Halal Money Matters Podcast

Episode 25 - Financial Discussions Before Marriage with Lisa Hashem

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Narrator:
The thoughts and opinions expressed on Halal Money Matters do not necessarily reflect the views of Saturna Capital, Amana Mutual Funds, or their affiliates.

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Monem Salam:
Welcome to Halal Money Matters, sponsored by Saturna Capital. I’m Monem Salam.

Scott St. Clair:
I’m Scott St. Clair.

Monem Salam:
And Scott, we have a very special guest today. We’re going to be talking about a unique area of financial planning, which is prior to marriage, during marriage, and after marriage. And I’m really looking forward to it. Do you want to take it away with an introduction?

Scott St. Clair:
Yeah, Lisa Hashem is a finance coach for Muslim women and she’s the host of her own podcast, Muslim Women in Finance, and I’m really excited to hear her insight on this topic.

Monem Salam:
So am I. Let’s get started.

Scott St. Clair:
Let’s do it.

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Monem Salam:
So Lisa, Assalamu alaikum. Thank you for joining us. We’re really excited to have you.

Lisa Hashem:
Wa Aalaykumu s-salam. It’s my pleasure.

Monem Salam:
I know you have a podcast about Muslim women in finance, and it’s fairly unique. I was really excited to hear some of the episodes and then they’re great and I encourage our listeners to do the same. But tell me a little bit background, like how did you get into it? What what got you specifically in the area of Muslim women in finance?

Lisa Hashem:
Yeah, you know, in college I think I was just always a go-to person amongst my friends and peers in regards to career advice or you know, which major sort of I go into, which classes should I take. And then eventually it spilled into jobs, resumés and things like that. So I was kind of always a go-to person. There’s always someone in the community or in social groups that’s that go-to person. And then...

Monem Salam:
You were still a student at the time and students used to come to you?

Lisa Hashem:
Yeah, my fellow like peers. And then that spilled over to when I left undergrad. And so I was active with my local Muslim community and I started thinking about how I could contribute more, you know, because I don’t have a traditional Islamic background. But I had other things. And I think personal finance is very personal to me. I had a lot of family members I helped. So then I just started having these conversations with my fellow sisters and friends, and then it just spilled into, you know, maybe I can start sharing the things that I’m going through and that I’m learning. I come from a technical background, but that also led to forming a small business myself, opening the podcast, doing local workshops within my local community, whereas only towards Muslim women because I felt like, and other people had told me as well, that we weren’t being targeted, you know, we weren’t being asked to join in conversations whether it was like professional development, financial literacy, things of that nature. So there was definitely an interest among other women. And then, you know, the conversation started from there and I started doing like professional presentations within my community, and then it kind of blossomed.

Monem Salam:
Did you find a particular age group that’s more interested than another age group?

Lisa Hashem:
Definitely those in college, you know, college students were very interested because, you know, they’re spending four years in college and they’re going through the process of, okay, what am I going to get at the end of this? Am I going to have a career, job placement, things like that. More interest during the college years, I experienced that myself. And obviously afterwards when women were going into the workforce. Questions like retirement and you know what I want to do with my life? Who am I as an individual?

Monem Salam:
So now, I mean, let’s get into this a little bit further. And and really the topic we wanted to talk about was more particularly talking about finances or personal finance within the context of marriage, how do you navigate it and those type of things. And so I guess we can probably...easier way to take this would be like pre-marriage, early marriage, late marriage, and maybe after, you know, after your husband passes away or you have a divorce or the post marriage kind of kind of scenario. So I was thinking about it from that perspective and maybe kind of going through that with chunks and seeing what some of the kind of tips are that you would have in being able to do that. So starting off on on on the pre-marriage side, I mean, I know there are a lot of like, for example, imams out there that have I remember from the from the ADAMS (All Dulles Area Muslim Society) community, Imam Mohammed Magid had this like 99 questionnaire that needed to be filled out before you would, you know, come and do do an account for and this is great, but I’m not I didn’t do it. But I was curious maybe like, are there any financial questions on there? But I have seen other ones where that’s not even touched. Right. And sometimes it’s important. And so what have you seen as far as best practices or or some scenarios that people are like, Oh my God, that’s so crazy. I can’t believe you never asked about the finances.

