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Emily Jones: [00:00:00]
Emily Jones: Welcome to The Brave Widow Podcast. I'm your host, Emily Jones. We help young widows heal their heart, find hope, and dream again for the future.
Emily Jones: All right. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Brave Widow Show. Today I'm here with Nicole Roberts and I'm excited to have her on the show. We're gonna talk about a topic that we haven't talked about yet, but before I dive in, Nicole, welcome. I'm so glad to have you on the show today.
Nicole Roberts: Great, thank you. Excited to be here.
Emily Jones: Yeah. So before we start, if you don't mind, if you would share with the audience, who you are, some of your background and what you do, then I think that'll help us set
Nicole Roberts: the stage.
Nicole Roberts: So, yeah. Great. So, I'm Nicole Roberts and I'm a certified financial planner at our C F P, and that just means that you have a, it's an accreditation for financial advisors above and beyond just getting licensed.
Nicole Roberts: It [00:01:00] means that you have education and experience and you can do continuing education in the finance world. So it's a great credential. Look for, if you're looking for a financial advisor, and I've been doing this for 11 years. I've worked with a variety of different people, but over time I've really started to work with a lot of women and widows.
Nicole Roberts: Cause you know, they tend to seek out another woman financial advisor and it's been super rewarding experience. I'm sure as Emily and your audience knows that when you lose your spouse, there's a lot of secondary losses as well, like the person that made decisions with you. Maybe they were the person who handled the investments or they were, the C F O women tend to be the ones that handled the budget in the household, the day-to-day budget and their men tend to be the ones that handle more of the big picture finances.
Nicole Roberts: That's not always true. But that typically that the studies show and so then you lose like your c f O of the family and you have to take on that role. And so I just feel really privileged that a lot of women have trusted me to then be their financial partner and help them make those decisions. You can't really [00:02:00] replace that cuz nobody's as invested in your life as you are.
Nicole Roberts: But having a financial advisor or an accountant or financial coach is somebody kind of help you, with that loss of that person that helped you with those financial decisions.
Emily Jones: Yes, I think that's great. And we've talked about financial planning some off and on, on the show.
Emily Jones: And the reason why we feel like it's still an important topic is because as a widow, especially those first year, two years, whatever it. You're second guessing a lot of decisions you are stressed about, having enough money. Are you making the right decisions with money? Should you pay off the house?
Emily Jones: Should you not pay off the house? There's so many options out there. Blended with the insecurity of not having kind of that thinking partner and that person that helps you make those decisions. So I know for me personally, my first thought was always stack up as much as cash as possible at my savings account because I just, I don't know what's gonna happen and I wanna make sure I have plenty of liquidity there.
Emily Jones: Right or wrong, that was my initial thought and reaction in [00:03:00] becoming widowed, so I know it's something that's definitely top of mind for people. Also, losing your spouse can be a big income disruptor. Maybe your spouse was the sole breadwinner, maybe they were the main breadwinner, and so now you have to make all these decisions about.
Emily Jones: Well, can I still afford to live in this house? Can I still afford to have the same lifestyle? Trying to think not only short term, but also long term. So having that financial planner, that financial coach, that person that can be in your corner and help you talk through those things, will really help alleviate a lot of the stress and anxiety that comes with making some of those financial decisions.
Nicole Roberts: Agreed. And there's so many decisions that have to be made, unfortunately, right when you're in the middle of grief and the brain fog and it's in a hard time. So, I also host a podcast with my co-host Summer, and we Share different stories from widows to highlight different financial principles because I think that widows not only need the education sometimes, and sometimes you already are educated financially, but so much about money [00:04:00] is like behavioral and emotional.
Nicole Roberts: And so we should try and share a lot of stories on our podcasts from other widows and things that they've learned to help inspire and get confidence to other women as they're going through their own journeys that, There's light at the end of the tunnel and you can do this. And there's such a variety of situations.
Nicole Roberts: Some, people come out of, losing a spouse, pretty devastated financially. And some, there maybe there was life insurance or other assets to really help them. Everybody has a different experience and so on our podcast we share different stories from widows and then occasionally we also share, little things that we've learned from working with widows as well to help educate on the financial side of things.
