When this goes live, I’ll be on the road to the Financial Bloggers Conference outside of Chicago. That translates to a day off here.
Monday, I’ll be back with a whole bucket full of bloggy goodness.
What to Take Away From John Cleese’s Divorce
If you haven’t been kept under a rock your whole life, you’re likely familiar with actor and comedian John Cleese. Part of the infamous Monty Python crew, he starred in films such as Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail, and television shows such as Faulty Towers. However, are you familiar with what has happened to Mr. Cleese financially over the past few years?
When Cleese divorced his third wife she ended up with a divorce settlement that quite literally made her richer than him, despite the fact that they were married for only 16 years and had produced no children.
Divorce is, unfortunately, a fixture of modern society, and people of both sexes need to know how they can protect their personal finances in case of a divorce. After all, these days more than 50% of marriages end in divorce, so not preparing yourself financially for it is engaging is some rather wishful thinking. So how best to protect yourself and your personal finances, should you be unfortunate enough to have to go through one?
If you are the higher-earning party, get a pre-nup prior to marriage; this simply cannot be overemphasized. Cleese himself, already married to wife number four, incidentally, was told that he should have her sign a prenuptial agreement, he initially didn’t want to, despite having just been taken to the proverbial cleaners. He only reluctantly had one written up when his legal team essentially insisted. Even though prenups can be challenged or modified in court, if you are the party bringing more assets to the relationship, it is irresponsible of you not to solicit a prenuptial agreement from a potential spouse.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you should protect assets you have in joint accounts with your spouse, and also begin to actively monitor your credit, if things become acrimonious between you two. This way, you will prevent them from absconding with the totality of your shared funds, or ruining your credit if they are feeling malicious. If you need further information on how to do this properly, speak with a qualified financial planner.
So if you find yourself considering marriage and either have significant assets to protect or suspect you might have them in the future, you owe it to yourself to look into the legalities surrounding prenuptial agreements, and other thorny issues related to personal finance. Failure to do so can end up seriously impacting your life in a negative way, should you ever be faced with a vindictive or greedy spouse; protect yourself!
Related articles
Huh?
Am I the only one who just noticed that it’s Wednesday? The holiday week with the free day is completely screwing me up.
Just to make this a relevant post:
Spend less!
Save more!
Invest!
Wee!
Don’t Be A Dick
Integrity is what you do when nobody is looking.
Do you cheat at solitaire, steal from an untended garage sale, or keep something a store forgets to charge you for? If so, integrity may not be your strongest trait.
Similarly, if you let the actions of others dictate your behavior, you may be integrity impaired.
If you get cut off in traffic, do suddenly feel justified in cutting off the next guy?
If you have a dollar stolen from your desk, does that make it okay to take a candy bar from the honor-system candy box?
If the last guy left the water cooler empty, are you going to refuse to refill it the next time you are the one to drink the last drop?
If you’re answering yes to these questions, it may be time to examine your moral code. Doing the right thing means doing the right thing all of the time. You can’t be an honorable person if you resort to dishonorable behavior whenever you dislike what someone else does, especially if your actions are hurting an entirely uninvolved 3rd party.
You know the proper behavior. You know what the ethical choice is. The fact that someone else made an unethical choice doesn’t give you a license to be a dick.
If it’s your turn to clean the community refrigerator, do it and do it well, even if the last guy did a poor job.
If the last mom driving the car pool showed up late, don’t deliberately forget her kid.
If someone forgot to pay at a group lunch and you covered it, that doesn’t mean you can skip out on the bill next time.
Even if everything else is taken from you, no one can ever steal your ethics, your integrity, or your honor. Those things are up to you to destroy, and they nearly impossible to replace.
In all cases, in all things, do the right thing. You won’t be sorry.
Resurrected from the archives.
Link Roundup
In an effort to make sure that both of my readers can’t possibly miss the things I think are important, I’m going to start doing a weekly roundup of the best of the internet. Judged solely, and arbitrarily, by me.
On topic:
These, naturally, are the posts that fit the theme of this site.
How To Check Your Federal IRS Tax Refund Status. When I checked a couple of days ago, they were about 2 weeks out.
TurboTax has screwed up the property tax refund form for Minnesota. Thankfully, I haven’t filed this, yet, but I did verify the problem.
Where do you want to be in 5 years? Start taking those steps, now, or you will never get there. Find something, no matter how small, and do it.
Deficit Neutrality doesn’t count, if a massive initial purchase is offset by future intentions to cut spending.
Off topic:
This is just some of the random crap I think is worth sharing.
If you’re going to argue on the internet, make sure you have your sources right. Primary sources are better than secondary.
Bring back dueling to ensure good manners.
Here’s a guide to saving water-damaged books.
I am a shameless geek and reformed DnD player, so this room was exciting to see.
How to make room for a paying lodger
- Image via Wikipedia
A spare room in your home is an opportunity to boost your income. Imagine how much extra cash you could make by offering that space to a rent-paying tenant. You can start getting things ready by creating the necessary space right now. Our guest blogger, Big Yellow Self Storage, shows you how in these five simple steps.
1. What needs to go? Take a good look around your spare room (and the rest of your home, while you’re at it). Decide what you’re happy to part company with and what you want to find a storage solution for.
2. Sell, donate or trash. For anything with a monetary value, get selling. Try online auctions, your local classified ads, boot sales(ed. That’s a flea market or swap meet for those in the U.S.) – anything that offers a cheap and quick way to raise cash. Alternatively, give your unwanted but perfectly serviceable items to charity. As a last resort, put them out with the trash or take them to a recycling centre.
3. Decide what sort of storage solution you need. For those items that you’re not getting rid of, you’ll need some form of storage facility. And, depending on what those items are, this could be a garden shed, a loft, a garage or a unit at a secure, temperature-controlled storage site.
4. Prepare your items to go into storage. Flat pack self assembly furniture and keep the fixings close by in a small bag. Coat wood and metal with varnish and rust protector respectively. Keep mattresses in bags available at DIY stores. (Change the bag every year). Use a wardrobe to store clothes, shoes, bags and bed linen – its small footprint will give you loads of hanging, stacking and shelving space. Be aware that books can get really heavy. Use lots of small boxes instead of fewer large ones and list their contents on the visible sides.
5. Get ready to welcome your lodger! All that remains now is to prepare and advertise your spare room – and start earning money!
For further information about storing just about anything and to find out more about storage options, visit Big Yellow for Self Storage.