Lisa Hashem:
You know, I think there’s been a huge shift since the late nineties of the type of pre-marital questions that have been asked. You know, before, traditionally, it would be, you know, what do you do for a living? What’s your occupation? What college did you go to and how much do you make? And then it kind of stopped there. And then other financial questions where in regards to the Islamic dowry and then the wedding planning, and then again it stopped there. It didn’t go further to expand on financial planning or, you know, what are your money matters in your personal life that will spill into marriage, things of that nature. So we didn’t have a lot of guidance before into what kind of conversations we should be having before marriage. And, you know, a beautiful wedding doesn’t exactly translate into a happy and successful marriage. And so what we’re seeing now is that communication is really the key and being open and honest, trying to be transparent as much as you can before the marriage. You know, I’m also a guest faculty member for the Nikah Institute, where we teach premarital education. And we start off by teaching, you know, who are you as an individual? What are your money matters? How has your culture and your environment shaped your views on money? You know, children have a front row seat to the marriage of their parents. And so a lot of how our money matters and beliefs are shaped is by what we saw at home. And some of us may have seen, you know, disagreements on money matters between the parents or maybe we came from a stingy home where our parents didn’t want to spend on a lot of things or they just couldn’t because they had to take care of other family members in addition to those in the household. So we all come from these very diverse backgrounds, you know, not only culturally, but also what we’re seeing in front of us with our parents. So examining that before marriage is so critical because what happens is either people mimic what they saw of how their parents were growing up, or they do a 180 degree shift and they’re like, you know what? Whatever I saw growing up, I don’t want that.

Monem Salam:
There’s kind of two aspects of that when you think about it from the prior to marriage perspective, whereas you’re beginning to get to know your future partner, right? Number one, I can think of and say, you know, like maybe on one side is like the conversation never comes up. Like I’m a poor college student, you’re a poor college student, or I just started working. I have no assets and you don’t either. So we can delay this discussion until later on when both of us have money and then we can talk about it. So that’s maybe one aspect of it, right? On the other aspect of it would be a very wealthy family and they’d be like, well, you know, if my son’s going to inherit, then parents might have a discussion with their children about, Hey, do you want to have a prenuptial or or something along those lines? And I would think those would be like kind of two extremes that are there. But I’m sure there’s a big place in the middle of where where a lot of people lie.

Lisa Hashem:
Yeah. And you know, what I recommend is doing like a mock budget before you get married. Do the sample budgeting, discuss what money would be coming in. I know for women particularly, we have different matters at hand because a lot of us, you know, after college, we may have student loan debt. We may have had families to take care of, but then we have to think about the future of, okay, what’s going to happen when I have children? Am I going to continue my career or am I going to be the primary caregiver at home without the W-2 income or the 1099 income? So we have a lot more to think about. But I think what happens is, you know, two minds are better than one. If you can get together before the marriage stage to, you know, talk about what’s coming in, going out, doing a mock budget, talk about how you grew up and what your views are on money that can help eliminate some red flags and have an open, honest discussion. Because after discussing these major pieces, you realize this person and me like there’s no bridge to connect us and what we’re thinking about or financial planning. We need to maybe part ways. And that’s probably better at that stage than actually moving forward with the marriage and having more complications. You know what you’re getting into now.

Monem Salam:
You bring up a good point because college debt is a huge part of it. I mean, you basically inherit when you get married the college debt of your spouse. And so knowing exactly what it is can help in making that decision as well.

Lisa Hashem:
Yeah, just being transparent on the numbers. I mean, a lot of people actually don’t know their numbers personally. They don’t know the magic numbers coming in and what’s going out. A lot of people live paycheck to paycheck no matter their socioeconomic status. So even if you have someone who’s making six figures or more, they may still be living paycheck to paycheck because they’re not managing properly. And, you know, we have that Islamic foundation of the factors of earning, spending, giving and charity and also investing. We have those factors within our faith as well to make us a successful Muslim household. So I think if someone doesn’t want to talk about those things, maybe getting to the root of the problem, like why don’t you want to discuss this openly before we enter a major contract of marriage? They say that money is one of the top six difficulties within marriage. So it really is a good idea to have those discussions beforehand.

Scott St. Clair:
I was curious a little earlier, you mentioned red flags and sort of this pre-marriage discussion. In your work, have you experienced like sort of common red flags that people don’t talk about that you think maybe they should be talking about specifically?

