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Tanya: All right. Melissa, welcome to the momentum podcast thank you so much for being here.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Thanks so much for having me, Tanya.

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Tanya: It's such a pleasure. I cannot wait to have this conversation with you. I think that there are so many women, and maybe even dads out there listening. That will benefit from this conversation. And I'm really excited to learn from you today. But can you start by introducing yourself to the audience.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Sure my name is Melissa Murphy Pavone. I am a certified financial planner and certified divorce financial analyst.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: I live on Long Island. I am a mom. I have 2 kids. Caroline is 7 and a half, but you know, as a mom, the half is.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: where are you or app.

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Tanya: It matters. Yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: It matters and my son Colin is 4.

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Tanya: Oh, oh! Our kids are close to the same age as my daughter just turned 7, and then my son just turned 5.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Okay, yeah. So we're in it.

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Tanya: Yes, definitely. All right. Well, we're going to talk about money today, which we've never discussed on this podcast before. But let's just jump right into it. And can you? Just explain. How do you start having open and honest conversations about money with our spouse, especially when it feels awkward or uncomfortable?

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: It's not. It's not easy, right? And I'm not gonna say like, Oh, there's this perfect, you know. Plan how to do it. And a lot of it is based upon our generally generationally, how we talked about money growing up.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: But I think moving forward, we just have to do it, and you can make it fun. I like to have what's called like a financial date night and make a plan for, you know, spending saving you can throw like your family vacation planning in there. And it's

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: it doesn't have to be this treacherous

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: thing that causes stress. I think once you get over that anxiety of it, you can make it fun. And just think like this is your spouse. And, like you guys, do everything together and go in with an open mind. I actually started a company called Money Matters in Marriage, which helps people take like a mindset discovery quiz, and you get like a side by side report, because a lot of people were saying like, Hey, I don't know how to do this, you know, I don't

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: start. It's awkward. We're we're already in our marriage. We already have kids. We're in a house we already have debt like, where do we go? And so this discovery quiz like spouse A takes it spouse. B takes it, and you got a side by side report.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: and then you can have a follow up call with the Cfp. And kind of have, like an actionable plan to move forward. So that's like a good 1st step. If you can't do it yourself.

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Tanya: Oh, I love that.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah, and I.

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Tanya: Link to that.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah, I would love to. Yeah. And I'll I can give like your listeners, like a discount code, too. But I think it's it's 1 of those things that

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: we don't talk about it until it's too late, you know, like a lot of people are focused on the wedding right?

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: The Bachelorette party, and like the bridal party and the honeymoon. But and that's just all like a glimpse of time, you know, a month a day, and then it's over, and you have to spend your rest of your life

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: hopefully with this person and build. You know a family together and build your financial future together, and people don't talk about those things, and it's awkward, and sometimes it gets too late. And it's a big cause of divorce. Later on. It's that kind of financial infidelity and lack of financial communication.

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Tanya: Yeah. Yeah.

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Tanya: Oh, my gosh,

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Tanya: So what advice

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Tanya: do you have for women who have transitioned from working and managing their own income to staying at home and becoming financially dependent on their spouse.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: I think

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: it's people really struggle with this, and I think the thing that is most important is communication is key, and there's no right or wrong way to handle it. But you both need to talk about it and be on the same page. And one of the things part of the mindset discovery quiz is like, are we gonna contribute

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: like dollar for dollar, or proportionally with our income? So like, if you don't make the same, if there's an income disparity, how does that work? And if I'm not going to be working, how does that work, you know, so that there's no resentment moving forward.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: and

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: there's a lot of ways to do it, and there's no right or wrong. I think it's just. You have to have a plan and communication. And sometimes

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: we don't have that right. We're just like, okay. Now, we're having.

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Tanya: Right.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: I'm staying home now. I don't want to go back to work now, what like and what does that look like? And we have to be willing to make those shifts of our lifestyle. Also, if you have 2 incomes coming in, you know, there's, you know, as a mother's like that

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: cost benefit analysis of like, hey? If I pay a nanny or childcare like, am I not.

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Tanya: As it.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah.

