Domestic abuse and money

Posted on September 16, 2014September 16, 2014 by Danielle

It’s about money, whether the headlines are horrific cases of bride burning, or a knockout in an elevator with an NFL sports star. Despite the myriad reasons women have been posting on Why I Stayed, many of them boil down to not enough money to leave.

Sure, many of us can answer because I loved him, but I think that the next time he smacks you around, if you had, say, a cool $5 million in the bank you’d think twice about whether love was enough. If you have children, or haven’t worked in a while, or your spouse is making more money than you ever saw before—more than you have any hope of ever making, well, you’ll try to make it work.

Money gives you a much better chance at safety, from beginning to end. When I got a court order of protection, the process server rang my husband’s doorbell a time or two, even though he was living 4 doors away and I could see he was home. What a surprise that he never answered. No, despite what you see on TV, court process servers don’t sit outside waiting, or go to any of the other places you could tell them the husband would be—they never even asked me. But when I filed divorce papers, I paid a private server, and the service was delivered in two days (they nailed my ex at church).

If you have money, you can pay for a better hotel to move into (rather than trying to find a bed at a shelter). You can stay at a residence inn until you find an apartment with a doorman or a security system. You can write a check for the security deposit. You can buy a mattress and some basic furniture. You can eat out until you equip a kitchen. You won’t have to make the humiliating move of begging family, and you won’t need to be somewhere where he can easily find you.

If you have money, you can choose a good lawyer—your pick of lawyers. And if you have money, that attorney won’t be hounding you to find a way to pay, and won’t jettison you because the money ran out and the settlement is too far away. While I know good, caring, and savvy divorce attorneys, like most of the rest of the world, you’ll get more attention if you have money. If you don’t like that lawyer, you can afford to fire him or her and hire another one, with no fear about a second retainer fee.

You can pay for health insurance. For many women, finding themselves off the policy with no employment is terrifying and can certainly be life threatening.

With money, you can pay for the therapy you and your kids are going to need. Without money, you’ll stay and hope for the best, or that you can make it okay for the kids. Or maybe you’ll be talked into couple’s therapy, so the abuser can find another opportunity to make it (“at least partly”) about you. With decent therapy, you can restore your self-esteem (which most abusers are expert at taking apart) and find out you weren’t an idiot or a professional victim or a weakling. Like all victims of abuse and bullying, it had nothing to do with anything you did.

With money, more people will believe you. Most domestic abuse victims should be prepared to lose most of their friends. Maybe, maybe if the guy looks like a thug, is twice your size, and smells in court, some people will give you the benefit of a doubt. But if he’s charming, employed, and can speak a coherent sentence, people will believe him and not you. Particularly if you come off as a teensy bit angry—I mean, why should you be a little angry? Well, obviously you’re a bitch who drove the nice guy to distraction. An abuser’s modus operandi is to fool people into believing that he’s not abusive or that he had a lapse and will never do it again. After all, you believed it so why shouldn’t mostly everyone else? He’s a charmer, that one.

If you, too, can pay to look good, more people will believe you. Go to court in a nice suit or dress. Have your face dermabraded and your teeth fixed, with the confidence that money brings, and your credibility takes a pole vault. Nobody is going to say without him she’d be nothing.

If you start talking about what happened? Well, quiet, you’re embarrassing people. Be noble and shut up (so he can go on abusing you by silencing you). When you have money, you’re way more able to speak out. With money, far fewer people are going to give you parenting or behavioral advice.

If you have money, your kids’ college will be taken care of, you won’t be facing retirement on ½ his Social Security, and you can keep the house or get another one.

So, my guess is that at least one of these reasons is why Janay Palmer Rice is staying for the time being. Does anyone believe they’ll still be together 20 years from now? Given the money involved, and the alternatives open to her, maybe the marriage wasn’t such a dumb idea. As long as she doesn’t pay with her life.

Home ownership and (not so) routine maintenance

Posted on August 20, 2014August 20, 2014 by Danielle

I’m a born condo dweller so I don’t know why I still have this darn house. Okay, it was because I didn’t follow my own advice and kept the house in the divorce. (See this post for why you shouldn’t.) It wasn’t a terrible decision financially—the divorce valuation was at the height of the bust, so the value has allegedly gone up quite a bit, it has a great home office, and my dog thinks the yard is her kingdom. But the reason I should be living in a condo is because I hate maintenance.

If you’ve slugged it out for a while in a divorce, or been on the rocks for a few years before (my hand is up!), you can bet there’s a ton of deferred maintenance. But even if you’re as on top of maintenance as my mom used to be, you can count on being frenemies with some contractors every year your address is a single family dwelling. It’s very important to recognize the ongoing nature of repairs, and budget for them (especially when you’re thinking through a divorce or retirement).

A decent rule of thumb is to budget 1% of the home’s value for regular, ongoing repairs and maintenance. I suppose this might have been accurate if the ex had been dependable and completed the myriad of projects he either started or ignored. But the first few years after my own divorce I had a ton of clean-it-up projects to fix—including the raining in my office which he had been “getting to” for 7 years.

