Do You Need a Prenup If You’re Not Rich? with Aaron Thomas | REWIND

Marriage Is A Financial Contract

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Marriage is a financial partnership just as much as it is a romantic partnership. And everyone, you know, if you look at a prenup as kind of like a set of rules that defines how you manage your finances during the marriage as well as in a divorce, everybody's got a prenup. Every married couple's got a prenup. You either have one that you have crafted yourself, or you have one that the state you happen to live in has written for you. And most people have not read that prenup and they don't know what it says, and they probably wouldn't sign it if they had read it beforehand.

Meet The Prenup Attorney

SPEAKER_05 0:31

Sugar Teddy podcast go. Learn how to make the pockets grow. Finds for freedoms by a week, bro. Smart investments, money flow.

Brandon 0:42

Hey, babe. What are we talking about today?

Jessica 0:45

Today we are talking about prenups, which we don't have.

Brandon 0:49

We don't need. Which, well, I don't I don't know.

Jessica 0:53

Aaron Thomas is gonna be here to tell us if we need one or not. And I think we might be leaving with a to-do list after we're gonna do that.

Brandon 0:58

It's too late anyway, so I don't know.

Jessica 1:01

I listen, I've been following Aaron Thomas, uh, and I don't think it's too late. But today we are here. You're not getting one?

Brandon 1:10

No.

Jessica 1:12

Oh my gosh. Okay, we're already getting off the rails here. Aaron, we are so excited to have you here on the Sugar Daddy podcast. We're gonna find out about that. Uh thank you for being with us. Clearly, Brandon has some strong opinions about prenups.

Brandon 1:25

No, just about ours. It's a completely different scenario.

Jessica 1:28

Oh my gosh. Can you let me say a little bit?

Brandon 1:30

What yours is mine, what mine is yours.

Jessica 1:32

Aaron, we're we clearly have some questions for you today. Thank you for being with us.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Yeah, no, I'm excited to be here. Uh uh clearly we've got some work to do.

Jessica 1:41

So I'm ready to jump in. Clearly. Oh my gosh.

Brandon 1:44

No, she's stuck with me. It doesn't matter. She's stuck with me. I'm not doing this again.

Jessica 1:48

Whoa. Okay. So clearly you guys have figured out that we are here with an attorney today, Aaron Thomas. We'll get into his bio in just a second. But we are gonna be talking all about prenups, what it is, who needs one. We might need one. I don't know what's going on today. Um, and all of the questions that surround prenups, post-nuptial agreements, et cetera. So um, let's get into this bio and then Aaron, we're gonna ask you some some questions. Does that work for you?

SPEAKER_03 2:18

Sounds good. Sounds good.

Jessica 2:20

Okay. All right. Aaron Thomas is a family law attorney and founder of prenupts.com. As a three-time winner of Atlanta's best divorce attorney, Aaron is one of the nation's top experts in family law issues. He is a 2002 graduate of Harvard Law School, no big deal. And his firm, Aaron Thomas Law, was recognized by peers as one of the fastest growing family law firms in the state of Georgia. With clients ranging from NBA Hall of Famers and Super Bowl winners to Grammy Award-winning artists, Aaron has extensive experience representing his clients in a range of family law matters, including divorce, custody, child support, and prenuptial and postnuptial agreements. As founder of prenups.com, Aaron is widely viewed as the go-to source for writing fair prenups. He carries a fundamental belief that establishing a solid financial foundation during engagement can prevent many common marital disputes, and that fair prenups help create happy marriages. I love that. That's fantastic. Okay. I have so many questions.

Brandon 3:29

I have one question. I have a question.

Jessica 3:32

We're going to start with our normal questions.

Brandon 3:33

Okay, yes.

Jessica 3:34

Okay. Aaron, we're excited that you're here, but first, we need to know what your first money memory is.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Ooh, my first money memory. Um, you know, I remember, you know, as kids, I don't think we have a good, you know, idea as to whether or not we're wealthy or we're poor or kind of where we stand. I remember going to a friend's house in elementary school who had an intercom in his house, you know, where his mom could call from downstairs to upstairs, and he had a playroom that was basically like the square footage of the entire, you know, first floor of my house growing up. And and I remember being like, oh, this is what being rich looks like. This is this is what having money looks like. I think that'd be my first.

Jessica 4:24

That's so funny that you say that because um my best friend, her house had an intercom growing up. And I remember having that same thought of like, oh my gosh, your house is so big you have to push a button to communicate with the people upstairs. You know?

Brandon 4:40

We had intercom in our house.

Jessica 4:42

Of course we did.

Brandon 4:43

We did. We had intercom and we had our own, you know, the third story was the attic was completely finished, so it was a playroom. So it's a good big space. But we weren't rich, we were well-to-do, but I wouldn't say we were rich. But other, I guess it's a matter of perspective, as you said. A matter of perspective.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

Yeah, from from my from my standpoint, you would have been rich. Are you recommended?

Jessica 5:03

Erin. I love it. That's fantastic. Okay, you were gonna ask him something.

Brandon 5:10

I was gonna ask him so how did you decide to go into family law? What made you make that decision?

SPEAKER_03 5:17

Yeah, you know, I really stumbled into family law. Um, I don't think that many kids, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, say, Oh, I want to be a divorce lawyer when I grow up. So um I got recruited into a family law firm. I had some trial experience. I kind of made a little name for myself in the courtroom. And a firm that represented, you know, a lot of athletes and celebrities was looking for somebody with trial experience, and they recruited me into uh into the family law firm. Um so I mean it was quite it was quite the change for me. I'd been a criminal defense attorney um beforehand. And, you know, imagine being 30 years old and you know, my parents are still married. Uh most of my friends weren't even married yet, much less had they gone through a divorce, and all of a sudden I'm thrust into, you know, a world of acrimonious divorce. I mean, it was uh it was quite a journey for me.

Brandon 6:10

Yeah, I was gonna say, I did I did a year of law school and then you know didn't become an attorney, and I don't recall anybody that I was in law school with talking about they want to do family law at that time.

SPEAKER_03 6:22

Yeah, yeah. It's not the uh it's not the most popular area, but somebody's gotta do it. And um it's it's actually a needed service. I mean, once I got into it, I realized that yeah, I mean you don't want to need a family law attorney, but when you need one, you want a good one.

Jessica 6:38

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, well, let's get into prenups because this is now your realm, right?

