Save up before your wedding and spend only what you have. The most important part of a wedding is the meaning of the marriage, not how fancy the wedding is.
In the event of a divorce, you must protect your financial interests by terminating both the marriage and the joint financial obligations. That includes credit card accounts, mortgages and jointly held loans. Refinance the loans or sell the house or car.
If joint accounts are not closed, you are legally responsible if your ex-spouse doesn't pay, no matter what the divorce decree says. Your credit can be ruined and you can get knocked out of the credit market.
Make sure to consider each spouse's retirement accounts and stock options, if there are any.
Consider divorce mediation, a less adversarial process than using lawyers, in which a mediator tries to get the two parties together to reach a fair agreement. But be sure to have any mediation agreement reviewed by a lawyer.
If your ex-spouse is months or more behind in child-support payments, consider using a collection agency. Don't pay more than one-third the amount due in collection agency fees.
Do you have trouble talking to your significant other about money? You're not alone.
New research from Fidelity Investments shows that more than 80% of spouses disagree about major issues in planning for retirement. We're talking about things like when to retire, whether or not to work part-time in retirement, lifestyle expectations during retirement, etc.
Other disturbing stats from the research show that 4 out of 10 couples don't know if they have an annuity. And only 1 in 3 couples have ever talked about what investments they should have as a couple.
That's just not healthy.
Perhaps the most telling stat of all is that only 15% of respondents said they were confident their spouse could handle the finances in the event of their death.
Couples generally only start to talk about finances and retirement when there's a problem. That's too late.
Executive producer Christa and her husband like to have what they call "money movie night" each Friday where they put a film on for their children, fire up a frozen pizza and go over their finances using Mint.com to track spending.
Make an appointment with your spouse to discuss what you have, what you want and what your goals are. This should be an ongoing discussion -- not just one talk -- but just get the ball rolling.
Online dating services have proven to be very popular, but they typically cost money to join. Until now. There are 3 new players in the market offering free online dating services:
The latter seems geared to a younger demographic, so Clark has volunteered our producer Joel as a guinea pig to post an OKCupid profile and see what kind of bites he gets! Look for a full report coming from Joel in the near future.
Negotiating frivolous spending with your spouse or significant other is particularly important in a tight economy.
Take the example of Christa and her husband Mike. Mike is known as "Name Brand Man" on the show for his love of overpriced products -- particularly pricey shaving accessories. Mike feels comfortable spending $140 on a razor handle. That's a far cry from Clark's efforts to make a single 17-cent razor last for a year!
One of Mike's recent purchases was a bottle of NXT shaving gel that has a light-emitting diode packaged directly in the clear plastic bottle. Christa was about ready to call 911 when she first saw the glowing light coming from her shower late one night. She thought there was an intruder with a flashlight in her bathroom!
Name Brand Man paid around $5 for a 7-ounce bottle of NXT. Not too bad, says Clark. But that's still 9 times more than the penny pincher paid for a larger bottle of budget shaving cream at the dollar store.
With every couple, you have to choose your battles. Christa knows she probably can't change Mike's spending habits. Each person has to decide what to let slide and what needs to be negotiated.
One word of advice about negotiating spending in a relationship: Always open the conversation by volunteering what you spend on that can given up before pointing fingers at your significant other's spending.
And if you live alone, you've got to look in the mirror and have the conversation with yourself.
Clark is often taken to task for his horrible eating habits. As a young man, his family called him "the carryout kid" because his four food groups were fried, frozen, microwavable and takeout. Listeners always tell the penny-pinching guru that his eating habits will be the death of him. But DNA also plays a big role in lifespan. Remember the controversy over the Orwellian scenario of insurers mapping out your DNA before taking you on as a customer? On a lighter note, there are now dozen of outfits that will tell you (for about $1K) what diseases or addiction problems your offspring will have based on DNA. Clark can just hear the future generations dodging personal responsibility: "But I was supposed to be an alcoholic or a cokehead based on my DNA!"
