Money does not determine whether or not you can get divorced. That decision is up to the individual and it doesn’t matter how many zeros you have in your bank account. In this episode of All’s Fair with Laura Wasser, we’re joined by two financial professionals who are dedicated to helping the less monied spouse navigate their way through the divorce process. The Fairy Godmother of Divorce, Nicole Noonan shares how her company New Chapter Capital, Inc. provides funding to untie the knot, and Private Wealth Manager Emily Green from Ellevest discusses socially relevant investment options that fit any size budget. Laura also explains some of the ways that people with limited finances can take complete control over their divorce without hiring an attorney @itsovereasy
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Hi there. It's me Laura Wasser, the divorce attorney and the founder of It's over Easy, the online divorce service. I've been practicing family law for over twenty years, and I've worked on thousands of divorces, shepherding people through what may be one of the most terrifying times in their lives. Along the way, I often have to remind people to lower their expectations when dealing with matters of the heart. Rules simply don't apply. Because all's fair in love and war. So welcome to the All's Fair Podcasts. Fasten your seatbelts and let's go. Hey there, everyone, I'm Laura Wasser. My name's Johnny Rains, and this is All's Fair. That It's over Easy podcast, all about relationships. The way people connect and disconnect absolutely fascinates me, and in the more than two decades that I've practiced family law, I continue to be amazed by relationships, particularly as they pertain to people's behavior avier when their emotions completely take over. And at the same time, I'm inspired by the things we do for love, which is why I remain hopeful. It's Over Easy is the community where many of these conversations occur. We're on Facebook at its over easy community and at its over easy on Instagram and Twitter. Plus we're right here every week on all Spare with Laura Waser, having conversations, sharing updates and advice on how to break up, make up, and move on to your next chapters. And we do all of this to bring transparency to the life span of a relationship. Everything about family and divorce is changing, and yet the prevailing wisdom on how to dissolve a relationship often seems hopelessly outdated. Some relationships end and some don't, but I think all of them should evolve. And if that evolution becomes the dissolution of a marriage is not the end of the world, nor should it bankrupt you or destroy your family. That's the evolution of dissolution. It's a fresh look at the story that's as old as time. Girl meets boy, boy Mary girl, Girl and boy grow apart, divorced and lived happily ever after separately. That's so non gender fluid. What about boy meets boy, girl meets That's true, you know, it is very good point person meets person. No one meets anyone because their home depressed, eating fucking banana bread. How about that. Sorry feeling a little negative today. Well, speaking of prevailing wisdom, Psychology Today had an interesting article about, you know, this theory of what did tale that's oldest time person meeting person or not in the age of COVID nineteen. But basically they proposed that people in married, committed relationships might be happier than people who are not married. What do you think about that? I think it's interesting. I mean I read it. I read It's by Gwendolen Sideman, PhD. And um. She says that there's three kind of relationship histories. There is either consistently married, so people are married to the same person for most of their adult lives. That's sevent of her sample. Consistently single, just like bachelor's and bachelorettes for life, they were single for most of their adult lives and that was only eight percent. And then there's varied histories people that move in and out of different relationship status for example divorce than single, multiple marriages and divorces, and that was thirteen percent. And I read that and no disrespect for Dr Siedman, but duh, I mean that's like saying, you know, I mean, there's two kinds of people, tall people, short people, and then there's the in between. I wasn't really sure. I mean the other stuff she said about how a relationship, history and relationships are connected to happiness, I think is important and interesting. I also think we now, more than ever in history, possibly to a fault. I'm sure some would say, are examining our relationships and how happy they make us, and whether they're fulfilling us or stifling us. I remember, as you know, I was married for like five seconds once back in the nineties, and when I went to my dad to tell him that it wasn't working out and we were getting divorce. And I'm sure my dad was like, well, that's great that I spent all that money on the wedding, but he was said thank you. He said, well, does does he hit you? I said no? He said, is he cheating on you? I said not that I know of. Is he abusing drugs or alcohol? Or is he goat? Does he have a gambling problem? I said no? They said, so what's the problem. That was the way people used to think about divorce. You would never participate in something so torrid and heartbreaking and difficult and taboo unless one of those things were happening, and now it's kind of like, Hey, we've had a good run, we've reached the end. We're still going to be co parents, and I feel like somehow the law hasn't quite caught up with that. I am not saying to make it easy for people to get divorced, but I am saying to make it more difficult, and make what is already a difficult time so painful for people because of the legal and financial stress seems um inequitable. I guess whether a relationship brings happiness or misery is up to the individuals involved. But if you're contemplating the end of your marriage, I say it's a good idea to pick your moment. Finding that moment depends on a few factors, one of which is can you afford it. For those of you who may be in a marriage where