hi everybody i am jodi toeclips your host of week to me divorce to core imagine waking up and feeling homeless in your own home looking around and nothing feels like it used to wheedle me house divorced adults and their kids feel happy and comfortable in their space once again as they go through we to me married to single through the uplifting positive psychological impact of color and design all of this works well to create a sense of permanency and restore emotional wellbeing after the nightmare of divorce having said that it's not just about your house but it's also about the other factors in your life after divorce are super important so as you all know i always have a special guest with me every single week and my special guest is diane taylor she is an a a financial person extraordinaire she is an expert she speaks she teaches she's helped me in my life well we'll talk about that but she knows everything there is to know about finance especially as it relates to divorce and today we're going to specifically talk about divorce and renting versus owning a home after your divorce having said all that i'm going to let diane introduce herself as well as and tell us a little bit about yourself mr taylor thank  thank you for having me today my pleasure third time on the show by the way i think you know why i can't i love you i can't stand it you have to be here i am a certified financial planner and i specialize in working with individuals going through the divorce process yes you do so somebody who's been through that process myself and having made decisions and having made mistakes along the way i'd like to share my wisdom that in helping people make the right choices for themselves during this process yeah that's really really important because i think for me personally finances are you know i can't figure out the tip in a restaurant so i have you know imagine going through a divorce and then trying to figure out you know renting versus selling and what you do with your finances how do you find money when you think you don't have it but why don't we start why don't we start with the pros and cons of renting verses owning a home after your divorce and why  their their good points and their bad points but what do you tell us what you think you know give us some tips you know and most clients that come in to me they're selling their marital home and they immediately want to buy a new home yeah which is great and we all want that sense of permanen we want to put on our roots again but i found and maybe you have to that that first year after divorce is really a year of transition oh yeah you are finding yourself again what you think you want the day you get divorced which is typically what i had before i don't want to lose what i had i want that same home or same type of home same lifestyle to feel like a big failure it does yeah like a big tell your last something real big so you're  sort of want to keep that same consistency and the same lifestyle and same type of house but i found that going through divorce would change and that first year is really a big change spot finding who you are and who you want to be on your own yeah so i think that weighing the option of renting versus buying is is huge so one of the first big advantages of renting would be that flexibility yeah that's important and you know i did both i know and consulted you on both granted for two years and now i own so yeah tell that let's talk about in our stories in the difference in that yes yes so i rented also after my divorce i didn't know that did i did not know that i financial planner everyone's like oh you're throwing money away if you're renting i don't agree with that especially if you look at it as a short term solution to the issue of where am i going to live yeah so it really gives you the flexibility because you don't know i year from now where you're going to be you may get a new job you may have somebody new in your life you may want to live in a different style environment perhaps you was in a very traditional home yeah and i know you know for me that i've kind of come out of my several have you come out of your shell and through and the color earth you're brought into my life through your through your street sense of color have really changed to i am as a person and what i want my surroundings to look like yeah i think it's actually brought you always been that person but it brought you out it did right it brought you out to the to what life isn't and in bracing everything that you can have yes yeah not important so you really keep that flexibility if you're renting because it's very costly if you're going to go and buy a home and suddenly decide a year later this isn't me this isn't who i want to be this isn't wearing want to live yeah you really need to own a home for is at least three to five years even a little longer to kind of recruit those up front costs show of purchasing a home and allowing time for some equity to build up so i think it's so important to have that flexibility and that what you want and like what you said about you know the right not feeling like you're throwing money away it's really not true it's not many people do think that yes yes they do also cash flow wise i think it's an important again you're finding out what your budget is you've got half the income potentially of what you had before i your learn and how to manage your assets and your finances on your own so having a little less cost is going to be important in that first year one in your kind of trying to navigate that that you budget yeah so having that less costly option is is really important y that's really important i found i found that having experience both i learned a lot about renting again because i had only a home for twenty years and before that i owned my own place so it was a different experience for me it was it was