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April 9, 1999/23 Nisan 5759, Vol. 51, No. 28
Planner helps couples structure financially 'smart' divorces
MICHELLE ACKERMAN
Staff Writer
Just because a marriage is over, doesn't mean it's the right time to sell a house or cash in an investment.
Enter Thea Glazer, a certified financial planner with the independent financial planning firm Aegis Financial Group in Phoenix, who specializes in "smart divorces."
She can't piece together the shattered dishes or fix a broken heart, but she can create an organized financial plan for an equitable and fair dissolution of the financial partnership forged in a marriage.
"When people are angry, (money often) is used in a tug-of-war. In helping develop realistic expectations, an objective third party (is useful)," Glazer says.
Glazer first discovered as a young child that she loved working with numbers, she says.
But it wasn't until 1975, when she legally separated from her husband and found herself supporting her two young children, then ages 5 and 7, that her career path took a turn.
At the time, although she was working in corporate finance, she didn't really know anything about financial planning, she remembers. And she admits that, "in retrospect, I did not make a very smart divorce settlement." Her divorce became final in 1981.
That divorce experience, in part, led her to become a certified financial planner in 1984.
"When I saw how insecure the women were, at a time (when they were) so vulnerable, and then (looked) back to my own experience, I just felt that somebody's got to be willing to sit down and help these people from the ground up," she says.
So what goes into a "smart divorce?"
Glazer says it is most worthwhile to begin discussing finances, setting budgets and carefully examining possible settlements at the beginning of the divorce proceedings.
Glazer will gather and document income and expense information to project budgets for the new households, including spousal maintenance and child-support requests; analyze assets in order to evaluate current and projected future value, liquidity and potential tax consequences; examine liabilities for mortgages and debts; and evaluate proposed settlement distributions.
After the divorce, she will provide investment advice and reposition assets to meet current needs.
More often than not, Glazer finds, it's women who seek out her services. This, she says, is because "there are many women who, truthfully, don't have any idea what it's costing them to live ... and don't have a good handle on certain kinds of financial issues (such as investing)."
"And to have to make decisions when your mind is on just trying to figure out where to live and how to take care of your children," she notes, "to make these decisions on your own without somebody helping you, in an area that's like a foreign language to you, that's asking a lot of a human brain."
Glazer says that no matter how much she enjoys "doing the numbers," she never forgets the people those numbers represent.
Besides handling "smart divorces," Glazer also offers individuals or couples help with overall financial planning, general investment management and budget building.
Glazer, who is originally from New York, says she also holds a master's degree in accounting with an emphasis in taxation, is a registered investment adviser, is licensed as a general securities principal, and has extensive experience in tax-advantaged investments and mortgage banking. She keeps current with tax law by taking continuing education courses.
Glazer can be reached at (480) 657-0156 or via e-mail at theadg@yahoo.com.
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