What A Prenup Really Covers

Jessica 6:44

You're the prenup guy. Um, you are the founder of prenups.com, which great I mean, great web address, right? Makes so much sense. Like why would you not just prenups.com makes so much sense. Um can you talk to us about what a prenup is? I know we've all heard it. We know that celebrities, very wealthy people get them, but what is a prenup?

SPEAKER_03 7:09

Yeah, uh, a prenup is essentially a a partnership agreement for your marriage. So uh it's an agreement that addresses the rules of the road for if you get divorced, but also during the marriage itself.

Jessica 7:28

Okay. So we hear a lot about we hear a lot about, you know, people again, celebrities and things. I mean, you know, we're not privy to normal people's prenups. So the celebrity, the wealthy, the people in the spotlight, that their prenups include like rules, right? Well, if you cheat on me, then this, or if you do this, then that. Is that what makes up a prenup? Is those like if-then statements? Is that the norm?

SPEAKER_03 7:56

Um, yeah, prenups can include those kinds of things. I mean, I like to view them as kind of having three parts. You know, first is what are you coming in with? Um, you know, what are the assets you have coming in? What are the debts that you have coming in? Part two is kind of during the marriage, what are gonna be the rules during the marriage? Do you have spending limits? How are you gonna pay for bills? Do you use joint accounts? Do you use separate accounts? And then part three would be uh what I could euphemistically call the uh the contingency plans. So what happens if the marriage doesn't last? You know, how do you uh extricate yourself from the marriage financially? How do you divide assets and debts, that type of thing?

Brandon 8:35

I guess I didn't realize that a prenup involves also, you know, kind of rules and stipulations of why you're actually married. I always thought of it in my mind as more or less in in the event that you know things don't work out, this is what the prenup is for, this is gonna spell out what happens. So that's interesting to know that.

unknown 8:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:52

You know, before I started doing family law, I thought the same thing. You know, I thought that a prenup was essentially just if you get divorced, this is how you split it up. And I think I think even today, most lay people think that, you know, a prenup is essentially just a plan for divorce. I mean, that's why so many people object to them, is because it's it looks like or it feels like you're planning your divorce before the marriage even starts. Um I look at it as, you know, like I said, I use the analogy of a partnership agreement. I think a lot of people understand kind of a business partnership. Um it wouldn't be a very good business partnership agreement if you didn't spell out, okay, what happens if we sell the business or if one of the partners leaves the business? Um, but of course, your partnership agreement is also going to define what are your responsibilities during, you know, the the pendency of the business itself. Preump is the same way. What are going to be the rules of the road during the marriage itself? Um, you know, the the example I just gave is like, you know, spending limits. Um, you know, if you're going to spend money from a joint bank account, you know, do you have to discuss it beforehand? Is it expenses over a certain amount of money that you're going to discuss beforehand? Who pays what bills that you can, you know, that you had coming in. So if one spouse has student loan debt, are you going to pay those monthly payments with joint money? Are you going to pay it with separate money? Um, same thing for anything else that somebody has coming in. So it can really run the gamut, but any good prenuptial agreement is absolutely going to address um how you pay for your expenses and and what the rules of the road are during the marriage itself.

Jessica 10:32

Makes a lot of sense. What about well, so so I'll ask you this question because Brandon gets it a lot as a financial planner, right? Was like, well, I'm not a millionaire, so I don't need a financial planner. And it's like, well, the same analogy of like, okay, I want to get in shape. Well, you don't usually go to a a trainer when you already have a six pack, right? It's like you go to the trainer to get the six pack. So at what stage or when do you suggest reaching out to the likes of you to start the prenup process? And who needs a prenup?

SPEAKER_03 11:08

Yeah. Yeah,

Who Actually Needs A Prenup

SPEAKER_03 11:09

no, great question because it is it's such a common misconception that you've got to be rich to need a prenup. And, you know, I look at a prenup as a tool to prevent messy divorces. You know, there's essentially two ways you're gonna do that. One is to spell out exactly how you're gonna divide everything if you do get divorced, so that you're not spending, you know, two years and tens of thousands of dollars in a courtroom to figure that out. But the other way to prevent a messy divorce is to avoid the divorce altogether, which means eliminating arguments about money, kind of the very predictable arguments that couples have during their marriage, um, and trying to come up with ways to resolve those um beforehand so that you don't have those predictable arguments, particularly about money. Um, so um, you know, what makes a divorce messy is not the amount of money that you have when you get married, it's the amount of money you have at the end of the marriage. And so you certainly don't need to be a millionaire on the date of the wedding. But if you are that on that trajectory, you know, Henry's they call them high, uh high earners, not rich yet. Um, people who are on the trajectory, maybe you got, you know, 100 grand in a retirement account, and somebody who that's their only asset, they got 100 grand in a retirement account, they will tell you, oh, I've got nothing. I've got nothing coming to the marriage. You know, somebody else, a hundred grand might be a lot of money, but you know, to them, they don't think it's a lot of money. Well, that 100 grand can grow to 200, to 400, you know, to 800 grand over the course of a marriage. And if that is money that would otherwise be defined as your separate property and instead you got to split it, you know, I don't know anyone that wouldn't, you know, that wouldn't spend a few hundred uh, you know, a few grand to protect half a million on the back end.

Jessica 12:57

Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Brandon 12:59

Oh yeah. I've I must say, um when I first got into finance, I used to work at Fidelity and I was um working in the 401k plans mainly for IBM, but I remember having to, you know, do quadros for people. And it's basically, you know, when people get divorced and one spouse is entitled to half of the other um individual's um retirement plan. And those conversations were the worst. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, the fact that you even know that term.

Jessica 13:28

Okay, so this is I love I like that you're you're talking about it as a partnership, right? I think it puts it into a positive light. I, you know, obviously also in your bio, you were saying that a prenup can can make the marriage happier and stronger because you're planning. You're not planning for a divorce, right? Nobody that I know is getting married to then be like, ah, I can just get a divorce, no big deal. But life be life and we know that. So it's good to have a plan in place. And if you're planning for all these other things, why would you not plan for a proper exit, right? Like if you're looking at it as a partnership. So I like that you're stating it that way. Um do people like, you know, let's say somebody's getting married in their mid-20s, early 30s, maybe has a 401k, but no substantial assets, do you recommend them to get to have a prenup that just evolves and changes over time? Or do you feel like there's a certain point, maybe okay, my 401k hit $100,000. Now I should reach out to an attorney. Is there a kind of a turning point within the financial aspect where you recommend somebody then reach out? Or when is the good the good time? A good time?