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Tanya: It doesn't make sense. Because sometimes and you hear about that a lot like, even in my own life, yeah, like, it just doesn't make sense like I'm work. It seems like you're working just to pay for.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Okay, that's there. Yeah.

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Tanya: Missing out on. You want to be involved in their lives. And you're basically paying somebody else to rate it feels that way. Anyway.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah.

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Tanya: Yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: And it's really hard. Yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: And I think communication is the most important part of that to have a plan and know that it can be temporary. It's not for forever.

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Tanya: Yeah, yeah. And I keep hearing you say communication. And I know there are like so many people out there who

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Tanya: have a hard time, because it just feels so awkward.

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Tanya: Or it just feels so intimidating to like, have that conversation like, what if

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Tanya: they're already in it like they?

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Tanya: They already made the decision to like, be a stay at home, mom, it's been like a year, or maybe even longer.

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Tanya: like, how would you go about having the conversation now.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah, I mean, I sometimes I think it helps.

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Tanya: Go ahead!

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: You didn't talk about it at a time. You're in it like, bring somebody else in like a neutral 3rd party to be like, hey, this is our situation. How can we make this better? And sometimes, once you look at it.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: it is, you know, after tax, better.

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Tanya: Yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: You know, or sometimes, if you look at those benefits of Okay, I have Fmla, or I have short term disability, or this is my maternity package, or there's paternity packages. So there's there's options there. And even if you're in it

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: like doesn't mean like you just have to like, go at it alone, you know. Sometimes we need help, and sometimes having that kind of unbiased neutral 3rd party to be like, Hey, this is our situation. Got any advice.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: and Cfps will do that for you. They'll just like kind of give you an overview. There's no judgment. There's no.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: you know. There, it's just like, here are some options. Here are some different ways to look at it, and then you get everyone on the same page which app without that resentment, because you never want that resentment, and you never want the guilt, because that doesn't go away.

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Tanya: No, no, it doesn't

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Tanya: And then many

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Tanya: stay at home. Moms feel inadequate or struggle with scarcity and lack when it comes to money because they're not contributing to the family in that way anymore.

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Tanya: So how can they shift their mindset to feel more empowered.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah. So I think being a mom is the most underpaid yet rewarding job there is.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: You never get a day off and you get paid in a combination of love, tears, and attitude, depending upon how old your kids are.

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Tanya: Yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: But if you really think about it, and I do this exercise a lot with families and moms specifically. But if you had to pay somebody to pack lunches, to do laundry, to drive the kids to the activities, to buy the birthday gifts and schlept to the parties which, like how many birthday parties do we have to like? Go to on the weekends? It's insane

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: just remembering spirit week and donating to the food pantry that that's like a full time job, and if you had to pay somebody hourly to do all of those things to reclaim.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: that is your contribution. And so you're not putting dollars into the bank per se. But if you're not there and I have this conversation a lot when we're doing financial planning and part of financial planning is insurance right to make sure that everybody is insured properly, and a lot of times they're like, Oh, I only need

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: my husband because he works.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: We don't need insurance on my wife. She doesn't work. So I'm like, okay. But if something happened to Mom.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: who is going to do all of these things. You can't go to work and then do her job at home. And then people kind of just look at me like we actually need more insurance on Mom, because mom's more valuable, you know, like.

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Tanya: There are.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: You can't. You're not just gonna get one person to do all of those mom tasks like there's gonna be multiple people that would have to replace mom. And so I think that looking at it from that perspective

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: changes, and it's not just for the mom, but for the other spouse as well, or whoever's staying at home for that other spouse to say, Wow, like you do a lot.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: and it's not, perhaps dollar for dollar. But if we put

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: a dollar amount associated, or an hourly rate associated with all of those tasks?

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: It would be hard to replace.

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Tanya: Right definitely.

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Tanya: I love looking at it that way.

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Tanya: So for couples who have never created a budget before.

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Tanya: where do you think they should start. And are there any like simple strategies to make budgeting feel less overwhelming.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah, so I I think the word budget cause I feel like budget is bad, and it feels like a diet.

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Tanya: And if you tell me I have to go on a diet, then all I think about is carbs and what I can eat right?