nice not having to i know you're going to talk about it was nice not having to worry about those extra expenses which i know you're going to the things that could happen the things i could happen and that's that's a really big part of it because you're not responsible then for maintenance and repair or you know some people move into their homes and suddenly they find out the roof is leaking or they need a new furnace that happened to me the new furnace i had two weeks and and suddenly it's thousands or even tens of thousand dollars in expense that you didn't anticipate and it's scary because you're now doing that on your own and you know these decisions so have that time to not have to fruition somehow let it go through you see what it's like to be in the neighborhood the neighbors the dry cleaners all those things that you had in a different location now are going to be somewhere else and you have to take all that in you're going to learn a lot about yourself that's thing is learning about yourself i did i learned a lot yes yeah and with that goes the last responsibility so if you're not owning home when you're renting right you're going to have more time for fun yep you're not going to be out there mo ing the lawn or having to shovel snow or worrying if something clogs i mean to call a plumber and fix things you're going to have that time to discover the new you on the weekend you're going to go and have fun instead of having to clean up the gutters and maybe doing a lot of weeding and things like that yeah so that less responsibility and having someone else the landlord to rely on for that year or so  transition is really critical why put that extra pressure on yourself yeah that's so true you could still be going to the divorce process mine took a few years to get through and you just if you can eliminate as much stress as possible  a good way to do it right yeah exactly right and for me i think if i had either stayed in my marital home that would have been a nightmare but if i think if i had purchased i have to agree with you i think if i had purchased right away i think it would have been a huge mistake because i learned while i was renting it's almost like practice living it is you know i think we're going like this little video well this is what this is what i'm doing this is what it's like to go to the grocery shopping by myself and not worry about making another meal for someone this is what it's like to walk out the door and make friends with my dry cleaners now like i did in my old space as you start learning and you wait a minute i don't know if i like this neighborhood so much you're i found after living in my place for two years there were certain things that i knew that when i purchased i wouldn't i would change and i would know that if i had just gone from one house to another or owning i should say it doesn't have to be a house whatever you own it so i think a lot of people want what they had you know it's a sense of their own like oh so if you lived in a big large traditional home yeah you feel like i need another big large traditional home however yeah i think you know going through the process of divorce we change and we often change for the better and we get more clarification about what we want not about what you had to have with your spells and what he or she was wanting but really what do you want maybe  formal dining room maybe you don't want to entertain like that you want to open concept you have things follow so you don't need that separate space maybe you want a nother private space for yourself or yo government meditation room so if you have that time to kind of figure out how you want your home to be it's a wonderful it's a wonderful learning curve a long wonderful learning process and the more you know about  your space and your finances the finances i think set you free i think a lot of times people are i was i was i was very worried about money because i didn't i didn't know where it was i didn't know really where was show me the money where the hell is it i don't think i have enough or this or this and i would go to you and you would you would like wait a minute i found something here and you can take this and you can do this and you were very creative in helping me for number one being a person who has you know that part of my brain is all about creativity i'm not great with the numbers so you took a lot of that anxiety away from me and you made me feel really good about what i even what i didn't have by showing me what i had it was it was amazing so i think there's a lot of anxiety that's lifted and financial freedom happens when you when you know what you have and what you don't have because now you have you have boundaries that you can follow whereas before you know sometimes if there's two people involved in my case i wasn't really aware of what was going on the other end and that happens quite often it's you know maybe your spouse was taking care of all the bills yeah and i find that with my clients they don't really know what the household expenses were yeah you don't really can relate jennifer i it's very difficult to do that require right i didn't realize i put that much money into this and that yes yes so that's one of the great things about renting is that predictability you know you're going to have just rent payments and your utilities but you don't know what your costs are so it's sort of like being on training wheels you're going to have that that year of transition to get used to paying those bills that maybe you weren't paying before ok to fall off the bike so bad but but there's also a nice sense of safety in knowing that predictability of what your bills that number yes yes so it's a great sense of of comfort in in having that and having that predictability and the owning part of it has its ups as well owning definitely has a lot of really does