MtoM #198: Financially Recovering From a Divorce and Finance 101: The Importance of Both Spouses Working Towards Financial Goals Together
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This is the White coat investor podcast milestones to millionaire, celebrating stories of success along the journey to financial freedom.

This miles on the millionaire dcs number one ninety eight, financially recovering from the divorce motor group is a premier real estate investment firm focused on the multiple family properties and both ground up and D, U, D projects in the competitive markets of new ork cities since the early two thousands, with over three hundred million and asses and management over thirty investments since inception, the fully integrated firm model lows more to maximize fiction, ency and value across their investments in these niche markets.

Moral leverages over two decades of experience and architecture development and asset management, their projects to build value and minimize risk for investors. Invest in tax efficient, high return risk justice strategies with mortar W A Y code investor dot com flash murder. Welcome back to the poncas.

It's always good to have you here. We're working with a, with limited ability here, Megan. I both have arms and splits today.

So we got two useful hands between the two of us, but we're still putting this together for you as best we can. We got something coming up this week. You're listening to this this week, and this is a you know, thanksgiving week and I hope you're thankful for something. But come the day after thanksgiving, they're gonna some things around here that you can be even more thankful for because we've got some some plans around here for a first stuff you may be interested in. So pay attention this week to the blog, uh and we mentioned on the podcast next week.

But uh, we've got some cool stuff coming up this week as far as White coat investor goals, all right, we have got a great interview today, a miles one we have done before, which I think could be pretty interesting to hear, and then stick around afterward, working, talk about for a few minutes. Sy, importance of both spouses working together toward your financial goals. Our guest today on the milestones podcast is a roup. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, great bear.

Now we're doing a milestone today. I don't think we've ever done on this podcast before. I mean, this is episode one ninety eight. I don't think we've done this one, which is essentially recovering financially from a divorce. So I I hate to congratulate you on this milestone because I know it's a terrible milestone to go through, but I do want to congratulate you on the recovery and and thank you for coming on to inspire others dealing with this relatively common financial catastrophe to also get through IT. So thank you very much for that.

yeah. No, thank you. I'm i'm glad to be here. And you know i've still only found inspiration in many of the stories I hear from decision early in training and in making you know to mentally safe financial decisions and the joy I feel at the same time, there's a voice in the back, my heading, not my story. And you know, having friends who are going through what I went through fifteen years ago, it's it's not their current story either. So again, thanks for help me on and and you really have to share my moston.

Let's start with a little bit background information. Tell us what you do for a living, uh, what part of the country you live in, how far you are at a training, uh, when you got married in your career, and that how long has been .

since to the worse. So live in our state, new york, which for those who are not made with new york, not new york city, you know, very pastoral, beautiful agricultural land, rolling hills about two and half hours away from new york city. So, beautiful area.

Unfortunately, new york is also a higher tax area. So there is that I I guess i'll start to start. I grew up in the northeast of my whole life.

You grew up outside of boston, went to underground, you errors, went to medical school, U. S. Medical school, and graduated one thousand ninety nine. I had a little circuitous path to finding my uh, calling nanny's ology but you know in two thousand three finishes the log training in boston and have been in practice ince so initially in practice for a couple different uh practices and then for the last sixteen or so years at albany medical center here in albin, new york. And then I guess the other questions are married right out medical school back in ninety nine and divorce in twenty .

ten and tell us a little bit about your financial success, your level of uh you know financial success prior to getting divorced. I mean, you were an attending that sounds like for about seven years before you got divorced. How are you guys doing financial?

So I would say as long as we kept working, we were doing fine. But in terms of, you know the stories we hear and we share an on y code investor, that was not the story. He was much more kind of anticipating higher you know salaries and and uh money coming in in the future and so almost living off the future, higher earnings, which again not a great position to be in.

Um but we were living well. We had purchased a beautiful house and enough state new york and again for our first house purchase. Probably bigger than uh then should have at the time.