Lisa Hashem:
Yeah, you know, I think just not sharing that you have debt or maybe you have multiple credit cards. In the platform that I teach from, we’re pushing for, you know, credit reports. You should know those things of the other person. You should know how much debt they have. You should know where they work and how much they’re making. And it’s really for the benefit of the couple because marriage is a partnership and it requires teamwork and so we really want to promote that, that just be transparent, student loan debt, it takes away from building wealth, but maybe there’s a really good plan in place to pay it off within eight years or five years. You know, that’s a positive thing that we can look at. Or maybe combining our finances together because we are a dual income household and that becomes a powerful player in you know what you can purchase and what kind of things you can do in life. For example, taking vacations, going to Hajj together soon. Red flags, you know, we want to catch them soon because we don’t want to be in a relationship where there’s financial abuse or financial infidelity. And those are two big areas we don’t discuss beforehand or even within marriages, we don’t discuss, you know, what does that look like and how do we prevent it?

Monem Salam:
It’s like, okay, you know, I meet a potential partner and I’m like, okay, these are my top ten questions on your finances. It’s too soon. But if you wait too long, then you’re already in that phase of, oh, I really like this person. I’ll just forgive whatever is happening, or I might not even ask the difficult questions to do that. So when do you think is the right time to ask and what specifically would you say to ask?

Lisa Hashem:
So it’s definitely not going to be the first conversation. It’s going to take multiple conversations. And I would say, you know, when you first meet someone, you kind of have an idea of where they went to college, what they do for a living, their occupation. You may not know how much they make. And again, that might come in the middle of, okay, I really want to move forward with this person. Moving forward with someone, especially from a Muslim perspective, is, you know, I think I can see myself married to them. I think I can see myself living with them and starting a family. So once you get that idea in your mind and after, of course, you know, maybe having them meet your families, getting into the real numbers portion of it. It could be like a spreadsheet back and forth or questions back and forth of, you know, do you have debt or what’s your philosophy? What did you see growing up and how do you want the income structure to be? Is this going to be a dual income functioning family where we put everything in the same pot and we’re going to be sharing expenses? Or is this going to be more traditional where the husband would take on the household expenses and then the wife can have her own account where she can spend as she wishes? That’s when you get into the nitty gritty. I think it would probably be in the middle of the premarital talks, not not the first conversation, obviously, but somewhere in the middle and do exchange that information and make sure it’s private.

Monem Salam:
So moving now, you know, everything’s working great. You talked about finances. You talked about everything else under the sun. You’re getting to the point of now talking a little bit more about the mahr or the dowry, right? So what does that look like from from your perspective as far as...I’m not asking from an Islamic perspective, right? It’s more of a best practices is kind of a thing. You know, some people ask for, oh, I just need a dollar and I should be fine. Or some people say, Oh no, I want $100,000. What is a good medium or those types of things from a practical perspective?

Lisa Hashem:
You know, I think the means of what the dowry is quantitatively has changed historically. Historically, we had things like gold or money, cash, for example. But now things have changed dramatically. And I think that has to be, again, in the middle of the pre-marital process because that can be a red flag or make or break the discussion. And so, you know, now sisters are asking for different things. They’re asking maybe for money over a period of time. For example, opening an investment account for a sister and having deposits go in there monthly, maybe a lump sum to pay down payment for property, or they want that mahr to compound over time, growth per se. And so the discussions are changing, but I think sometimes are getting heated because of, you know, what is the limit or what is the amount due. And I think what happens is if you’re asking someone, you know what you want and they tell you, you do have to remind yourself that someone can express themselves freely and you can go back and forth and negotiate this process. At the end of the day, it’ll be final on the nikah contract of what you’re going to do, but make sure it’s outlined with all the T’s crossed and the I’s dotted. You know what I’m saying? Because if someone for 20 years is going to be getting deposits in an account, make sure there’s a timeframe and things like that mentioned. I’m not going to give out numbers, but what I’m saying is that there’s more discussion on it because people are looking at it differently, not in the traditional sense of jewelry, in cash, but more into compounding and growth and how it can benefit you in the long run.

Monem Salam:
That’s an interesting point that I was thinking about this the other day, and I didn’t do it this way, my marriage. But if you look at the compounding effect of growth, it’s a lot better for you to get a lump sum now than have it stretched over a period of time. And at least for women or for sisters, it’s important at least to know that. Whether they do it or not is separate. But I don’t even think they realize the benefits of compounding or getting a lump sum rather than getting it over a period of time. And so that’s a really great discussion to have as well as to what how you’d want it. Maybe it’s a smaller amount, lump sum, but it’ll grow to a larger amount than getting it piecemeal over, let’s say a ten year or 15-20 year period. Now that we’ve talked a little bit about the the pre-marriage side of it, now we’re like, you know, a newly married couple and now we’re just getting into the kind of the flow of things about work and finances and those type of things. So what are some areas to focus on in your earlier part of your marriage?

