Do you know where your money is?
Unraveling co-mingled finances in a separation starts by knowing where your money is. For many of us, answering that question can be much harder than it may seem. This week on Toaster, Seth Nelson and Pete Wright dive into the murky waters of divorce and your money.What do you do if you don’t know where your money is? How do you handle co-mingled finances? How can you make yourself more aware of your own financial situation? What if your spouse is hiding money — or debt — in your marriage? Seth takes on each of these and more and helps you navigate the conversation you’ll have with your attorney as you determine your standard of living after your divorce.
Links & Notes
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Seth Nelson:
Welcome to How To Split A Toaster. I'm Seth Nelson with my good friend Pete Wright. How are you Pete?
Pete Wright:
Hello, Seth Nelson.
Seth Nelson:
Was talking to a guy the other day and he said, "Do you know, I was all excited. I actually remembered my wife's birthday ahead of time. I couldn't figure out what to get her. I mean, she has everything she wants, I think." And so I went up to her and I said, "I know your birthday's coming up. I've been putting a lot of thought into this. I'm really drawing a blank. I want to get you something nice. What would you like for your birthday?" And she looked at him dead in the eye and she goes, "I want a divorce." And he stepped back a little bit. And he said, "Well, I wasn't going to spend that much."
Pete Wright:
See you had me. There, I am thinking now, Seth, you're not allowed to talk about client experiences, but you were setting me up. You were setting me up for a goof.
Seth Nelson:
I will never talk about client experiences. It's all protected attorney, client privilege. [crosstalk 00:01:07] Hypotheticals but that was just a good old fashioned joke.
Pete Wright:
I love it. It's good. This is not a finance podcast. Why do we need to have a conversation about knowing where your money is Seth Nelson?
Seth Nelson:
Well, you need to know where your money is, whether you're going through a divorce, thinking about divorce or not just because it's good common sense. Here's what I suggest to everybody. But especially if you're considering or going through a divorce is to understand your finances. One, if you don't deal with finances typically, and you're going to be divorced, that is something that you are now going to have control over.
You need to understand where the money is coming in to your accounts, from what sources, what income and what do you spend that money on? And what if any is leftover at the end of the month, that sounds pretty simple. You would be amazed Pete of how many people do not have a clue about what their financial picture looks like. Because in relationships, people divide duties, somebody typically will handle the finances, paying the bills, investing the accounts, dealing with the tax return.
Maybe they do it on their own. Maybe they do it through an accountant and the other person might be in charge of the meals or organizing the kids or sometimes they just divide up. "Hey, I handle summer camps all the time, or I handle the birthday parties or, you know what, I'm the one in the relationship that reaches out to friends to go out to dinner when we're not in COVID-19 and quarantine." People divide things in their relationships.
It's not where everybody sits down every month and goes through their bills and writes out checks anymore and make sure the bank account balances. That's just not reality. So the more that you're in a relationship and those duties are divided, the higher likelihood that somebody doesn't know what their finances really look like. And that can be scary if you're going through a divorce, because the biggest fear is that you're not going to be able to support yourself.
Pete Wright:
I feel like I have questions that are coming up, but the first one is, let's just say by way of example, you're in a relationship and you find yourself listening to this thinking, "Wow, I really don't know where our finances are. And I am listening to this podcast because I am considering that my relationship is under strain." How do you navigate those waters of getting a handle on your finances when they are commingled? How do you approach that?
Seth Nelson:
There's lots of different ways to approach it. One way to approach it is to review your tax returns, which sounds daunting-
Pete Wright:
But terrible.
Seth Nelson:
You're really looking for a couple of things. If you can even find your tax returns because your spouse is filing those returns. Even if you never look at them, most likely on your behalf. That's something you should at least glance at before it gets filed, not, "Oh they handle it."
The tax return will show you what a W2 is, which is what most people get for their income. There's something called a 10 99, which is if you're a private person, you're not working for a company per se. But if you don't know where your tax return are, let's start with your bank account statement. You should be able to review your account statement online and see the income coming in.
