Financial Planning for Women in Transition — Franklin Lakes, NJ
Most women do not come to us because they want to talk about investing. They come because something changed.
A husband died. A marriage ended. A parent left an inheritance nobody prepared them for. A business sold. A career ended and the question of what the money is actually for became urgent.
These are not investment problems. They are life events with financial consequences, and they tend to arrive at the worst possible moment for making a series of large, irreversible decisions.
What women in these situations usually need first is not a portfolio recommendation. It is someone to sit down, sort out what is actually there, tell them plainly what has to be decided in the next ninety days and what can wait, and then handle it.
That is where we start.
After the loss of a spouse
There is no version of this that is not hard. The financial part should not be the part that makes it harder.
In the first months, most of what needs to happen is administrative and time-sensitive: retitling accounts, claiming benefits, understanding what the beneficiary designations actually said, deciding what to do about accounts that were never in your name. We handle that work directly rather than handing you a checklist.
Then there is the part almost nobody warns widows about.
The widow's penalty
For the year of death, a surviving spouse can generally still file jointly. After that, most widows file as single — frequently with similar household income, roughly half the bracket width, a smaller standard deduction, and lower Medicare IRMAA thresholds. The same income, taxed as a single filer, can produce a materially higher tax bill and higher Medicare premiums in a year when nothing else about your life got easier.
It is entirely predictable. It is also entirely plannable — but the planning has to happen while both spouses are living, which is why we raise it with every married couple we work with, long before anyone wants to talk about it.
If your husband has died recently and no one has mentioned this to you, that is worth a conversation.
When your husband has always handled the money – and no longer can
Sometimes the call comes from a woman whose husband is still very much here.
He has managed the money for forty years. Lately the statements are piling up unopened, or a bill got paid twice, or he made a decision she didn’t understand and couldn’t get an explanation for. Nobody has said a word about it out loud. She is calling because she does not know what she is going to be handed, and she suspects she should find out before she has to.
This is one of the most common reasons women come to us, and one of the least discussed.
We want to say two things plainly.
First: calling us is not disloyal. Understanding your own household’s finances is not a move against your husband. Most of the women who reach us at this stage have been carrying it privately for a while, worried that asking questions would be taken as a lack of confidence in him. It isn’t.
Second: this is the moment when planning is still possible. Nearly everything on this page describes cleaning up after an event. This is the one situation where you have arrived first, and the difference is enormous. While both of you are living, and while he can still participate, we can:
- Get the full picture assembled in one place, including the accounts nobody has looked at in years
- Make sure durable powers of attorney, trusted contact designations, and beneficiary designations are current and actually reflect what you both want
- Consolidate and simplify while signatures are still straightforward
- Plan for the widow’s penalty before it arrives, rather than discovering it in a filing season you are in no shape for
- Bring you into the relationship as a full participant, so that if the day comes, you are not meeting your husband’s advisor for the first time
We do this at whatever pace fits your household. Many couples start with both spouses in the room, which is usually the better version. Some women start with one quiet conversation on their own. Either is fine, and we will follow your lead on it.
Divorce and the years after
Divorce is a financial negotiation conducted under emotional conditions, usually by people who have never done one before, with terms that are permanent.
Our Managing Partner, Debbie Taylor, is a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA®) in addition to being a CPA and a retired attorney. That combination is unusual, and it matters here, because the questions that decide divorce outcomes are tax questions dressed as fairness questions:
- The house and the retirement account are described as equal. They are not—one carries an embedded tax liability and the other carries a basis and carrying costs.
- A QDRO, drafted correctly or incorrectly, determines whether a retirement transfer is taxable.
- Support structures, filing status in the transition year, and who claims which dependents all move the number.
- The settlement that looks best on the day it is signed is not always the one that looks best in ten years.
We model the scenarios so you can see what each proposed settlement actually looks like over time, and we work alongside your matrimonial attorney and mediator rather than duplicating them.
After the divorce is final, the work changes: rebuilding a plan around one income, one household, and one set of goals rather than a compromise between two.
Sudden wealth — inheritance, a liquidity event, a sale
A large sum arriving at once creates pressure to do something with it immediately. Almost always, the right first move is to do very little while getting clear on three things: what the tax treatment actually is, what the money is for, and what your timeline is.
We work with women who have inherited significant assets, sold a business or received liquidity from a spouse’s exit, or received proceeds from a settlement. The tax planning in the first eighteen months — stepup in basis, the disposition of inherited IRAs under the ten-year rule, the timing of gain realization — tends to determine how much of it survives.
Women who are already the CFO
Not every woman who works with us is in transition. Many are simply the one in the household who handles the money, or have always handled their own, and want a team that talks to them directly rather than around them.
If you have spent time in meetings where the questions were addressed to someone else, you already know why this office exists.
Same-sex couples
We have supported same-sex couples for a long time, including through periods when the legal ground was actively shifting. That history matters, because planning here still requires more attention than it should: titling, beneficiary designations, estate documents that anticipate challenge, and — in New Jersey — the difference in inheritance tax treatment between a spouse or civil union partner and an unmarried partner, which is substantial.
Why women choose this office
This office is woman-led and majority women. Debbie Taylor has received the Women’s Choice Award every year since 2013.
More useful than any of that: the people who will answer your call have done this before, many times, with women in exactly your situation. You will not be anyone’s first widow or first divorce.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a CDFA® and why does it matter in a divorce?
A Certified Divorce Financial Analyst is trained specifically in the financial and tax mechanics of divorce — asset division, retirement transfers, support modeling, and long-term projection of settlement outcomes. A CDFA works alongside your attorney, who handles the legal process.
Do you work with my divorce attorney or does this replace one?
We work with your attorney. We are not attorneys and do not provide legal advice.
My husband has always handled our finances and I'm worried he's struggling. Can I talk to you without him?
Yes. Many women start with one conversation on their own to understand what’s there. Nothing happens to your accounts as a result of a conversation, and we will follow your lead on when and how to include your husband.
What is the widow's penalty?
The increase in tax and Medicare cost a surviving spouse often faces when moving from married-filing-jointly to single filing status, typically beginning the year after a spouse’s death. See the section above.
Where are you located?
Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, serving Bergen, Passaic, Morris, and Essex Counties, Rockland and Orange Counties in New York, and clients in more than 20 states.
Start with a conversation, not a decision.
No product, no pitch. Tell us what happened and we will tell you what we see.