64. Financial Infidelity, Preparing for a Divorce, and Protecting Your Financial Future with Forensic Accountant Tracy Coenen

The Fiscal Feminist

What is financial infidelity, and what steps can women take to protect themselves against it? In this episode, Kimberlee talks with Forensic Accountant Tracy Coenen about the warning signs of financial infidelity, the protections you should have in place before and during a marriage, and the process you can expect if you work with a forensic accountant during your divorce. Tracy is the creator of the Divorce Money Guide, and she has so many practical insights to share about protecting your financial future and navigating complicated divorce proceedings.

Episode Recap:

• Today we’re talking with forensic accountant Tracy Coenen (1:15)
• Take these steps before starting divorce proceedings (4:03)
• Why is it so important to know about your finances? (8:21)
• What does financial infidelity look like? (11:21)
• Know these warning signs of financial infidelity (15:10)
• How does financial infidelity impact divorce proceedings? (17:49)
• Signs of fraud in a partner’s business (21:34)
• Safeguards to protect yourself against financial infidelity (27:46)
• Hiring a forensic accountant can give you peace of mind (35:50)
• Don’t give into pressure during the divorce process (37:53)
• Where to learn more from Tracy (41:30)

Resources:

• Find every episode of The Fiscal Feminist podcast
• Watch The Fiscal Feminist episodes on YouTube
• Sign up to join Kimberlee on the podcast
• “The Fiscal Feminist” book
• Learn more from Tracy on her website
• “Find Me the Money” by Tracy Coenen

Quotes:

“I always say your partner isn’t your plan and ignorance is not bliss, you need to be engaged. And I don’t want to shame anyone, because I believe women are still victims of the historical narrative of how we’ve been trained mentally. That we should be nurturers and kind and not talking about money and all that stuff, because somehow that’s looked upon as being anti-feminine. I still think there’s a lot of that around. I still hear to this day, which is shocking to me, that people say the minute you get married you should comingle everything. I say that’s absolutely not what you should do. You should be intentional about what you do comingle, but you should also keep your eye on the ball of what all the marriage includes."

“What should we be doing to try to protect ourselves before we get to this sort of bad situation?”

“You’re right that it really is hard to protect yourself when it comes to that company. You can’t control what they’re going to do with that company. What I can say is if you have financial information that you have access to and you collect that and keep it, that is one step. But because we can’t control what they’re doing with the company, I like to say the better way to protect yourself is thinking about, ‘What can I control? I can have a bank account that is in my name only that I can put money in, that no one can ever close without my permission, that no one can ever access that money without my permission. I can take a step like making sure that you have a credit card in your name only. No one else can charge on that card, no one else can close that card. That is going to be your safeguard if you ever do need to leave or get divorced.”