Prenups are a way of protecting your financial assets, like investment accounts and real estate properties. Making a plan for your assets is a gift to your future selves. Today we break down how to get a prenup, what to put in a prenup, and why prenups are important.
So, what is a prenup?
A prenup is a contract that you and your boo put together before you get married that outlines your financial and possibly lifestyle choices once you are a married couple.
Celebrities are most famous for prenups, but you definitely don’t have to be either rich or famous to get one.
Essentially, think of a prenup as a way to make a plan for your assets with your partner. But also I think of a prenup as approaching what is going to be ultimately the most difficult time in your relationship divorcing with a plan that you made during the good times when you were still in love with each other. It’s a way to prevent the dissolution of your marriage from becoming an all out war.
Why women need a prenup
Here’s my even hotter take: I think all women who are marrying men need a prenup. Listen, the facts speak for themselves. Women come out of divorce much more financially worse off than men. In 2022, Kiplinger reported that going through a divorce is difficult for everyone involved, but the economic consequences almost always fall more heavily on the woman. According to the Government Accountability Office, women who divorced after 50 will see their income dropped by 41% versus men seeing only a 23% drop.
“Women are more likely to feel divorces financial burden,” says Shweta Lawande is a CFP and CDFA and lead advisor with Francis Financial, a firm specializing in divorce financial planning. A woman can pretty much see her retirement savings cut in half, which can be devastating. In addition, she is unable to recover because she tends to earn less in her career and may also have taken time out of the workforce to care for children.
A 40 year study that followed the financial lives of divorce women found that at retirement age, divorced women who never remarried had an average monthly benefit of around $1,000. The figure more than doubled to $2,231 for continuously married woman who enjoyed the combined effects of their husbands benefits too. If you’re not partnered in the United States, the financial systems are somewhat hostile to you. And if you’re divorced, meaning you’ve had to pay the cost of a lawyer or perhaps you’ve had to pay alimony or child support, perhaps you had to divide your assets. Women generally come out the other side of that with less money than either women who never married, or women who remained married long-term.
You need a prenup, even if you aren’t wealthy
Even if you think, “Oh well, the only asset I have worth protecting is my $1,200 MacBook and my 2010 Honda Accord, you should still get a prenup.” Even if you know you’re never gonna get divorced, talking to your current partner and soon to be spouse about money should be a part of your life anyway, moving forward. If you’re going to be combining lives, hopefully you’re combining conversations about money and having a conversation about protecting and organizing your individual assets and your joint assets.
How do we get a prenup?
You can hire an estate planning attorney for you and for your partner. In order to have a prenup drawn up you each need to have legal representation. If you want to get a prenup. You can’t use the same lawyer that’s a conflict of interest for the lawyer but you can also use a company called Hello prenup. This post is not sponsored by them, but you can use code BRAVELY50 to save $50 off your prenup at helloprenup.com! https://helloprenup.com/
Want to learn more?
Check out this Youtube video where we go into all the nitty, gritty details of prenuptial agreements.