SPEAKER_03 14:46

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think um certainly you could use uh a net worth number. I mean, if you've got a hundred grand, the cost of a few grand to protect that and what that hundred grand could turn into, I think you're definitely at the point where you could benefit from a prenup. Um, but uh even beyond that, I think you have to look at the complexity of somebody's financial affairs. Um, and a lot of us, particularly our generation, we have a tendency to underestimate the complexity of our finances, particularly when compared to, say, our parents' generation. So, you know, my parents got married in the 1960s, okay? Um, and a couple in the 1960s, their finances really were super simple. I mean, first, the average couple back then got married at like age 21. Um, today it's more like 30 for a first marriage. But a couple back then, they got married at age 21. Um, student loans weren't anything like they are today. Uh, you could literally work your way through school. Um, credit cards had just been invented, so most people didn't have them. 401ks had not been invented yet. You know, the average couple back then, they might have one bank account between the two of them. They had no property, no retirement, no student loan debt, no credit card debt, you know, maybe a vehicle between the two of them. And you compare that with a couple getting married today, they're on the average, you know, they're on average age 30 of their first marriage. They're likely to have four to five bank accounts each, three to four credit cards each, uh, a retirement account or two, because they didn't roll over the first one, right? They've got uh two vehicles between them, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands in student loans, uh, a house with some equity, uh, maybe a small business. And so, you know, the couple getting married in the 1960s to continue on the business analogy was like a startup in somebody's garage, with, you know, starting from absolute scratch, the average couple getting married today, it's like a corporate merger, you know, trying to combine, you know, that kind of those kinds of financial lives. And you just you would never do something like that without, even if you don't get an actual agreement, without at least sitting down and having a serious conversation about what are the rules going to be, you know, the the debts that you're bringing in. Um, and besides just the assets and the debts, the habits that we have formed around our finances during that decade of life since we moved out of our parents' houses, that might be even more important than the difference that we have in net worth or assets and debts is, you know, what kind of habits do you have? Are you the kind of person that pays off your credit cards in full every month? Or are you carrying balances and just paying the minimum? You know, have you been investing in your retirement accounts uh from the very beginning of your relationship? Um, or, you know, have you cashed out every time you've changed employers? Um So I think that kind of conversation is is necessary and a prenup forces that conversation.

Jessica 17:51

Wow. Well, when you put it like that, I feel like we should have a prenup.

Brandon 17:56

Yeah, because it's very, like I said, the main thing that's very interesting.

Jessica 17:59

All of those were fantastic analogies.

Brandon 18:02

So Yeah, because I like I know just from you know experience as far as what I do that you the number of people that actually sit down and have these in-depth conversations when it comes to finances and then also just the behaviors behind finance, it doesn't occur. Like you have people that have been married for years and have never had these conversations. It's kind of crazy to me, only because obviously of what I do, but then also like Jess and I, but you know, prior to us getting married, we had these conversations. And I wasn't even like fully into finance yet when we first met, but we still had these conversations because it's it's so important because I wouldn't say that a lack of money or finance is the number one reason that people break up. But when you have when you have issues there, it amplifies everything else.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

Right, right. I mean, communication, you know, on one level or another may be the top reason that people break up. And um, if you're not communicating about

Joint Vs Separate Money Buckets

SPEAKER_03 18:56

other things, you're likely not communicating about money. And money is just one of those, it's so taboo, people don't want to talk about it. You know, if you got 50 grand in credit card debt, you know, that's not exactly first date material, right? And then we're trying to put our best foot forward and we're showing like, you know, the Instagram versions of ourselves, and then you know, right. And then and then when does it happen? There's never a good time, you know, to like sit down and be like, okay, by the way, here's my credit report, and here's, you know, like the balance on my student loans, and it's it's not, you know, necessarily fun or romantic. And so a lot of people skip it. And, you know, I've done probably a thousand divorces in my career, and I mean you'd just be shocked how many people have been married 20, 30 years, and they still never have that conversation. And here they are at the end of the relationship, and they have no idea what the assets are, you know, what the debts are, you know, what the practices are, what how bills are being paid. Um, and, you know, it's certainly a factor, you know, even if it's not the number one reason, you know, couples that are that are splitting up, they may disagree on a lot of things, but they're almost certainly disagreeing on financial matters.

Jessica 20:12

Yeah. Well, that's so wild. I think Brandon and I came into our relationship. A, we were, he was 30, I was 28, we already owned homes. We, you know, we just weren't playing games. My parents got divorced um after 35 years of marriage. So I was an adult during their divorce, which was not pleasant. And I, you know, his parents got divorced when he was five. I was in my mid to late 20s when my parents got divorced. I don't know that either one of them is ideal, right? Because as a child, you're like, is it me? Why are they fighting? What, you know, I figure think that you internalize, but also to preface, my mom has been divorced four times.

Brandon 20:50

So I've seen it.

Jessica 20:51

This is now, yeah, she just went through her fourth divorce. But so at that time it was she had gone through three. My parents got divorced after 35 years. We were like, we're doing this once. So we just we we laid out all the rules, right? We talked about all the non-sexy, non-fun things. Also, we were friends first, so that helped because then there's no pressure in having those conversations. So we just kind of laid it all out on the table. So, but for example, I came into the relationship with $100,000 in student loans. I have two master's degrees. Brandon has an undergraduate degree and then stopped and didn't have any loans. So you're saying, yeah, we could have filled out or done a prenup to say, hey, if this goes south, you're responsible for your student loans and you don't have to pay them as a couple. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_03 21:40

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that that would be, you know, kind of one thing. You know, I like to use the idea of I call them money buckets. Um, you know, what's mine, what's yours, what's ours? You know? Um and you can split up your assets into those buckets, you can split up your debts into those buckets in terms of who's responsible for them. And Then I think it also works for during the marriage with how the money flows, right? Um, you know, what expenses are going to be paid from my money, what expenses, and I think it's important for couples to have their separate money as well. Um, I know that um not everyone on this call is a big fan of joint accounts, but um you can have a joint account.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

We do have a joint account.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Yeah, yeah. And I think I mean I think that's that's a good idea is to have a joint account and decide, you know, how is that joint account going to be funded? You know, there's I call it there's the inside out way of funding the joint account or the outside in. So inside out is your paychecks go into the joint account, and then you each get kind of an allowance, for lack of a better way to put it, that comes out of the joint account and goes into your separate accounts. Or your income can flow into your separate account and then you both contribute to a joint account that pays for the joint expenses. But I think it's super important for each spouse to have their own money, especially in, you know, today's day and age, and to be able to spend on the things that you want to spend on without oversight or feeling like every single time that you stop by Chick-fil-A, it's going to be scrutinized, you know, by your spouse or um, you know, because it's more important how much you spend, not what you spend it on. And by having every single expense come out of the joint account, it causes tension, which is, you know, really unnecessary if you kind of separate things out and have your own money.

