This article today brought tears to my eyes. It is such an extreme example, yet it really could happen to anyone. So many of us as women simply let our partners handle our finances, and have no real idea of what our assests and liabilities are. Read this story from LearnVest to understand how important it is to know:
With wedding season upon us, you know we have to bring up those love and money topics: whether you should you sign a prenup and how marriage affects your finances.
And here’s another one: how your husband can keep financial secrets in a marriage and leave you with $3 million in debt when he passes away.
It sounds like a financial urban legend, but it happened to Carol Ross Joynt. In 1997, Joynt was 47 years old and living in Maryland, a successful producer for Larry King Live, mother of a healthy little boy, and happily married to her husband Howard, who owned the legendary Georgetown restaurant Nathans. They lived a lavish lifestyle complete with vacation homes and designer clothes, and she was very much in love.
Then Howard died from pneumonia. Joynt’s grief was multiplied by the shocking revelation that he had hidden a financial mess from her for years—most notably, he was under investigation for tax fraud, and the IRS was turning to her for the $3 million owed…..
To read the rest of the article, including the saddest quote:
I was always selling things. I was like Scarlett O’Hara, taking down the curtains to use.
You can go on over to the LearnVest site and check it out. It is definitely worth reading, and I love that she was strong enough to figure out a plan to salvage what she could.
LearnVest is one of my new favorite sites, and if you sign up for their daily email you’ll get more stories and great tips, plus access to all of their free tools. Just click the link below to check it out!
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