Nicole Roberts: Yeah. That's
Emily Jones: awesome. Yeah, cuz I do hear a lot of questions around things like, oh, why do I spend money when I'm sad? And a lot of times culturally we'll say, oh, that's just your retail therapy. You deserve it. You deserve it. Just go spend whatever you want. But, To your point, a lot of handling money is more behavioral than necessarily the amount of dollars.
Emily Jones: And sometimes we don't realize, oh, well my [00:05:00] Amazon cart is full because I was feeling down that day. Or, what are ways that I can address my grief and healing and still feel like I have a good financial plan and my money's just not going? Every way except my wallet. So, one of the things Exactly, yeah.
Emily Jones: One of the things I thought was interesting for the topic idea that we will talk through today is the widow who is the business owner or maybe even was married to someone who owned a business. And one of the things that I've noticed or that I hear frequently from widows is, Even if they're not part of owning a business in their own career, they may actually change jobs or they may change roles, or they may feel, especially in those first couple years, a little apathetic towards what it was they were doing.
Emily Jones: But when you're the actual business owner or married to a business owner, there's a lot more complexities than just deciding, well, do I wanna stay in this role or not? How does that. Impact my [00:06:00] income and things that I need to structure. So what's been your experience with that in, in what you've seen Nicole?
Nicole Roberts: Yeah, so we've, with a lot of business owners, our firm, it's broadcast financial. We specialize in small business owners, and then I kind of specialize in helping, women who lose their spouse, who own a business. And how do you like, unwind that or, Take care of the business after, the business owner is gone.
Nicole Roberts: So let me share a story. And this is based on a client and a lot of the details have been changed for their privacy, but they'll really highlight a lot of things that business owners should be aware of, either as you own a business or as you're taking care of a business after someone passes away.
Nicole Roberts: So our client, Wendy, she lost her husband in a car accident. It was, very sudden, totally unexpected as car accident deaths usually are, and they had three children. Their ages were 12, 15, and 17, and he owned an HVAC C business, been doing it for 15 years. And so they've really built like a strong, business and the income was going really well.
Nicole Roberts: And then they also were really into real estate. So they owned the building that [00:07:00] their business was in. They also had some rentals, a duplex and a house. And Wendy worked as well. She was an administrative assistant to an executive and, so her main roles were to take care of the kids. She focused a lot.
Nicole Roberts: Her job brought in a lot of the benefits, like the health insurance for the family. And so she was very busy with her job juggling, what this executive needed. Also taking her kids to their activities. And so she wasn't very involved in the business at all. Her husband very capable, built this great business, ran it, and he also ran all of their rental properties.
Nicole Roberts: He was very handy, when go and get things fixed. When things broke. So they kind of varied, very big separation of roles, which is common in marriages and it's how it should be, so that you can divide and conquer. And, but because of their separation of roles, she had no idea anything on the business.
Nicole Roberts: She was not involved at all. And when he died, there were significant debts on both the business and the rentals. Most, it was all cash flowing, but when he was gone, there was no business continuity plan. There was nobody who had the [00:08:00] relationships that he did with his, the vendors. And their clients and they definitely had some key employees, but none of them were really poised to take over the business and none of them were involved in all the details that he had been in.
Nicole Roberts: So it really brought a huge halt to their business and the productivity of their business that was really important to be paying off the debt of the business and providing income for their family. And he had a small life insurance policy. They didn't really have retirement accounts. Cause this is very common for business owners that.
Nicole Roberts: Most of your savings goes back into the business and you're not necessarily saving in other places cause you're really pouring your heart and soul into your business.
Emily Jones: And that, that had to feel really intimidating for her to think, well now there's, maybe debt's associated with the business.
Emily Jones: There's some employees, but you know, he's. Kind of the main person that makes sure income is still coming in the door. So not only is she trying to grieve and think about her future, but then just financially what she's gonna do. Did she feel like that really, that had to have weighed really heavy on her?
Nicole Roberts: [00:09:00] Yeah, later she talked about how she didn't have time to really grieve or help her children grieve because of the financial stress. And also she felt responsibility for the employees that, she kept the business going for them and their families and their income. So it's very stressful time for her.