Jessica 23:30

Yeah. Now let's let's talk about that because you obviously know I have always been like, I'm gonna have my own accounts. We don't need to have everything combined, we don't need to be authorized users on each other's credit cards and all of that, right? Your score is yours, mine is mine. But in the event of a divorce, does it matter if you have joint or separate accounts? Or if we don't have a prenup, is it, hey, the bucket is the bucket, and now we're gonna have to figure out how to split it regardless of whose name is on the account.

SPEAKER_03 24:01

Yeah. And that's that is the perfect question because if you do not have a prenup or a postnup, um, it's not too late. Um, if you don't have a prenup or a post nup, then it doesn't matter whose name is on any of the assets, whose name is on any of the bank accounts, the court is going to treat everything like it is marital property. Now, the rule is you're supposed to keep what you had coming in and you're supposed to divide what you had, you know, what you accumulate together. But in practice, that never really works if you don't have a written agreement. Because, for example, you come into the marriage with a 401k. It's not like you stop contributing that 401k and open up a new 401k on the date of the marriage, right? And after 10 years, 15 years of marriage, how do you prove how much of the growth in your 401 came from the money that you had as of the date of the marriage, and how much of the growth in that account came from the money that you contributed over the course of the marriage? And figuring out that one question costs people, Americans, literally billions of dollars in legal fees and forensic accountant fees in divorce cases every year that could just be avoided if you had a rule. You know, for example, some couples will say, all right, your retirement is your retirement, my retirement is my retirement. And we'll have a rule like my wife and I do that we'll sit down once a year and we'll talk about what we're going to do in terms of contributing to retirement accounts. And we try to match them, we try to keep keep it equal. If she's maxing out hers 401k, then I'll max out my 401k and we'll keep them equal. And that way, there's no quadro necessary, there's no division of the retirement accounts necessary because we've kept pace over the course of the marriage. And some couples will even go a step further so that if one spouse takes a break from the workforce for some agreed upon purpose, usually raising kids or being a homemaker, that will have the couple contribute to the non-working spouse's like brokerage account in an amount that is equal to what the working spouse is getting in his or her retirement account. And that way is that's another way to avoid dividing retirement accounts at the end. And I think it's just helpful for couples to have money in their own names. Just psychologically, it's like a good idea to know that all right, that is something that I could access without having to get permission from somebody else or having to pen on somebody else. Um, and that's just one example of, you know, rules that couples can make that can um, you know, help during the marriage as well as, you know, prevent messiness if the relationship doesn't last.

How To Start The Conversation

Jessica 26:37

So such a good point.

Brandon 26:38

So I would say probably for most people, now listening to this and finding out the more details of what prenups actually really entails compared to what we just think they entail. Um I think the hardest part is how do you bring up the subject matter of actually having a prenup or a postnoptial? Like any recommendation on even how to have that conversation if an individual believes they should have this conversation.

SPEAKER_03 27:04

Yeah, yeah. I I'm glad you asked because I think the answer to that question is not necessarily intuitive. Um, you know, it's probably, you know, if especially if your fiance or your spouse um might be reluctant or uh buys into some of the stigma surrounding prenup's post. I mean, let's just be honest, they don't have the best reputation in the world. Um, most people they think prenup, they think, you know, rich old guy, young, gold-digging wife and trying to keep her from getting his money. You know, good or bad. That's what that's the image that comes to people's minds, right? Or super rich celebrities that, you know, they've got to keep their millions from each other or whatever. Um and I think that if you expect that your fiance is going to be reluctant, that you don't approach it by going and saying, Hey, babe, I want a prenub. Um that's going to immediately bring all the negative images into their mind. Instead, I think you talk about all of the component parts of what you want to accomplish with the prenup. Because what people object to, in my experience, is the word prenup or postnup itself, not the component parts of what you're trying to accomplish. So for example, for prenup or postnup to be enforceable in any state, both spouses have to disclose all of their assets and debts to each other. We literally create net worth statements and attach them to the back of the agreements. Um and you go to your fiance and say, I think that we should be transparent about what each of us is coming into the marriage with. Our assets, our debts, our incomes, you know, let's share our last few tax returns with each other. Um, I think that we should decide, you know, what goes in our money buckets. You know, is is my retirement gonna remain ours or is it gonna become joint? You know, your student loans, are those gonna remain your responsibility or are we gonna pay those from a joint account? You know, what expenses are we going to pay jointly and what expenses are we gonna pay separately? Are we going to have rules around spending? You know, anything over $500 that comes out of a joint account, I'd like to know. You know, uh maybe, maybe you would as well. Maybe, maybe $200, you want to know if before that money is. Yeah. Yeah. Out of the joint bank account. Um, and just on down the line. And then, yes, you know, if things don't work out, you know, if you're marrying somebody who thinks that they should keep 90% of the assets, you should probably know that going in. You know, like, are we just going to split everything 50-50, you know, that we accumulate together? And if we agree on that, let's lock ourselves into that now rather than leave it up to, you know, our worst emotions when we don't like each other anymore. I mean, it's a lot easier to have that conversation on the front end when you're getting along and before any kind of resentment has built in and before the communication has broken down. Um, because I mean, when I first started doing family law, I assumed that's what it was. I assumed if you split up, you just you split everything 50-50. But that's not how it works. In in 41 out of the 50 states, including Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, they're equitable division states, which means that the court is authorized to divide your assets and debts equitably, but that doesn't necessarily mean equally. And so it is not uncommon at all for couples going through a divorce to spend 20 to 25% of their net worth fighting over which one gets 60% of the assets. And everybody deleted believes that they deserve two-thirds of the assets at the end of a marriage. I mean, it's the same thing in like a business partnership. Everybody feels like they're doing two-thirds of the work, right? Yeah. And so in a divorce, you know, the person who did more of the homemaking, they think that they think that they carried the load. And the person who earned more money, they think they're carried the load. And, you know, if you agree ahead of time that, all right, everything we build together is 50%, that's not just going to make your divorce go smoother if your marriage doesn't work out. That's going to make your marriage go smoother. If you just agree that that's the rule of the partnership while you're in it.

Jessica 31:04

Makes so much sense.

