Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
How to Divorce Smarter (Not Harder) with Karen Covy
In this episode, we are joined by Karen Covy, a Divorce Coach, Lawyer, Mediator, Author, Speaker and Podcaster. She coaches busy professionals and business owners all over the world to make clear, confident decisions about their most important relationships. She also helps them navigate through divorce with less conflict, unnecessary expense, and needless drama so that they can create the life they truly desire sooner rather than later. Karen is the author of When Happily Ever After Ends: How to Survive Your Divorce Emotionally, Financially, and Legally. She is also the creator of the online divorce programs, The Divorce Road Map 3.0 and How to Successfully Mediate Your Divorce as well as the host of the podcast, Off the Fence: Mastering Decision-Making Divorce and More
Karen talks about what really means to navigate divorce wisely, from emotions to legal logistics to long-term financial health. Karen shares what most women don’t realize until it’s too late, including why your first big financial decision might actually be the lawyer you hire.
00:00 Introduction: Navigating Divorce Emotions
01:55 The Role of a Divorce Coach
03:18 Meet Karen Covy: Divorce Coach and Expert
05:29 Understanding Divorce Processes
11:18 The Importance of Financial Preparation
23:42 The Value of Prenups
30:15 Conclusion: Achieving Financial Freedom
Karen shares the money moves you must make early in a divorce, so you stay protected, prepared, and in control, even when emotions run high. Join us on Sep 4 for Money Talks, where we’ll walk you through how to protect your finances before, during, and after divorce, no shame, just smart strategy. Click here to register for FREE and bring your questions!
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Barb: [00:00:00] You know, Mag, when you go through divorce, it's hard to kind of dump always on your girlfriends, especially those who aren't going through divorce. 'cause they don't really get it. You know, they're not in your shoes and they don't really wanna talk about it. Sometimes some people think it's contagious, so they don't wanna talk about it. But you're so full of a range of emotions. And sometimes that's great to have like a third party to talk to about it and help you manage and navigate it. Somebody who understands the process, someone who's been through it, somebody who has expertise, a level head, somebody who can give you good, a shoulder to cry on some empathy, but then helps you pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get moving forward.
Maggie: I mean that makes sense is your friends don't always want the trauma dump. And
I mean, it's like I'm there to support you and I'm happy to like hear you out. But also like there's only so much advice I could give. Like I'm no expert, you know, or you know, they're no expert and you know, they also wanna share with you what [00:01:00] their struggle is, which might be, you know, Billy flunking outta math, like,
Barb: Yeah,
And you might just not have the energy for that Billy's concern 'cause you're so immersed in your own. divorce situation and you may not wanna go to your family. 'cause here you are in love with this person. You know, so much time invested and the relationship was so different.
Now you don't wanna be the person who's saying all the different things. I mean, it's complicated. Right?
Maggie: The last thing I'd want to hear is like, well, we never really liked him anyways.
Barb: I know.
Maggie: you wanna start a fight too?
Barb: So you kind of think like, who's that go-to person that's gonna help you navigate your emotions? Kind of the process, how you get through it. What are the good questions to ask? What do I do first And any other sport or thing that we navigate is having a good divorce coach.
and it's cool that we have someone with that [00:02:00] expertise on our podcast today who really shares how a divorce coach can be that person that you can call for all of those reasons to help you kind of, you know, dump on in terms of this is what happened to me.
Really understand where you're coming from, but yet helps you say, okay, I get it. Understand that. Let's really be clear about what you want from this and how we wanna get through it and find you the right resources to navigate this process together.
Maggie: Yeah, it'd be much more sound advice than your best friend. I mean, she might be great. And I think it's also one of those things where it's like, well, I've been through a divorce. I can coach you through it and like you've probably been through one, maybe two divorces where your coach has been through a hundred.
You know, and so they can really give you those perspectives. Know what to look for, know what to ask, know all the things. And even if they don't know the exact answer, they know how to word the question, who to ask the question to, how to get the [00:03:00] support around it. 'cause that is their expertise.