there is a financial disparity between you and you're soon to be X, financing a divorce may seem particularly daunting. And then once you go through and your finances are irrevocably altered, then what, well, my friends, knowledge is power, and today we're going to educate you on ways to finance your divorce and how to leverage your finances after the divorce is complete. Our first guest is zooming in on Pixie Dusts. Well not really, but she's been crowned the fairy Godmother of divorce. She's a familiar voice to our divorce Sucks fans and she's a former matrimonial attorney and the founder of New Chapter Capital, Inc. Which provides funding for untying the not including legal fees and living expenses. She's also the secret weapon or fairy godmother of the less moneyed spouse. Welcome to All's Fair, Nicole Noonan Esquire. Hi, Hi, super excited to be back. Thank you, thank you. I love that we're doing this too. You guys can't see this because it's a podcast, but we're on zoom with Nicole because I like to be able to have eye contact. And she's got this big old American flag behind us. It's wonder woman in the corner of the American flag because I love it. Woman power, right, So I'm gonna have everybody remember or go to there's an article that I put on the It's over Easy Insights blog and um it's it's called I Need a divorce but have no money, And the summary of it is that divorce isn't only for rich people. That's kind of why we started It's over Easy and a full blown divorce us right now because we're having a COVID special is nifty dollars plus filing fees, and It's over Easy provides education information to give anybody wealthy or not an idea what they can expect in a divorce or even the marriage process itself in every state, and our site walks people through each step of the process, completes the divorce papers for you and files the forms with the court. Plus we give you education which is empowering along the way with articles and videos and podcasts, interviews of celebrities and experts all about family law. Nicole tell us, because I had before you and I met, I did not know that there was such a service, and that there is seems like the perfect compliment to what it is we do it it's over easy and and frankly at my law firm to where we represent a lot of high net worth individuals. But if there was a pre nup or if the money was earned before the marriage, often somebody who has lived this really yummy lifestyle for a long period of time is now at risk of kind of being shut out. What you do and why they call you the fairy godmother of divorces is really really helpful. Tell us a little bit about it. Yeah, so we like to say we level the legal playing field. Um. No, two divorces are the same, and it's fantastic if you can sit down amicably, you know, resolve your issues. Um. Unfortunately, for some people that's just not in the cards. The more uh complex the divorce, the more assets there are, the more likely there is that there's going to be a contentious divorce. Um. And usually there's a disparity and one spouse has more money than the other. I saw it in my own practice where I had people come into my office and more often than not it was either you know, they stay at home mom or dad, and the other spouse made the money, and all of a sudden, the moneyed spouse would cut off a non moneyed spouse. And then, how do you afford your legal team? How do you afford your How do you afford Laura Wasser? How do you afford? You know, you're a financial accountants and your forensic accountants and your experts. You have to go to friends or family or take out a credit card, and that's not always possible for a lot of clients. So we are an alternative. UM. We make an advance against the client's potential settlement UM. And this is something that I think is such a powerful tool for so many litigants out there, is it. I mean, I have to imagine that excuse more women, yes, Nicole, Yeah, but I do. We do get a lot of men. We get you know, same sex divorces. We're you know, really seeing the gamut um as more women or you know, in the workforce and the dads are staying home. Um, we're getting those two. We're also getting people that just don't have liquidity, especially right now with everything going on, not the greatest time to maybe sell Manhattan apartment now. And I see that all the time. People come in and they're like, how am I possibly going to do this? There is money, whether it is in real estate or art or things that are not easy to sell, particularly now, you'd really take a hit on them. But if you're able to advance as costs, that's huge. And I would imagine so when the other side finds out that you're involved, maybe they thought, ha ha, that I'm going to totally starve out my spouse. He or she's never going to be able to play against me. You know, in California, we we have attorney fee orders that will try to level that playing field. But you get in even before that happened. What do lawyers that see you coming on the other side generally say? I would imagine it would be a real incentive to get settled because now you've taken that leverage away from their client. Yes, right, absolutely, I mean now our clients have the armor on them, they have a protection. Uh, they know that they're not going to back down into the settlement less than what they're entitled to because they are empowered by having you know, the ability to go out and retain those those that team those experts, the right legal representation. And for some clients we even fund for living expenses. So it kind of takes the stressful time and makes a little less stressful hopefully. Um So they really I do see it. I see it in the clients when they feel empowered to go into whether it's a court or or a mediation, knowing that they have the ability to to keep in this. You know, some for some clients a legal battle and I was gonna ask so you guys do mediation too. You don't have to be gearing up for some big legal war. You can say we're going to front you the money to participate in mediation. Absolutely, absolutely, and I you know, I do encourage if people are able