The Whinypaluza Podcast with Rebecca Greene Episode 096 Financial Empowerment for Women

No need to whine, it's Whiny Palooza! Have some wine and join us on the Whiny Palooza podcast with Rebecca Green.

Welcome to the Whiny Palooza podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Green. I'm a wife, mother of 3, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have 3 fur babies at home too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles, failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family.

Hello everyone, this is Rebecca Green for the Whiny Palooza podcast, and I am so excited today because I have Adrienne Rothstein Grace with us, also known as Adrienne Grace. Adrienne, thank you so much for being here today.

Oh, it is totally my pleasure. I just want to add, back when I became Adrienne Rothstein Grace, it was— I never dreamed it would be so complicated to have two last names. So Adrienne Grace works just as well.

Thanks. It's a beautiful name, and I want to tell them a little bit about you because you have such a wonderful bio. Adrienne is committed to women's financial freedom. She's the author of the best-selling book Going from We to Me: A Financial Guide to Divorce. I'm going to show you this beautiful book for those of you watching. Here it is. And Adrienne provides sophisticated yet compassionate financial guidance to women contemplating divorce, in process, and post-divorce. Widows and women in a wealth transition engage Adrienne to organize, manage, grow, and protect their assets and loved ones. Adrienne uses the wide knowledge and experience gained over an outstanding career in financial services as bank manager, trust officer, investment advisor representative, insurance manager, financial planner, and divorce financial and English. Help women as they pass through their transitions to achieve their goals. She has been featured on Impact Radio, on podcasts, and is a popular speaker. Both divorced and widowed herself, Adrienne has walked this difficult path and found joy on the other side. You can too. Well, that is beautiful, and we have had the chance to talk, and you know that I absolutely love that you're doing for women. And I know that you also work with women who are not getting divorced, and I want us to help women today because I know myself that I need help. So let's help some people today and let's start off because I would love to know what inspired you to become a financial planner.

Well, you know, it's sometimes it's a little challenging to look back and think exactly, you know, what flipped the switch for me. But I've been involved in finance, in money, for a long, long time. My first job, though, was teaching. I taught in college, so the background in teaching adults, it was important. So now I say, you know, instead of teaching kids Spanish and Portuguese, which was my subject matter, I teach adults about money.

And wonderful.

I've realized over a long, wonderful career that I've had that even though I thought that women would be much more financially savvy by now, we're still not in general, and it's still a source of great anxiety. So, many years ago when I decided to take this particular path, I realized that I can focus my efforts mostly— I work mostly with women. I do discriminate.

I do.

I do too.

So because we— not that we're dumb or anything, far from it, but we haven't been trained. And it's just a matter of being— of having access to the important information that can allow us to empower ourselves as we go through life and to be more confident about money.

Absolutely. Um, which brings me to mistakes that we're making. Can you tell us what the biggest mistake that women are making with their finances right now? What are you seeing?

The biggest mistake I see is that women don't know. You know, there was a book written once called Women Don't Ask.

Women Don't What?

A slightly different topic, but so often in our marriages, you know, it's a division of labor and women don't ask. Don't ask questions about it. So often, as you and I talk, even in very happy marriages, it's a division of labor. You take care of some things, your husband takes care of other things. And in this country, most often, it's the husbands who take care of the finances. Women may pay the daily bills, keep the house running, so to speak. But when it comes to the biggest financial decisions, often women are not a major part of that. And a lot of times, because when they start to think about it, they haven't been trained and you kind of glaze over and go, oh well, I don't understand whatever you think, honey. Yep. It was. Yeah. And so it's not a bad thing to have your husband in charge of the finances. It's not bad at all. What's disadvantageous to us is when you don't check in on it, when you don't have an idea or knowledge of what's going on in your own financial life. Not only if you should get a divorce, although that's a whole nother thing, but you know what, when you know how money is being run in the house, what's coming in, what's going out, where you stand, you can be a better financial partner.

Oh, I love that. And I feel like that is going to tell us about the Big Four. I didn't know what the Big Four was. Until you explained it to me. Can you tell us what they are? Because they're so important.