Is that from your wages, from their wages, do you have joint accounts or there separate accounts? Look at the transactions on your bank account statement, look at your credit card statements. One way to approach it is maybe you go to your spouse and say, "Look, I know that we never really talk about money or I know money seems tight and I just swipe the credit card.
And I want to be more mindful about that. So how are we doing on the credit card? Are we paying them off every month? Do we have a balance? If so, what is it? How do we maybe chip away? What can I do to cut back to make sure we're not in debt? Do we have a retirement account? Do we have a 401k? Do we have an IRA?"
These statements come in every month or every quarter, depending on if it's a credit card, if it's a bank account, if it's a quarterly statement from an investment account or an IRA or 401k, they're all coming in. It's usually electronic now. So I think just asking the question, but in a way that you're saying, I need to be more educated. God forbid, if something ever happened to you, I need to know who I call. I don't even know The past code.
Pete Wright:
So a lead into that question. What is your understanding of the number, just a percentage if such thing exists, of divorces that are somehow instigated by financial troubles? Does that exist?
Seth Nelson:
Yes. It certainly exists. I can't put a number on it, Pete.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
But I know for certain that it's typically the following conversation and this is not designated to a man talking or a woman talking. I hear the same conversation-
Pete Wright:
Partner to partner.
Seth Nelson:
Partner to partner. My spouse, all they do is spend I'm working all the time and they spend, spend, spend, spend, spend. They never ever think about money. If that's the case, that's a perfect opportunity to say to your spouse, "Hey, let's sit down and go over our budget."
And the main thing on the budget is how much are we going to put away for retirement first? Pay ourselves first. That's what all the financial planners will tell you, go talk to your financial planner. Then what are like fixed expenses are housing or electric. Then whatever's left we can spend, if we have that agreement we can spend.
Some people try to go budget, budget, budget, budget, budget, and then save. And by the time you get to the bottom, there's nothing left to save. So you can talk to your spouse about that. The other thing I hear all the time is, my spouse controls all the money. I have no idea what it is. I get literally an allowance or I have a credit card.
I swipe the credit card. I assume that it gets paid every month. I don't really know, but I know that I'm only allowed to use the credit card and I get so much cash a week, a month to spend that is not knowing your finances. That's not understanding, okay, I have a job. My husband has a job. How much are we receiving in our paycheck, in our bank account, from our paycheck, how much is being withheld for taxes?
Do we always pay at the end? Do we always get money back? Am I not really clear because I haven't looked at our tax returns for the last three years? So these are the type of things that will create stress in a relationship, someone feeling controlled by money. So when feeling that the other one only spend, spend, spend and sometimes it's not a problem at all, but people are still unaware.
They don't realize they have a financial problem. Because they swipe their credit card. They think he gets paid. It goes on for years, they file for divorce and they realize they have six figures in credit card debt.
Pete Wright:
That's stunning.
Seth Nelson:
It is.
Pete Wright:
So what we recognize is that the number one thing is you don't want to be surprised in these. You've got to limit the amount of surprise that you have. But the other that I've just have mulling over the back of my mind is, to what extent you can do the thing that we stand for on this show, which is attempt to salvage your relationships in some way, shape or form even if it ends in the dissolution of marriage to salvage your relationships by approaching this difficult conversation with your eyes wide open. Try to learn those passcodes, try to look at your bank statements and learn go through the motions of learning, how your family finances work.
Seth Nelson:
Exactly. In one way, if you're trying to still work on that relationship with your spouse is to say something of "I want to get better at managing money, what can I do to help make sure that our financial picture is the best that it can be." And if you don't spend as much, well, I appreciate that.
But is it that we're spending too much on the children, is that we're eating out too much, that we're not packing lunches, that we're having them take their school lunches, that we go out to eat too much, we don't cook enough. I'm not the best cook. You don't even like my cooking, but what can we do if that's the issue that we're ordering in on Uber Eats too much. So there's ways to approach it, to say, "How can I get better?"