Lisa Hashem:
I think a misconception is that your employer has your best interests. So that, for example, when you get a retirement plan, you sign up and you get all your benefits, that you’re getting all the good information from your HR department or employer, and then you know, that’s going to feed into your household, right? But matter of factly it’s best to do your research and do something best for your household. You know, for example, you may get two insurance plans if two people are working versus having just one primary one. Maybe that’ll better serve the household, but your employer won’t tell you that. That’s something you two need to discuss. Again, having the best interest at heart, going back to how marriage is a partnership and you need teamwork. You need teamwork together to create a financial plan to go about meeting your goals. And if you’re able to express yourself freely in regards to needs, wants, concerns, dreams, that’s going to help you better with financial planning. So I would say, you know, understand again where the money is coming from, who is going to be employed, understand your tax bracket because taxes are such a major expense that a lot of people don’t talk about, you know, how you’re going to live, are you going to rent or are you going to buy a home, and what that process looks like, location, things of that nature, and then starting a family. What’s going to go into that. Again, it’s going to fall probably more on to the wife’s side. Is she going to continue working or is there going to be child care involved if her career continues. It’s really good to plan ahead, to have like a three year plan, to have a five year plan. I suggest, you know, monthly financial date nights for the couple. Technology has advanced in a way that benefits a couple because now everything’s automated. There’s ways where you can share information so you don’t have to keep asking each other for the same information. And I think, you know, utilizing technology to your benefit is great for your household. Some people like the set it, forget it approach when it comes to investing. Just set a number and forget it. And what we have to remember is we can always go back and change the numbers. We can be flexible. If we want to do Hajj next year and we need the money ASAP, for example, we can modify, you know, what we’re putting in retirement or investing so that we have that lump sum upfront to make our payments. So being flexible is key, being open is key. Being in a safe environment where you can really express yourself is also key. And just, you know, again, having as many meet ups as possible so we can discuss things.

Monem Salam:
Also, it’s important that once you get started on the right foot, it makes everything else smoother. One thing I wanted to ask you a question about, does the husband and wife keep separate their finances or is it all pooled into one and then spent? Do you have any thoughts on that, best practices or anything along those lines?

Lisa Hashem:
I think that having multiple bank accounts is a good thing.

Monem Salam:
Multiple or separate?

Lisa Hashem:
Multiple and separate. There should be a joint one for household expenses. There can be a separate account for the wife only, her own money. I do want to encourage that because, you know, I have dealt with DV victims where they didn’t have access to money and they weren’t able to leave to be safe. You know, they weren’t able to grab a cab to leave an unsafe environment. And we don’t want that for anyone. We want to make sure that everyone has access to cash flow. A joint account would be great for those household expenses. And then, you know, each person can have their separate bank account for their hobbies, for their individual goals. I mean, as a couple, you can have individual goals as well as shared goals. You know, it’s okay to have that. It’s okay to have that autonomy. That way people can be happier and there can be limits set. And, you know, we can kind of understand what everyone’s doing and transparency. I do want to point out that a woman should definitely have her own bank account and access to it.

Monem Salam:
And then the discussion about whether or not she contributes to the household expenses or not. What do you think?

Lisa Hashem:
Yeah, definitely talk before you get married, you know, and put it in a way where, again, it’s a flexible plan, like I don’t want to work after I have children, so therefore there’s not going to be any income coming from my end. And so if we choose to do a dual income household, we need to know that. If money is going to go down within five years of the marriage, the money that’s coming in, then how are we going to continue living this lifestyle? Lifestyle choices are very important. If she decides she doesn’t want to pursue her career after marriage, again, the lifestyle choice and how are things going to be paid? But I really do think it’s up to the couple if they want to do the joint income household or if they want to traditionally go the route of the husband providing the income for the household expenses. And then the wife, you know, again, she should still have her own separate bank account with some cash. You know, they can choose. It’s nice. You can choose to do that. And you can change the plan later, too. If you want to buy a bigger home, do you want to take more family vacations? You may need the dual income to depend on.

Monem Salam:
Throughout Islamic history. What you’ve seen is that a lot of the institution building from a charitable perspective did come from women because they had their separate accounts that they were able to use for charitable purposes. It’s a great way for a family to be able to contribute back to society. So I do in retrospect, now that I’ve seen my own life or with clients that we have, it’s usually a better idea for the woman to keep her finances separate. And then if she chooses to help with the household, perfectly fine. But she has to make a decision on her own. Have you found that as well is a good practice?