Brandon 31:05

I really like how you said that as far as focusing on how you want things to go and not necessarily using the word preenough. I kind of do the same thing when, you know, when working with individuals. I'm like, you know, what are we, what are you trying to accomplish rather than putting a specific term on it? Because some people have ideas about different financial instruments or strategies. I'm like, oh, I don't want to do that, and they really don't know what it entails. So I I very much understand how that is.

unknown 31:28

Yeah.

Brandon 31:29

But I definitely have had um conversations with your mom where I'm like, she's told me adamantly she doesn't want an annuity, but she would love a source of income that she does now live that is not dependent upon how the market fluctuates, but she didn't want an annuity.

Jessica 31:44

And then you're like, but that is an annuity because words matter.

Brandon 31:47

And I told her she wished she had a pension. I was like, well, that's an annuity.

SPEAKER_03 31:52

So it's all about how you define it. I mean, another way to look at it is this. I mean, this is one of my aha moments when I was practicing family law, is, you know, when you look at it, first of all, marriage is a financial contract. You can't get you can't get away from it. Marriage is a financial partnership just as much as it is a romantic partnership. And everyone, you know, if you look at a prenup as kind of like a set of rules that defines how you manage your finances during the marriage as well as in a divorce, everybody's got a prenup. Every married couple's got a prenup. You either have one that you have crafted yourself, or you have one that the state you happen to live in has written for you. And most people have not read that prenup and they don't know what it says, and they probably wouldn't sign it if they had read it beforehand. Um and so there's just, you know, an easier way to, you know, address the finances than leaving it up to chance, is my belief. You know, it's just like with a business partnership. You would never go into a business partnership and say, all right, let's just run this business and you know, we'll figure out who owns what percentage of the business if we break up the business. We'll just go to court and pay lawyers a ton of money to figure out who owns, you know, what percentage of the business. And that's what we are kind of doing if we don't, you know, at least have these conversations. You know, forget about the prenot for a second. We don't at least have these conversations about what the expectation is um and who owns what and what falls into the hour column and what falls into the mine and your columns um during, you know, at the beginning of the of the relationship, uh, before it feels like a punitive conversation or, you know, like the the marriage is in crisis.

SPEAKER_04 33:37

Yeah.

Brandon 33:38

I mean I mean, we're definitely firm believers in that one of the most important financial decisions you make is the person you choose to spend your life with.

unknown 33:46

Yeah.

Brandon 33:46

100%.

Jessica 33:47

Well, so let's talk about that. Because we we so we're going on seven years married, October, ten years together. We do not have a prenup, which now I am having all these aha moments, Aaron, because of you. Talk to us about people that are now in our state where it's like we're happily married. We don't plan on getting a divorce.

Brandon 34:06

As I said before, but we like having a plan.

Jessica 34:08

Yeah, I'm stuck, I know. But we like having a plan. You know, we have these money conversations all the time. Talk to us about our options now.

SPEAKER_03 34:17

Yeah, I mean, congratulations on seven years. We uh my wife and I are seven years in as well. So we're the same as a. Thank you. Um couples who are already married and and need to have this conversation and need to define something uh, you know, beyond what their state's rules are, have the option of doing a post-nuptial agreement, at least in 49 out of the 50 states. Iowa

Postnups And Real-World Scenarios

SPEAKER_03 34:41

is the lone holdout for some reason. I have a feeling they will get on board at some point. But um right now, you know, almost everybody has the option of doing a post-nuptial agreement. And a lot of people will come to me um for a post-nup sometimes after, you know, hearing an interview or hearing, you know, some kind of um information like this, and they realize that wait a minute, we've been living a legal fiction. We've been living, you know, treating our finances like they're separate, not knowing that, you know, the court is going to treat them as joint. Um, and we need to clarify who owns what so that, you know, you're not in my office in a couple years saying, what do you mean he wants half of the house that I paid the mortgage for for the past 10 years? What do you mean she wants half of my retirement? And I have that conversation, you know, week after week, month after month, year after year, you know, with hundreds, literally hundreds of couples where, you know, they lived as though their finances were separate. Um, and then it isn't until decades later that they're in a lawyer's office that they realize everything, all the money that I was hoarding over the course of our relationship from my spouse is now going to get divided. I mean, like I I had this one couple where the husband made 200 grand a year, his wife didn't work and stayed home and raised their two kids, and he gave her an allowance of $300 a month.

Jessica 36:09

Now, one was that wait, was that household money or that was like her spending money? That was her fund money?

SPEAKER_03 36:15

It was her entire spending money. And if there's one thing I've learned, it's that you know, a couple living in the same household but different socioeconomic brackets, that is a recipe for disaster. And part of it was like, dude, why did you think this was going to work? Like, how are you even surprised? But unwittingly, what he did is he created a financial incentive for his wife to leave him because she was going to get more access to money by divorcing him and getting half of the assets than she ever would staying with him. And so, you know, if you are living in a relationship where your spouse is financially incentivized to leave, then you might want to consider, you know, if not getting a postnup, at least clarifying, you know, the rules of, you know, how money is treated in your house.

Jessica 37:05

Yeah, that makes so much sense. So what we would go through the same process as we would if we were newly engaged, saying, hey, we want a prenup, we would go through the exact same process as a postnup. Or is there something that's different that we need to call out?

SPEAKER_03 37:20

It is it's pretty much the same. You know, I think that, you know, couples who are going into their marriage, um, maybe they haven't established a joint bank account yet. And so they're having those conversations on the front end, whereas uh a couple that's been together for seven years is more likely to say, let's take what we're already doing that we agree works for us and let's get let's codify that in an agreement so that our day-to-day reality matches our legal reality. Um and that's what a lot of people do in in postnups. They have kind of an understanding that, okay, you're, you know, you're not saving for retirement. I'm super conservative with my money, and so I am saving aggressively for retirement, but my retirement's mine and yours is yours. Um let's go ahead and write that down so there's no surprises. And, you know, if I'm the one saving my retirement and we just kind of agree that that's going to be how we treat our finances, I don't want you coming after half of my money if things don't work out, you know, 10 years down the road. Um, so there are, you know, that is some of the couples that get a post-nuptial agreement. There are other people who, you know, they meant to get a prenup. They just didn't get it done in time, you know, prior to the wedding. So some of those get a prenup. And then there are some people where something has happened in their relationship. There's been some um some event, um, you know, infidelity or something else that, you know, is broader than his maid. You know, for example, um, you know, I had uh a woman who had been kind of the stay-at-home parent for 15 years. She had forfeited what could have otherwise been a lucrative career for herself to be the homemaker for the household, to, to, to allow her husband to make the kind of money that he did in his career and caught him in an affair and decided, okay, if things don't work out, you know, I have compromised my ability to earn money for the rest of my life. And I want to make sure that I'm going to be well taken care of if something happens and our relationship doesn't work out. And, you know, this husband wanted to work, he wanted, you know, to work on the relationship and wanted to give it a chance. And he was willing to, you know, put in writing, you know, how much alimony she would get and what percentage of the assets she would get if anything were to ever happen, so that um with the financial issues, the financial stress out of the way, that they could go back and work on the rest of their relationship.