to to go and try mediation. Um, certainly it could be a lot more cost effective. Absolutely, That's that's what we say to. Here's some options for people to afford a divorce. This is from my It's over Easy Insights blog article, and Nicole and I will talk about them. I need a divorce, but I have no money is the article on the blog, and the top five questions people have about how much divorce costs are what if I don't earn an income, What if my spouse depletes our bank account? What happens if we can't afford an attorney? Our money is in a joint account, Can I use those funds? And my spouse says they'll bankrupt us on purpose? Those are the top five questions. We will answer those in that article and as we discuss, so Nicole tell us who's a good candidate for funding. I know you're writing us an article about Victoria. I will call her Victoria tell us about her. Tell Us, I want anybody listening who's driving somewhere. I don't know where you're driving, by the way at this point in time, but who's sitting there, who's sitting there listening to go, Oh my god, that could be me. I could totally do that. So tell us our clients. Really it's varied. We have a perception of it's mostly women. Um, but we do take certainly men where there's an asset pool where they don't have access to that asset pool right now, but it will eventually be entitled to it. So you mentioned the article that I'm writing. Uh, there's a woman named Victoria, and Victoria, you know, the name has been changed to protect the innocent, was a woman I knew from from Girl Me Up because I practiced in an area where I grew up, and she had a great lifestyle, helped support her husband. Um. They got married very young. He built up a legal practice, she did the marketing for it. She was sort of the woman behind it, and when it came time for a divorce, he ran off with his um assistant and as cliche as it sounds, and from total total total. So poor Victoria, you know, back in the day, came into my office and said, basically, I can put together a retainer, but there's no way I'm gonna be able to get and this guy with a litigator. So you know lawyers make the worst clients, right, Um, yes we do. Yes, So, uh, you know, she she needed a legal team, and I back in the day went to the firm that I was, you know, working with, and they said, you know, look, we have too many clients that were you know, carrying the costs for We're not being able to keep her on. So she ended up backed into a settlement way less than what she was entitled to UM, which is really unfortunate, but for women like Victoria, had divorce funding been around, we would have been able to basically advance her her litigation costs and her legal thees, to value his practice UM, and to get to that settlement that you know, she she really deserved. I mean, we have clients that UM stay at home dad recently who helped support and foster his wife's career. She was a dermatologist, made her on skin Caroline was cheating on with cheating on him with every guy UM on the Upper East Side, and ended up Um, you know, filing for divorce, and he had no money, he had given up his job, and so we we funded him, and you know, it was you know, a lot of the assets were actually tied up in the business as well as artwork, so we valued the artwork and we realized, you know, he's gonna be entitled to a portion of that artwork, so it doesn't just have to be real estate. That's amazing. I love it. So, I guess have you been watching The Dear john the second one with Betty what's her name? Yes, I have to tell you. I watched the original one with Meredith Baxter, Bernie and this one. I love the way this one is kind of I feel like the real story behind it because I didn't really show how she helped, you know, foster his career and you know, put put him through law school basically. Yeah, So, Johnny, did you watch it? No? Not yet. I gotta watch because it really is. I mean there's so many things about it, like the way her lawyers dealt with it before. I mean, it's I think it's very even handed. I mean there were times where she was being just a crazy bitch, so I get it. At the same time, though, the inequality and how they were dealt with, how they were dealt with by the court, the whole scene where he goes to lunch with the judge beforehand, it was just so gross, very very interesting. And when you say like, oh, I'm gonna kill my spouse or I wish I could kill my spouse, and obviously we've both heard that a few times, you really see how that could happen, Like you see how it gets their spoiler alert, Johnny, she kills them. But anyway, it's a true story pretty well now known. Happened in San Diego. But it feels like Betty would have been a really ideal candidate for for for next chapter Capital. Absolutely, I wish we were around. We definitely definitely would have taken on Betty Broadwick up and maybe the murder would never happened, maybe the word would have never happened. That's right. We could have saved at least two lives and then I know, but I definitely want to share with some of our listeners some of the success stories tell us how new Chapter has really helped some people and how they've gone on to their new chapter and what they've done in terms of the money that they're getting, whether it's going back to school or starting a business. I want to hear some of those success stories. Yeah. So we actually had a client go back to law school, um after you know, she was married to a professional athlete and said, you know what, I you know, got out of college, got married and never really had a career my own. So I now want to go and and be a successful, hopefully successful lawyer. I don't know why she want to get into the legal business, but she does. Um. We've also had clients that you know, started their own jewelry line that's been wildly successful that really now they're able to stay at home with their children and actually work and feel proud and empowered that they have their own money. And we make sure that we mentioned to them make sure you manage that money wisely, because that's one thing that you know, don't relinquish it to any