But financially we're doing OK but just not you know significant savings uh you know putting some money into entire as and into four three bees, but not significant savings. A lot of that was um servicing that called debt and then really serving death that we had accumulated along the way. In terms of um consumers spending.

do you think you had a positive networks .

by twenty ten? Oh, by twenty.

no is still a negative networks at that point?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So um at that point still probably upwards of uh forty fifty thousand and student that for medical school mortgage uh couple car allows addition to credit card baLances. No, definitely not a positive network.

okay. So you get divorced. And what wealthy I had just got cut in half. Person bly, your income just got cut in half. At what point did you kind of start becoming financially literate?

Pretty immediately there after when I think the financial reality that was laid down in front of me became, you know, IT IT was sort of uncertain table where he was going. Okay, this what's coming in? This what has to come out? This is not sustainable, especially with the death that that I have on the books at that point. So I think at that point, IT was a very quick you know, introspection and then really aggressive exercise to change that baLance and figure out how quickly that baLance could change because again, IT was not going to work moving forward. I mean, we're talking in months to month things unclear of of Howard going going to pay for what you know.

i'm just getting by now. So you had this massive budget in pressure, pressure you you have to budget hours. The money just doesn't work at all, right?

Uh, so what did that inspire you to do? Did you go to the library, get books? Did you start, you know, participating on the internet and forum? Did you start listen to financial podcast? What were your steps in order to start learning about this money stuff?

So I had just completed an executive B A um which you know that point was kind of the radical numbers where he was like OK you know business does you know whatever um so that became any immediate exercise like okay, here's my actual you know cash coming in. Here's my actual cash coming out. You know, I think some books that helped along the way.

I reread the millionaire door, which you might read a decade prior, and then IT IT hit home in a very different way. So I think the force budgeting was was a couple of things. But look, bit of you know financial literally online and then just, uh, the reality, what I was living of just trying to get to you know making the next month Better than the current one.

okay. Well, let's talk about your financial pathways since twenty ten. I'm you you're continuing to workers anesthesiologists. I think most of us know an ac ologies are relatively well paid doctors, but tell us about uh about your final financial pathway from twenty .

ten until now. Yes, I think several aspects of the puzzle a came together well. So from that point forward, you know, I think there wasn't quite the the counter, the limited number of anties all this then that there are now.

So salaries were still rustly stable. But I, you know, having just complete the M B A, as I got as an an entrepreneur, what can I do you? I'm enormously well trained, a clinically, and lida, I need to have more recent coming in to dig out of the hole.

So I I came up with short term plans and monger term plans. So the short term was okay. I've got very marketable skills that you know, at that time, not everybody was fully versed in the things that we were doing.

So one of the examples as ultra sound guided regional anesthesia, which now is common place, everyone does IT, but at that time, especially the song community hospitals, uh, hospitals, you know, driving distance from albini wasn't done. So IT was this this very marketable skill that I started reaching out to hospital, say, hey, you know, I can help you develop an ultrasound guided nerve block program or a regional anesthesia program. I can teach your physicians how to do these blocks, uh, and am happy to come out and do that.

So that was, I think, one part of IT. Another part was non clinical, non outside the homework. So things that I could do after hours after the kids went to bed, but that was that would still use my my abilities, my board surfacing all of that. So looking at um cases through new york state, through the O P M C, the office of professional medical conduct and then also doing some mechanical al practice work where I would look at review cases and and potentially do some plant to for defendant work. So those were two of the main ones that you open battle.

increase your income. You work really hard to increase your income. That was first step. What else?

Eliminating bad debt. So you know all the debt that I had on the books, and those who are prioritized to saying, okay, this is, you know, like has to go immediately. These can go down a little bit. So things like credit cards, and I had I R S fact, taxes that had to be put to those were immediate, where you know that I am not paying interest on things from the past. So those aggressively repaid with that additional money coming in to those are some similar pieces.

And uh, and fourteen years on, how are you doing? I mean, are you approaching F I? Are you uh uh, comfortable million aire where where we had in your life now?