Nicole Roberts: And, she didn't have passwords to anything. She didn't have access to anything. She was not on any legal documents with the business. And so, it's not like she could just step in. She had to really work through a lot of legal issues of becoming the signer on the business bank account of contacting an attorney about how is this all gonna work and what is my responsibility here with business debt.
Nicole Roberts: So yeah, super messy. And every day there was something else to take care of.
Emily Jones: I, I can only imagine, I can hardly imagine, but. Let's say you're talking to somebody who right now is in that situation, or maybe even their spouse's terminal, and they're expecting to lose their spouse, and it just feels like a big complicated, I'll call it a mess, right?
Emily Jones: You don't know the passwords, you're not on the [00:10:00] bank account. You're not, maybe there's a will and a trust, maybe there's not. Where would you tell people to even start with just kind of untangling or trying to better understand where to start and getting involved in that.
Nicole Roberts: Assemble your team, like your team is, like that's gonna help you the most.
Nicole Roberts: So for her, getting in touch with the accountant who ran the bookkeeping, who knew a little bit about the payroll was super helpful in getting started. An attorney that had worked with her husband in the past and sending some things up, she contacted us. Because we worked with business owners and we've been referred by her accountant and, and then the key employees, the, higher up employees who knew more about the business.
Nicole Roberts: And so she just again, kind of assembled her team of, okay, here's everybody who knows everything. And we all got in a room together and started hammering out some of the details and made a list of this is what you need to do. So that's the most important thing, whether you're. Wherever you're at. Even if you're, you are a business owner, this, and you're not, your sp you're not terminal, your spouse isn't owns the businesses, you have no plans, anybody's gonna die.
Nicole Roberts: This is an important [00:11:00] part of owning a business, is having a good team that you know, can help you run your business and accountant an attorney. So if anything should happen, you have people there to continue to run the business and creating a business continuity plan, like putting somebody else as a signer on the business, making sure your business is assigned to your trust or, that your business would go to your spouse or maybe you have a set up so that if you died, one of your employees would buy out the business and buy out your spouse.
Nicole Roberts: So like we, at my firm, we are all partners in the firm and we have buy sell agreements and we have plans that if one of the other advisors died, we could buy out their spouse. And, because yeah, you have a lot of your value, your financial value wrapped up in your business, usually if you're a business owner too.
Nicole Roberts: And so it's one way to make sure your spouse is taken care of is having a business continuity plan before anything happens. Yeah.
Emily Jones: I agree and I love the idea, I think about the Avengers, like everyone assemble. Yeah. And I love the fact that you all gathered together to just surround this person who was feeling [00:12:00] at a loss of really where to start, what all she needed to do.
Emily Jones: And I'm sure. That had to be very reassuring and helpful to think that she's not really in this alone. That she has people that, her lawyer, you as a her financial planner, people that are working together so that she doesn't have to be kind of that mediator constantly running back and forth to say, well, the attorney said this.
Emily Jones: Okay, my financial coach said this. Okay, this estate planner said this. I love that idea of everyone just coming together to at least have that initial conversation and align on how you were going to be helping that person as a client. I think that was really great.
Nicole Roberts: Yeah and it makes my job so much easier, even as a financial advisor, if you have a good accountant and a good attorney, that we can all work as a team to create the best long-term picture for somebody.
Nicole Roberts: And as a financial advisor, the, we tend to be like the quarterback of the whole process. And so I think that's a good place to start oftentimes is to contact a financial advisor. It, cuz the attorney only handles, the legal piece, the accounts usually [00:13:00] handles the tax piece and then the financial advisory typically handles the overall big picture.
Nicole Roberts: Financial, creating the financial plan and putting all the pieces into a long-term plan that would work for you because, so for example, Wendy, there's a lot of questions of, well, did she wanna continue running the business? It was very profitable business and. But she didn't have any passion around it, and she didn't really have a lot of knowledge.
Nicole Roberts: But, she was a good project manager with her current job. And so the big question was, will I quit my current job and then become the business owner here? And, that's always a big question and I think it's a hard one, right? And oftentimes I think it is important just to follow what you feel passionate about.