Now there's a company called ScientificMatch that promises to find you the most perfect mates based on actual physical chemistry revealed via genetic mapping. They're offering a half-price deal ($995 bucks) right now. Presumably no one will pay $2K to find a soul mate! This whole marketing push reminds Clark of the full-body scans that were being offered in the '90s. There were mobile units that would come out and see what lurked inside you.
Clark is one man who lived a true bachelor's life before getting married to his wife Lane in 1995. At that time, all he had in his home was used or damaged furniture he'd gotten at repossession sales. Over the years, his wife purged every piece of used furniture except one -- a little love seat that she still lets him keep. Life involves compromise. Clark came into the marriage with "cheap" stitched across his forehead. His wife was the exact opposite, preferring taste over budget pricing. They've each had to learn to tone down their natural inclinations a bit over the years.
Recently they were looking for a comforter set for their 2 year old, who is transitioning from a crib to a bed and really loves trains. So Lane was online and had found a train comforter that cost $320. Clark was about ready to croak over the price. He asked his wife if he could look online for a few minutes on his computer. After visiting the usual closeout/clearance sites, he found a similar train comforter set for $39. His wife looked at it, loved it and told him to make the purchase.
That's the spirit of compromise. You have to look for a place where you can meet in the middle. There was recently a story about "financial infidelity" in the media. It's so common that couples hide things from each other about money, which in turn creates distance in other areas of their lives. It's not a good idea. While Clark and Lane don't need each other's permission to spend, they try to be respectful of one another when it comes to joint purchases like those for the house. It isn't always easy; Lane believes in taste, while Clark believes in price and has no sense of taste!
There's a lot of debate about when to go to a lawyer. The truth is that in some situations they're necessary, and in others they're not. Take the situation of making a will. Most people don't have a will or they have one that's grossly outdated. The danger in those situations is that the state may decide who gets your money, or your kids could end up with that relative who is your worst nightmare when you die. People are usually reluctant to do a will because they're either afraid of death, afraid of lawyers or both! One simple way to do a will is with NOLO.com. This legal self-help service features the highly respected WillMaker software. This may be a good option if you have simple family arrangements and aren't filthy rich. WillMaker asks you questions and then pops back answers as you make your will. If you get confused, stop and see a lawyer. Or proceed with WillMaker and then pay a lawyer to review the will you create. But you definitely want to hire a lawyer if you have family members who will squabble over money, or if you have any kind of complicated family arrangements. Ditto with divorces. In some states, you can obtain a divorce yourself by using a kiosk at a courthouse. This may be a wise choice if there are no assets to fight about and there are few debts. Just be sure to hire a lawyer if there are custody or financial issues.
Lawyers get angry at Clark whenever he talks about this topic. The Texas Bar Association actually got the state legislature to make it a crime for Texans to purchase a NOLO book. NOLO got so much publicity in the process that their sales skyrocketed elsewhere. On the other end of the spectrum, Arizona is one state that's very progressive and where you don't always need a lawyer. Likewise, paralegals in California will prepare documents for you to file at a courthouse. Just for the record, Clark is not anti-lawyer. You just have to be Clark Smart about when you really need one.
Did you know the average wedding today costs around $30,000? If you go back just two generations in this country, you'll discover that people routinely got married for under $100. But if you've planned a wedding anytime recently, you know that the price tag associated with every aspect of the big day has been ballooning. Some brides have been known to pay $2,500 (and even up to $35,000!) for their dresses. Thankfully, there are a number of inexpensive wedding dresses available on the market. Retailers like Target, David's Bridal and Filene's Basement offer them in the $100-$200 range. As Clark says, your special day is not about the dress, the caterer or anything else; it's about picking the right mate. It's a day that should be about having a big heart, not a big wallet.