So I would say i'm about comfortable in that you know the H I think to me the notion of comfortable means, you know I can step away from working and and and be done and hang out and you know uh cycle and and do other stuff uh, foremost of the time. So I would say and I think also Operating, why is as a first generation immigrant being able to walk away? I mean, it's not something I have thought about, but i'll say very different networks.

So over seven figures, which is a very different place from where I was fifteen years ago. I think couple of things we've done. I've i've subsistences gotten remarried, found amazing as c to have you know spent a the last decade with um the last decade plus with. And so we finally just last year, I think we met with a financial planner to you know, we've been looking at all of our accounts and baLances ourselves, but then I think to spending about just make sure that assumptions we had were true. We're born out and make sense to someone else.

So that was, I think, very helpful and gratifying to say that, okay, you guys are on track to really have a lot of choices here in the near future, both in terms of how much you're working, are you're working full time, how long you're working for, you know, where do you want to where do you want to stop working, which we're onest ly questions. I hadn't really considered, you know what, the kids that always kind of been thinking that I am not going to work till, you know, I can't work anymore, whether the ability to have that conversation and think like, well, I could really not work in the same way that I am in seven years and ten years and in whatever. But it's now our decision of when we want to call about.

So we're still playing with that a little bit. I think I think the current horizon is about will continue working for about ten years and then see where we are um whether we go part time because again, it's work that I enjoy tremendously still. I mean, I love taking care of the patients I take care of.

I love interacting with surgeons. The nurse is not the air incredible environment. So they can to have that .

choice is very different. Now you are yet pay almonte, I assume did you have pay almonte? And how many years did you have pay for?

Yeah, so not alone is on paying child support, which um continues through another couple years.

Okay um because your x was a employed and uh income as well as that the reason in another family. Okay, yes. And uh I imagine you know getting married again, you know given your financial history, you probably discuss finances a little bit more you know before are getting married in early in the marriage tell about some of those conversations you had with with your new spouse yeah.

I think the conversations are very different and I think our lifestyles very different. I mean, I think we really focus on saving you know a lot as much as we can, you know our majority of expenses around their kids. I mean they play yes, tennis.

So a lot of tennis coaching, travel um court time and then really an aggressive focus on retirement goals and where we're going and what that timing looks like. So the conversations are different. Our finances are um separate, you know. So that's different as well where we have got a clear delineation of you know who's paying what and and how things expose everything kind of going into a common part. And just, you know, going out.

did you decide that I mean, that's relatively rare among financially successful people to divide your your finances. Did you decide to do that as result the prior divorce?

Ity thing I think was partially inertia c because I mean, I think at that point, we were both you know he had been in practice for several years. I've been know through this financial calamity and so we didn't never discuss really putting them together. And and IT seemed to work pretty well and has working very well. But so you know any major expenses, you car solar panels, whatever was to figure out you know who is saying watch share and you know we make those decisions together yeah .

now there's somebody out there is gone through a divorce now or just got divorced. Watch their income get cut in half, watch their assets get cutting half. What hope can you give that person about their financial future?

Yeah you know daily it's i've got a friend right now in in practice who's going through a very tough time, doesn't know the next stepper isn't sure of what he should do and I think of the mental state was in and in mental health and where I was I mean, he was IT was a bleak time where you're kind of stuck.

You're not happy and you just you know the unknown is is very scary ah and and and that's exactly this is like, well, everything i've worked for is going to be gone no say but I think of where I was at that time and and again there was a very tough, bleak time um you know completely shut out my friends didn't tell them really anything. Maintain appearances like things you're fine as well. I I was becoming had become a very different person.