Nicole Roberts: And that decision doesn't always have to be made right away. But I'll give you an example of another client who. Her husband passed away and she did decide to step into the role and he had two business partners and she had no knowledge around the business and no passion around it, and she could have sold the business right then to the two partners and made quite a bit of money, but she decided that was her legacy.
Nicole Roberts: It was important to her. The business was profitable. She wanted to keep going, [00:14:00] but because of her lack of knowledge, the business value actually went down. So then when she did decide to, Sell out her part of the business. She actually got a lot less after, four or five years of realizing this is not what I wanna do and this is not what I'm good at.
Nicole Roberts: So, I think it's important to decide if, if you did wanna continue the business, if that's really your wheelhouse to do, and that could be quite daunting to take on a new job right after you lose a spouse, a new role.
Emily Jones: Yeah. That would really be a tough decision to say. I. H V A C I just remembered in case people don't know is like air conditioning units, seating units, that sort of thing.
Emily Jones: Is that something that I could learn to enjoy and care about because I care about what it does for families? Like I care about somebody, not having to have a get together on 4th of July because they didn't have air conditioning that was working, or, I care about having to, having the ability to provide for employees and their families and having that sustainable income.
Emily Jones: Is that something that I could learn to embrace [00:15:00] and enjoy and be passionate about? Or is this something that's just gonna be another one of those like dark clouds looming over me that causes a lot of stress and anxiety? Because I don't really care about it. I don't know what to do. I mean, I think about I had enough stress just learning how to use the zero turn lawnmower.
Emily Jones: Okay. Like when the thing wouldn't keep running and broke down after the fifth time. That in itself was very overwhelming in those first couple of months. I can't really wrap my mind around having to jump in and take over a business that you really don't know any. Anything or much about, but that's not to say that it's not possible and that people haven't done that or couldn't do it.
Emily Jones: But I think to your point, it's just is it something that you truly care about and that you could see you're invested in? And maybe it's something you try for a small period of time and if you feel like this really is not what I wanted it to be, at that point you can make another decision.
Nicole Roberts: Yeah, for sure.
Nicole Roberts: And I think that's the key is to find a team that can help you.
Nicole Roberts: So for Wendy, the other thing is, it can be [00:16:00] sometimes an emotional decision to let go of a business. This was a business, her husband's father had started passed on him and then the plan was that their son would take it over, but he was only 12 at the time.
Nicole Roberts: So that was other big part of it. Sometimes it can be emotional and somebody has really poured their life into a business to let it go. And then there was also the rentals. She didn't really wanna be a landlord. That had always been her husband's decision, not hers. And. And she didn't wanna take that over at all.
Nicole Roberts: But they cash flowed really well. And so, as we helped her make different decisions and showed her, here are the numbers of it all, that helped her sometimes with the other decisions. So, for example, the cash flow, the rental, she was immediately like no selling. But when we showed her the taxes that would happen from selling those rentals, we showed her the rate of return she was getting on the rentals.
Nicole Roberts: She had really low interest on the mortgages of them. They could cashflow their own mortgage plus, Bring her in a little income. We helped her decide that she could hire a property manager to take care of most of the issues there. So she had to be very little involved and it was still a wise financial decision for her.
Nicole Roberts: So [00:17:00] she kept those and she even kept the building that the business was in, but she ended up selling the business actually to one of the employees of the business. And, because like you said, it was just too much weight on her to try and keep that business running. And, and that also allowed her to pay down a lot of debts associated with the business.
Nicole Roberts: And then to have a chunk of money available to her. We showed her, this is how much money you need to be able to make from your a job. And she's that's very doable for me. My current job. And I can still keep a lot of my benefits. And then with this other income plus the social security for my kids, she was in a really good situation financially.
Nicole Roberts: And so seeing all the numbers is what ultimately helped her decide this is, and it helped her give her the freedom to say, I can let the business go and I don't have to have it. And just like the being able to pay off so much of the debt. I think was a big
Emily Jones: relief. Relief. Yeah. Because I imagine that was probably hard to think about.