new spouses or or boyfriends or whatever you have, because that's gotten them into trouble in the past. But now we have you know, great um you know notes that we get Christmas cards saying, you know, thank you so much, and this is what I'm doing now, I'm living and just living their best lives in their new chapter. I love it, Laura. You often talk about how clients would come into your office don't know anything about their finances, and then suddenly you're telling them, well, you will never be in this position again. You will know more about your finances now than ever before. And then, Nicole, I wonder if in your work, as you're navigating your client through the process towards getting their own money back, are you coaching them financially And I wonder if you can talk a little bit about the female empowerment component of coaching women to be financially responsible, not even just female, the empowerment of people who weren't okay, So, I mean, one thing Nicole, I know you and I have spoken about in the past is the fact that so many of the will call them out spouses or stay home spouses, whether their men or women. Historically they've been women, but we see this quite a bit now with female breadwinners than being men, really abdicating the financial control and knowledge in their homes. Do you find as people are going through the process and starting their new chapter, that you're able to teach them and empower them. You know, through the learning, so many women powerful women that could get a lunch reservation at any rest run in town and have personal shoppers at all the big department stores come in and they say, I have no idea what any I don't know what our house costs every month or if it's paid for. I don't know what our credit cards are. I don't know what my husband's you know, salary is. I just signed the tax returns. And I generally say to them, you'll never be in this position again. You're gonna learn, and even if you're not as hyper aware of it going forward, you're always going to know the basics. Does new chapter really help people learn and get that kind of enlightenment and then moving on into their new chapter holding to that, whether it is a budget or an understanding of investment strategies. I think a lot of people, men and women, come into as clients of ours that I find money is being very stressful, um and in a scary topic something they don't want to talk about. I I've had a client actually when I asked her what's the mortgage on the house? She said, what's a mortgage? Um? Very educated, you know woman who just you know, put her head in this and and you know, what they come to us is they get their funding. They're empowered through their funding, and I make them promise me at the end, when they get their settlement, they're going to be more mindful of of spending. And we like to make sure that they have um the right experts at the end to help them. Uh really, you know, make the right investments, be very prudent about where they're they're spending is in their next chapter. Because we don't want repeat customers. I mean, honestly, we we want one and done. Um. You know, we we love to have the attorneys call us, but you know, for the clients, I want them to go get their settlement, be empowered, realize that they too can go off and and have their best lives and not be dependent on on a moneyed spouse to to monitor their finances. They can make their own investments. What have you seen over the past four or five months with COVID How has that affected your business? How has that affected the divorce business in general? For more use it. Yeah, so I'm sure you've been very very busy as well. We get you know, calls. I think people are um locked up more or less and very much like a holiday where after you know, the New Year's, after the Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah. They want out. They spent enough time with their their loved ones and if it's bad, it makes it worse. And for some people maybe they fell back in love, um which you know I I do. I love a love story, but unfortunately I only hear the not love stories. Um so. But the the real issue is with COVID getting into courts. Um I know l A is similar. Right now in New York they're saying it's gonna be at least a two year backup. I think a lot of more people are gonna end up turning towards towards mediation. I think it's gonna be really difficult to get into court. I know that a lot of people want to get in there for support modifications, whether it be child so or modifications. So people just they've even lost their jobs or they had to take a pay decrease. And it's going to make it also very difficult for for divorces where people are making plans and you know, is it everything tied up in your house again? How are you going to be able to afford a divorce? So I do think that more than ever UM new chapter Capital and Divorce Funding is as a tool for a lot of these people. Absolutely, and you guys are on our it's over Easy index also, just so you know, listeners during this time, if you are having issues UM that either go beyond divorce or a part of a divorce, whether you really need help from some kind of an accountant or c p A or forensic, if you need help with mental health check ins. There's all kinds of people on our It's over in the Easy index that you might want to check into because they are wonderful resources for folks that are going through a difficult time, which I am now sadly feeling is almost all of us. I mean, we've all gotten to a point where this uncertainty that it's just really kind of difficult to figure out. So anywhere you can kind of reach out to for some additional assistance would be good. Most people who get divorced find that once their assets and liabilities are divided, their finances have undergone a paradigm shift. But once someone makes it through to the other side of their dissolution, it doesn't matter how many zeros you have in your bank balance. There are important things you can and should do with whatever you've got left. I'm Laura Wasster, the divorce attorney and the founder and CEO of the online