Jessica 39:39

Usually when there's like a clause like that, like a cheating clause, again, just spacing this off of tabloids, right? Does that is that like a null and void statement of like, if you cheat, then you get nothing. Is that typically how it's written, or what does that look like?

SPEAKER_03 39:55

Um you you know, usually people say if you cheat, you get a smaller percentage of you know of the finances. Um it's it's difficult. Um, you know, I don't usually recommend infidelity clauses for people who have not already had infidelity crop up in their relationship. I mean, it sounds like a good idea on the front end, you know, like, all right, well, if you cheat, you know, you walk away with zero. But, you know, you could have a relationship where a couple's been married for 30 years and built up millions and millions of dollars and both of them cheated and just one gets caught. Should that one, you know, the one who who got caught, you know, who was sloppier about their affair, walk away with absolutely zero? I mean, certainly you don't want to encourage infidelity, but um, it can be a slippery slope because then you start asking questions about, you know, well, what if there was, you know, mistreatment, or what if there was abuse, or what if it was verbal abuse, or what if you got arrested for, you know, drug use, or what if you, you know, get a DUR?

Brandon 40:58

What do you classify as infidelity? Because you know, some people define it differently in different relationships.

SPEAKER_03 41:04

Right. Is it is an emotional affair? Does that count? If so, what evidence do you need? Do you need actual proof of it? You know, do I have to screenshot your text messages or, you know, is an eyewitness enough? Um so yeah, it can get it can get sticky going down that road. And that's it also kind of takes you back to where a lot of couples are without a prenup, where, you know, in equitable division states, the court can basically take anything into account when deciding how to divide up the assets. Some judges are like, I don't care about affairs, I've seen it all, done it all, heard it a million times. Come in here and I'm chopping up your estate 50-50. And there are other judges who are like, no, if you cheated, you're getting less of the money. And you never really know. You know, judges are, they're human like anybody else. And so what ends up happening is couples who go to through a divorce, they're financially incentivized to throw as much mud against the wall as possible, to air all of their dirty laundry out in a public courtroom that anybody can come in and sit in, you know, or get the copy of the transcript of in order because you never know what's going to catch the attention of a judge and give them a little bit of a leg up, you know, in getting a larger share of the assets. And a lot of couples just decide to say, you know what, we're not gonna play that game. We're not gonna incentivize any kind of airing of dirty laundry. If we don't work out, we're either taking our 50% share of the joint accounts and we're going our separate ways. You know, what's mine in my name goes to me, what's in your name goes to you, whatever's in joint names is 50-50. And we're not gonna spend a year and a half, two years, six figures on lawyers, you know. We're not gonna spend all that time and money and energy and you know, emotional turmoil in our lives because our relationship didn't work out. We're just gonna go ahead and define, you know, make it possible for us to leave each other with as clean a break as possible. A lot of times because you might be having to parent children with that person later on. And you just don't want to put yourself in that kind of position.

Jessica 43:09

Wow. This is I'm I've learned so much today. What what have we not asked you that we should have asked you at this point?

Clauses That Strengthen A Marriage

SPEAKER_03 43:21

Um I mean, I think that there are a lot of people are curious about you know the other aspects of a prenup that um can uh make for a positive marriage, you know, not just protect against, you know, the divorce itself, but make for uh good in your relationship. Um and just a couple examples of that, you know, one is um, you know, we talked about discussing large expenditures. We talked about, you know, dividing things up into the money buckets, mine, yours, and ours. Um another is kind of you know, what qualifies as equality in in a financial relationship? You know, the roommate example of like everyone pays, you know, 50-50 of all the bills, regardless of how much everybody makes, doesn't always work in a in a marriage relationship. Um and so a lot of couples may choose to pay expenses or fund the joint account proportionally to their income. Right. So if I make 60,000 and you make 40,000, I put in 60% of the joint money and you put in 40% of the joint money, you know, that kind of thing. Um, one interesting thing that my wife and I chose to put in our prenup is um a provision about counseling. So, you know, one thing I noticed as a divorce lawyer is that, you know, when one spouse wants to go to counseling, the other spouse, you know, doesn't get interested, you go to counseling, you do it by yourself, you need the counseling. And then when that spouse comes around and says, okay, let's do it, the first spouse has given up. And so, you know, my wife and I decided, all right, if either one of us wants to counsel wants to go to counseling, we're going to counseling. We agreed ahead of time that either one could trigger this counseling provision, you know, once per year, and we go to three sessions. Um and if either of us wanted to move to dissolve the marriage, then we had to do six sessions of counseling. And sometimes that might not be, you know, let's let's save the marriage. Sometimes it might be how are we going to co-parent, you know, our daughter together after this is done? Or how can we get rid of the joint assets, you know, and and make as much money and serve both of our interests, you know, and have an opportunity to resolve as many issues before somebody goes and spends thousands of dollars on a lawyer. Um, so um, we also have something that I like to call the shareholders' meeting. You can tell I like these business analogies.

SPEAKER_04 45:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:38

But I think that I think that all households should have a shareholder meeting where, you know, once per year you sit down and you discuss kind of like the state of the union, the state of the finances. You know, what are the assets and debts? Do we have any big surprises last year? Are there things that we want to budget in for next year? You know, uh in my house, we love travel. So, you know, we have a travel fund. You know, we're gonna put aside 5% of all of our take-home income into a travel fund so that whenever we want to take a trip, the money is there. And the more that we make, you know, the more we get to travel or the more we get to spend on our travel. Um and um having a time, because, you know, as as you guys acknowledge, there's there's never a good time to talk about the money for a lot of couples. You know, you guys are obviously experts at it, but a lot of people are not as comfortable, you know, having the money conversations. But if it's on the calendar or repeating every ever event every December 1, we sit down and here's the shareholder meeting agenda. And we talk about these things, um, and we decide who the CFO is in the relationship. You know, every relationship has like one person who's the the spreadsheet nerd. Um and then there's this other person that says, I trust you to manage the spreadsheets. Um and the CFO doesn't run the finding, they don't control the finances. They have a duty to report back. Like they work for the company, they work for the partnership, they have a duty to report back to the couple about what's going on with the finances. Um, and just kind of putting some of those things, you know, in writing so it takes some of the guesswork out of what can otherwise be, you know, the sticky life of managing marital finance.