So you know, when I see friends of mine who are in that day, IT really compelled me to share my stories that he look, there's you got a law living love to do and you know, you're still ratio Young I an you know, fifty one now with friends of mine, you know, you still have hopefully thirty plus years of, you know, how long can you find them staying on this? And so I think the happiness, peace is is key where, you know I think you have to wait, you know, taking that next step, those next steps, even though, uh, they may be very tough financially, they may be very chAllenging emotionally. The other side gets you to a place where you you know you will be OK and you can work through IT and you know maintain that happiness and and keep a very positive perspective of our lives. So I think it's it's a tough, tough position and it's a very difficulty sonar choice with family you know involved in IT. I think for you know just happiness, success, really not in financial, just emotional and you know having the best life you can live, it's important to to get through to the other side.

Well, a congratulations to you on your finance of recovery from this and thank you for being so willing to come on and be vulnerable and talk about you know this past way you've been down and hopefully I can be used to provide a little little inspiration to somebody else um dealing with similar issues so thank you very much. Been come on the podcast.

look how do to do so and in again um if if my story, uh you know someone else driving down the highway get to work at five in the morning and they like omega h that that's where I am. He will be worth IT.

okay? I hope you found that interview interesting and useful to you, particularly those of you who have been through divorce or going through divorce right now. IT is a financial catastrophe.

Terrible thing to go through is not just financial leader, is to be hard emotionally and physically and all kinds of things. So we emphasize with you if you are dealing with a divorce or if you've ever had to. Um there's a few things that a rupee going for him right now. They weren't managing money very well. They are kind of typical doctors prior to the divorce.

But the fact that he was married to somebody that that was high income and married somebody that's also high income, certainly blunted a lot of how hard that could have been in, right? A lot of doctors out there are married to non owners or low owners, and you really do catch your income and your h acts in half when you get divorce. And um and so that I can be very, very hard is illustrated ves that even you know two higher nars know seven years out of training you can blow at all, right?

You can spend all of your income, trust me, it's is entirely possible, especially if you live in a high costs me live in area high taxes. You know you you buy some things you haven't just saved up for and so you're paying in a bunch interest on IT. It's not that heart to blow through.

A doctor income is not that hard to blow through two doctor incomes that happens all the time. When you look at midnight cape surveys, you'll see that uh of doctors in their sixties, about a quarter of them were not millionaires. A few years ago, they used to break that out for those with the networks of less than half a million.

And IT was eleven to twelve percent of doctors in their sixties. Is a shocking statistic, right? IT is amazing. You think about somebody. This presumption had twenty, twenty five, thirty, thirty five years of physician level incomes, right? You know, there might be ten million dollars and have less than half a million dollars of IT.

And a lot of times the story is, want a tragedy IT involves disability or somebody dying, or a divorce for someone that, but much more often is just blow on the money, is just not paying attention, is just zero budget in whatsoever and I you know a lot of people aren't just spending everything they make. They're spending more right? Um I remember being shocked in medical school.

We had like one finance talk in medical school is actually a really good one. IT was a husband of a dog who came in and talk to us, uh and gave an example. I think IT was I was an automotive gist, the example that was a making three hundred and twenty five thousand dollars year and spending three hundred fifty thousand dollars.

And I thought, how can that possibly happen? But clearly, that happens all the time. So don't ever assume you can spend your entire income residents out there.

I know this seems crazy, but I assure you that happens all the time. And I promise you, I just can talk a little bit about spouses. okay.

And had a good example in this podcast about sales, but you and your spouse don't actually have to be on the exact same financial page to be successful, but you probably do need to be reading from the same. But OK, you got to be a more or less moving in the same direction. Most people, as I mention the podcast, uh, when they get married, they combine their finances.

And I think that's usually pretty wise. There's some real benefits to doing that one year just more likely to work together, right? Everything goes into the same pot.

You view your entire asset allocation together. And you know if you need your own individual money that you can spend without being an accountable to your partner, you can take that back out. As you know, when allowance essentially and k united that for a number of years in our lives. I can remember back in the early days in medico, I think I allowance twenty years a month.

IT wasn't a lot, but there was money we could spend without having to account to our partner for and when we kept I going for a number of years, he told became a silly exercise, just didn't matter to us anymore but if you need do that do that um now are there a few reasons to keep finances separate? There can be no IT does work for some people. For some people, IT works pretty well.