Yes. So my Big Four Money, it comes out B-I-G number 4 dollar sign. My Big Four Money is basically what you own, what you owe, what you earn, and what you spend. Why is that important? That's the financial picture of your life. Do you know how much you owe? Credit cards, mortgage, student loans, tuition for kids. Do you know what you own? What's your net worth? Do you have any idea? Do you have more month than money? Do you find that you're running out of money in the middle of the month and you have to put stuff on credit cards? The point is, do you know? Knowledge is power. And we can become empowered when we use that knowledge to our benefit. And that's one of my basic platforms, is helping women understand where they stand. You know, money is not pink or blue, um, it's green. We can all get there. It takes some attention, it takes some training.

It does. And you, you do offer that, and you're so good with this stuff, and you You saw me when we met, like my eyes were like bulging out of my head. I mean, why do you think that this is so stressful for us?

Well, you know, that's a really big question and it's hard to put a little answer on it, but to kind of condense stuff, in this country, although we have that Puritan ethic of everybody should work hard and all that, there's this dissonance about talking about money. Growing up, I had no idea how much my father made. I never knew. I never ever knew till he died. I didn't know. Um, there's this cultural bias against talking about what you make, not necessarily showing what you have, but talking about what you make. And we don't train kids. We don't train ourselves. We haven't been educated about how to manage, how to manage money, how money works and all of that. There's this huge cultural taboo, you know, and I say it without judgment. I mean, people would sooner share their beds with a new partner than ask them what is their financial position when you start a relationship.

It's true.

And often it isn't until you go all the way down the line and you want to get a mortgage or something together that you realize that your partner has $85,000 in unpaid student loans. And $25,000 in credit cards outstanding that you just never asked about. So it's a matter of trying to break that taboo. We're breaking a lot of taboos now. Let's break that one too. Let's talk about money. Yeah, I even have a talk I give on how to talk to your honey about money.

Oh, that's a great title. Um, Max is our oldest child and he will say to Seth, my husband, um, how much money do you make? And Seth won't answer him. Seth won't even answer him.

Yeah.

And that is so interesting. We have been trained to not talk about it. I have to say, you're right, you're right.

Well, and so, and so it's breaking that training just so that we can be better informed. And you know, when you're better informed, aren't you more confident about things?

Yes. Yes. And I, you know, I'm feeling guilty and I told you Seth is going to love you because I am not a good financial partner. I'm going to admit it right here. I feel really sad, but I'm going to fix it. I'm going to fix it because I'm embarrassed and sad and I feel bad for Seth because it's all on him. And, you know, you talk about having shared financial goals as a couple. Okay. So how can we work on that? Because I will tell you, we don't have that.

Well, that, that's all a part of How to Talk to Your Honey About Money. But, but really, it's kind of a matter of setting aside some time. I know it's our most precious commodity, but setting aside some time to sit down together and talk about what do you want to achieve as a unit, as a family, as a partnership. And isn't that the basis of a continuing good marriage, is when you look at things as a partnership? So if you can establish what your goals are together— we want to buy a bigger house, we want to take a big vacation, we want to go to Europe, we want to save for retirement— and that's a whole other conversation— but having a shared goal— we want to pay off our credit cards— having a shared goal gives you something that you can work on together. So then you can determine how much can we spend and still save for this or still pay off that, then you're working together and that enhances your relationship rather than not talking about money, being under stress, and having that be a major disconnect in your relationship. You know the causes of divorce? It's not what you think. That's number 2. Money is number 1. Hmm.

So So why is money such a huge reason for divorce? Why is that?

I think it goes back to one, that cultural taboo about not asking about things. And when you don't ask, doesn't that kind of just sit in the back of your mind and make you just a little bit concerned and crazy when there isn't enough money? I remember my mother used to say, when there's no money, love flies out the window. Um, you know, Simple but true. But also when you don't feel like the two of you are working together, that then becomes a disconnect. And also when there's an imbalance of power. So in many relationships, certainly the ones that I see in my, in my work with divorce, um, when, when one person that, when, when the husband's in charge of all the money, And when the wife has to ask for everything, it puts her in a, in a diminished position and it makes her feel insecure. It takes away her confidence. And that over time begins to build up into a major block. So that is my, that's my take on it.

It's a really good example. And I will tell you, based on the women that I know, they will probably say, my husband handles it. So how can we engage them to get more involved?