Or, "Hey, you're really stressed out. Do you want me to take over paying the bills? Would that help us?" Even though it's all online and some of it's automated and it comes out automatically, but what about all the stuff that doesn't come out automatically? Are we getting a credit card that we get the most points. Do you want me to look into that? What debts do we have?
Are we saving for it? But if you're asking the questions in a way that you're saying, "I want to make sure that we're doing well as best we can financially, how can I do a better job managing our money?" How's anyone going to argue with that? If they're going to be controlling and not give you the information well, then that's an issue that you might want to deal-
Pete Wright:
That's a sign.
Seth Nelson:
That's a sign. Right.
Pete Wright:
All right, Seth, we know how important it is to know where your money is. But I can imagine a situation in which a spouse doesn't know where the money is and feels some anxiety or fear that their spouse is actively hiding financial situations. How do you handle this?
Seth Nelson:
That's a great question Pete. That happens frequently. We're here to help people think about the relationships and calm down while they go through the process. So the way to handle this, if you don't know, and you're worried like, "Oh my God, I'm not going to get anything because my spouse is hiding everything. So how can I get half if I don't even know what's there in the divorce process."
There is something called discovery. And it's where your lawyer through different means gets to obtain all this information. So your lawyer can send out a request for production it's called, saying, "Hey, please give me all the credit card statements for the last two years, give me all the bank statements for the last year, give me all the savings account, your brokerage accounts." And then they will do the analysis of those accounts and see if money's going from one account to the other, or hey, there's a deposit.
Where did that money originate? Oh, that originated from this other bank. Maybe we have an account at this other bank. So there's some tracing and some accounting and there's just some legal analysis that will go into finding these other accounts. So if you do not know where any of these items are located or if you're totally in the dark about your finances, do not think that that means you're going to get totally hosed if you go through a divorce.
Talk to your local counsel in your jurisdiction, your lawyer, and say part of your questions. When you first talked to them, how do we get information if I have no idea, and they should be able to explain that to you in that process.
Pete Wright:
I think that's a really important thing for people to remember. And I do this all the time. This magical thinking where, oh my gosh, I don't know how that works. So it must not exist. The solution must not exist. Everybody must be in the dark as long as I'm in the dark. But what I hear you saying is there is a legal remedy to this fear.
Seth Nelson:
There is a legal way to get the information that you will need so you can make an informed decision about your finances when you're going through a divorce. And I agree with you when it's human nature, when you don't know something to think the worst, Oh my God, curfew's 10. It's 10:05 I haven't heard back from my child. Obviously there, God forbid, something horrible has happened in there on the side of the road.
That's our first natural instinct. And that goes through everything that we do. If I don't know my finances, I'm definitely not going to get alimony. I'm not going to get half the house. I'm not going to be able to afford anything in that sphere. So more information on being able to understand the divorce process and how there is a mechanism to get this information the better. And the good news is most people these days do not deal in cash. That's really the hardest part to track. I've looked through Venmo and Zelle apps on where people money is coming and going. So there's different ways to do it. And we could do a whole podcast on cryptocurrency.
Pete Wright:
Oh awesome I can't wait-
Seth Nelson:
That could be a whole [crosstalk 00:14:46]
Pete Wright:
Intern make a note. We're doing crypto hard. This is great because I feel like everything I learned about both finance and the law I learned on dynasty. So this is incredibly illuminating.
Seth Nelson:
Wow you really dated yourself on that one.
Pete Wright:
So before we move into the second part of our conversation, one last question on this setup that I have in my head here, which is to what extent you should be not only, attempting to learn about your finances if you don't know about your finances, but attempt to ensure that you have some documented ownership of your finances. If you believe you're going down this road toward a separation.
Seth Nelson:
One of the amazing things about you Pete is you will ask a very basic question that has a very complex legal answer.
Pete Wright:
Outstanding.
Seth Nelson:
And not even know it.
