From divorce free fall to finding her financial footing
Kacey M. was her family’s primary breadwinner when she filed for divorce in 2016. Up until then, the mother of two young children had always managed basic finances well.
Then she was laid off from the only company she’d ever worked for, adding a major financial wrinkle to her divorce. Suddenly, she had to make complex financial decisions involving 15 years’ worth of retirement accounts, Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), and stock options, and how those assets would be divided.
“I realized suddenly I was dealing with all these things that I really didn't know anything about, and I was going to need some help,” Kacey said.
Finding Marianna
Kacey was 22 the last time she had talked to a financial planner. It was the one her parents used and the extent of the talk was to avoid a 9% car loan and to have six months of savings in the bank. That advice wasn’t going to help her at 35, trying to navigate a divorce and a recent layoff.
She turned to Google to search for a financial planner and found Marianna Goldenberg, the founder and CEO of CURO Wealth Management. They were only a few miles away from her. CURO turned out to be her first and only call.
“I got very, very lucky,” she said.
She didn’t have to ask friends or family for referrals, vet financial advisors, or try multiple times to find a good fit.
From crisis to clarity
“When I first walked into the CURO offices, I was a mess,” Kacey said. “All I knew was I needed help, but I didn't even know what questions to ask. And, you know, I'm pretty sure I burst into tears in Marianna's office in the first five minutes.”
Marianna’s calm, reassuring approach helped Kacey break the overwhelm into manageable steps. They began with the basics: retirement accounts, investments, savings, and home equity.
Kacey had worked 15 years at Johnson & Johnson. CURO is located near a hub of Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries, so Marianna was familiar with the types of holdings employees held, and employee portals like stock transfer company Computershare. It made reviewing financials much easier.
“It took a ton of burden off me from having to really understand it because [Marianna] was like, ‘Yeah, I've seen it a million times. I know exactly what we need to do,” Kacey said.
Protecting her young children
Kacey had assumed the work would focus on investments and retirement planning. But Marianna went deeper, shifting the focus to protecting her children, and asking questions Kacey hadn’t thought about.
Like whether she had life insurance.
“You have a five-year-old and a two-year-old and you're the primary breadwinner,” Kacey recalls Marianna’s saying. “Do you have life insurance?”
It had always been a check box Kacey selected at work, but Marianna reminded her that leaving the company meant she no longer had coverage to protect her family.
Navigating a collaborative path
The next step was handling the divorce itself. Beyond immediate financial needs, Kacey and Marianna had to sort out the fair division of 15 years of her Johnson & Johnson assets.
Kacey and her husband had chosen a collaborative path for their divorce, opting for mediation rather than a courtroom. The goal was to work with their own lawyers to reach an agreement that felt fair. So Kacey was trying to understand all the money pieces so her husband could have a clear understanding of the picture, too.
“The biggest challenge was that I had always been the breadwinner,” Kacey said, “I had also always been the financial manager of the family.”
Defining divorce priorities
It was during this time that Marianna asked a simple but pivotal question: What are your husband's financial priorities?
It turned out his needs were different.
Because Kacey had a severance package keeping her afloat, she felt secure about her day-to-day cash. She was more concerned with keeping the retirement accounts and the stock portfolio she had spent 15 years building.
Her husband, however, felt more secure focusing on immediate liquidity. In other words, to him security was in the form of cash available now.
Marianna explained that if Kacey could afford to pay her day-to-day expenses, she could part with some of the immediate cash sitting in her accounts. In the long-run, Marianna explained, the long-term financial assets she’d acquired and built at Johnson & Johnson would likely grow to be worth much more than the cash sitting in the bank today.
“She helped me realize it was okay to give up more of the immediate cash so that I could keep more of the long-term assets,” Kacey said.
Strategic growth after the divorce
But what began as crisis management became something steadier. After the divorce came growth.
Kacey changed jobs three times in eight years. She moved across the country. She joined a startup that went through a sale. She eventually launched her own consulting company. With each transition, Marianna helped her evaluate compensation packages; when to push for salary, when to push for equity, and how to think about tax exposure. She coordinated directly with Kacey’s tax planner.
“I call them my mighty money women,” Kacey said.
A financial partnership for life
When Kacey was looking to buy investment property for a second income stream, she called CURO. Marianna helped figure out the most tax-efficient way to get it, whether that meant tapping a particular investment, using dividends instead of selling shares, or avoiding unnecessary capital gains taxes.
When a consulting month came in lighter than expected, they adjusted.
When it was time to prepare her children for college, they mapped that, too.
She recommends Marianna to her friends without hesitation.
“For women and my friends who are women,” Kacey said, “I think having a female financial advisor is a game changer because I don't feel talked down to, ever. I don't feel like there's a subtle intimidation. It's a relationship. It's a partnership.”
In a year that felt like her life had completely fallen apart, Marianna became a critical part of helping Kacey regain stability. Step by step, she guided her back to solid footing.
In the years since her divorce and layoff, she continued to support Kacey through each stage.
“She's been there after every step of the way.”
Divorce is a chapter, not the whole story
Divorce can feel like starting over. CURO is here to help you sort through the overwhelm and build your money confidence for life. Let us be your mighty money women.