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Tanya: Yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: So I like to refer to it as cash flow, because it's fluid, and there's money coming in, and there's money coming out. And it's not all static like. Obviously, we all have our fixed expenses, our mortgage or car payments or insurance. But there's a lot of discretionary spending or variable expenses that happen.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: and sometimes they're monthly, and they go up or down, and sometimes they're just like one time expenses. You know, we're in an expensive season. It's holidays. We're tipping everyone. We're getting all the teachers gifts, we're, you know, like doing all that. So I always think December don't even look at the budget because there's or the cash flow, because there's no sense right? It totally sees the whole projections off. But

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: one exercise I'm doing with Jan in January is like everybody like, think about how much you actually spend in these categories and make it kind of like a game like part of that financial date night like, how much do you think we actually spend in uber eats, or, you know, like in clothing or in kids activities like all of these things that we don't necessarily track, but we know money is going out for them.

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Tanya: Yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: And then do like a debit card diet or a credit card analysis, where you can give it to a financial planner, and they'll see how close or far off you are from your projections. And it's not like, okay. Oh, you're terrible, but you can see like, Oh, hey, I

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: kind of spent a lot of money at Starbucks this month, like, maybe I can scale that back and like a small tweak is like, Hey

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: and I and I did this recently, like I we did, and coffee was one of the things. It was a nurse. She worked in a hospital, and so her, you know, kind of like relief was like the Dunkin donuts in the hospital.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: and it was a couple $100 that she was spending a month

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: at the duck and donuts. And she didn't, really she didn't realize it. And so what we did after it adds up right, coffee is not cheap anymore. And so what we did is we end up saying like, Hey, I'm going to a lot

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: $100 to coffee for the month and bought a prepaid gift card loaded it, which is much easier now with all the apps, and then said, When that runs out, I'm not. I'm not.

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Tanya: And then you're done.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Use that for the month, then you use it. So you think twice about like, hey? Am I going to buy the extra treat, or you know, do it every day, if I don't necessarily need it.

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Tanya: That's a really good hack. I love.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah.

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Tanya: Buying a gift card and saying like once it's done. It's done like.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah, wait until the next month to kind of reload it. And it kind of just like those tiny things will just make you a little bit more aware, and you think twice without saying like, no, you can't have any coffee. We all need coffee, especially as moms, but if you just like, tweak it a little bit. You you create some awareness, and you think twice about it. So it's not so reactionary.

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Tanya: Yeah. And I love the idea, too, of like making it a game like, how can like

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Tanya: having an audit and like looking at all of your expenses and like, how can we just like tweak this little thing

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Tanya: here and like just making it a game, seeing how much money you can save.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah. And some of the things are like, non negotiables. Right? Like, okay, I want to get my nails done, or I need to get my hair done. And like, that's okay. We can have that in a separate pile if it's like the golf club membership. Whatever it is. You guys can talk about that as a couple and be like all right. These are my non negotiables, you know, like this is important to me, and why this is part of self care, and I think that's important.

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Tanya: Yeah, yeah.

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Tanya: Okay. Well, on your once on your website, you mentioned offering like a different approach to wealth.

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Tanya: So can you just explain what makes your approach unique, and how it benefits the people you work with.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah, so I think that a lot of financial advisors in general focus on the future and just investing. And my mantra is that we really need to unpack our financial past. Some of that is trauma, some of that is just generational learning about money.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: We definitely need to invest in our future.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: The most important thing is to live in the present, and that's very much easier said than done. But it's a balancing act. If we focus too much on the past.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: You're not gonna move forward, and if all you care about is the future, you're gonna miss the here and the now.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: So it's that balancing act of unpacking the past. Talking about it with your spouse. We all grew up in very different households, right? Different relationships, different socioeconomic statuses. But also, did you have an allowance like who bought your 1st car? Do you know? Is there inheritance like there's all these things that like we don't necessarily talk about.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: So once we unpack that and kind of craft your own money mantra together, and your money mindset, for, like your family, we can't fix the past right. We all have trauma.