divorce service It's Over Easy, And this is our podcast, All's Fair. We're speaking today about financing your divorce and funding your next chapter life after divorce. For more tips on how to live your best life after divorce, check out our master class at next Chapter series dot com. But before you do, I want to introduce you to someone who can help your dream and create your next chapter. She's the head of private wealth Management at l VEST, a financial company built to get more money in the hands of women by a sting with financial planning, career coaching, investing, and banking to save while you spend. I like the sound of that, banking to save while you spend. Welcome to All's Fair, Emily Green. Hi, Emily, Welcome, Emily. Hi. How are you good? I'm hanging in Yeah, same, So tell us a little bit about l VEST. So, LVEST, so our mission is to close all the gender money gaps. So that's loaded a loaded term. Um. We originally trying to close the gender investment gap, which means that women invest significantly less money over their lifetime than men, which for the average women, actually cost them hundreds of thousands, if not millions. That's average women. So I think about a woman with wealth and such, and they cost her a lot more um. And then we thought that's just not enough, and so we needed to close all the gender money gaps. And so actually we talk a lot about like the gender pay gap, you know, the women make less money. The actual crazy stat I think is the HealthCap, the gender wealthcap. Women's wealth on average is thirty two cents on every dollar of a white man's thirty two cents, and a black woman's is one cent on every dollar of a white man's. Now explain to our listeners what that means. I watched the whole Instagram video the other day about what wealth meant, not just you know who rich, whatever, but wealth actual, ability to save, actually, ability to prochase, actually an ability to leave two heirs, to to leave inheritances. So tell them what that actually means. Yeah, So it's it's the real estate. It's that you can own a home, it's the investments, you have, your four own case, all all those different basic things, and it's not um, you know, you think about real estate in general, and you think about like redlining and the things that have happened with interest rates, and women actually tend to have higher interest rates on mortgages, people of color tend to have higher interest rates on mortgages, and so all these different things that have actually caused this huge wealth gap over time. Um, women on average live longer too, so we need actually more money, and we make less money because of the pay gap, and our salaries speak sooners. So there's just this whole you know everything with money, we are just disadvantaged. And so we need to think about how the industry can actually change in order to serve us. And so that's what we're here for, l of us. Instead of women having to change themselves to fit the money industry, we are here to change what the industry is. To love that. I know you've told me before to get some of the stats, because I love this. So se women are single, they're either never married, or they're divorced or their widowed. And then you said three quarters of women who outsourced the management of their money to male partners find themselves with a negative financial surprise after divorce or widowhood and that and why is that? Because they weren't paying attention and so their surprised or is it because the guys just aren't doing a very good job of it? Uh both um high mortgage rates that they didn't know about because you know, they just expected when mortgage rates and dialand that their husband refinanced, but they never kind of like looked at it. He said he did it, And now they have a seven percent mortgage rate when mortgage rates have been below for for you know, a decade. Um secret accounts that there's a lot of like things like that, the accounts, I mean, I'm seen the Flora, but like different secret accounts that they didn't know about. Um venture investments are I think the biggest thing actually is the size of their investment portfolio, or really the lack thereof the size of their portfols. And we've all we've all been there where somebody says it's fine, I got this, honey whatever. And we were talking before you came on, Nicole and I about how women really abdicate responsibility, often for the money, and it's so interesting to me and again men do it too. Typically it is a stay home spouse that does it. If you're the breadwinner, don't you then say I'm out there earning the bread, maybe you could be home managing our finances. But instead what has happened has been I make the money, so I'm going to manage the investments, and through maybe no nefarious purposes, there's not the appropriate time. You can't do it whatever. I have seen a change in the last five to ten years. I have seen women kind of rising to the occasion and going, no, no, I got this. If you want something right, let a woman do it, or even a stay home spouse that has more ability to be home. Tell us a little bit about what you've seen, because you've been doing it a while now, and I know I've seen you in some of those initial meetings with people, and I've seen you and you've hit your stride with clients. What are you seeing, interestingly that is kind of narrowing or closing that gender gap. What are you seeing women doing willing to do, and what is l of us doing to really help with that? So our focus is helping women get invested, and so we are really like the only financial advisory firm focused on getting women invested. And so I talked to women all day about money, literally all day long about money. And it is really interesting because I think, you know, women are realizing that in order to find their full power in life in general, understanding their money is really important because if you actually look at it, money is the number one source of stress for not only women but men too. But it's a huge source of stress for women. And so when you think about it, solving that problem is huge here when you're