Lisa Hashem:
You know, everything kind of revolves around the dual income household. I think what’s unique about the Muslim community is that we are a population of people where the woman does have a choice and we do have a large number of families where there’s only one income. We just have to realize that we do have choices. Women have choices. They can make those choices and we can have those conversations before the marriage. We can have a better understanding of how the household will be run. Because if someone doesn’t agree with the choices that you’re making, that might not be a good partner for you moving forward. And it’s okay to understand that beforehand before there’s problems later down the road.

Monem Salam:
You had mentioned very early on two things that, number one was financial abuse.

Lisa Hashem:
You know, financial abuse, it’s actually really common. I mean, people may not identify it as that, but examples would include preventing a woman from having money or cash flow, not letting her see statements or bills or not letting her be a part of how the money is being spent within the household, you know, preventing her from getting medicines if she is sick, things of that nature, it’s financial abuse. It’s abuse in the form that it’s related to anything money matters. Sometimes financial abuse makes a woman very dependent on her partner and then she is not able to leave. And that’s what we see in a lot of cases of DV. I just want to relay that out to the audience because I don’t think we talk about it enough. I want to also define financial infidelity and that’s more of the secrecy, the secrecy of accounts, spending money in a corrupt way and hiding it from the spouse. And it can also be related to illicit behavior as well.

Monem Salam:
Can you give an example of financial infidelity?

Lisa Hashem:
Maybe the partner has a gambling problem. And so money is being spent at the casino or online and the wife or husband doesn’t know what’s going on, later finding out, oh, like we can’t afford groceries or my credit card is being declined, I don’t understand. And it usually comes out of the blue. We want to make sure that we understand what the signs are. You know, I don’t have access to my credit cards. We are always low on cash or our bank account balances are going negative. We’re writing checks to people that I don’t know who they are. They both go hand in hand. Financial infidelity and abuse. But they are two distinct things.

Monem Salam:
And one common one is specifically from the infidelity part of it is using your wife’s credit to be able to get a credit card for yourself, for whatever habit you want to carry on right? Bad habit, whatever it is.

Lisa Hashem:
I think it’s important to always check your credit report, even during marriage. You can get a free one every year. There is a website that allows you to look at your numbers and your information and what credit cards you have, what open accounts you have, what accounts are closed for how long. And you should always have access to that information to make sure that no one’s using your identity.

Monem Salam:
Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of credit cards offer that one once a year, just a free one and you can check it yourself. So definitely take advantage of that and make sure that’s on the way up. Never on the way down. So. Okay. One of the spouses decides they’re going to go back to school, right? Maybe they were dual income and become single or maybe that single becomes zero until they get some scholarships. In the case where it’s usually the husband that goes back to school and the wife is the one who’s working and supporting. That can be challenging when that’s happening. But also later on in life, you know, my husband basically went on ahead and I didn’t have the opportunity to do those type of things. So what have you seen from that perspective?

Lisa Hashem:
Again, I want to point out that I would love for that conversation to happen before you’re married, that, you know, maybe grad school is in my future. I don’t know. Both the husband and wife can talk about that. They might be interested in pursuing higher education later and then really having a plan in place. You know, maybe we need to save for child care, or, you know, housekeeping or a meal service. Maybe we can get family on board. But it does happen in the scenario you gave me, in a lot of the times where the husband does decide to go for higher education and then maybe he’s working full time and he’s doing schooling after work hours, that kind of takes away from his involvement within the household, understanding how that will make an impact on the household, you know, and then trying to get the resources to stabilize the situation and to help the wife, you know, asking friends and family, getting the services that she needs so that she can keep the household running. It is a stressful time for both partners. Expressing that concern before marriage or as soon as the interest is there and then having a plan in place can really be effective and sticking to that plan and also being flexible with it. In a case like that, you know, you understand that the household doesn’t become 50-50. It really changes the dynamics of who’s doing what. And maybe he doesn’t have to take three classes in one semester. Maybe he can do one class a semester and kind of prolong getting that degree. As far as finances are concerned, maybe his workplace can pay for that graduate degree. There’s scholarships, grants, saving for that. Definitely have the conversation around, like all the details. Must be very detailed conversation.

Monem Salam:
Sure.

Scott St. Clair:
After that first phase of marriage, the next big topic is kids. Financially that’s going to be a pretty big discussion. When do you start talking with your partner about kids and financially what do you need to do to prepare your children?