Jessica 47:08

Yeah. I l I love the analogy because it makes it so concrete and so it takes the emotion out of it, right? It's just like, you know, you have a health directive, you have we talk, you know, hey, what happens if I'm in a terrible car accident and I'm in a coma? Like, how long are you gonna leave me in the coma? How long are we gonna live like this? How long, you know, like again, maybe we're crazy people, but like we talk about that stuff all the time. Like, I don't want to be a vegetable on a tube and you're bringing the kids to see me every Sunday. Like, we're not living like that, right? So it makes total sense. Why would you not put these things in place? I love the counseling, right? Like, hey, we're gonna give it a fair shake, we're gonna go to three times. Oh, nope, now we're gonna go six times. You put it in place when you have clarity, when things are good, when you're you still love each other, right? Instead of being grumpy and being like, Well, I wanted to go to therapy and you didn't. And it's like, well, now you're already the the ship is already sinking, right? Like now it's not the time to get the toolbox out. We need to have the toolbox ready and fully stocked before the ship starts sinking. I like that.

Brandon 48:11

And I like the aspect of like, so for example, like using us as an example, that these are conversations that we already have, because I believe that we have a much healthier relationship than other people do. And we already have the conversations and we're in agreement on how things should, you know, should be. So why not just put it in, you know, writing so that like you said, yeah, you like to think that if you know that day ever comes where that you know separation, divorce occurs, that you would be amicable, but you don't know. Like I can understand, like I can do it right now. If she ever tried to divorce me, I'd probably not be that amicable because I don't ever see myself getting divorced. So I don't You probably be a jerk. I'd be would not be the nicest person, probably.

SPEAKER_04 48:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:50

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean it's exact I mean, both y'all are exactly right in the in the point that we protect against every other potential life tragedy, right? We get life insurance, you know, to protect against like a potential early death, you know, we we get the the health directives. So you're not left in a coma, you know, for 10 years. We get car insurance to protect against a car wreck. We get house insurance or against against, you know, like a house fire. Every, you know, financial and life tragedy, we have some way of insuring against it or protecting against it. But somehow we put marriages in this specific category, like, oh no, that's love, and it's unromantic to touch and like prepare for what could possibly go wrong in our marriage. And I think the exact opposite. I mean, it deserves at least as much protection as your car or your house, you know. Uh your marriage. I mean, as important as it is to your life happiness and your finances and everything else, doesn't it deserve the same, you know, protection and thought and planning that you would give all of these other, you know, major life areas?

Brandon 49:53

Well, when you put it like that, Aaron, also considering I think about like when you said the term, you know, with life insurance. Like, I think about it this way that, you know, with most life insurance, you know, majority of the time it doesn't pay out because most people have a term policy. And I think only like 1% of term policies pay out because most people live to old age. They don't die prematurely. And so, you know, divorce, I mean, uh isn't probably like 50% of marriages into divorce. So significantly higher probability that you're gonna need that. If you're gonna need it as compared to with your you know, term life insurance policy.

Jessica 50:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:25

Yeah, in a prenup, you pay for it once. You know, you don't even have to pay every month or every year. You pay for it once, and that same insurance policy will last for your entire relationship. So one more thing. I one more thing. Sorry.

Jessica 50:36

I

Cost Timeline And Moving States

Jessica 50:37

want to know how much it costs. You said you pay for it once. How much is it gonna cost us, Aaron?

SPEAKER_03 50:41

I think that all depends.

Jessica 50:42

Well, okay, give us a range.

SPEAKER_03 50:44

For for most couples, for most couples, um, we do them for a flat fee of $3,500. Um, you know, we walk you through all of your options. We talk about, you know, the everything we talked about from the counseling provisions to um the different money buckets, how things are going to be split up. Um we try to make it dummy-proof so that if your marriage does come to an end, that um, you know, you basically just follow the rules in your agreement and you can do it, you know, without spending tens of thousands or more on attorneys. Um but also um, you know, I think our approach is to give you the tools to uh take most of the money arguments off the table and prevent them before they happen by, you know, allowing you to craft kind of the the partnership agreement for your marriage uh with your spouse or fiance on the front end while communication is high, while the love is high, while the respect is high.

Jessica 51:41

How long does it take? Like what does this process look like if we were well, because clearly we need a post snap now. I mean, it's gonna happen. So we're gonna reach out to you. So what are we looking at? Time, paperwork, right? It's a lot of data gathering, I'm assuming. What does that look like?

SPEAKER_03 51:58

Yes, you you are correct that it is the data gathering is usually the longest part of the process. You know, there are some people who can go to Mint.com and print out their net worth statement in 30 seconds, you know, and have every asset and debt. And there are other people who have to go reset a bunch of passwords to find out, you know, what they have in assets and debts. Um but the whole process usually takes about a month. You know, we can do them in a couple of weeks. You know, if you're getting married, I always say start, you know, months before the wedding, not weeks before the wedding. Um, it should be a collaborative process. You don't want to dump a prenup that you prepared on your own, you know, on your spouse the week before the wedding. Um, don't be that person. Um, you know, give yourself time to do it. But um, you know, a lot of couples, they've if they've had these conversations, you know, if they've listened to this podcast and they've gotten ideas, you know, already on what they want to do, um, can usually go from beginning to end in about a month.

Jessica 52:51

That's not bad. And then what happens if we move, right? We're in North Carolina, you're in Georgia, my job takes me somewhere else. Is there, is there like a reciprocity clause? Do we just update the paperwork? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_03 53:05

Yeah, great, great question. Uh, and you and you kind of guess the answer. You know, every every good prenup is going to include kind of a choice of law provision that basically says um wherever you move to, um, this prenup is going to be enforced based on the rules of the state where you had it drafted. In other words, you prepare it once and you never have to think about it again, because wherever you move, they're going to honor the prenup based on the rules that were of where it was drafted.

SPEAKER_04 53:31

Got it.