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Tanya: Right.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: But if we talk about it, then sometimes you might understand like, Oh, why, you know why we do the things we do.

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Tanya: Yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: And I think the here and now is hard, like we could be in a very expensive season.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: And that's okay. You know, it's.

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Tanya: Yeah, like, right now, we're in an expensive season.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yes, yes, we are

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: and that's okay, you know. But let's talk about it. Know it's temporary and know that, like, okay, after we get over this hurdle like, okay, we're gonna plan on putting more in retirement, or hey, like, we can't put as much money into the renovation fund right now. But that's okay. Cause that's not as important to us right now. We'll fix the house later, or you know we'll keep the car a couple more years. We don't have to get a new car, you know, like those little things, to just talk about them and

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: think what's best for your family unit.

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Tanya: Okay, so do you think it's like

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Tanya: it sounds like everything comes down to communication. But it's like uncovering, like your

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Tanya: mindset with money, your spouses mindset with money, and then coming together and discussing like what's important

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Tanya: to the both of you. Kind of like compromising.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Definitely and how you want your children to view money right? Cause? That's.

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Tanya: Yeah.

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Tanya: which? Yeah, this wasn't 1 of my questions. But I do want to talk about like, how, yeah, how do you recommend

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Tanya: talking about money or teaching your kids about money like, do you recommend?

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Tanya: You know, I know that it's kind of like a controversial topic allowance, like some people are

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Tanya: like very against it. Others are not like, what's your take on that.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: I think that like just.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: it's hard, right? And I think it's harder for us. Because there's so much with social media in our faces. You know, there's like that pressure that we all have. But also we live in a cashless society.

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Tanya: Yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: My daughter came home the other day was like my water bottle broke, and I was like, Okay, and she wanted a new one. And like the next morning the magic Amazon man created like, delivered a brand new water bottle on the porch. She didn't see me order it because I ordered it, while I was like applying neck cream and peeing at the same time at night time.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: And then and then it came. She didn't see me pay for it. She didn't see me order it.

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Tanya: Peered out of thin air right like.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: It was like the magic, you know, water bottle. And I think about that. And it's not. It's not good, but we do it right like. And I'm

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: events.

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Tanya: Cause it's convenient. Yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: It's convenient, right? And we're multitasking. And we're trying to do all of the things, and we don't have time. And I am grateful as hell for Amazon, because I don't know what I would do without it as a mom. But

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: I try to one of the things that we do when we like, go on vacation.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: we give the kids some money, and you know how annoying is it when you go into a store or anywhere? Because, like, I want this. I want this. I want this right, like they want ice cream. They want a toy, they want a sweatshirt. And so, in order to try to teach like that delayed gratification, or that those choices we have been giving the kids money and saying, Here's your money

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: you can choose. This is all the money you're getting, so if you want it on ice cream, if you want it on candy, if you want it on junk, or you know, Bubble, whatever in the toy store. This is all you're getting. You can choose to pull your money together. You can choose to save your money, but you're not getting any more money. So we can, you know. And so they try to start thinking like, Hey, okay, this is how much I have. If I buy this?

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: What's going to be left? Or if I waste it here, there might be something at the next door that we didn't get to yet.

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Tanya: Right.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: To just teach the value of it. So they don't just get whatever they want, because it's very often that that magical water bottle just appears, and there's things like that all the time that I'm guilty of doing so when I have those teachable moments and can like pause, and we can try to be like on a united front together to try to teach them. And it's it's not easy, and I don't do it often, but when I do. You can kind of see their little brains working to be like, Hey, okay, like, do I really want this.

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Tanya: Right? Yeah, you actually like thinking about it. Yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah.

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Tanya: That is so smart. I love that. And I'm going to use that idea, too. Like because they don't. They don't have. We don't use cash, and we had started to do an allowance system over the summer, and I'm guilty like I was not consistent with it, because it's just like we don't

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Tanya: have cash all the time. So it was like running to the bank to get like dollars.

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Tanya: But I love that idea of when you're going to the store, taking

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Tanya: some cash with you, giving like, deciding on like a set amount ahead of time, giving them each how, whatever

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Tanya: the amount is, and saying like this is how much money you have so like. Think about what you actually want like. This is how much this costs. How much money do you have like? Is it enough?