thinking about it, and the problem has really been that the industry just doesn't talk towards women, um eighty. It's like eight five percent of financial advisors are white men and the average age is over fifty, So like, why is a woman, especially after a divorce or something like that, going to be like, yes, this old white man really relates to me and can tell me exactly what. Then they're not asking questions because they're embarrassed, and so you get some old white guy kind of skeewing out financial terms and things that she may not understand, and she feels stupid saying, hold up, I don't understand this, even though he's working for her and it's her money, I mean, and do I mean one of when you said why would a woman have a or fifty white guy telling is the answer because we were used to are raised to expect daddy to kind of help us, and is that changing a little bit? I don't want my dad telling me what to do with my money. Why would you? If you think of the like just think of if I say investor, who do you picture? Probably an old white man. Do you picture like a Bill Gates? You picture one of these? Like you picture like picture you pure you with your pearl airings on it, if you and Sally. Yeah, But that's who people picture when they think about it. That's what the industry is. That's how people have talked about it. Do you think about CNBC what I always say about CNBC? Watch CNBC and then watch ESPN although there's like no sports now, but then watch ESPN and you'll be like, Wow, these are the exact same thing, just talking about different topics. And so the way that we've been trained to think about money is just very male and how we're thinking about this. And so now we're starting to see that, you know, when women are divorced or when their spouse dies or all these things, and they go to their financial advisors. So they'll stick with that guy for a little bit. But like they're You're right. They're always afraid to ask him questions, you know, so they don't really know what's going on. So even if they have a financial advisor, a lot of times what I find is like I'll talk to them, I'm like, did you have any idea what this guy was doing? You know, I hear a lot of the terms like oh, I don't know if he's so gross, I don't want to talk to him. I don't like him. He talks down to my he's rude and like, you know, like you pay him to do this. But women also, women are really bad at firing people. Um, So always when I talk to women, I have to like, we always have to do a whole process of like how to fire their financial advisor, Like we have to go through this whole thing of like, but how do I tell him? Um? Because women are just nice feeling We've been told be nice, be nice to boys, don't hurt their feelings. So you know, want to hurt your old white guy financial advisors feelings even though he's been losing you money for years? Are women more goal oriented? I read something that that we can invest more and we'll care more if we actually have a goal. So do you try to ask us to like figure out what our goal is as we're changing investments throughout geez, yeah, this is so important. And we actually spent before we launched all of Us, we spent two years actually trying to figure out why women weren't investing, and we realized it was because the industry didn't talk about goals. They talked about should I buy this stock versus that stock? Should I buy this mutual fund versus that? To e t F, like would being an old white guy, what's an e t F? An exchange traded fund? It's just a way to like buy the market really basically um, But when you look at it, it really is women care about like can I pay for a new house? Can I buy a boat? Can I do these things? And it doesn't matter if you are I have no money or you have a hundred million dollars. You know, I know women a hundred million dollars and their goal is and like this is my stay rich bucket, like and the you know that is a goal. That is your goal to stay rich? And so everyone has goals no matter where they sit. And showing women how they can use their investments to achieve that is the most important here because the else do you find that a lot of women actually just end up sitting in cash. I know I've seen that too. They want to have a big, stay rich bucket, but they're not actually enjoying their funds or investing them in women owned businesses or nonprofits. Tell us a little bit about investing with impact and the personal mission statements that you guys have. So this is we did one yesterday. Yes I don't, we can talk about it. You actually did a huge relaunch of it yesterday. Um in doing this and so when we looked at it, women while they might not go to a dinner party like men do and say you know, I got an eight percent return, Oh I have Netflix stock and it's gone up backs percent or things like that, they do care about their values and their mission and having these types of conversations. And so one thing that we've worked with women on is actually building out investment portfolios that reflect the things they care about. And so if that's women's rights, it's not only looking at like how many women are in a company. It's you know, women's CEO, as women founders, all these things, but it's also like human rights because that affects women disproportionately, Climate change affects women disproportionately, gun violence, all these things, and so being able to reflect this in women's portfolios give them a mission statement that they can not only use for their investments, but also just the way they live their life, how you spend you know, how you think about films, about By giving all these different types of things and have like a report, we we give actual report that you can see, like what your impact is over time. So while women may not wanna or man may not want to go in and say like, Okay, this is what my accounts look like every day, it is cool to go in and be like, well, how much impact have I made over like the last quarter in such and so it's just a different way to engage money and have women talk about it because talking about money is so important. Um. So it's