Pete Wright:
Welcome back to law school Seth. I don't know if you know this, your professors have asked me to ask you a few questions.
Seth Nelson:
So in every divorce case, there's potential issues. One we've talked about kids, parenting plan. One is dividing up your stuff, your assets, your liabilities, that's called equitable distribution in Florida. It could be called many different things in many different states and countries around the world. But at the end of the day, we all know we have belongings, we have debt.
Who's going to pay what? Check with your local attorney that's licensed to practice in your jurisdiction because just because your name is not on an account does not mean that you are not entitled to half of that account. There's a lot of what ifs. So for example, in Florida, if I get married, now, this is a big hypothetical, but I get married.
And the day of my wedding, I opened up a brand new account and I take all the cash that Pete Wright gives me for our wedding gift and I put it into an account with only my name. That was a gift. And it's like, "Congratulations on your wedding." It's to me and my wife, it's written out to both of us I put in an account in my name. That's a gift you gave to both of us, but I put into a separate account. It's a marital gift. You gave it to both of us. She's entitled to half.
Pete Wright:
Even though her name's not on it?
Seth Nelson:
Even though her name is not on it. I keep working, all my income goes into that account. I get married, I open up my account, I work, I take my new paycheck I put it into that account. My labor, my name's on the account, I earned it, I get divorced a year later there's money left in that account, that's marital money. It was earned during the marriage. Just name alone doesn't necessarily dictate whether it gets divided or not. And that's why you have to check with your lawyer in your jurisdiction because these rules will change from state to state and country to country.
Pete Wright:
Well, let's take a little break and you can help us define a term.
Seth Nelson:
The legal term for today is discovery. Once again, I am in Black's Law Dictionary, Eighth Edition discovery. And now the act or process of finding or learning something that was previously unknown. What is that mean? Discovery is just a process. It's a way for your lawyer to ask for information and to receive the information in a formal manner. There's different types of discovery. One is oral speaking. If someone is being asked questions at a deposition and they're answering, that's discovery.
One is a request for production where your lawyer might send out a list of documents that they're asking the other side to produce that is written because it's paper that you'll be looking at or video or film or photos. There are also requests for admissions where there'll be a statement. And you're just asking the other side, do you agree or disagree? This is all ways of gathering information that your lawyer does not necessarily know about or needs to confirm discovery.
Pete Wright:
Seth we've talked a lot about how I need to think about my money and my anxiety is picks. So let's talk about now, how do you deal with your lawyer?
Seth Nelson:
Oh, regarding getting them this information that you might not even know exists.
Pete Wright:
Right. What is my lawyer going to expect from me?
Seth Nelson:
The attorney client relationship is so important. How you communicate with your lawyer is so important. One, it saves you money if it can be done efficiently. So when you are dealing with your lawyer about your finances, the starting point would be to just make a list of any accounts, credit cards, checking savings, kids' accounts, college savings accounts, brokerage accounts that you think might be out there. If you have the account number that you have a visa card ending in X X, one, two, three, four, put it on the list.
If you say, "I think my husband has four credit cards, but I don't know." Put it on a list, but just create a list and you can start by what's in your wallet. Literally what's in your wallet. Go look in your wallet, debit card, credit card. Another might be a visa. It might be for specific store.
Do you have a Venmo account, a Zelle account, just list all of those out. Whether you think they exist. And if they do exist, the most information you can give on them without getting stressed about it, it could be a one-pager. It could be a half page. It might be five lines. And give that to your lawyer.
Pete Wright:
How does all of this play into executing a divorce?
Seth Nelson:
You need to know where the money's coming in and out, because when it comes in, that's the total pie of income. When it goes out, it's either going out for expenses or it's going out to purchase items. If it's purchasing items, then we're going to get back to equitable distribution who might get that item. If the money's coming in and it's in an account, how are we going to divide that account? If the money's coming in and we're swiping that credit card, and we're not paying that money off that credit card off, that's a debt that needs to be divided.