you know you have that sense of permanency yes and you can make the place your own you know that you're going to be there for a long time so yes owning a home should be the ultimate goal yes i think so but i think that renting should not be totally discounted at least for a short term time i agree with that transition i agree with that there are some disadvantages to renting as well so i want to just go through some of those one of those is the loss of the tax deduction of yes as well you know i could write off all of this and that would be great  and that's true so you will lose some of that potentially so what i do for clients is a tax projection to make sure that they're going to be getting the benefit of the mortgage interest write off and the property tax write off because that may not always be the case perhaps you don't have enough write offs to itemize on your to actually drive so then you're not going to get any advantage to the homeownership was me my office is in my house literally and i have a designated space with she taught me i had to have and i do it so literally in the whole floor of my office yes and i can write that off i can take a third of everything electricity the mortgage all of that stuff which is wonderful right it's great you can't just do it if you have a corner in your house that's also saved your bedroom and all of this is my office note your bedroom in the people don't always know that no that's very specific because the the i r s will come check that out what they will they will also make sure it's great to know that you can write that off and and that's very instrumental in determining how much you can afford yes it's a purchase right right because the  cost of homeownership is going to be very different yes we're looking at the after tax effect yeah that's huge work with a financial professional in making this decision because there's a lot of variables that go into it to determine whether or not you're going to be able to make the same place that same price point if you didn't have that third floor for my office even though even if it was cheaper yes i would have spent more money living in the cheaper place than the more expensive place because i can write off a third then take advantage of professionals that's so true surround yourself with professionals all the time because that's credibly important one of the other disadvantages of renting and then i hear all the time from my clients who don't even want to consider  much as far as equity because your first year or two of mortgage payments are almost all interest that's true very little goes to the principal so you're not going to be giving up a lot by just renting for a short period of time it makes so much sense to really make a good decision and move to the right area the right neighborhood do it correctly yes don't just run and be impulsive right and buy things as an emotional is very emotional can you eight hours later i had a mortgage approval a my credit score was messed up because of a mistake that someone else made you fix that movie and i walked out of your office breathing because i haven't breathed for a while and you knew you knew then what you could afford i did that was the more i knew the number i didn't know what i care for i mean first of all don't think i could get anything i was a mess i didn't think so i was but you rented for that i rented for two years to years and that gave you the time to put everything into place so when you were ready to buy we were able to just run all the numbers and it was perfect i had settled into a pattern of living a living pattern like you know you gotta think about what your pattern for even buying food how often how much do you spend on do your hair what do you all these things are pattern now that you moved and you need to observe them yes and then all that stuff has to be brought to you or someone like you but you are you really do make sure that you know how to reach or when we get to the end you'll you give out your number and all that but yeah you really do need that person to guide you just like you know me guiding someone to their house after divorce it's the same thing they don't know what to do yes and you help me i did i did my home now feels like my home yeah it's about you is about me yeah you know but i was just some you know why are tweak some color of course  but what is the big transformation that made yeah it makes all the difference in the world and you know i always tell people about the renting thing you have to create that sense of permanency there as well which you're going to there sure dog does not bark he told me that this is a real landlord we're talking about first names begins with an r that's all i could say yeah just make sure your dog doesn't bark make sure yeah don't hang anything up and most of all don't paint everything should remain white right talk about not feeling permanent and feeling like you're going to be up you know leaving any minute it's awful it is awful socially you really want to be able to make that partially your space  hard and stylish and it felt like you thank you and all that's done with color the psychology of color which you know i always talk about if you remember of course you do that was a plain old white apartment and i  i made sure that it was dark deep rich blue walls which made the apartment look lush medical larger the darker the color the larger the space it was amazing it just all worked out really well so just by changing color and putting the proper scale furniture and lace minit you don't have to you guys you don't have to own it but you can feel like it you own it just by doing something as simple as that that's all you need to do and it's wonderful so yeah that's what i did yeah  great solution for renting it's color placement and scale that's all you have to know when you own it then you