Great question. Great, great strategy. So first of all, I just want to go back a little bit. Really, they just did a study, just came out this week, that our anxiety about money is actually making women sick, emotionally, financially, and actually physically ill. And all the stress around the pandemic has just made that even worse. But money anxiety is actually making us ill. So, what is the answer? As you pointed out, the answer is how do you communicate with your husband? It can be just as simple as saying, look, I want to, you know, we're in this together. I want, if you're the primary wage earner, I want to support you in every way that I can. Let's sit down together and review where we are so that I can work with you. We can work as a team together to build our financial future. That's often a starting point. Then schedule a day. Get a sitter, either go out somewhere quiet, go sit in your backyard on the patio, or, you know, go to a restaurant or somewhere where you can be quiet after the kids are asleep, if you have any time, is great. So it's just the two of you. And then before you start that, think about what are my goals? Would I feel better if our credit cards were paid off? Does that matter to me? What are we working towards? And once you establish your values, those things that are very important to you, then it's a lot easier to take it apart and work towards building that up. Working with a financial planner can also be very, very helpful because we know how the system works. We know how to break your goals down into easily achievable pieces so that you're not just looking at the mountain You're looking at all the steps along the way. And then as you begin to work through those steps, then we suggest you celebrate. Okay. If you made it to goal number 1, even if it's a teeny weeny little one, have a glass of wine together, you know, bring home cupcakes. I don't know, whatever you like. And so you celebrate along the way and it helps you to achieve those goals while you're working on them together.

I love that. Now if you have a couple who has— does not know how to communicate about money, doesn't know where to start, can they come to you and sit down with you and you can kind of walk them through it?

Absolutely, absolutely. I'd be happy to do that. Part of my role as a financial— as a Certified Financial Planner, which I've been since 1993, is to help people break their goal, visualize their goals. I do a lot of this— visualize your goals, and then we can put money tags on them so that you have a concrete way to build towards that goal.

You're like a therapist, you know that?

No, I'm kind of like a money therapist.

You really are.

Yeah, um, you know, and, and I can help, and I can I help you put those strategies into place as well because in addition to being kind of a money therapist, I'm also an investment professional. So we have all the tools to help you not only determine what you need to do and track that, but help you actually do it.

Well, and I love your calm, patient energy. We need that around this topic.

We—

I can feel myself calming with the money anxiety in my head. And I think that what is upsetting me, and I will definitely tell Seth to listen to this, but Seth thinks that the goal is to say yes to me about everything. That's what he thinks being a good financial partner is. And that's not what I'm looking for. So I'm saying this because I think we, I think that we all have financial goals in our mind. That our partner maybe doesn't agree with, doesn't know about. And I, since I have started talking to Adrian about this topic, have realized how much Seth and I do not talk about money.

Well, so I suggest a money date.

Yes, yes.

You know, write down your questions about money. Have him write down anything that he wants to talk about, about money. Maybe he, maybe, you know, I, I don't know, maybe he is not comfortable saying no to you, so he says yes even if he really thinks I should say no. But you won't know unless you talk about it.

Yeah.

And don't we know, I mean, I know your background, Rebecca, don't we know that communication is the key to a great relationship? Yes. Even about money.

Yes. And I think a lot of us avoid the topic. And I don't think that's okay. I think that it is a hugely avoided topic.

Well, it is, and often people will avoid it because they don't want to sound stupid. Not that they are stupid, but they don't want to sound like they don't know what they're talking about. So I've put together my finance— a financial fitness boot camp for women.

Ooh, love it!

That's 8 weeks and will give you the major structures of money so that when somebody says, oh, I have a 401(k) plan, you'll know what they mean. And when they talk about financial planning, you'll know what they mean. And it's not going to solve all of your problems, but it's certainly going to give you tools that you can use, and then you can take that course, what you learn from it, and move on and learn more. But that way you won't feel weird or, I don't know, any of the feelings that people have when they talk about or hear about stuff that they just really don't understand. So many times you just glaze over.

Yeah.

And you don't have to. We can help with that.

Well, that is an excellent idea and it is so needed. And I have to tell you what just went through my head. I was thinking ignorance. I was thinking ignorance is bliss, but information is power. I think that ignorance is not bliss at all.

I agree. Information is power. And my mission is to empower women around money.

I love it. We need it. We all need it. And you know, we have these negative stories from childhood. You know, I have told Seth about, you know, like my parents' dynamics with money. He has told me about his parents' dynamics with money. Any advice to get over the stories that our parents taught us about money?