So watching the flow of money in or out or accumulation of debt are different items that you'll have to understand and know to figure out who's going to get what asset who's going to get one debt how are we going to divide that up all later. Another aspect, which is hugely important. And one of the greatest areas of fear is if someone needs alimony, which is a payment from one spouse to another after divorce.
So you have someone making $200,000 a year. Their spouse is making $25,000 a year after they get divorced. Most likely, the spouse making 25 can not have anywhere close to the same standard of living that they did when they were married. You need to know what your standard of living is, how much you were spending to potentially go to court and say, "Judge, I'm going to keep working. I'm going to keep making my 25 grand, but I need another $50,000 a year or $60,000 a year to maintain a certain standard of living that I've had over the past 20 years."
Pete Wright:
Wait a minute. I think I need another definition of terms Seth. Standard of living, how is that possibly calculated and justified in a divorce proceeding?
Seth Nelson:
So in Florida, not necessarily in different jurisdictions, different jurisdictions do this alimony calculation in many different ways. But for example, in Florida, you would list out all of your expenses just for you, not for the kids, on what you spend and how much those items cost.
You might do it for the last year or before there's marital problems in the last two years. And you average it. And then that's what you would typically spend on these different items. So I'm going to quiz you because you do really well with quizzes.
Pete Wright:
This is already making my eyes cross right now. I'm telling you. Go ahead.
Seth Nelson:
We can do broad topics.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
Generally speaking, how much do you think an average person spends? Because I'm not going to ask about your personal finances, but average person spends on household.
Pete Wright:
Household does that include food, groceries?
Seth Nelson:
It does food, groceries. Yeah. Electric cable.
Pete Wright:
On what timescale, monthly?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, do it on a month.
Pete Wright:
Oh, for crying out loud 2,500.
Seth Nelson:
Okay. Did you include the mortgage or the rent?
Pete Wright:
No.
Seth Nelson:
Okay. So we got to add that.
Pete Wright:
3,500 to 4,000.
Seth Nelson:
Okay. Does that seem to work for you? Let's see. We've got a mortgage rent taxes on the house. We've got.
Pete Wright:
No I haven't done taxes. No, that's an annual. So maybe another, I don't know if there's 4,700.
Seth Nelson:
Annual divide by 12 I know you got to do a little math there.
Pete Wright:
I'm getting there.
Seth Nelson:
But this is the type of information when I say know where your money's going, that maybe you should start thinking about, because if you have a better understanding of how much is going out, you'll have a better understanding of how much you might need.
Pete Wright:
You just bundled a bunch of stuff there. And I want our listeners to be able to hear it. Like, I need to hear what is included when you're speaking in context of what defined standard of living. Because all I can think about is let's say, I don't know, totally unrealistic. I have an extraordinary Blu-ray habit, and I buy a lot of Blu-rays and iTunes stuff. If I was to walk out of my relationship, I would include that in my standard of living?
Seth Nelson:
Which you should.
Pete Wright:
Really?
Seth Nelson:
Absolutely. It doesn't mean that if you're in trial, that you're going to get every last little penny on everything you spend. Because at the end of the day, if you have two incomes in one house and you split that house into two houses with the same two incomes, the standard of living is going to drop.
Pete Wright:
Right, something has to give.
Seth Nelson:
Something has to give. But that's why you need to understand where your money's going. And then you get to make the decision ultimately on what's important. So, for example, if you talk about household expenses, you could start with your mortgage or your rent. Do you have rentals, insurance? Do you have mortgage? Do you have property taxes? Do you have insurance on your house?
Electric, all utilities, gas, water, sewer, cable, Netflix. I mean, your streaming stuff is going to be through the roof mine's not that much. All I do is read Florida statutes which you can get online for free. So you've got streaming stuff all over. But then how much is it for food groceries, miscellaneous, maintenance, yard pool, pest control. Now some of these, you don't have monthly. Some of them are yearly and you divide by 12 or quarterly, but understanding where your money is going will help you understand what you will need after a divorce.