The 1% is a good place to start, but take a closer look at your home for better estimation. Consider these points:

What’s the house made of? If you have wood siding or a lot of trim, you need a paint job probably every 5-7 years. Get an estimate and divide by 5. If it’s stucco, not so much maintenance but in my first hand experience you occasionally have a piece crack and fall off. Even if you have brick, you’re not home free—tuck-pointing and trim painting will need to be done if you’re not going to develop “unexpected” leaks.
What’s the yard look like? Personally, I’m continually at war with the weeds. In 20 years, I haven’t won, but they really gained ground during two consecutive summers when I first broke my foot and then had to get my dad’s (neglected) home ready for market–I barely touched the yard. My DIY tendencies are rampant when it comes to the yard and I’ve wasted a ton on harebrained ideas—a push mower, lots of plants that I forget to water, and plants sold to me as shade tolerant that succumbed nearly instantly. Nevertheless, if you have a yard you have to budget for plants and trees: replacement plants for the ones that inevitably croak, and tree maintenance. Trees are huge (ugh, pun)—trimming at least every other year, various schemes to abate or prevent pests, and crashes. In 5 years I’ve had to remove 3 trees–$890, $1,600, $2,500. Breathtakingly expensive and often an emergency. If you have teenage kids or are paying for a health club, in my view you don’t need a lawn service. Your mileage may vary. Lawn services, if regular, are not really part of this 1% rule.
How old is your heating plant, water heater, and roof? Make a good guess and put them on the maintenance calendar.
Painting, floor refinishing, and new carpeting are a few things home and condo owners will both need to replace, but for most other issues, the condo assessment fee (if well thought out by the association) should pay for most structural, exterior, or common elements.

As an aside, if you are a condo dweller and want to analyze your assessment, add up the cost of any utilities and insurance it covers, a decent allowance for “saving” for future repairs, and that 1% of value and you have a rough gauge of whether your assessment is reasonable. I’m not quite sure how to measure the aggravation level of finding contractors who actually show up and finish the project.

Every once in a blue moon, I don’t actually spend that 1%. Okay, I do (and more) but I dream about the time when I might get a break. You might not spend that every year, but suddenly get hit with the need to replace the furnace. Start that repair fund now and you’ll keep your plastic in your pocket and your heart in your chest.

So long carpenter. I have to go call the painter.

Antiques Roadshow & investments

Posted on August 5, 2014August 5, 2014 by Danielle

Sure, I love it. So much so that when Antiques Roadshow announced that it was going to be in Chicago for the first time in years, I applied for the ticket lottery immediately. They had 19,000 applications for 6,000 tickets, so I was thrilled when we won two tickets.

If you’re a fan, you probably find it at least as addictive as chocolate truffles. Watching other people live at the show, I spent a lot of time wondering just what the show offers. Everyone hopes they’ll pick something from a trash bin that turns out to be worth six figures, and we saw one or two folks who looked like they were being pulled aside for the big reveal. However, given the lines we saw for painting appraisal, and the absolutely horrible paint-by-numbers art being carried in, I can tell you without a doubt that most of us have absolutely no taste in or knowledge of art. Really, I don’t think I could bear to be an appraiser on that beat, the stuff was so horrible. It must be a thrill to their eyes, too, when they finally spot something good. So, my first lesson is that if you’re going to hang it on a wall, make sure it’s something that has meaning for you, because value is questionable at best.

My second lesson while there is that not only do we probably have little idea of the value of collectibles or much ability to judge such value, but dealers don’t really have a clue, either. You probably know that if you’ve watched many Antiques Roadshow broadcasts, and see the terrible prior advice people have been given, but this time it’s personal. I brought a set of jewelry to be evaluated, which I bought at a reputable antiques show (the Winnetka Antiques Fair) from a reputable and long established dealer. Not one single thing I was told about the jewelry when I purchased it was accurate, at least according to the Roadshow appraiser. It wasn’t the karat weight I’d been told (14kt vs. 15kt.) it wasn’t from the era it had been labeled (U.S. Civil War vs. 1870s), and it wasn’t made where I was told (Italy, vs. England). The only “fact” that slightly mattered to me was that it wasn’t Civil-War era, as I was heavily interested in Civil War re-enacting at the time and that was the “fact” that thrilled me into purchasing the piece.

The third lesson I learned is that the demographic of viewers appears to be baby-boomer or older. Everyone is hoping that something from their early life, or that they inherited, has value. It’s a way of recouping your youth through your possessions—and finding that the changes over time that you see in yourself (perhaps losses) can be redeemed by the increased value of things that once had very low prices. Perhaps it’s innate in us that we want to have something of value that we can pass on to our children.

My biggest fear was that the jewelry would turn out to be worth less than what I paid for it, so it was a great relief to find out that it was worth about 60% more than its original price tag. But I have to confess, one of the games I play when watching the show is, “was it a good investment?” And mostly, I have to answer no. I purchased this jewelry in 2000. If I’d have plunked my money into, say, the fairly conservative Vanguard Wellington fund instead, I’d have a nearly 200% return for the period. Plus, I wouldn’t have paid to insure it for the last 14 years (although I would have had to pay taxes on the Wellington dividends). You can play this game too—listen to how long the person has owned the object, take the amount they paid, and double it for every 10 years of ownership. If they’re not doing at least that well, financially at least they’d have been better off investing it in a balanced fund portfolio. But truthfully, it was much more thrilling at the time to own the jewelry than it would have been to put the same amount into a mutual fund. Fourteen years later, I’m not so sure. I’ve probably worn the darn thing 3 or 4 times.

Then, there are the things that don’t hold their value—most recently, antique dolls and furniture. You may not buy these things strictly as an investment, but you should be very, very careful that you pay on the low side of whatever the current market value is, be able to judge quality pretty well, and be willing to hold the object for as long as it takes for the category to rebound. And be sure it’s insured and properly cared for in the meantime. Probably, don’t own cats or have small children.

The final ouch! is the taxes on collectibles. I have to believe that a fair portion of those who get a big pleasant surprise are thinking about contacting their friendly local auction house. I have never seen this mentioned on the show, but if your tax bracket is above 15% on ordinary income, you’re going to be hit with a 28% capital gains tax on the gain you make from the sale (most other long term investments are taxed at no more than 15% currently). Maybe your kids actually do want to inherit that ugly picture.