So a lot of times as a couple you’ll have an estate planning attorney, you’ll have a financial planner or some sort of investment advisor. What a lot of people don’t realize is that that individual is fiduciaryly responsible for advising both of you equally. And so that individual, even if you’ve been working with them for 10 years and you really like them, they can’t tell you specifically what you should do to get the best results from the divorce, because they have to look out for both of you. So by hiring your own attorney or hiring your own advisor or certified divorce financial analyst, you’re going to have somebody that is 100% in just your court. They’re going to be advising you on what’s best for you. Um, a lot of clients go into mediation and think that because they’re in mediation, they don’t need those advisers. I 100% disagree. It’s even more important to make sure that because you don’t have somebody, an attorney on your side, that you’re have somebody who’s managing your finances and giving you the financial advice that you need. And I always recommend that if you’re in mediation, that you hire your own attorney to review the documents before you sign anything. So even though you have this very amicable conversation, you still need to make sure that you’re protected.

India: Now I have a question for you. Speaking of mediation, so do you go in with your client into mediation or is this all back work, that this work that you did before mediation?

Jackie: It’s all behind the scenes.

India: OK, behind the scenes.

Jackie: When you’re in mediation, it’s typically just the two parties and the mediator. Adding another person in there makes it start to feel like you’re like creating a team approach. So what I do is I sit down with the client before they go into mediation and help them prepare for the mediation.

India: Okay, that makes sense.

Jackie: This is exactly what you should ask for. These are your negotiables, these are your non-negotiables. Go! And some clients will ask to say, you know, my mediations is on this day at this time, I’ll leave my schedule available and if they need to step out to call me.They can. And that way if they’re getting somewhere, but they need some advice on whether they should take the, you know, proposal from their spouse, I’m there. They can talk it through with me, step out of the room and then go back in and say yes or no.

India: Okay. Okay. So I have, I thought that was my last question, but I have one more question. How does a certified divorce financial planner get compensated?

Jackie: Yeah. So it’s all on a flat rate basis. So I charge hourly. The same way that your attorney or CPA or anybody else would really, um, typically when I’m sitting down with a client, I spend initially anywhere from one to four hours really kind of diving in and making sure that we have a proposal or a plan in place. You’re looking at around 300 to 350 an hour just depending on the complexity of the situation and what we’re talking about. Um, so it’s, it’s worth it to have that information going in for sure.

India: Okay. Well, so before we wrap up this podcast, is there anything you’d like to add?

Jackie: I think really just try to get informed if you aren’t, even if you’re in the very beginning stages of contemplating divorce, start to ask questions without being suspicious. Find out what you have and be knowledgeable and sit in on if there is a meeting with the financial advisor coming up, ask to come along to the meeting. Um, gather information and have as much knowledge.

India: Do your research.

Jackie: Have as much knowledge as you can going into it. And I would also say, you know, be reasonable depending on the situation, 100%, but if you’re willing to give a little, it gives good faith in the negotiation process so much easier than if you’re just holding down a line the whole time. So really having the knowledge and then being flexible around that I think can really help you in this situation.

India: How could someone get in touch with you?

Jackie: Yeah. So, um, you can visit my website, which is www.guidemyfinances.com. Um, you can uh, give us a call of course, at 760-547-7585. On our website there’s a link to schedule an appointment. Um, so you could just schedule an appointment right online or of course, like I said, always call, we can do a phone appointment or in person meeting. And I always offer a no cost 30 minute consultation so that we can make sure it’s a good fit and get an idea of what you need.

India: Good, good. Not to worry if you’re driving right now, cause this will all be on the podcast page. So Jackie, I want to give you a big thank you for being my guest. It’s so important to educate yourself about divorce and finances and understanding is true empowerment because then you have the confidence to go in and go forward with the divorce process.

Jackie: Absolutely.

India: Dear listeners, I hope you’ve gleaned some valuable information from this podcast. If you find yourself needing clarity around your current situation, shoot me an email at connect@indiakern.com As my coach always told me, we do not reach clarity alone, and remember, the first consultation is free so you have nothing to lose. Have a beautiful day and thank you for listening.