2010: Ask Farnoosh: What Annoys Me Most About Money? (Plus: Disability Insurance and Long-Term Care 101)

**Farnoosh Torabi** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:34)
You're listening to So Money with award-winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi. Each day, get a 30-minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers, and from Farnoosh yourself.
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**Farnoosh Torabi** (1:01)
Welcome to So Money, everybody. I'm Farnoosh Torabi. It is Friday, July 17th. We have a lot of questions today all over the place. Someone wants to know how to leave their job gracefully while quietly job hunting. How to move in with your partner and combine your finances without getting into a fight. Insurance priorities for a young, single professional when to think about long-term care insurance and what to do with that old, empty, rusty 401k, that account that's just been sitting there after you switch jobs. If you're listening to this show, thank you so much. And I also have another offer for you. I am on YouTube. Hi, YouTube. Hi.
I'm here just waving. I understand this is where all the kids are going to get their podcasts now. And trust me, this isn't a new thing that I've been told. I've been told this. People have been telling me this for years, and I have been just ignoring them. And I can't ignore them any longer. So here we are on YouTube. I would love for you to hop over and check us out. Check me out. I will be posting most of our interviews on YouTube, and sometimes these Friday episodes. But it's the future, and here we are. Before we get to the mailbag, I wanted to share a couple things. First, a little brag. Many of you know that in my non-existing spare time, I've launched a hyperlocal podcast, another one. So I now produce four shows a week, including So Money.
I produced The Montclair Pod with my colleague Michael Schreiber. We are two friends. We go way back to Columbia Journalism School. And 18 months ago, we decided to launch The Montclair Pod as a way to serve our community, do something fun, tell all of the great stories that are hidden in our community, and the news and the analysis and sometimes breaking news. And we have done quite a thing. It turns out in 18 months, we have made money, we have won awards, we have changed the discourse and impacted the discourse in our town. And the Columbia Journalism Review, which is an industry publication, it's journalists covering journalists, talking about the industry, they profiled us as a way to kind of tell everybody about our playbook, our playbook which is how to do hyper local podcasts and bring back local news in a fresh and relevant way. And we are very grateful for this spotlight. It means a lot coming from our peers. And I'll link to that in our show notes. But it's just maybe a sign that we're on to something. And how a side hustle might someday become a full time hustle. I don't know. But in the meantime, let's talk about Money. This podcast isn't going anywhere. This podcast is only going places. As I mentioned, we're on YouTube now. As I mentioned, too, we have a lot of questions from our mailbag. But the news was pretty heavy over the last 10 days when it comes to personal finance, and some stories that I really want to talk about right now include a Wall Street Journal piece about a new clause in prenups. And I love this. It's meant to protect the spouse who leaves their job to become the full-time caregiver. And so in the Wall Street Journal, a story about how more couples are adding what's called a quote, leaving the workforce clause in their prenups. And the idea is simple. If one partner steps away from their career to raise kids or become a full-time caregiver, the prenup automatically provides financial protections for that person. Why does this matter? Because friends leaving the workforce isn't just giving up a paycheck, right? It can mean missing out on years of raises, promotions, retirement contributions, social security credits, and of course, future earning potential. And if a marriage ends years later, courts don't always fully compensate somebody for those lost opportunities. I think this is the other thing. It forces the spouse who continues to earn a paycheck to really understand and put a value towards the partner who isn't working outside of the home, per se, or earning an actual paycheck. For too long, we have underestimated or not estimated any value for the caregiver in the home. But the fact of the matter is, the person who's earning the paycheck could not do their job as well for as long as they do, with as much flexibility. If it wasn't for somebody else at home who was doing everything else, right? To make everyone else's life function and operate and move smoothly. So these newer prenups can require the working spouse to contribute to an investment account for the stay-at-home parent. I was actually on the Today Show, was it last week or two weeks ago, talking about this, how it's important to open up maybe a spousal IRA for the non-paycheck earning partner. The paycheck earning partner opens up a spousal IRA, puts it in their partner's name, contributes to it from their paycheck, and now this essentially becomes a default retirement account for their partner who is the full-time caregiver. These prenuptial are also guaranteeing a larger share of assets in the event of a divorce, providing annual payments tied to years spent caregiving, and even funding education or career training if that spouse needs to reenter the workforce after a divorce. Hallelujah. What I love about this trend is that it changes the conversation around prenuptial. They're not just about protecting wealth. They're becoming a financial planning tool that recognizes, as I mentioned, unpaid labor, and it treats the caregiver as an economic contributor to the marriage. So long and short, if you and your partner are even thinking that one of you may someday pause your career to raise children, that is a conversation worth having before the wedding, not after, and the goal isn't to plan for divorce, to make sure both partners are protected if one person's career is put on hold for the benefit of the family.