can go a little further and cornell change appliances or punch out a wall or rip out some tile but those roots we want to make it our own so that's that's a big part of trying to make that decision to rent but the tradeoff is that flexibility that you have and just knowing that if you are making a decision to rent that it's only going to be a short period of time and eventually are going to be in that home but it's going to be the perfect home for you right because you've learned you learned what you want you're going to have that time a transitional time to figure out who you are where you want to live and don't discount that in that time period someone else may come into your life this is true this does happen and if you've committed them to buying a home in a particular area a particular size home it may not fit with that new person in your life and it's very costly to unwind if you've only lived in the house a short time you know you have to you have to like my next guest you know who's going to be on then the commitment is when you purchase so now you've dated your space for a while i like that dating you're saying that that's kind of cool if you do your space for a couple years maybe write bigger space write that down and then you make the commitment to purchasing which marriage marriage or order relations are now as you know whatever he really is to be in whatever form you know we may not like the word marriage for a while i don't know some people are different some people are ok with it but that's really kind of a cool way and also what is neat is learning how to date your money date your finances learn about your finances when you're dating your learning what to watch what is that i need to know about this relationship having a relationship with money i did not i had a fear of it just so you taught me how to date my money and then you help me decide if i should be engaged to my money and i am now there was p from so much less fear around oh you just need to fit yeah you need to know i think any time people i fear what did they say fear of the unknown i think fear is based on not knowing yet so when you don't know something your mind goes all over the place you're you're living in the future and when you live in the future you can be afraid yes you live in the past you can be angry and better but if you live in the now and learn what it is you don't have to be afraid because here it is this is what i have it's tangible i have eczema i mean money is tangible this is what i have this is what i have to work with very simple but not when you're doing it on your own and even if you feel like you're good with your finances i'm going to say this if i'm not but i i surround myself with people who are but even if you are you still need someone like diane because whatever you think you know you don't know it all it's not possible it's not you know you're current on everything and there are there are also creative ways that somebody would not think of you were very creative in aiding me in buying my townhouse and there is were things that i just had no idea how to be the creator of with money for money yes so it's the same thing creative space creative money all of it we all need to be creative in our lives right well how let's talk about how can people find you if they're looking for diane taylor  planner so i'm located in short hills diet travel all over the state of new jersey and i work with people either remotely or face to face and helping them to make the decisions so you can go on to my consultation face to face and talk about how we can work together on what the sit ins i can help you make because there are pros and cons you do need to run the numbers it's as simple as that is there's no getting around it it really isn't just got a bite the bullet you've got to swallow and just say ok i'm going to do it i remember i remember i just didn't want to look it was so so much stress going on but quite frankly and i've said this before your other person even before you get a divorce attorney which you guys won't like what i'm going to say but you need the financial planner with you to go into the divorce attorney's office even though you would if you do better if you have a financial planner before the divorce is even over you you kind of rescued me i was towards the end if i had known you before i would have done even better but you helped me you actually spoke with the divorce attorney and found mistakes it's another thing divorce attorneys are good at what they do but they're not financial planners ok so you were able to catch quite a few errors before those final documents were approved and i have to tell you my life would be different if that were not for you know in that particular case and i know we're talking renting versus buying but i just want to us stress that because huge difference for me and then of course afterwards you you help me get my place and you've been now with me for wow five and a half years six years helping with all of my financial decisions and you know it's a greatest thing ever i don't know what i would do without you you know well i feel the same way and it brought back into my life as well you make you make the transition seamless and having said that i'm ending the show with my show all right guys you know how this goes so remember your space is to be comfortable reflecting your personal style and fit in you well like your favorite pair of kick ass shoes so why do i have these these are new they blend in with your legs seamlessly and how you take people from going from knowing about their money not knowing about their money to knowing about what they can afford is seamless time i love it and everybody remember we to me divorce dcor were house becomes a home you can reach me nine seven three nine eight five four three eight six and my website we to me dot com i also work