Emily Jones: It was his business, his legacy, as you said in the other example, something that he was very probably known in the community for. So that hard had to be hard to think [00:18:00] about letting that go, giving it to someone else. Are they going to treat it the same way and keep up the same type of reputation?
Emily Jones: But Having the ability to see the numbers and to make a decision that wasn't purely emotional, it sounds like, was really ultimately to her benefit.
Nicole Roberts: Yeah, exactly. And I think this is, again, goes back to as a business owner you wear so many hats of, what you do. And one of the things that falls to the sidelines a lot for business owners is the finance and the organization of the business.
Nicole Roberts: And I'm actually, cause we work with a lot of business owners, we see this all the time. It's like pulling teeth sometimes to get business owners to start a retirement account or 401k for their employees or to, do the life, get the life insurance. But it's so key to keeping, protecting what you've built.
Nicole Roberts: Cause you can build some great business, but it could all fall apart at your death. Or maybe it's not even dying. You've also seen business owners who got cancer and they weren't able to work, in the same way that they could before. And their business really starts to fall apart without them.
Nicole Roberts: Cause they're an important part [00:19:00] of that picture. And so that's a, not only putting the financial things in place, like the life insurance, getting a disability policy. Having diversifying outside your business is important too, like saving money outside of the business, like into a retirement account or something else, so you have something to fall back on.
Nicole Roberts: But then also just creating a business that's not totally dependent on you, that if you are gone, there's still value there. That you can either sell the business or that the business, if you, especially if a lot of employees, the business could continue without you. So that's a lot of preparing way before anything happens.
Nicole Roberts: And it's, you haven't done that preparation afterwards. You often leave people with a mess, which is unfortunate that, for Wendy, she couldn't, she didn't get to help grieve or help her kids grieve the way that she would like. She, cuz she was so busy and she felt a lot of anger towards her husband because of the situation he left her in and some of the decisions he had made without consulting her. And it's unfortunate that was kind of what was left in the end. She feels very grateful to him because in the end it all worked out and she's in a good financial situation once, we sorted it all out.
Nicole Roberts: And he really did leave a [00:20:00] legacy in sorts, not necessarily of the business, but in setting them up in financially that there were a lot of assets to sell and the business had a lot of value that she could sell it. Yeah.
Nicole Roberts: Yeah, I think that's really good advice too. Even maybe we have some widows that have their own business or their partners in a business and they're thinking about, maybe not if they were to come into that situation, but what are they leaving behind for someone else to try to comb through?
Nicole Roberts: I know one of the things that I like about Dave Ramsey is he talks about sitting down with his family once a year and telling them like, here is the plan. If I were to die tomorrow, here's how the businesses would transition. Here's what I have, here's how it works. And so that way the family group can stay aligned on what is the plan if someone were to pass away.
Nicole Roberts: And so many times, to your point, we don't sit down and talk about it. So then people make decisions. That we don't really know about or, we haven't expressed what we really want to happen. And so now, instead of being able to grieve and be sad, we're trying to [00:21:00] make all these decisions and also try to figure out how quickly do we have to decide, can that business continue two to three months just as it is on its own?
Nicole Roberts: Or do we need to step in and start making some decisions as soon as possible? Because if not, we're gonna run out of funding to keep the business going.
Nicole Roberts: Yeah. And it's always hard cuz there's so much you can do in preparation and I know your audience is more of oh, this is after the fact.
Nicole Roberts: Then what do I do? And like I said, I think finding the right team is the best thing you can do cuz every business is structured differently and every person's finances are differently. So finding somebody you can help create a customized plan for you, and help you walk through all the different things you have to navigate.
Nicole Roberts: Because then there's, and there's still so many things to navigate. Well after she, she sold the business. So for, I think you mentioned this at the beginning, about wanting to hoard cash. I see that a lot actually with women and widows, that women tend to be less confident in investing. That's what the studies have shown, that they're less confident in actually putting their money to work and investing in different things.
Nicole Roberts: They tend to wanna keep it close, be able to keep [00:22:00] it secure. They men tend to just jump into investing, whether they have the education or not. Whereas women want the education first, or they need a li Often women need to tap on the shoulder to nudge them forward. It's just different personalities. Of course.