The average wedding today is bumping up against $30,000. And, typically for first weddings with younger brides and grooms, the parents of the bride pay for the wedding. That’s a lot of money that Mommy and Daddy have to shell out for down payments and parties, especially if the wedding doesn’t work out. The good news is that now there is a safety net for parents who foot the bill. It’s called “innocent party change-of-heart insurance,” and it allows parents to get their money back if the couple calls off the wedding at the last minute. This so-called “wedding insurance” is provided by Fireman’s Fund and it only protects an outside party that pays for the wedding. If the bride and groom pay for everything, they can’t take out the insurance. But if the parents have paid, they get their money back. Clark thinks it’s a great idea, especially with all of the people who get cold feet these days.
The average wedding today costs $27,000, but a lot of people are going the opposite way and having smaller scaled down weddings in destinations. It costs almost half what an average wedding costs. Did you know that no one had outlandish weddings until the 1970s? It was reserved mostly for royalty. But some people are spending up to $100,000 on their wedding. You need money to get started on your married life, so keep that in mind.
The average wedding costs about $20,000 these days, but some people spend $50,000 to $70,000 on a wedding. Do you have to spend that much? No way! There are outfits and Web sites out there dedicated to helping you spend as little as possible on your wedding while still having a nice one. One site, called indiebride.com does just that. In addition to offering deals on dresses and accessories, the site also has a forum where people talk about their successes and even the second thoughts associated with weddings.
Getting married anytime soon? There is a trend going on in the wedding industry that may leave you wanting to tie the knot…around the couple’s throat. Couples are now billing guests for the cost of their wedding. One couple, featured recently in the Wall Street Journal, was planning to spend $51,000 on their wedding. So they decided to charge people $150 a head – or $300 a couple. They were quoted as saying that people don’t understand how much it costs and they need to help out. What nerve! There are even a half dozen Web sites that take contributions for attending weddings. In Clark’s opinion, that’s an attendance fee. What happened to treating your loved ones to a meaningful ceremony? Living in different areas of the country can affect the cost of a wedding. For example, the average wedding in the NY area costs $38,000 while the average wedding anywhere else is about $17,000. But you don’t have to spend that much if you do your homework.
September is now the second biggest wedding month of the year, after June. So, it’s really a bad time for shop owners to go belly up because brides are left without gowns on their wedding days. It happened recently to one chain in the Northeast and Midwest known as Kaufman’s Wedding World. The stores just shut down one day and padlocked all of their doors. Brides who had paid big deposits or who paid in full suddenly were left with nothing. What happens is women pay deposits for their dresses and then they wait and hope that the dress comes in. It’s the traditional way to buy a dress, but it’s just not smart anymore. Buying dresses off the rack is much safer. David’s Bridal is one of the biggest “buy now” shops, as is Filene’s Basement, and these shops are growing in popularity. Some companies also rent wedding dresses. It costs only a couple hundred dollars to rent a dress. So, if you are planning to get married, don’t pre-order and pay ahead of time. Think of new ways to get the dress you want. Otherwise, you may be left with nothing to wear on your wedding day.
Clark thinks there are many situations when you can handle legal situations by yourself, without the need for an attorney. Arizona has been a leader in the country in this area because people there know that a lot of legal work is clerical. In addition, many people feel the law is not there to serve them anymore, so they’re handling these issues on their own. Couples are doing their own divorces themselves. If there are no legal assets and there are no kids involved, a divorce is almost entirely clerical. Some sites to use include legalzoom.com and nolo.com. A franchise organization called “We The People” also provides legal forms to people. There are now about 150 offices across the country. But some states are fighting back. Attorneys in Texas, for example, are so powerful that they made it illegal for non-lawyers to own books about the law. There was a big outrage over this, and the law has been overturned. But how crazy is that? Now, the state is trying to ban “We the People” from selling legal forms in the state. Illinois, Nebraska and North Carolina have joined in on the push. Yes, there are many circumstances when you need to consult an attorney, especially if the issue is complicated or involves a lot of money. But think about doing it yourself first.