Knowing how money works, having the basic knowledge about that and about how your own finances are, is one step. Realizing that that's them and this is you, and you don't have to do the same things that they did. You know, a lot of times we want to do exactly what our parents did, and a lot of times we want to do exactly the opposite of what our parents did. It's a matter of intention, intention and mindfulness, being aware of where you are. I can help you with the actual financial data, knowing what these things are and how they work, and that's a big help. As far as not following in your parents' footsteps, That's intention.

Hmm.

That's mindfulness. And we work with that too.

Such good advice. You have so much good advice. Tell us about this amazing, fantastic book that you wrote.

Well, I went through a divorce myself, and even though I was a financial planner, I was a financial person. Um, I made a lot of mistakes that I would not recommend that my, that my clients do now. Um, back about 12 years ago, I had 3 women in a row who came in to see me, and they had each some divorce financial issues that needed to be resolved. And when the third one left, I said, thank you, God, that's my signal. This is what I need to do. So in addition to working with women who are in regular relationships and just want to know more, I focus on working with women when they're going through divorce. It's such a crazy emotional roller coaster. It's the worst time in the world to have to make the important financial decisions that you have to make then. And so I decided I would be the assistance, I would be the help, I would be the guide, because there was nobody there to guide me. So my book is, is a very readable guide to again, how to avoid becoming a financial victim of your own divorce step by step. And it's grown into a video, a virtual coaching series called Divorce Academy that's self-paced. So I would say to your people, you know, if you're in a happy marriage, congratulations, that's really the best. But odds are, you know, someone who's kind of suffering, who's not there and they need some help. Be a sister, be a friend. Let them know that there's help to be had. I'm a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst as well as being a Certified Financial Planner, and those two things together allow me to help women through that particularly challenging transition so that they won't feel taken advantage of. They can be empowered, they can have their voice as they go through the process and get what they need to be financially secure and confident on the upside.

So, so needed. And I think that anyone could benefit from reading this book, wouldn't you say?

Yes, absolutely. But if you're happily married, let your spouse know why you're reading that before you bring it in the house.

I was just gonna say that. That was Adrienne's advice to me was Tell Seth why you're reading it.

Well, and it's also available on Kindle and Audible, so if you want to access it, you don't have to bring the physical book home.

That's helpful. Um, tell us what else you want to share that I didn't think to ask you. Did you talk about all your courses and etc.?

Well, um, we pretty much, we pretty much did. We did a really good job today in covering everything.

I know.

So I wanted to talk about Divorce Academy. Which is an 8-session virtual coaching course that can really help people, whether they're thinking about getting a divorce and want to get prepared, or they're in the process, or quite frankly, if they're just getting to the end of the process, that's a big help. Financial Fitness Bootcamp is for just us. We want to know more about money, about how money works, so we can have those productive conversations with our partners. Yes, better financial partner and feel more confident as you move forward. And as a special gift for, for your listeners, your participants, I'd like to offer them a free financial clarity session. Hmm, wonderful. I'd be happy to spend half an hour with you. Tell me your biggest concerns and I'll help you map out a strategy that can help you answer where you are. Then we can see if we want to work more together. But at least I can give you a bit of a roadmap to help you out of the concerns that you're in and relieve some of that financial anxiety. So to get to that, they need to go— and we'll post this stuff on— yes, on when we, when we have this up— it's just go to calendly.com/contactagrace, and that will get you to my calendar, and you can pop in for a financial clarity session at no charge. And I really want your participants, all of us, to be financially empowered so that we can, you know, when you teach women, the community grows. Yes. So that's a major part of my mission, is to have us be financially empowered and confident and give us a pathway to move forward so that we can reach our goals.

I love it, and I love that you gave us your calendar link, but will you tell us where else everyone can go to find you?

Uh, www, of course, that transitioningfinances.com.

Perfect. Well, I can't thank you enough. This is part 1. We will definitely do a part 2, and I appreciate your time because I know how busy you are.

Well, it's my pleasure to be here, and I'm, I'm so grateful for the opportunity to reach your audience and let everybody know there is a pathway forward. There's action that we can take together. It's not hard. It's not hard at all, but you just have to start taking action.

You just read my mind. I was just thinking we just need to start.

Yes.

I'm going to make a money date with my honey.

Excellent. Excellent.

I'm starring it.

Next time we'll talk about how to talk to your honey about money.

Love it. I love it. Well, thank you, Adrienne, so much.

My pleasure.

This is Rebecca Green reminding everyone to spend every day laughing, learning, and loving.

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