just a good way to actually have, you know, those types of conversations without feeling like, oh how much money do I have? Am I doing the right thing? Thing? Who is it? Okay I talk about money with I mean, we were taught also while we're not apposed to hurt guys feelings that we're not supposed to talk about money. That that's ghost. Who do you talk about money with? Can you talk about money with anybody? We encourage we encourage everyone to talk about money. UM, tell people your salaries. This is the only way that you will know, like if you were being paid enough, you should have these conversations. It's totally taboo, especially for women to talk about money, but everyone should be talking about money. And like, I have a client she's I love her totally crazy, but literally, like on her Instagram one day she posted like the amount of money she had from she worked at a tech company and such, and I'll never for She's like, my mom called me furious and it's a lot of money. And she's like the mom. I need to tell people, like you know what, I'm rich, and you know what. That's it. I'm rich and everyone can know because I worked hard and that is where I got myself. And so that other women know if I worked this hard. I mean I might display my wealth and shoes and jewels, but still I know that young women are like, I want to be like you when I get out of law school. I want to have a Porsche to have this stuff. I worked really hard. I think it's so interesting we talked so often about how women if you get heated, then you're called hysterical, whereas a man just you know, as strong, strong or whatever. Same with women. I was recently called entitled, and I'm like you bet, I am, of course I'm entitled because I all of this. So all right, tell us a little bit before we bring Nicole back in our conversation for women, because I think a lot of our listeners and certainly are it's over easy. UM users may have more what I'll call modest means to give us some tips for women that may not have as much money as some of your clients at LS. And I know LS does lower income stuff too, but tell us, you know, just for the average gal. So I think, especially as you're going through divorce, it's almost just taking like a health check up of who you where you're at. So it's almost, you know, like you go to the doctor, take a check up of where you're at financially, your debt, your assets, all those different types of things. UM. We actually have like a list on our side of just like okay, if you're going through divorce, here all the things that you need to look at, UM when you're thinking about you know what your next step is in terms of investing your financial life. Um, things like your insurance, things like your credit, all those different things that you need to look at because now you're a separate entity than your ex husband and so you need to think about what your financial picture looks like for you. But you know, the biggest thing I would think about when you're thinking about investing is to start having the conversation soon. And so what a lot of times that I find when women are divorcing, they're like, all right, when I divorce and I get all the money and I figured it off, that's when I'll start talking to people about investing or find an advisor and things. And there are ways you don't have to be rich to find an advisor. Like you said, like, lves we have a service. It's literally zero to all our minimum zero, and so you can have an investment basically yeah, zero, you can put a penny. Sally will probably you know, she gets those alerts and she's like, oh, it's a competitor, but um, when we look at that, but you can find advice out there, and so I would I would encourage always women, especially going through this process, to start to thinking about this earlier and search out places like l of ust and advisors who can help you throughout this process, because they're gonna be help you to think about, am I do I have enough money to do when I'm divorcing? What should I start to be thinking about now? Because way too many women wait until they're like, all right, now I'm settled that I have my chunk of money and now I'll figure out what's next. Or I just got divorced, now I have all this debt. What should I do? You know, all these different types of things, and so I always encourage start to think about this sooner than later. And for those of us who don't have great ability to budget, which we are going to find our stuff that we're going to have to start budgeting. Who do you like nerd Wallet? Do you like Mind? I mean, I know there's a lot of them. Have you experienced them all? And is there one that you would recommend? Yeah? I mean I I personally use mint Um. I think it's easy. They send you the alerts and such, but I think you know what's um And we actually have a service that you can actually talk to financial planners, you can buy sessions. We we kind of relaunched our whole digital business and to be a membership now and so you can actually define what that looks like. You can talk to financial planners. UM. I find budgeting to be a very tough thing for people, to be honest, you asked anyone what they spend, and I promise you no one knows. I think people always feel guilty about that. No one knows. But using tools that's true too, But also just thinking about you know, putting everything on a piece of paper and so maybe you're you know, it's just an Excel sheet that you're putting this all in, but just kind of tracking that from time to time in in something like mint that it you know, I think things are going to change, like right now, obviously our grocery bills are higher than UM dining out bills and things like that. But just if you have like a rough guide and how you're thinking about this using those types of tools, UM meant we you know, you can create things on Excel and such like that. That's actually what I do, but UM as well, but just using simple tools in order to understand where your at and just track yourself over time, especially after a change like divorce. It's going to be different, and it'll be very good for you to