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Tanya: That is so smart cause? Yeah. And I struggle with

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Tanya: not wanting to pass on like the scarcity mindset that I feel like I

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Tanya: have inherited, you know. So I don't talk about money, or like I try not to like. Say, you know, things are expensive. But then, at the same time, I'm like, am I? I don't want them to feel entitled, or like not understand the value of.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah.

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Tanya: We can't just like go around buying everything.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: there, there's this fine line, but between like empowering them and enabling them, you know, and it's and it's hard, and it's not.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: It's not easy, and you, you and your spouse, I think, really have to be on the same page about it, which is sometimes hard in, like the heat of the moment, to try.

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Tanya: Gonna be like.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Have that look or have that, you know. Be like, okay, are we gonna stick to our guns here, or are we going to? You know.

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Tanya: Yeah, but getting on the same page. And I love this idea of having like a financial date.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah, you can make it fun like, open your favorite bottle of wine, get takeout like it doesn't have to be like, okay, we're sitting down with our taxes and like our checkbook, and you know it could be fun.

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Tanya: Right? Right?

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Tanya: So my next question was about debt.

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Tanya: You know it can be. I know it can be a major source of stress for families. So what steps can we take to address and manage debt in a healthy way?

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: I think that not all debt is bad debt right? Like very few Americans own their house out.

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Tanya: True.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: To have mortgages, even our cars nowadays. It's not very, you know, growing up. My parents never had a car payment. They just

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: bought the car that they could afford with the money that they had on hand. We all now drive Suvs. That cost as much as houses cost, that we grew up in, you know. So I think that not all that is bad. But we need to be realistic.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: I think it goes back to the expensive season like childcare

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: is really expensive, and so like to know that you're in us like a it's temporary. And to know that, like your focus will shift after the kids are maybe in school full time, or you can go back to work, or, however, that looks for your family. That is temporary and just

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: a big thing is communication. To know like what debt you have so like.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Financial infidelity is a thing, and sometimes it's gambling, sometimes it's shopping, sometimes it's student loans like whatever it is.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Come clean about it. Tell your spouse, and then get on the same page to paying it down together. It's not something to be embarrassed by. Also, you want to know, like, Hey, is this something that we can afford? Now? Are we trying to keep up with the Joneses, or

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: something that we should like. Wait until we have a little bit more money to put towards.

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Tanya: Yeah, I love that. It makes me think of like what Brene Brown always says about shame like the what does she say? The anecdote to shame is.

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Tanya: what does she say? Vulnerability? So yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah.

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Tanya: Clean or else a shame. It's just gonna grow and create more problems.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah, and you. You'll feel better once, you know. And once it's out in the open and then together, you guys can put your heads together to be like, okay, let's get rid of this, or let's make a game plan, and, you know, get rid of this and and that could be part of it like your financial date night to be like. All right, we want to pay this credit card off by this time, and then at that point that will free up some cash flow so we can renovate our bathroom, or we can go on that vacation that we want to go on, you know so like, if you look at it

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: as fluid cash coming in cash, going out and not look at it as like, oh, my God! This is the worst thing ever. We're never gonna get out.

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Tanya: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I even like, yeah, that terminology

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Tanya: switch. It does feel a little bit better. Cash flow like, let's talk about our cash flow rather than let's talk about a budget.

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Tanya: so what do you think are the most common money related issues that couples face, and how can they work through them together.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: I think it's the what ifs that?

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: If you know, if everyone's making money spending money, things are good

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: and and we're kind of just like status quo. Right? Like, we're saving our money. We're buying our things. We're living our life. It's when the unexpected happens that really throws a wrench into the plan.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: and that could be really where a financial professional can help and financial professionals.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: They hope for the best, but they're gonna prepare for the worst like behind the scenes, and part of that is like.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: is there an unexpected layoff.

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Tanya: Yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: And what does that look like? Is there an unexpected death?

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Do we have insurance.

