Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
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Joy kicks us off in Nashville, right down the road. What's going on, Joy?
hi yes um i'm out here in nashville my name is joy and i'm going through a complete reset in my early 30s i have three children and i'm trying to figure out how to restart financially after having owned a multi-million dollar company and going through a divorce so i think that that's the hardest thing that i'm working through right now wow yeah that's enough hard things i think we're good on that so where does this stand is the divorce finalized
No, it started back in June.
I had to leave because abuse and control. So I left for a week and it kind of started to snowball worse. And this is a company that we built together.
And then he just kind of started taking over everything and then started saying that I embezzled from him and that's why he has to do it.
So are there lawyers involved now? What's going on?
There are lawyers involved. He has two, and I have one. We don't even hit mediation until February. And right now, I just got assigned very, very little pay from him until everything can go out.
But like I said, I went from a lot of money down to just nothing. I've had to rebuild my own.
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Chapter 2: How does Joy's financial reset impact her life?
Twenty thousand a month. OK. Yes. Yes, ma'am. OK. And you're still both a part of this company that's still running?
My name is 50% on it. It's an LLC. It's a manufacturing company.
Yes. And I'm not working it now. I got locked out. I can't even get unemployment because he won't get me.
What do you mean you got locked out?
I don't understand how that's possible, but he is claiming that I embezzled and he is able to take control of the company because I left the home because of the alleged abuse and I took off for a week.
So no more direct deposit, paychecks, nothing? Correct. Nothing.
He started taking it into his account.
Who was saying that, though? Is it just him or are your lawyers agreeing? Like who is who is corroborating this? Is this just his story and he's doing it and you're not allowed in or are lawyers saying yes? OK, so can you go to your lawyer and say, hey, I'm 50 percent of this company. I agree. and being locked out? What happens when you do that?
We have the paperwork. We've tried to show it in court, but court keeps saying, we're going to try this in the divorce hearing. We're going to try this in the divorce hearing. Okay. When is the divorce hearing? We don't even have one set because of mediation. They want us to get to mediation first.
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Chapter 3: What challenges does Joy face during her divorce?
I just am trying to understand how that balance of power happened.
So on paper, I'm 50% legal owner of it. But you have to go through a court process. Anybody can accuse you of anything. So he was able to lock me out of the building, took all the money out of the account, and he was just able to just block me from any system that I ever created. We get to court. The court says, well, we can try this in divorce. Our focus is on the children.
There's really nothing that we can do until y'all get to divorce court. And we've gone to the judge multiple times on this. And the judge is saying the exact same thing. You're just going to have to pay her this in the meantime. And I wish I could understand that more, but that's what I keep getting told. Understood.
Okay. So how can we help you today?
Well, I guess my question is I'm going to have to try to find a path of not being able to work with him. That's just not possible at this moment. And in the future, it's not going to be possible, I guess. I don't know how to move forward because. I don't even know if I ask for a portion of the company monthly. I know he's not going to be able to pay for it. Pay me outright for the 50%.
Yeah, it'll likely be some kind of structured payout where over time you get profits of the company until you're paid up to 50% of the value that you guys all decide on with the lawyers and whoever else is involved. But for now, we just need a plan to survive right now. So you are in a rental. You have the kids a majority of the time.
And you have $2,500 coming in from him plus whatever you can make on the side.
Yes. So it ends up being right around $5,000, which I've been able to do. But still, I'm just struggling. I'm struggling with that.
You have your own bank accounts now? You've separated from him completely on that side? I've had to do all complete separation. He's not even allowed to contact me. And how much are you paying for the rental out of the $5,000? $1,750, which is really high for me. And then when you do your budget, is there any margin whatsoever? No. OK. There's no margin.
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Chapter 4: How can Joy rebuild her financial stability?
Okay. So you're going to have to force the sale of the house as part of this divorce. And that's, again, something for your attorney to fight for.
Yes, and the judge has told him he needs to do it. Well, he is delaying the process, and they can delay the process in a $2 million house. Sure. And I'm not even going to be able to look at that until probably a year down the road that it will sell.