Barb: greater perspective, better resources. Whereas your best friend might say, just do like what I did, which. No, two divorces are the same. So good to know that we have divorce coaches out there. We have a fantastic one here on our podcast today. Karen Covy, she's not only a divorce coach, that's what she's practicing, but she has been a lawyer, although she doesn't practice law anymore, but she comes with that area of expertise and she's also a mediator.
And an author, a speaker, a podcaster, so she's been around the block. She's the go-to person. If you need some help in terms of a coach helping you navigate this world of divorce, she would be a great resource to go to.
Maggie: Yeah, she definitely has some expertise and she's willing to share all of that with us. So I think we should dive into this episode because it's jam packed with just great information, whether you're getting divorced, whether you know a friend who's getting [00:04:00] divorced or we kind of talked about how to.
Not avoid that, but have some of these conversations upfront with a prenup as well. Which are for everyone, not just for the rich and famous. Let's always just reiterate that because I don't think it gets said enough. So with that, let's dive in.
Gloria Steinem once said, we will never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth. Barbara Provost and Maggie Nielsen are the team at purse strings that will help you navigate the ins and outs of financial independence so that you can be financially fearless. This is women in money, the shit we don't talk about.
Maggie: Karen, welcome to Women and Money, the shit we don't talk about. We are thrilled to have you on today. So before we get started, could you introduce who you are and what you do to the listeners?
Karen: Absolutely, and thank you so much for having me. I'm excited for our [00:05:00] conversation. I am a divorce coach and recovering lawyer. I'm also an arbitrator mediator collaborative divorce professional, and the author of When Happily Ever After Ends. How to survive your divorce emotionally, financially, and legally.
And all the work that I do now these days is coaching people to get from the place where they're at. Do I stay or do I go all the way through to the end of their divorce and onto a new and hopefully better life?
Barb: Wow.
Maggie: Yeah, you must have helped a lot of people. And so since you've seen so many women navigate divorce, what's a decision women often don't realize is actually a big financial decision until it's too late.
Karen: Who's your lawyer?
Barb: Really?
Maggie: Let's dive in there.
Barb: Wow.
Karen: the lawyer that you hire determines the direction your case goes. Most people, like you've heard, there's all kinds of different ways to get divorced. There's mediation, there's collaborative, there's all the things, right? But they find a lawyer and they say, [00:06:00] what should I do? And what they don't realize is the lawyer is not telling them what is going to be best for them.
The lawyer is telling them what the lawyer does. So you go to the litigator, they're gonna go, I will protect your rights. We can win this. You go to the mediator or the lawyer who's more mediative, they'll go, you know, we can work this out. And it's not about what's right for you. So a better way to go about this, it's to figure out how do you wanna do this first?
Then go find the lawyer who does that.
Barb: Interesting.
Maggie: And so like with that, can we dive into like a couple, like what are some of those options? If people have like never even thought about getting divorced and now this is kind of landing in their lap, like where do you even start with that of like, which way do I wanna get divorced?
Karen: What I like to tell people is you are going to divorce the person you're married to. So if you have had a high conflict [00:07:00] marriage and you and your spouse can't talk and you're always at each other's throats, you can want an amicable divorce, but the chances that you're going to have one are probably not good being realistic.
So you need a lawyer who maybe they don't fight in court or litigate right out of the box, but
they have that skillset, they have that strength to stand up for you. On the other hand, if you've got a spouse who is normally a reasonable, rational person, they're just a little crazy because emotions are high and tempers are flaring and blah, blah, blah, great.
Maybe mediation will be better for you. And the way the processes break down is first, there's litigation, which is fighting in court, and then everything other than litigation is called an alternative. It's an alternative to litigation, alternative dispute resolution system, and the most common one is mediation, where you and your spouse, or you and your spouse and your lawyers sit down with a mediator who's a neutral person and he or she is trying to [00:08:00] broker a deal, right?
So the mediator isn't deciding anything for you. You are still making the decisions, but the mediator is helping. Brainstorm options, give you ideas, help you sort of hear each other when you're talking, so that you can come to an agreement. Collaborative divorce is an entirely separate process. In collaborative, you and your lawyer, your spouse and your spouse's lawyer sit down at a table, maybe with a neutral financial professional who has helped you run numbers, maybe with a coach who helps you keep the emotions down and the conversation productive.
Maybe with a child specialist who can say. This kind of parenting plan tends to work better with children of your age than that kind of parenting plan. So you sit down and you work everything out at a series of talks like, so you're working it out at a conference table instead of in a courtroom. But the thing with collaborative that makes it [00:09:00] different is that everybody signs an agreement that says, we're gonna do this outside of court.
And if for whatever reason, somebody goes back to court. Then all of the professionals withdraw and you start over again, which gives you an incentive to stay at the table when talking gets tough.
Barb: So I have a question, Karen, because you're a divorce coach, Lawyer, mediator. So what role do you play in any of those circumstances you just outlined?
Karen: Right now, all of my work is done as a coach. What's important is I can play a lot of
roles. But I only play one in a case, so I'm not gonna be everything to everybody. That's impossible. But what I'll do is I will be a coach and my legal background informs the coaching. So I can tell you, you know how the court system works all across the country, right?
I work with people all over the nation, actually all over the world, because it doesn't matter what the law [00:10:00] is in your. Particular jurisdiction. I can tell you what questions to go ask a lawyer who does know what the law is in your area, and so you get the information from the lawyer. But then I coach my clients.
I. I coach you to say, okay, now that I know what this is, what do I do with it? How do I figure out how to use it for me? Right? So all of the work that I do now is coaching. Occasionally I'll take a mediation and occasionally I'll do a legal consultation for somebody, which is to say to them, you know, people get in the middle of their divorce and they're stuck and they don't know.
How do they get out of this? Is my lawyer doing the right thing? Does my lawyer have my back? And so if you're in the state of Illinois, I'll take a look at everything and either say, yes, they do, they're doing a great job. Or you know, I can give you some names.
In a perfect world, a hundred percent yes, because I take people and I help you. First of all, understand what your options are. Second of all, [00:11:00] get prepared because the better prepared you are, the better you're gonna do and make that plan for how you want to do this. Because how you do it affects where you end up and it affects how miserable or not your journey is to the point where you end up wherever you are.
Maggie: Yeah, it's something, that I don't think people realize how many options there are. 'cause it's always just go to my attorney, which is, we always say like a coach or even A-C-D-F-A certified divorce financial analyst, understand the finances, all those things. But it's interesting just from your perspective, how you said that is how the lawyer's telling you how they do things, even like a workout coach, every workout coach does things differently, so you gotta feel 'em out. Is this how I like it done? Is, is this what I'm looking for? And you're right. I mean, as much as everyone would just love to do mediation and we're all civil and we just get it done, it doesn't always work like that.
And so it just can't always be that route because not everyone is agreeing to that process.
Karen: But if you have a lawyer on your team who is reasonable [00:12:00] and rational, even if you have to start by litigating, that doesn't mean that after things have calmed down a little bit, you can't go to mediation. You mentioned A-C-D-F-A. They are such an important professional for anybody who has any kind of financial situation that's even the least bit complicated.
Like if you're a W2 employee, your spouse is a W2 employee, you have a house, you have a retirement, that's it. It's not that complicated. You can still benefit from good financial advice. But if you've got anything more, if you've got a business, or your spouse has a business or your spouse is an executive, or you're an executive, you've got a complicated compensation package.
There are different moving parts. You've got kids with special needs that have to maybe have a special needs trust. I mean, finances can get really complicated really fast. And while the lawyer can give you the broad strokes of how it works everybody, I think, should have a financial [00:13:00] professional by their side so they can have somebody interpreting the financial data for them and helping them see, okay, if you go down this road, this is what it's gonna look like.
It's a different financial picture. And somebody who can help them avoid the landmines and the potholes so that at the end of the divorce they really are in a good financial position.
Maggie: And so I know you talk a lot about being clear and confident when making choices during divorce, and so what are some things women can do, like before they even call a lawyer to start protecting their finances?
Karen: This is gonna sound counterintuitive, but get yourself a therapist and start dealing with your emotions
Because your emotions will derail you. Faster than anything else. It's emotions that make you make rash decisions, that make you make decisions where you're just poking at the other person. You just want, I mean, come on.
We all do it and we all need it, but the place to [00:14:00] get your zest for revenge out is in a therapist's office, not at a negotiating table, because that's when you make a dumb financial decision. So get control over your emotions. That's number one. And understand your finances. You've gotta know your numbers and a lot of people, like they start to shake when you talk about numbers.
You've gotta know your numbers. And if you don't know them, if you're not confident in them before you open your mouth to negotiate, you get confident. Or you have a financial advisor and an advocate with you in a negotiation, or you make sure your lawyer is filling that role, but you have somebody who's paying attention to the numbers, because at the end of the day, that's what finance and money is all about it's numbers.
Maggie: I just think we've heard so many stories where people are racked up in the courtroom for like. Mile points on credit cards for a spoon collection for like these things that are like so not worth the money. Nobody really wants them. They're [00:15:00] not a value. You're paying much more for the attorney fees, and a little bit of therapy could go a long way 'cause you're not actually getting to the root of the problem. You're just kind of stirring the pot and you're spending a lot of money on lawyers for, points where it's like, yo, you could have just bought a flight to Tahiti by now.
Karen: A hundred percent. And I'll tell you a secret, I'll tell you a little story. When people are fighting about the Tupperware, it's never about the Tupperware. It's always about what's underneath it. So I was in a negotiation one time, thankfully the other lawyer was also a reasonable human. So there was the two of us and the two clients and like this was a marathon negotiation, took hours and hours.
Finally, we get this couple to the point where they're like, yeah, we got a deal. No problem. One of them gets up. I don't even remember which one. Starts walking out the door, looks at the other one and goes, what about the vacuum cleaner?
Yeah, everybody's going crazy. They're fighting. The whole deal is falling apart over a vacuum [00:16:00] cleaner.
The other lawyer and I are looking at each other going like, what kind of vacuum cleaner is this? Is this, it was a Hoover.
Barb: Oh my
Karen: And so the other lawyer, like once he, once they said, then you realize it's not really the vacuum cleaner. The lawyer very calmly went in his pocket, picked out a quarter and said, we're not doing this.
Heads your tails. Flip the coin, whoever won one and that was it. It was over. But to your point, I mean, people fight over crazy stuff, to give up a four hour negotiation that settled everything over a $200 vacuum cleaner made no sense.
Maggie: No, not at all.
Karen: Yeah.
Barb: So talking about emotions, how do you help women balance their emotions? To make really good, smart, long-term financial moves.
Karen: It starts by letting yourself feel them. Because if you just push 'em down and you try to be like, no, I'm fine. You know, you're not fine. And the emotions are still [00:17:00] there. And the problem is they, as a mentor of mine used to say they come out sideways, so. Usually when you're not expecting it at the worst possible moment, right?
So you're talking about something completely different and all of a sudden you just get so angry and that's when you start going crazy. And again, it affects your financial decision. So deal with your emotions. Yourself. If that means therapy, if that means finding a good support group, a good coach, a good friends.
Although you burn your friends out after a while, but you know it's talk to people. Get the let yourself feel 'em, get them out. But then here's the key. Let them go.
We hang on because they're familiar. We got used to it. And so we get used to our own misery.
You gotta let it go.
Maggie: which I would argue is much easier said than done.
Karen: Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent.
Maggie: Yeah. But it is true. I mean, [00:18:00] you just gotta accept those emotions, which I know is, in any situation, not always fun to feel, but you gotta get through them, you know? You can't just avoid them.
Karen: Yeah. It was like some famous person says, I always forget who said the quote. I think it was Roosevelt that said The only way out is through.
Barb: for sure. So what are some of the mistakes that you see, like even the smartest women make when they're going through divorce?
Karen: A lot of women don't think about taxes,
Barb: Oh
Karen: and taxes can dramatically affect how much money you put in your pocket. At the end of the divorce and people don't think about it because it's hidden. You can't see it, you're just looking at numbers. So some people make like the classic mistake is trading a pre-tax asset for a post-tax asset because they're not worth the same.
But one that's more hidden that a lot of people don't think about is, okay, we've got a stock account, we're gonna divide it 50 50. Who gets what stock?
If you [00:19:00] take the stock that you've had for. Decades and that you bought for a small amount of money that have a lot of profit in them, like so they have a very low basis.
Then you're gonna pay a lot of taxes on those stocks when you sell them. And if you give your spouse all the stocks that you bought last year that have a smaller profit margin, it looks like you're getting the same amount of money, you are not.
So things like that is why having a financial professional with you.
Talking to a CPA, talking to someone who understand Texas and understands numbers becomes very important.
Maggie: It is so hard to think kind of long term on those things. And we always say like a dollar today is not a dollar tomorrow, depending on what account they're from. I mean, I just think that's like another added element when you're trying to divide the money and divide the time and am I gonna have to move?
And now it's like tax time. 'cause nobody likes taxes to begin with. So it can be a lot. And that is why you really need this full team around you is 'cause your lawyer doesn't know about the [00:20:00] taxes. Some coaches who weren't lawyers before don't know about taxes, you know, and that's why you really need a full team behind you.
Karen: I am a big proponent of having a team of professionals and everybody shies away from that because they're like, oh, how much money is that gonna cost me? But the truth is, if you do it properly, it doesn't have to cost you any more than what just having the lawyer would cost you because. A lot of financial advisors will work with you.
Some are fee-based, but some will work with you for a percentage of assets under management, so you're not paying them necessarily for the advice lenders. If you need to refinance a house, they're not charging you for their advice necessarily. The same thing might be with a certified divorce real estate expert.
So there are a lot of professionals that you can put together and if you're using other professionals to do the jobs they're actually good at, then you need to spend less money with your lawyer because you're not having your lawyer do all the things that they really [00:21:00] aren't the best at necessarily either.
So there are ways to manage a team, but having the right professionals in place. Is going to put you farther ahead in the long run by far.
Barb: Yeah, we totally agree with that. And one other mistake we've heard women make. I'm guilty of this when I went through my divorce, is that they rush through it because they just wanna get it over with. And in hindsight they think, oh, I should have done X or I, we even had a financial professional who said, I'm a financial professional.
I should have known better, right? But I just wanted to get through it, and in hindsight, I made mistakes.
Karen: Yeah, and it's for that financial professional. It's the shame of having to admit that like, I don't know something, or I don't, there is no shame in this. And the best thing you can do is when you don't know something, ask questions, and you would five minutes of looking stupid. Is better than a [00:22:00] lifetime of, being behind the eight ball financially.
Barb: Right.
Karen: And it just makes such a big difference to ask the questions, get the information, and you're a hundred percent right. Don't rush through it. This is not a race, right? This is your life. There are no do-overs. You get one shot at it.
Maggie: And I feel like the other benefit of kind of having that team is I hear a lot of people who are, an attorney is gonna charge you like every 15 minutes, and so they won't get the questions out or all of a sudden it's like brain freeze, you know? And you forget them. And so if you have these other professionals who you can turn to who are actually experts in that area and won't charge you every 15 minutes, you feel a little bit more comfortable to take your time, to ask the questions, to get them out because you're not under this like time crunch.
And it's like, well, if I ask this, it's gonna be $400, right? Because it's.
Karen: Yeah. Yeah, and that's why I work with a lot of my clients on exactly this. What I've seen is they won't ask their lawyer. For questions that they [00:23:00] need the answers to because they don't wanna have to pay, and that's being pennywise and pound foolish. But you have to know what questions are worth the asking, and which questions are just wasting your lawyer's time.
And that's why as a coach, I help. People figure that out so they can optimize the time they spend with their lawyers and ask the questions that they really need answered. And that's one of the things, that's why I work differently than a lawyer does these days, because I want people to ask questions. I want my clients to be completely informed and empowered to make a good decision.
You can't make a good decision if you don't have full information.
Barb: Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about prenups. I know they're not totally for celebrities anymore or billionaires, but you know, do you think women should be considering them before marriage?
Karen: A hundred percent.
I think every woman, every person needs a prenup. And [00:24:00] here's why.
Barb: yeah.
Karen: It's not about the prenup. It's about the conversations that it forces you to have with the person that you are about to marry about money. I mean, look, I believe in getting married for love. I'm totally down with that.
I did it. I think everyone should do it. It's an awesome thing. However, you also gotta know. What are that person's priorities? How do they manage money? Are they in debt? Do they have a lot of money? Are they a spender or are they a saver? And having the conversations that you have to have in order to draft a prenup forces you to ask the questions and have those conversations instead of sort of saying, oh no, we're on the same page about everything.
We agree on everything. I remember counseling a client years and years ago. And she was in love and this was her second marriage and she just want, it was his second marriage and we're just gonna get married. I'm gonna sell everything I have, move outta state down with him and his kids.
And by the [00:25:00] way, she had no kids, so she had never had to deal with kids. And it's gonna be perfect there. I love everything about him. And I said, you need a prenup.
And I kind of put my foot down with her and said, really, you should think about it. Oh, and by the way, he was a lawyer, so he wasn't really excited about the idea, but.
She ended up negotiating a prenup with him that, because I said to her, look, if things go south, I know you're in love. I know this is gonna last forever, but in case it doesn't, you just sold everything. You can't get back to zero. So you need some money from him that if this goes south, you can come back here, get a place.
Because she was, I think she was a teacher, so her job, like she wouldn't be able to start until. Of September. So what if you, if things go south in December, now you gotta wait nine months before you get a paycheck. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Long story short, they negotiated a prenup. It was reasonable.
They both [00:26:00] agreed. The marriage lasted six months.
Barb: No. Oh, no. Thank goodness for
you.
Maggie: she write you a thank you
Barb: Yeah, right.
Karen: But that's the thing. It's like you don't see it when you're in it and your eyes are blinded by love, and that's a beautiful place to be. But if you're gonna spend your life with someone, you have to know if you're on the same page about certain things. And having the conversations now in her situation, having the conversations about money.
It didn't help but the, the relationship fell apart for other reasons, but at least she had something to start again with.
Maggie: and this is a conversation that I try to have with a lot of like my girlfriends who are getting married and there's so much pushback of like. Neither of us have much. It's not necessary. We're both, just working, just, paying off some debt and trying to save some money, and we're both kind of starting at ground zero.
There's nothing that we need to do there. Like what would you kind of give for that pushback?
Karen: I would tell him about Steven [00:27:00] Spielberg. So Steven Spielberg and Amy, whatever her name was, that got married. It, was his first marriage. They were young, they didn't have anything. He was a nobody. And they get married and he becomes Steven Spielberg. He becomes the big director.
He is a bazillionaire. All this fame and fortune and blah, blah, blah. Their marriage falls apart. She wants to get a divorce. He said no. We had a prenup. And she was like, what? Yeah, everything that I created, that's mine. We wrote the prenup on the back of a napkin at a restaurant, and I don't remember if he produced the dirty napkin or whatever.
Anyways, it did not hold up in court.