Brandon 53:31

How often do people like update, you know, prenups? Like, for example, I guess maybe it's not obviously comparable, but like with a will, like, you know, you have a will when you got married, but then you have two kids, so you want to update your will because you have two kids now. It's kind of like the same thing in regards to prenups that they get updated when you know drastic things change.

SPEAKER_03 53:51

Most people don't. If if your prenup has been drafted well, um, then you have the ability to allow your finances to grow with you. So, right, if if if your prenup is basically saying assets that are that are titled in my name belong to me, assets that are titled in your name belong to you, and everything that is in joint names is going to be split 50-50, then whenever you acquire a new asset or a new debt or open a bank account or open a credit card, you title it the way that you want it to be treated. So if you open an account supposed to be joint, title in joint names. If you buy a property and you want it to be considered a joint property, you put both of your names on the deed. Even if both of your names on the more aren't on the mortgage, you put both of your names on the deed to that new property, and that's how you categorize it. And that way you can you have control over how things are classified over the course of your marriage. You don't have to keep coming back and pay your lawyers to update things.

Jessica 54:43

What about um future projects, right? So if right now the podcast that I mean, this is obviously something we do together. We want it to become very lucrative, right? Is that is would we be able to put something in that says the Sugar Daddy podcast, no matter how big it gets, we split it 50-50, where we, you know, that'd also be a that'd be the business structure, like as the analogy that he uses also. Yeah, everything's kind of split. But like can you do that preemptively, right? We're not there yet, but that's the goal.

SPEAKER_03 55:14

Well, the way you structure the business. Yeah, absolutely.

Jessica 55:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 55:17

Yeah, yeah. The business is the same thing. You title it, you know, or you you you you register it in the names of how it is supposed to be owned.

Jessica 55:26

Okay.

Brandon 55:27

I guess since I like the other businesses that we owned, I did the registrations and it's just one person. Yeah. So she she didn't see the back end of that side. But yeah, you can choose, you know, the percentage of ownership and stuff like that in the process of you're well, you own your business 100%. This one hasn't been registered yet.

SPEAKER_03 55:42

So Yeah, and and and look, you have flexibility beyond that too. You know, there are some people that say, all right, you know, this one property, we're gonna do, we're gonna split it two-thirds, one third, and we'll write it into the agreement. Or some people will come back and modify their agreements, you know, update their agreements because they have something specific, like I'm gonna open up this account or I'm buy this property and it's just gonna be titled in my name for whatever reason, but we mean for it to be joint. You know, some people do that with their retirement accounts because obviously you can't jointly title the 401k, but if you want it to be specifically owned, then we'll just write it in the agreement. You know, everything is based on title except, you know, the 401ks. That's gonna be owned jointly, you know, despite the fact that it's titled one person's name. So yeah.

Jessica 56:23

Well, Aaron, this has been so informative, so enlightening. I definitely came into this conversation, I think, with the the negative stereotypical thoughts around prenups, right? You have to be rich and famous and have millions of dollars to even need one. But I love that you reframed it for us and really made it part of a partnership. And I love that you bucketized it into, you know, the different parts of the relationship. I think that I think that framed it up for me at the beginning, which is really fantastic. And you really did make it so positive that it just makes sense to have one, right? Pre or or post-NUP, right? Obviously, if you can do it before you get married, that's probably ideal. Um, but for people like us who went into it thinking, well, we're we're gonna be married, we're not bringing in millions of dollars. It doesn't make sense. Now I'm leaving this conversation thinking, oh, it does make sense. We have these conversations all the time already. We have so many other protections in place. Why would we not put one around our marriage just in case? I love it.

Brandon 57:34

I definitely feel as though like I have now added another category of conversation that I need to have with clients.

Jessica 57:41

And now you have somebody to refer them to.

Brandon 57:43

But I also have one, I I do one question did pop in my head. So is it possible to have a prenup or I guess it would still be a prenup, post-nup, or whatever, but um if you're not married, so long-term people that have been together for you know a long time and plan on being together, but they don't actually get married.

SPEAKER_03 58:03

Yes,

Cohabitation Agreements And Closing

SPEAKER_03 58:04

we also do uh what's called cohabitation agreements. So, you know, for example, if somebody, if if a couple who is not married buys a piece of property together or, you know, enters a lease together, they begin living together, and that couple splits up, you know, deciding, you know, how the lease gets paid or the mortgage gets paid, you know, if you're no longer living in the house can be a very sticky situation that you don't want to have on the back end. You don't want to have to hire lawyers and go, you know, to court over, you know, paying mortgage on a house that you no longer live in, but it's still affecting your credit. Uh, you can do a cohabitation agreement. Um, so a lot of people who, you know, are not getting married, but they're in kind of that that in-between stage will do a cohabitation agreement where we'll cover a whole lot of the same kinds of things.

Jessica 58:48

That's a great question. I love it. Okay, Erin, we love to leave our listeners with one thing, like a takeaway. I know you've given us a ton of gems, and I think this is gonna be so fantastic for our audience. But is there anything else you want to leave our listeners with today that we might not have touched on yet?

SPEAKER_03 59:07

Um, you guys ask very good questions. But I would just say, you know, even if you are not, you know, to get away from the sales pitch, uh, even if you are not thinking about, you know, getting a prenup or a post-up, you know, I just encourage couples to, at a bare minimum, have these conversations with their partners, you know, ahead of time while communication is free-flowing, you know, while the respect is high, um, and be transparent about these issues. Um, it is it is truly an investment in the health of your relationship.

Jessica 59:41

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 59:42

That's great advice.

Jessica 59:42

Yeah, that's fantastic. Thank you for your insights and all of the facts you gave us today. You dispelled a lot of myths that I think I know we had, I'm sure our listeners had. So now we are armed and educated with so much more information. So thank you for being with us today.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:01

Thanks so much for having me on. It's been a blast.

Jessica 1:00:03

Don't forget, Benjamin Franklin said, an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. You just got paid. Until next time.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:11

Sugar Daddy Podcast Go. Learn how to make the pockets grow. Find mental freedoms where we grow.

Jessica 1:00:21

Thanks for listening to today's episode. We are so glad to have you as part of our Sugar Daddy community. If you learned something today, please remember to subscribe, rate, review, and share this episode with your friends, family, and extended network. Don't forget to connect with us on social media at the SugarDaddy Podcast. You can also email us your questions you want us to answer for our past the sugar segments at the sugardaddypodcast at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail to our Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

It's very important to do your own analysis before making any investment based upon your own personal process. You should take independent financial advice from a licensed professional in connection with or independently research and verify any information you find on our podcast and wish to rely upon whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise.