The Sugar Daddy Podcast
Ready to normalize talking about money? Then welcome to The Sugar Daddy Podcast. Every episode will get you one step closer to your financial goals. Whether that is learning how to invest, budget, save, retire early or talk about money with your partner, Jess & Brandon have you covered in a way that's easy to understand, and easy to implement. Tune in as they demystify the realm of dollars, so it all makes cents, while giving you a glimpse into their relationship with money and each other.
Brandon is an award-winning, licensed financial planner, and owner of Oak City Financial, with over a decade of experience and millions of dollars managed for his clients all over the United States.
New episodes published every Wednesday.
The Sugar Daddy Podcast
114: Why Most Women Are Financially Blind and How to Fix It
Are you walking blind when it comes to your finances?
In this episode, Jessica and Brandon are going back to basics because too many people are waking up to financial realities way too late. They're breaking down why it’s so dangerous not to know where your money is, how your bills are being paid, or even what accounts exist. Whether you're married, partnered, or handling things solo, this episode will give you the tools and mindset shift to take back control.
We cover:
- The hidden risks of not knowing how your household finances work
- Why women are disproportionately affected and how to change that
- What “financial visibility” actually means (and how to get it)
- The first steps to organize your bills, accounts, and debt
- Tools we personally use to track everything in one place
- What to do today to protect yourself and your family
This isn’t about shame. It’s about empowerment. Let’s help you build a financial system that works even if life doesn’t go according to plan.
Show Notes:
- Sign up for Monarch Money
- Get our "When I Die" Guide
- Episode 45: When I Die- A Guide to Support Loved Ones After You’re Gone
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Money, relationships, and the mindset to master both. Hosted by financial advisor Brandon and his wife Jessica, The Sugar Daddy Podcast breaks down how to build wealth, unpack old money beliefs, and have real conversations about love and finances. Our mission? To help couples and individuals grow rich in every sense of the word: emotionally, relationally and financially.
In today's episode, we are going to talk about getting crystal clear on where our money is. And I mean we're going back to basics. Where is our mortgage sitting? How is our light bill getting paid? How does our lawn care get paid? We are getting back to basics because too many people have been reaching out to Brandon and myself with emergent situations that could have been prevented.
SPEAKER_01:Hey babe, what are we talking about today?
SPEAKER_00:Today we're talking about something that is very near and dear to my heart. And we've been getting too many messages, emails, even in our own personal circles of friends, um, where divorce is imminent. And the overwhelming sense of I don't know anything about our financial situation is coming up over and over again. And it breaks my heart and it is preventable. Um, I am finishing up this book by Jen Hatmaker. It's called Awake. And I was telling you about one of the chapters where she talks about going through this divorce, but she basically wakes up at 46 years old and realizes she doesn't know how any of the bills in her house get paid. And she was earning money, right? She was she was a published author, she was doing speaking engagements, she was earning money. She was not the main breadwinner. And I don't, from what I can tell, her her earnings might not have been super consistent. Like, I get paid on the first and 15th of every month. But she was earning money. She, you know, had a career and she woke up, is going through this super terrible divorce, and is like, I don't know how my light bill gets paid. I don't know where our mortgage is. And she meets with a financial planner because, you know, she's she's grieving, she's angry, she's feeling all the feels. And she meets with a financial um advisor, and he basically is just asking her very simple questions, and she cannot answer a single question. And I know that that sounds really extreme, but that is the reality of a lot of people's situations. Exactly. And even I would say in the in the last 60 or even 90 days, we've gotten emails and information and DMs from people who are kind of getting woken up to a financial reality that they didn't realize was happening. And that is because whether you're a woman or a man, you are walking through the world blind. You are walking blind when it comes to your family finances. And so I kind of want to just talk about why it's so important to have an awareness and an understanding of what is going on financially in your home so that you don't have that moment that Jen Hatmaker had in the book Awake, where you're 46 years old and you're like, wow, I don't know how to keep the lights on and I've got my five kids living here. Or I don't know how to pay this mortgage because I don't even know who our mortgage lender is, or I don't know how much money we have in our checking account. I don't know how much debt we have. I don't know how many credit cards we have. I