But that's why, because you don't want to, have the conversations because it doesn't matter if both of you have nothing. Now you still wanna know how do you deal with things as they come? You wanna be on the same page. And because in this instance, because they had no prenup,
he tried to say no. The prenup said, [00:28:00] everything I make during the marriage is mine. Right. So yeah, it didn't go very far. But that's why having that prenup that clearly lays out this is how we are going to treat our finances. If our marriage ends is super helpful. And by the way, I don't mean to be like the bearer of doom and gloom.
Every marriage ends. It's either gonna end in death or divorce, one of the two. Now maybe you both go down in a plane crash at the same time. But they all end. And so there's wisdom to talking about, nobody wants to do it, but wisdom to talking about what happens if it ends by death. What happens if it ends by divorce, particularly if you're in a second marriage situation, either one of you, because then you might have kids from another marriage, and the last thing you want is your kids and your new spouse to be fighting with each other over money when you're gone.
You just don't want that.
Maggie: yeah. [00:29:00] These aren't. Just important conversations to have and to really open. And, sometimes you think you talk about everything until someone asks you a question and you're like, ah, you're right. That's a topic we have not touched. we talked about how we'll split finances, but not what we're gonna do once we have kids.
If someone's gonna stay home, we only got so far. And so it's great to have someone, just get those things that, it's not like you avoided it, you just didn't know that topic needed to be discussed.
Barb: Yeah, and I like the fact of discussing money before you get married because I've heard sad stories of not realizing, oh, I got married. I didn't realize he had $200,000 in student loans, or something like that. Like huge student
loan debt.
Which now we can't get a house now. We can't do so many things we wanted to do.
Karen: and it's not that you wouldn't marry him anyway. Maybe you choose to, but you made an informed decision. Right. You went in with your eyes open, which then if things, if you can't get that house now all of a sudden, are you angry that he has the [00:30:00] student loan debt? Yeah. You're upset that you're in the situation, but he told you so.
You made the decision yourself. You take responsibility for It
Barb: Right.
Karen: changes the dynamic of the relationship.
Barb: For sure.
Maggie: And so, this is a question we like to ask everybody on our podcast, and I know you've coached so many women through massive transitions, but I kind of, wanna flip it. And so what's your definition of financial freedom, Karen?
Karen: Being able to do what you want, when you want, and with who you want.
Barb: Yay. I love it. That's easy. Peasy. It's spot on.
Karen: Yeah, because I mean, people have different, like they may put a dollar amount, like, I want a million dollars. If I had a million dollars, I'll be financially free. Well, a million dollars when I was a young girl is very different than having a million dollars today. It's not what it used to be, right? So by putting a certain number on it, I don't think that really conveys financial freedom, but if you have enough money that you can do what you [00:31:00] want.
And that might be you only have that million dollars, but you live a life that's, really basic and you're fine with it, and you're totally happy. Cool. Yay. You have higher needs, higher desires. You know you need great, you have more in the bank. Yay, you. It doesn't matter. It's what you know.
Can you do what you want when you want, and with whom?
Maggie: Yeah, I love that. And so Karen, I'd love for you to kind of share with the audience, and of course we'll have everything in the show notes, but you know how they can find you, how they can follow you, how they can work with you, all those good things.
Karen: The best place to find me is on my website. It's karen Covy.com. K-A-R-E-N-C-O-V y.com. There's no e in my version of Covy. Or I'd be related to somebody famous and I wouldn't have to work for a living. But yeah, so the website is probably, I'm also on all the socials. I'm everywhere at Karen Covy, so I'm easy to find.
Maggie: Awesome. Yeah, I think in just this quick short episode, you shared so many great tips and some that we don't [00:32:00] always hear about. So I'm glad you're able to come on and give us a bit of your coaching hat and a bit of your lawyer hat to help us coach us through these times as they're not easy and we don't wanna rush through them, but we wanna make sure we're making the best financial decisions for ourselves and for our families.
So thank you again, Karen, for coming on today, and until next time, be financially fearless.
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