And so to deny that nobody can never be successful while doing that would just be wrong. Even though I think most people are to combine finances. Some reasons I can think about you might want keep them separate is especially if you're bringing a ton more money into the marriage, there's some asset protection concerns there obviously is very rare to lose money of your patients right above policy list.

Judgments that aren't reduced on appeal are extraordinary rare. It's not unusual. Lose money to your business and to divorce at all though and so if your parents have left to use some huge trust fund, you know maybe that's a reason why IT makes sense to actually have separate finances.

You know if you've already been in a marriage before or you get married when you're fifty five or something, right, you have already built a lifetime of wealth. Maybe you makes sense to keep those things separate because when you mingle, things together is now exposed in uh, potential future divorce. So there are some reasons why people keep separate finances that actually make quite a bit sense for those who who got married.

We were poor. We didn't have squad and our spouse whispered and didn't have squad. You know you're going to splitting thing in the worse anyway, right? Split your income.

You split in your assets. And there is very little reason to keep separate finances in those sorts of situations. Well, however you manage the finances, you do need mixture.

You're on the same financial page, and I think the best way to do that is what we call a monthly budget meeting. Now you can call whatever you want. I don't know.

You call money date night, I don't know. This even have to be every month, I guess IT doesn't. But i'd start with every month in the beginning. And the truth is after year or two or three of doing this and after a couple doing a couple of after big financial changes in your life, IT gets more or less on autopilot, right? Because you're on the same page, at least reading from the same bug here.

You know on one the page, the other person just done ready maybe, but you're clothes, you're more less doing the same thing and keeping yourselves a line as you go through your financial lives is very, very powerful. Now the other day, uh, from time to time, I am mostly moved the investments around as we're kind of a traditional situation that way. Kitty mostly tracked the spending in our budget process.

Uh, I mostly tracked the investments and move the investments around from time to time. We switch IT up a little bit. And I have heard, you know, buying investment or I ve heard pull money out of the five twenty nine for news map use and make sure he can do all the necessary steps so that in the event that I fell off a mountain, smashed my head, SHE can take over.

Now, obviously, that's a very real situation, our lives. But you know, maybe you just have thought about those sorts of things happen in your life. Can your spouse take over what is the, what is the plan something happens to your spouse? So have you designated a financial planner for them to go work with? Those sorts of things ought to be discussed from time to time in your monthly money date meeting whenever you want to call the hope that helps to you.

Uh, condolences st. everybody. After who's been through divorce or going through divorce now, I know it's not easy.

I hope this podcast was helped to provide you some inspiration. There is light at the end of the tunnel. IT is not an ongoing coming train. This too shall pass. Moral group is a premier real estate investment firm focused on multifamily properties and both grounds up and value at projects and the competitive markets of new york cities.

Since the early two thousands, over three in a million and asset under management, over thirty investment since in section that fully integrated for a model lows more order to maximized efficiency and value across their investments in these niche markets. Modern leverages over two decades of experience in architectural development and asset management, their projects to build value and minimized risk, investors investing tax efficient, high return risk of justice strategies with mor group and White code investor. That comes slash mortal.

Alright, we come to the end of another milestone to millionaire dcs. We're grateful to have you here. Thank you for being in part of the audience. Without audience, the podcast is pointless. There is zero point. We want you to be successful in your lives, both professionally, emotionally, in your relationships and also and we think that financially, uh, no successful, financially comfortable doctors can be Better dogs, can be Better partners and Better parents. They can focus on that, which matters most in life.

So what you want to help teach you there, if you accomplish the milestone, no matter bigger how small you might be, we'd like to celebrate IT with you and use that to inspire others to do the same. You can apply to come on podcast, a White investor outcomes slash milestones keep IT up shoulder back. I'll see you next week.

The host of the White code investor are not licensed to countless attorneys or financial advisers. This podcast is for your entertainment and information only. IT should not be considered professional or personalized financial advice. You should consult the appropriate professional over specific advice relating to your situation.