How much gets spent on the kids in the divorce who's going to pay for that later? What about your car? Do you lease a car every three years or so? Do you buy a car and run it into the ground? How much is your car insurance, where you need money for a replacement car? And these are the type of questions that you can actually answer on your own before you ever get into a lawyer's office. If you understand where your money's coming in and where is it going out.
Pete Wright:
How does all this relate to relationships?
Seth Nelson:
When you understand what your income is and where your money's going, and when you split houses and they might not have as much as you did before that directly impacts the relationship you have with yourself, how do you feel about yourself that you're no longer living a higher standard of living you might've dropped down a little bit. What can you do to get back up on your feet or increase your standard of living?
Maybe you have a girls' night out every month. Maybe you can't afford that anymore. How is that going to impact that relationship with your friends or if they like to go out to fancy dinners or to go shopping or go on a girl's weekend trip, or if a guy can no longer afford the golf membership or the boat?
So how do those items, things that you spend money on to do, impact your relationships? Do you have friends that are being like, "Hey, don't worry about it. I'll pick it up." Or is it going to be "Hey, no we split our check exactly even." And you can no longer really do that. How's it going to impact your kids, the relationship with your kids when they're used to going on travel soccer teams and maybe we can't afford it.
How do you have that conversation with them about money? How old are they? What are they doing in their lives? Can we no longer afford a prom dress and we have to get a different dress and all of those different aspects of money play a part in every relationship. Pete, you have friends that you go out to... Well, we would normally go out to eat before COVID.
Pete Wright:
I don't remember that.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. That's a long time ago. I'm the guy that says when the check comes, if it's on one bill, I'm like, "Oh, just split it. Let me know what I owe." I've got other people that friends are like, "Well, you ordered this and then you got the drink and we'll split the appetizer." I'm not saying there's a right or wrong way to do that. I'm pretty more fluid about it, whatever they are comfortable with on handling that financial transaction.
I don't want it to negatively impact our friendship. I'm good either way. Some people if I say, "Oh, let's just split it in half." They get very uneasy because maybe they don't think it was really half. Maybe I spent more because I got two drinks not one or they weren't drinking and hey, drinks are more expensive.
So money, even with friends or going out to eat impacts the relationship. So understanding what you have the ability to spend or whether you're going to cut back elsewhere. So you can still maintain that relationship in that environment that you're used to is vitally important, especially when you're going through a divorce and afterwards.
Pete Wright:
And I would just like to really highlight something that you have buried this thread in here that money impacts relationships, not just the relationships with your potentially soon to be former spouse. It is with your kids and with your friends and with your kids piano teachers, it affects all your relationships.
Seth Nelson:
Absolutely. And that is another reason to understand where your money is coming from, what sources and where is it going because it impacts every aspect of our lives.
Pete Wright:
This whole thing seemed a lot easier before the break, when it was just like, find the passwords and look at your statements. And all of a sudden it just became very real for me. At what point do people look at this and think, "Oh, I don't know that I could ever do that."
Seth Nelson:
All the time, this is a skill managing your finances, tracking your finances, that a lot of people don't use on a daily basis because their spouse is just handling the money. They're doing other things. This is not a negative. This isn't a criticism. This is just the way people organize their lives when they're married. But when you're going to be on your own, and you're going to be responsible for all of these types of decisions, then it's time to start educating yourself and you can start educating yourself now.
I use an app called Mint that is very easy to trace all of my expenses. It ties in with where my credit card comes in on my credit card. I can just go in there and click like, "Oh, this was for my son or this was eating out. Oh, you know what, I have this as a reimbursement that I have to get paid back on. This was gas."
So you can start breaking it out. And then list it and it lays out, hey, here's what I'm spending on household. Here's a big expense that I have, which Mint has really helped me open my eyes. I spend an extraordinary amount of money in my view, on my dogs. I have two miniature doxins, they're really small dogs that are very expensive.