have kind of an understanding of what you spend and what you can afford. I tell so many people going through divorce, do something really nice for yourself, But it's hard to do that if you don't know that you've got the funds available, or if you feel like you've been irresponsible or what. At end, you may not be able to afford to do it. But maybe it's a couple of months in watching your budget you will m Nicole Noon and founder of New Chapter Capital Funding for Untying the Knot is back with my friend Emily Green from last and I for some closing arguments in favor of women taking charge of their finances before, during, and after divorce. Ladies, what is the most important advice you can share with a woman on the precipice of divorce? Nicole, gather your support team. Make sure you have the right team of experts have your village, whether that's the right financial advisors, right legal advisors, or the right moms that are at your school that went through a divorce that you can depend on to bounce ideas off of. UM. I would say find someone who you trust. UM you know, as we were talking about before, you you're gonna have to divulge a lot of personal things to someone, and so sit down and actually find someone you like in truest because you're gonna have to tell them a lot of things that you're not going to tell other people. And money is so personal. So just like you want someone that you feel like comfortable to sending a text to telling them anything, and so you're doing that, just find the right person and it that it feels right. Um. And that might sound familiar to that advice because I know we've said it to people before regarding their divorce attorney. But keep this in mine. You're only going to know your divorces or for six, twelve, eighteen months. You're gonna hopefully know your financial investor for a lot longer. So you've got to feel even more comfortable with that person. All right, we're gonna do something that we do on the podcast, Nicole, You've done it with me before they're called the interrogatories. Do you both swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes? Yet, Emily, which relationship in her life has had the most profound impact? So I would actually say, I've been thinking about this actually a lot lately, and I would actually say when I look at um, my grandmother when I think about this, because she actually used to trade stock although she had she actually had a grace divorce sttlement. She had an amazing divorce sttlement in the state of Illinois, and she took that money and she would just day trade all day. When I think about it, here's a woman who like, yeah, I mean she died several years ago, but you know, you think about someone who actually took control of their money before women did. And here I am investing. So I definitely love that, how about you, Nicole? Yeah, mine would be my mother. Um. She was the first woman in our family to go to college. She was really very very driven. She did stay at home to raise my brother and I, but she was the one making sure that we got all our homework done. Um. And she said basically, you're going to law school and made sure that I got there by hoko by crook um. So yeah, she's she's definitely smiling down on me. I love it. Okay, Nicole, what's your favorite song? Uh, well, my favorite love song I suppose would be my wedding song I had to be you but sometimes right, Yeah, the Frank Sinatra version. So how about you, Emily, I was gonna say my wedding song as well. It was just not a traditional love song. But we actually did Whitney Houston. I wanted to do that. That's great, all right. And Emily, what is the one piece of advice that you'd share with your twenty something year old self? Don't sweat it. I feel like I spent so much of my time in my life like worrying about what's going to come next. I'll tell you, Like every job, decision, everything was just nerve wragging for me. And I look back and I'm like, what a weight? I like that? How about you, Nicole? Yeah, no, so similar. I don't you know, don't be afraid to be uncomfortable. Um. In my twenties, I called off a wedding after the save dates went out, so and I sweated it, and looking back, it was the best decision I ever made. Um, So yeah, don't you know, don't sweat the small stuff exactly. And and Emily, which rom com could you watch on repeat? Probably The Holiday? Um? I love that movie. And also, actually, my husband and I met in England. Um, he's not British, but I always think about that. And I love that movie too. How about you, Nicole Well, I love, love, love, intolerable cruelty, but absolutely amazing. But I did watch twenty seven Dresses the other day first so a long time. And I love the New York Times wedding section. I mean, I'm all about it, and I just I love that movie. It holds up, it really does. I watched it recently. To my friend Eileen wrote that she also wrote wore the Devil Wears product and she she got she hit the nail on the head for sure. With those two. Well, we are grateful to both of you for being here and on behalf of the women and the men in our audience today. Thank you for the work you both do to help people with their finances before, during, and after divorce, and for sharing all this valuable advice with us on All's Fair today. Tell us how people can find you online, Nicole uh So. They can go to New Chapter Capital So ny W C h A p t E R Capital c A p I t a l dot com, or on Instagram at Divorce Funding or at Nicole neon an official and Nicole Noonan is n I C O L E N O O n A N official. How about you, Emily are so We're l of us dot com E L L E V E s T. I always have to spell that. It's like L like the magazine invest, like the end of invest dot com. Our Instagram is also l of us. You can always find me. I'm just E green like the color at all of us dot com. Fantastic. Thank you guys so much. You both rock. We loved having you. Stay safe, stay healthy, and Emily. I'll circle back later this week about my personal investment profile since Johnny didn't want me to talk about it good, so fice to say maybe the very wealthy thanks ladies. By guys, see you're like m hm hm