haven't run an annual credit report in forever, right? Like these are things that are preventable. And this episode and my thoughts and feelings around this, this is not to shame anybody or to make anybody feel bad. What I want you to get out of this is a sense of empowerment. Because if you do one little thing every single day and you start building a list, you can get a handle on this. You can start tackling this. And what the financial advisor, I guess, told Jen in the book is let's start with all of your household bills. Find out where they are. Who owns your water bill, who owns your electricity bill, who takes care of your lawn, who takes care of your termites, who takes care of the roof, right? Whatever it is, like start with your home because that is where A, you need to live. And, you know, if you have children, this is where you're going to keep your family safe. So start there. Do you know the name of your water company? Do you know the name of your electricity company? Do you know where your mortgage sits? Once you find that out, write it down. Brandon and I have a shared Google Doc that we update on an on a regular basis. Um, he can go into it at any time. I can go into it at any time. You know, those mortgage, those mortgage loan lenders, uh what are they called? Yeah, they change constantly. You'll just get a letter in the mail that's like, oh, now your mortgage is with so-and-so. The terms and conditions don't change, but the lender changes, right? Now you have to set up a new payment profile, et cetera. In your shared document or in your notebook, however you want to do it, write down who the mortgage is, the last four of that account number. And I mean, typically mortgages have to get paid through your checking account, but you know, people do things differently if you're running it through a business, whatever. That's not what we're talking about today. We're trying to figure out where is everything and how does it get paid? If you are not the owner of those bills, that's okay. You still need to understand where they are and how they're getting paid. Are they getting paid on a credit card? Is it coming out of a debit card? Is it coming out of an account that you didn't even know exists? Understand how many credit cards there are, what are the debts that are on those credit cards? Understand how many checking accounts, how many savings accounts, what is your name on? The easiest way to figure all of that out is to run an annual credit report. You can do this more than once a year. But if you're associated with any kind of credit, credit card, loan, car loan, mortgage, uh, student loan, et cetera, anywhere where you would owe money on a recurring basis that has your social security number attached, you can find on your credit report. So if you have not run a credit report, let's say in the last year, guess what? That's on the top of your to-do list now.
SPEAKER_01:And also, too, in this scenario, this affects women way more than men.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Unfortunately, that's how it seems to pan out. Where maybe the husband is the breadwinner, or even if he's not necessarily the breadwinner, is the one that is handling the finances. And the wife could be working or not working, but doesn't have any uh insights or view into what's going on on a regular basis when it comes to their finances. Um obviously it can happen the other way around, but I would say I've never seen it the other way around personally. Normally uh it's the uh man who may be doing some form of um financial infidelity, or you know, the woman thinks that, hey, you know, like you said, certain things are taken care of, we have a certain amount of savings, and then divorce comes, they find out that that it's all a house of lies. House of lies and that the the man has been lying to them the entire time. So one of the things that I'm a big advocate on, and this is actually a requirement if you are a couple to work with me. Both partners have to be involved in the planning process. I am not simply working with one person and not talking to the other person, even if you try to do it that way. I am not your advisor for you. I want to talk to both people because I want both people to be a part of the decision-making process. But then also I want to make sure that the reality is that I like to have a long-term relationship with these people. And uh, you know, things happen, and I want to make sure that both people know what's going on in the financial life because it affects both of them. But also at the end of the day, as a woman, you need to understand this even if you don't get divorced, because women outlive men. Right. At some point So at some point, it's gonna become your responsibility, even if that's 40 years from now.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. And and heaven forbid, it is a, you know, an a divorce situation, a tragic situation where somebody passes away unexpectedly. Again, you want time to grieve. This is not the time where you want to say, Oh my gosh, I have no idea where our mortgage is, and my husband passed away, and I've got these kids, and who's who's paying our mortgage? How do I even find out? I mean, think about the amount of mortgage lenders where your mortgage could be.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And now that everybody's getting their bills online, like you might not get something in the mail. So the amount of time that it would take you to go to A, get access to those accounts, because if you don't know that those accounts accounts exist, how are you supposed to find them? Login information. Or you don't have login information, you can't access it, you can't access uh or talk to anybody at the institution to figure out, hey, seems like my mortgage was getting paid. Like that is that to me sounds like the worst possible scenario if I was grieving Brandon. Like if I was trying to keep my life on the little bit of track that was left, if I unexpectedly lost him and then had to keep my life together for the sake of our kids. Cause at that point, it's like, who am I? Who cares? It would just be for the children. The last thing I want to be doing is figuring out like, where's our water bill and how does it get paid? Like that sounds like sheer misery to me. And that's not really something that other people can help you with either. Like, what are you gonna have? Like your best friend calling these institutions to be like, hey, my friend's husband passed away and like I need access to pay the water. Like, no, these things are preventable. And I get so fired up about it because yes, it's overwhelming. No, it's not fun. It's part of being an adult. Most of being an adult is not fun, let's be honest. And you don't have to do it all at once, but you do need to do it. So create a shared document, get a notebook, do whatever you need to do where you can maintain where things are and how they get paid on an annual basis. And so I just don't want anybody that is listening to this podcast, that's in my friend circle, anybody that I care about to go through what Jen in this book and way too many other women go through, which is you have that moment of, oh my gosh, I had the wool pulled over me. I ended up with egg on my face. I thought we were fine, we're not fine. Oh, he stopped paying on those insurance policies. I thought we had life insurance. Like, those are all things that you can find out. They're find outable, they're figure outable.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And the thing is, if this has happened to you, like once again, this episode is not about shaming anybody. This is about providing you with a resource to help change things. So if this has already happened to you or you're currently going through it, we do want to also provide you with some actionable steps on how to improve that situation. And for those individuals who thankfully have never had to experience this, but still um don't have the insights into their um household finances that they should, this is now to take the time to start having those conversations, getting that information so that you are all both on the same page.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And this is one of those things too. And I've I've spoken about this on previous episodes. If you go to your spouse and you say, Hey, honey, I want to sit down, I want to be a part of finances, understanding the finances, helping where I can, are we okay? I want to have visibility, and your partner is resistant. To me, that is a red flag.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I would agree with that. And I would say, like, now, if you're coming from a place where you had never had any interest in it, and you're now coming to them and they're kind of trying to figure out like what was all the change, I think you also need to frame it properly as well. Right. In the sense of like, hey, I trust you. So this is not necessarily a matter of I don't trust you or anything like that. It's just that this is important to me. What if something happened to you or whatever it may be, that this is something that I should also understand and know. Right. And if you come to your spouse, I'm just gonna use a heteronormative relationship. If it's the woman coming to the man and you're expressing this and wanting to be a part of the process and decision making, and they are resistant if you approach them that way, that 100% would be a red flag to me. If you're like, oh, you don't have to worry about it. No.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Or if somebody says, it's fine, we have a guy, okay. Can you tell me who that is? When's your next meeting? I would love to sit in on it. Can you give me their contact information? I know you're busy. I'm happy to schedule my own call.
SPEAKER_01:Also, once again, I'm a you know, step in. If he says he has a guy and you don't know that he has a guy, that's a problem in and of itself in regards to the advisor. That would be crazy to me that to work with a, especially a married couple where I have never interacted with one of the spouses.
SPEAKER_00:Right. That is crazy to me.
SPEAKER_01:I would never in my life have that type of relationship where I've never interacted. Now, there naturally is going to be one spouse that kind of leads a little bit more. That's natural and that's normal. But to never have met the person to me is a red flag from an advisor standpoint. Now, also I always say to people, because I've had this happen too, where people like, oh, you know, I I have a guy, I have an advisor. What's their name?
SPEAKER_00:If you don't know your advisor's name, if you're calling the the 800 number on the back of your bank card, he's not an advisor.
SPEAKER_01:Or your woman. Like that's not like I would be horrified if any of my clients couldn't name you by name. Couldn't name me. Like one thing. I know it's not happening because I have enough conversations with them, but like that I have met people who are like, oh, you know, like or like where's you know, oh, what's a person? Yeah, what's their name? Because I always just Where do they work? I used to mess with people because I can also tell when someone says like they have an advisor, but they don't really have an advisor. I can tell from the look on their face.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Because often only one spouse knows about their like.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Like, oh, we do?
SPEAKER_01:We do?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:But well, I think if there is hesitancy, and like you said, usually one person leads. That's okay. It's the visibility that's the problem. So that's like me saying, Oh, well, Brandon's a financial advisor, like he's got it. I know we're fine. Well, first of all, that's not there's not an ounce of my personality that would ever be like that.
SPEAKER_01:But also as an advisor, I don't want anyone to just solely rely upon me to know all the information and they're just like, oh, he's doing everything. I don't necessarily know anything that's going on. That is not how I operate. Now I help you and make things easier for you, but you very much do need to understand what is going on. And I want you to understand what's going on.
SPEAKER_00:But you know, if there's somebody that's like, oh, my husband's an accountant, my husband's a bookkeeper, my husband's a financial analyst for a big software company, he's better with numbers. I mean, I hear it all the time. I said for years, oh, I'm not, I'm not a math person. I'm not good with numbers, right?
SPEAKER_01:Like, and the funny part is that a lot of it isn't necessarily the math. Exactly. Math to be basic. Right. And so calculators are amazing.
SPEAKER_00:I've I have, we have people in our circle who, you know, are literally saving lives every day and we could not do their jobs and they're saying, well, I'm just bad with numbers. No, we're gonna stop saying that. Ladies, listen up. We're no longer saying I'm bad at math, I'm bad with numbers, I'm just not good at it. It's really not very much math. Like if you, you know, did organic chemistry and are now in the medical field, that is much harder than like figuring out what your paycheck is and where your money goes every month. I promise you. Also, there are apps for that. We'll link our monarch in the show notes. Listen, we are no longer making excuses. We need visibility. I'm not saying you need to pay every bill. I'm not saying you need to be the breadwinner. I'm not saying you need to go and get a divorce because your husband is doing something shady with the money. I'm not saying any of that. What I'm saying is I want you to have visibility and understanding of your household finances. I want you to know where your water is, where your electricity is, where your mortgage sits, how does the lawn get mowed? Who do you call when you've got a termite or a pest control problem? Those are the easy things. Start with your home. From there, you expand. Do we have life insurance? Great. Where are those policies? Are they at New York Life? Perfect. What are the last four? Can you show me that we're up to date on these premiums? What are the premiums? Do we need to increase them? Oh, we haven't increased them since we got married 10 years ago, and now we have three children and a dog. Okay, we might need to actually sit down with somebody to understand if we should be increasing our life insurance. Uh, yes, you should at that point.
SPEAKER_01:Also, too, in a scenario where one of the spouses, you know, is a CPA or something of that nature, where you're like, oh, I'll just let them handle it. No, lean into their knowledge to help bridge the uh the bridge that gap for you.
SPEAKER_00:I've learned so much from Brandon and just asking him questions, then doing my own research, asking some more questions. And obviously, you know, we're in a unique situation because of the. We started from somewhere else. But we started completely like any other normal couple, right? Like, this is not how our relationship started. We didn't come together and start a podcast. Like the amount of knowledge that I've gained in the years that we're together just by asking the questions has compounded my knowledge exponentially. I mean, and I'm so grateful for that because now not only do we have the knowledge to teach our children, but in the event that something were to happen to him, aside from my emotional well-being, I know that financially we will be okay. I know how to get all the bills paid. I even know who to talk to in the event that something happens to Brandon and who could step in as a potential new financial advisor. We've we've got a list of people that I could talk to so that I continue to, you know, manage the money in a way that is the best for our family.
SPEAKER_01:And as a man and her husband, like that is gives me such a sense of peace that if God forbid something happened to me, you know, tomorrow, I know at least from a financial standpoint, our family is taken care of. From a financial literary standpoint, our family is taken care of. And those things can, you know, continue on. And obviously, the emotional grief that comes with that, that is years of managing. But as far as not having to uproot or change any of the day-to-day interactions from a financial standpoint of our family's life, like you can't put a price on that to me, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And even, you know, again, this is not us saying we're perfect and we do everything perfectly. Like we'll never ever say that. And even just before we hit record on this podcast, I was saying, because I was on the phone with the pest control, and I know Brandon doesn't know where who our pest control is, but he knows it's written down. I thought that the annual fee was on an automatic payment on one credit card and it was on a different credit card. So now I'm going to actually call them back and move it from the one credit card to the other credit card. And I was even just saying to Brandon, hey, I think we should put all of our bills on one credit card because we don't have any credit cards that are combined. Um now we know where everything is and we can see where things are coming out. But I think even then, for my peace of mind of just knowing every single bill that can be on a credit card is on this one credit card that we both have access to, we both have visibility, et cetera. That gives me peace of mind. Because again, in the event of an emergency, the last thing I'm going to be thinking of is oh, did the light bill get paid? Is our water going to turn on tomorrow? I don't want to have to deal with that. I want to continue living the way we're living. And so by putting systems and written descriptors in place, I could print that out. I can share it with somebody that I need to share it with easily and have easy access and get that out of my mental space. And so we're constantly evolving the way we do things. You know, we're also, you know, always trying to maximize our credit card points and miles. And so we'll go from one year we're spending here to another year we're spending here. And so things don't always transfer perfectly, like this, you know, pest control. I'm like, oh, why is it on that credit card? Probably because when we set it up three years ago, we were trying to get delta miles. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And that's the thing is that it's a constant thing that you're going to continuously do. Now, once you put the legwork in in the beginning, which is going to be a little bit more work, it becomes so much it becomes easier to maintain it. But this isn't going to be something where you just set it and forget it. Yeah. Because like I said, you're going to periodically check things and make sure one that any changes that have happened, that you updated those changes. Right. But then also just having the conversation with your with your partner to say, like, we've been doing it this way. Is there anything that we could change to improve it to make it better?
SPEAKER_00:Does this make sense?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so like the biggest thing here is the visibility aspect. And that's where a lot of people um fall short, is that they don't have the visibility into the daily finances. So, what is an easy way to set up tomorrow to start to get that visibility? Monarch money. We use it ourselves. Yeah. Monarch Money is so nice. It's a financial software slash app that allows you to basically connect all your various accounts. So you can connect your credit cards, your bank accounts, your mortgage, your student loans, everything so that you see it in a central hub, which is called an account aggregator. So instead of having to go to all these various different sites in order to see all this information, it pulls it all into one central place for you to be able to see it. Even your you can link your 401k plans, your other investment accounts, and see it all in one place. And that right there, simply doing that is going to be night and day for those people who aren't currently doing and don't have that vis uh that that viewpoint.
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah, because also, how much is our water bill? How much is our light bill? How much is our gas bill? Like every month he knows. I'm like, why is the water bill so high? Like, what is happening to the water bill here? Like, I don't understand. But again, he pays it. I know about it, I rip and rant about it every single month, but it's there. And I know that it's getting paid, I know what it is. And if there's ever an outlier, it's also an opportunity to say, hey, why is it so high? Or did somebody leave the hose on while we were gone? Like, what's happening? Do we have a leak? Whatever that might be. It's it's that it takes two people to run a home. And I mean, if you're in a partnership, it takes two people to run a home. You need the visibility. That's what this is all about. Now we have done an episode on the essential documents and things that you need. Um we can link that in the show. In the event that somebody passes away, again, where's the mortgage? Where's the 401k? What kind of insurance policies do you have, etc.? There's layers to this, right? Right now, if you're listening to this episode and you're thinking, I have no idea where our mortgage is. I have no idea who our electricity carrier is. I have not paid a cell phone bill in eight years. If you're thinking any of those things right now, I want you to start in your home. Think about the things that you touch every day. You touch the water faucet, you're turning on the thermostat. Right now it's getting a little chillier in certain parts of the world.
SPEAKER_01:You're picking up your phone.
SPEAKER_00:It's picking up your cell phone. Think about those things, right? Oh, the lawn looks really nice. If you guys aren't the ones doing it, well, it's it's getting done by somebody, somebody's getting paid. Think about all the things in your home, inside and outside, that you are not aware of and write them down and then make a plan to talk to your partner to say, hey, I listened to this episode with Jess and Brandon, and I really want to be a contributing member to understanding our finances. I would like to learn more. Can you help me understand what's going on in our home? I would love to be a part of taking a little bit of that burden off of your plate, right? Having visibility. If you have children, it's an easy way to say, hey, I really want to make sure that our kids are taken care of in the event that you're not here. But right now, I don't feel like I could do that. I cannot keep them safe. I cannot keep the lights on. I cannot keep the water running. I don't even know where those bills live. I have no idea how much the water bill costs every month. Can you help me understand? I would love to sit down with some dedicated time for you to walk me through those things. And please let me know how I can contribute to taking some of this burden off of your plate. I don't want you to feel like you're in this by yourself. That's where we want to get to. We want to get to visibility. This is not about shame and guilt or not trusting your partner. This is about having visibility so that in the event of an emergency, you can take care of what needs to be taken care of.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And if you've already, unfortunately, gone through this negative experience, learn from it and progress forward in a different way. So all the things that, you know, led to that previous experience happening, as far as you not having that viewpoint, you're at a new starting point now. Start to have that, you know, that those insights and understanding of your financial situation so that if this doesn't happen to you a second time.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Exactly. So again, this none of our episodes are ever about shame or guilt or you did this wrong or you should have done this better. We're leaving all of that in the past and we are only moving forward to, I didn't know where my water bill was yesterday, but I know where it is tomorrow, right? And making a plan, getting some documentation in place, getting an app in place, making sure that your partner knows that you want to be involved, you want to be part of understanding everything to do with the household and then figuring out a plan for you to, you know, contribute, have a monthly money meeting, whatever that might be, negotiate some of your rates down, et cetera, so that you have visibility and that you are taking an active part. Also, again, if you have not run your credit report in the last 12 months, you need to do that because you want to make sure that any account that is associated with your um social security number is yours. If there's any surprises, you need to be disputing them. And then you need to be locking your credit bureaus so that there's a lot of fraud going on out there. We want to make sure that your accounts and your credit are locked. And if you're not actively looking to open up any new lines of credit right now, then you don't need them. So Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax, you can go to their online portals and you can put a temporary freeze. I think it's called like freezing and thawing, because you can open it at any any time. Like we usually open ours when we're opening up a new credit card. Uh we bought new cars last year, but for the most part, they stay closed. So protect yourself, get the visibility that you need.
SPEAKER_01:Organization is key.
SPEAKER_00:Organization is key. We don't want you to not have visibility.
SPEAKER_01:And we also um and uh in the show notes, we'll have a link also for you if you want to do try signing up for Monarch Money.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:I highly recommend it.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. We'll link to our other episode. We'll link to we call it our When I Die Guide. It's a little morbid, but you know, maybe work on that name. You need to be you need to be prepared. So we'll link to that as well. And then to our Monarch Money, which is a wonderful account aggregator. It takes like less than 10 minutes to get all of your accounts into one place. Um, and then you have that visibility that so many people desperately need. So um, ladies, this episode was for you. Email, reach out, slide in our DMs, ask any questions that you have. We are here for you, we are reading for you, and you can do this, and you're not bad at numbers, so stop saying that to yourself. We'll talk to you soon.
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