Pete Wright:
I don't know what that says, but I remember that you are the person who taught me about the company that ships you apartment squares of sod. So the dogs can go to the bathroom on your porch. That still exists?
Seth Nelson:
Yes, it's called Fresh Patch.
Pete Wright:
There you go.
Seth Nelson:
It still does. I actually don't use them-
Pete Wright:
No.
Seth Nelson:
Anymore. I came up with a less expensive way. I really hope no one in the Condo Association is listening to this podcast now, because I'm probably violating a rule on my porch. I have a six foot by three foot pan, that you buy at Lowe's or Home Depot for a walk-in shower. That's literally what it is. I have some gravel on it and that's where the dogs go. And I have stuff that you spray that kills things and you pick up their stuff and flush it down the toilet. A lot less expensive than Fresh Patch.
Pete Wright:
That's amazing.
Seth Nelson:
And part of that was I looked at Mint and how much I was spending and wanted to save that money.
Pete Wright:
Sure. As long as we're doing tool recommendations. Can I throw one in?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, throw it in.
Pete Wright:
This one I'm pretty new to, but we've just recently adopted it to our family. And it's similar to Mint where you can attach your accounts and it brings in your accounts. It's called You Need A Budget, YNAB. And you bring in all your accounts so it's incorporating your transactions in the background, but what it does first and foremost is say how much income do you have and put all your categories that you're describing here, your Netflix, your mortgage, your food, everything in your budget. Start with the budget first.
And then as money comes in, you just click on each category and say, "Is this funded for this month? Is this funded for this month? Is this funded." As transactions come in, they debit from those categories. So it starts with what you want your money to do. Their mantra is give every dollar a job. And so it starts there, but it still gives you that data on the backend where you can track your assets, liabilities and your spending habits. I really like it. I think between Mint and YNAB it's essentially two halves of the same coin. It's just how your brain approaches your money.
Seth Nelson:
And there's a lot of them out there or whatever works best for you, but being able to do that one puts it in the front. You're looking at it. You get the alerts.
Pete Wright:
Every day you should be looking at this stuff.
Seth Nelson:
So in that will save you when you're going through a dissolution marriage a ton of anxiety and fear because ultimately, if you don't understand how X number of dollars get spent, X number of dollars will never be enough because you're just afraid that it's going to run out. So to understand just the flow, the tracing, where is it going? How much do things really cost? By educating yourself on that will save you a lot of anxiety and heartache.
But it's a skill, but I assure you, this is a skill that everybody can learn. We're not talking about figuring out how to pick a stock or what's your best investment. There are professionals out there for that. We're just talking basic math. How much is coming in? Where are you spending it? How much is going out? What if any, is left at the end of the month, if there's money left at the end of the month, are we saving it for something?
Every dollar has a job. Is it in a bucket for kids private schools, is it in a bucket for our paying our taxes, is it in bucket for a vacation. We don't have enough. We swipe the credit card. We just went up in debt. So how do we pay that down next month? What are we doing with that? Those apps are absolutely wonderful and invaluable, but they are the basis to understanding what you may or may not need after you get through the divorce process.
Pete Wright:
I think Seth this sounds foundational this conversation to a lot that we have yet to unveil in terms of understanding how you split stuff. So consider this chapter one of a conversation that will continue.
Seth Nelson:
Looking forward to it.
Pete Wright:
All right. Thank you everybody for downloading and listening to this show, we appreciate your time and attention and invite you if you're listening to this on the website, make sure you check it out on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts or anywhere find our podcasts are served we'd appreciate you subscribing.
We're a new show and we would absolutely love it if you would share it with others or if you're feeling so kind and so generous to leave us a nice review in one of these podcast directories. Reviews are incredibly helpful for new shows like ours, to get them off the ground and to spread the word to others. On behalf of Seth Nelson, I'm Pete Wright. We'll catch you next time on How To Split A Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships.
Speaker 3:
Seth Nelson is an attorney with Nelson Koster Family Law And Mediation with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How To Split A Toaster is not intended to nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of Nelson Koster. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