Right, right, right. That's going to be a ways down the line. I'm not convinced that your lawyer is great. I feel like you're at the disadvantage when you shouldn't be. This is the guy that was abusive and this is the guy that you had to flee from. So find you an attorney that understands that you're the one with the upper hand, not him. And that's the best advice I can give you.
Luckily, nothing's on fire financially. You're just going to have to keep going until the divorce proceedings. Cover your four walls. And if you can't pay the mortgage on the house he's living in, tough cookies.
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John is with us up next in Bowling Green. What's going on, John? Hey, guys. How are you? Great. How can we help today? Okay, so we've been in the baby steps for two years. We started out with $268,000 in debt after that RV we bought several years ago before we started listening to y'all. We've been trying to sell it, but over the last three years, I've had nine surgeries and been pretty sick.
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Chapter 5: How can you effectively manage two full-time jobs?
How can you work two full-time jobs effectively? That's a question for another day. Are you sleeping? Are you circular breathing around the clock? I don't know. And you're not God, so you can't just push all of your emergencies to when you're retired. That's not how it works.
So this idea you're going to get the emergency fund later, the emergencies are going to come before you're ready for it at this point. Always. They always do.
Chapter 6: What steps should I take to build an emergency fund?
I would pause investing and just stack up cash for three months, keep it in high yield savings. You'll do it so fast. Don't invest that money. Keep it liquid and you'll sleep better at night. If you're sleeping at all, Toby, we don't know. No, he's not sleeping. He's left us with more questions than answers. He's an android. Goodness gracious.
Is this when he has like two laptops and he's like on Zoom calls on both and he has like a little stick figure of Toby over here to fake it? He has an AI Toby. That's sketchy. All right. Stephanie's up next in Louisville, Kentucky. What's going on, Stephanie?
Chapter 7: How can I prioritize my budget to save money?
Hi, Jayden George. Thank you so much for taking my call. My question is, so we just finished Baby Step number three, me and my husband. I went into my 401k contribution to bump that up to 15% while we were planning out our budget. And we immediately got, like, bummed out because it wiped out all of our extra money.
cash that we were planning on maybe kind of increasing our spending or having a little extra money to throw at the house or save up for a new mom van because I'm currently driving a 2005 Honda Odyssey with only one working sliding door. So that's where we're at right now. We're kind of bummed and I don't know where else to go because I don't think we really live outside our means.
What are your total expenses versus your take-home pay?
Our take-home pay is about, well, pre-tax is $3,800. After taxes, it's like $3,200. Okay.
So then we've got like... How much is your mortgage? I guess the 401k.
It's about, that's the one thing that I think we might be able to have legal room on. Our mortgage is $1,500, but it's a 30-year. And yeah, it's about 20%, I think, of our pre-tax.
Well, that's where your problem is. Is your monthly take-home pay $3,200, or is that biweekly? Oh, that's biweekly. Oh, okay.
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Chapter 8: What is the best way to approach financial planning for retirement?
I was about to say, well, there you have it. You gave us a heart attack over here. We were like, that's all of the problem. Okay, so $6,400. Is that after the retirement contributions are taken out?
The $7,700 is our before-tax... Monthly income.
Okay. Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out how much margin is really there after the 15% and healthcare premiums, all that comes out. And you're saying, hey, we got nothing left at that point. Yeah. Are you guys, do you do 10% tithe or do you do a higher percentage of giving? What's your giving look like?
Our giving is about like 5%. 401k is at like 15%. Taxes, I guess, are another 15%. The mortgage is 20%. Groceries is 10%.
Eating out is about five. Do you have daycare? Anybody in daycare?
No, health insurance is about eight. No, we don't have any daycare. We have diapers and I mean, all the normal things, oil changes and home maintenance.
Do you have a bunch of sinking funds?
No, I guess we have a Christmas budget. We had to bump up recently. That's $200 per month, but that's just so we can be prepared for Christmas.
The reason I ask is sometimes a bunch of sinking funds can kind of drain off margin if you have them set year-round and you're just doing a little bit, but you're doing a bunch of them. I mean... I'd want to take a look at your budget because obviously, yeah, mortgage should be no more than 25 percent, 15 percent for investing, 10 percent giving. That's 50. That's half gone right there.
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