Nicole Roberts: That's a generalization. But when women do invest, they tend to make smarter financial decisions. They tend to be more moderate and take less risk, which can be good and bad depending on their situation. And so sometimes I think having a financial advisor or financial coach to help you, take that step out into the water is really important.
Nicole Roberts: So for Wendy, she wanted to keep so much cash and this was all recently when, cash doesn't hardly pay any interest. A few years ago, and then all of a sudden after Covid, we had really high inflation. And so anything you kept in cash was actually losing value. Your cash was slowly losing its buying power because of inflation.
Nicole Roberts: And now we actually have much higher interest rates. We were moving out of that low interest rate environment to much higher interest rates. And so showing her all the different options she had to create a structure of, you can still have your safe money, but let's put some of it to work in [00:23:00] investing so that you can keep up with inflation so that you can be able to retire later on.
Nicole Roberts: Cause often that's, most people cannot save enough for retirement. They have to invest to be able to save enough for retirement and to keep up with inflation. And so, And then also there's a lot of investing accounts that can give you a lot of tax advantages like a Roth IRA or a health savings account.
Nicole Roberts: And so we helped show her, if you put it into these other accounts, it gives you these tax benefits as well. And just creating like a long-term plan. And one time she felt comfortable, so she still felt like she had her security, her safety, plenty of cash on hand, but still also saving for her future.
Emily Jones: Yeah, I think that's great. I know anytime I would see in the past few months, we've had some banks that were failing and we've had some big concerns there that also causes you to think about how much cash that you're keeping in a checking or savings account because, even though banks may be insured, who knows if you're gonna see that.
Emily Jones: How long it's gonna take before you see that. So just another thing to think about. Well, Nicole, how should people reach out to you? Where [00:24:00] can they find you if they want to work with you or learn more, or if they have questions? What's really the best way to get in touch with you?
Nicole Roberts: Yeah. We'll check out our podcast.
Nicole Roberts: It's called He's Gone, but the Money's not. And you can hear us share different tips on different financial things and then as well as hear other widow stories like Wendy's. We have several other business owner or women who took over people's businesses, like their spouse's business or, had their own businesses or build their own careers after their spouse.
Nicole Roberts: So, pretty awesome stories. So you can come listen to our podcast. And then also, you can check out our website, brock house financial.com, and you can, we do free consultation for anybody. So you wanna just get some ideas or see what we could help them with. Our firm, we really try to structure it so that we can work with anybody.
Nicole Roberts: We don't have minimums. But if we can't help you, we definitely have a lot of resources and places to direct you to. I think you've interviewed a financial coach on your podcast before. Often financial coaches are best for people who are trying to really work through their debt. And then once you have worked through your debt, come to us to [00:25:00] invest, and start to grow your wealth.
Nicole Roberts: And then also Wings for Widows is a great nonprofit that helps women who can't necessarily afford a financial advisor or a financial coach to help them get on their financial journey. So, in that consultation, we can make sure either we're the right fit or we can direct you some resources if you needed help.
Emily Jones: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today, and for anyone listening, we'll make sure all of the links are included in the show notes so that you can find Nicole and her team and see if she's a good fit for you. Well, Nicole, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. I really appreciate your thoughts and your insight, and I think this was just a unique topic to tackle, so I'm glad we got to share that.
Nicole Roberts: Yeah, thanks for having us on.
Emily Jones: Hey guys. Thank you so much for listening to the Brave Widow Podcast. I would love to help you take your next step, whether that's healing your heart, finding hope, or [00:26:00] achieving your dreams for the future.
Emily Jones: Do you need a safe space to connect with other like-minded widows? Do you wish you had how-tos for getting through the next steps in your journey, organizing your life or moving through grief? What about live calls where you get answers to your burning questions? The Brave Widow Membership Community is just what you need.
Emily Jones: Inside you'll find courses to help guide you, a community of other widows to connect with, live coaching and q and a calls, and small group coaching where you can work on what matters most to you. Learn how to heal your heart, find hope, reclaim joy, and dream again for the future. It is possible. Head on over to brave widow.com to learn more. [00:27:00]