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Tanya: Or injury where somebody's out of work. Yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah, that's huge. If there is like something, a big ticket item that goes on your house like, is there an emergency

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: cover that.

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Tanya: Yeah.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah, those are big ticket items that we don't necessarily plan for

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: like we do the electric bill and the cable bill. And so when something like that a $10,000 bill comes in. You're like, Ouch! Like, where is that coming from? So I think that's where

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: detention starts from. So if you kind of like, prepare for that, and I'm a big proponent of insurance, but also an emergency fund like you should have 3 to 6 months of your living expenses tucked away in a high yield money market. And that's not part of the equation. That's just like the Oh shit fund! The burner broke. We're out of the job, you know. We got laid off, or we have like this big expense coming up.

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Tanya: Okay, I'm right. I'm taking notes.

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Tanya: So in your work. What is one piece of advice or strategy that has made the biggest difference, do you think, for the families you've helped.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: I think it's really like the financial date night that in the past money has been so taboo. Nobody talked about it. We didn't know how much our parents made. It was very like, Hush, hush.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: but moving forward, you can change that, and it's not like we have to, you know.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: listed in the newspaper and tell everyone about it. But within your own family unit you can have better communication and a healthier relationship with money and the communication around money, and that will have a ripple effect

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: on the world going forward with your kids.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: and your spouse. And I think that's really important.

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Tanya: Yeah.

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Tanya: And then how can we cultivate a mindset of abundance and financial confidence even during challenging times?

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: I think

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: it's hard with the media because bad news sells right. The media is constantly telling us the world is coming to an end. The market's going to crash, and the truth of the matter is, it's all bullshit right. Their goal is to sell ad space, and your goal is to keep your family like within your family unit, your financial plan?

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: And I think if you just ignore the noise and really just focus on you, you your spouse, your kids, your family, your balance sheet.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: and you don't have to worry about everything else that's going on with the world or keeping up with the Joneses, you know it's really hard, you know you, we often, and with social media, compare ourselves to others. Right? Based

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: the assets that we see that people have right. Oh, they have a really big house. They have a really nice car. Oh, she has a really nice pocketbook, but they're not also showing their mortgage statement, their release payments, or their credit card debt. Right? So, like all of those things.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: are not necessarily transparent. So if you just block those things out

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: and really shift inward to your family. What's important to you like what

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: car is not important to you? Right? Like a car is a car. An Suv is an Suv like you don't have to have the biggest, baddest, you know, newest one

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: and think about just what is important. Long term like, sometimes people say, like, Okay, I want to retire earlier.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: you know. And so because of that, I'm going to not spend as much now, you know, or

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Hey, I really want to travel. And that's why I'm not gonna have as as many materialistic items. So you have to really think about your personal values of like is the stuff important or the experiences important? Is the investing in the legacy important, and find that balancing act. But it's not a 1 size fits all. It's really custom to your family.

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Tanya: Yeah, for sure, for sure.

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Tanya: And then if someone is interested in learning more, where can they find you? And how can they work with you?

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Yeah, so money matters and marriagellc.com is the online discovery quiz, and we can give a code. Mom 25, to get 25% off for all listeners who want to take that discovery quiz

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: and mindfulfinancialpartners.com is my financial planning site. And I offer complimentary consultation. So feel free to just book like a 30 min. Zoom. Happy to just kind of bounce ideas and point you guys in the right direction, if it's not me that you want to work with. But I can kind of point you to the other financial professionals that you might need in your life. At this point.

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Tanya: That's awesome. So do you work, people that work with people virtually.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: I do. Yeah.

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Tanya: Okay. Okay.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: I do?

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Tanya: Awesome. Well, this has been so great. I know I learned so much. I cannot wait to hear feedback from everybody who listens today, and I'll be sure to link all this stuff in the show notes. So everybody you can

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Tanya: head on over to the website. Or I think I'll also have it wherever you're listening. Below. Okay, so thank you so much, Melissa. It was such a pleasure.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Pleasure, having you.

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Tanya: Everyone. It was so nice meeting you.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: Have a great day.

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Tanya: You, too, and enjoy your holiday season.

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Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP® , CDFA®: You too.

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Tanya: Bye.