Lisa Hashem:
Again, a very important discussion before marriage. You know, do you like kids? Do you want to have children? How many do you want to have? What was your experience as a child with your parents? And then, you know, of course, finance is such a big piece of that because you know, what type of health insurance do you have, what kind of benefits do you have that can help with the costs of having a child. The health of the mother is really important to consider because she may have some health concerns during the pregnancy and then what resources are available for her postpartum is really essential. How much maternity or paternity leave can we take? You know, men can take paternity leave, which is amazing. And they should really, really look into it. So we really want to understand that, you know, men also have access to resources during this time where they can help and support their wife at home. You know, again, getting family and friends involved. So I think what it comes down to as a woman is going to have to make a lot of really, really big decisions. Is she going to continue working? What does childcare look like? What kind of support system does she want in place for her? Some of that decision making is going to have a financial component to it. And if we can talk to people and get resources upfront so we can know what the costs are, that might be beneficial and helpful to relieve the stress.

Monem Salam:
So let me challenge you here a bit, if you don’t mind. From an Islamic perspective, everybody comes with their own risk, their own sustenance. So if the child is coming with their own sustenance, not from us, but from God, then why plan for something like this financially?

Lisa Hashem:
Well, we do have this hadith about like tying your camel, you know, being very proactive in every decision you make. So we do believe that children are hiba, they’re a gift from God. Concerning that, we want to make sure that it’s just a smooth process. Money is a resource. It’s a tool. We do need it to make a livelihood. And we do realize that this is such a joyous, momentous time in our lives. At the same time, it’s okay to have a plan. It’s okay to understand that, you know, we can utilize our health insurance to pay for this. There are going to be expenses that come up. We do have resources. We have our job. We have our health insurance, we have our family, we have our friends that we can lean on. When you always point back to if you’re in a faith based environment, if you have a faith based household, you realize this child is a gift. And with that comes a lot of a blessing or barakah within the household. And just having a positive and optimistic mindset will really help you through stressful moments.

Monem Salam:
Thank you for that. That was really good. And the one thing I would add to that is planning for something doesn’t mean you’re negating the sustenance. They’re not correlated. You can plan for whatever you want because that’s the sustenance that Allah gives you. Okay, so now, you know, we talked about children. You know, mashallah, we have children. Am I missing a middle part that we should talk about?

Lisa Hashem:
I think the middle part is how you want to educate your child, because we have so many ways to educate children now, especially in the West. You know, we have public school, we have private school, we have charter school, we have home schooling, we have Islamic schooling, religious based institutions. So sometimes the schooling is going to come with a tuition and, you know, it’s up to you all and your household to decide K through 12. Is it worth spending the money on this type of education? Does my child have special needs or special learning abilities? Need a little bit more extra attention, athletics and sports, activities? You know, these all come with some kind of cost. They can be low cost or you’re accessing the local YMCA community center or there could be high cost with private coaches, tutors. Also look into your childhood and like what worked for you and your family. Like what your parents did for you. Remembering that there may be a price tag associated with all those choices that you’re making.

Monem Salam:
So how do you start a conversation with your spouse now of 15, 20 years where, let’s supposing, you haven’t been talking about these finances and a lot of families that I meet, it’s like, husband controls the finances, wife knows very little and that’s...I’m being general, but it is something more so that I found than not. So in that case, how does the wife begin to ask questions about the finances where it’s not a defensive conversation?

Lisa Hashem:
You have to plan accordingly. So you have to pick a really good time to bring up the discussion. It’s probably not going to be when both people come home from work and they’re stressed and tired and they just want to eat and they’re hangry. No, you want to set up a time, an appointment with your spouse, have the kids go to babysitting or some type of special activitiy so that you two can be alone. Some people don’t like talking about money like openly like this. They’d rather just look at a checklist or, you know, have something printed in front of them and read that list. If it gets to a point where you can’t really openly discuss in a private setting with your spouse in a safe way, you can’t openly express yourselves, you may need to get a third party involved like a counselor, a therapist, an imam, someone you trust and you know. That can help with the dialog because we don’t want the conversation to be one sided. It should be bi-directional and agreements should be made and adhered to. What are we going to talk about? What are we going to discuss? What’s the agenda and what are we going to get out of this? What are the action items? I would go about it that way. The financial date night or whatever, grab a cup of coffee and just have this informal discussion, but have the talking points ready. Some time, a lot of the conversation that’s be framed a certain way so that we’re not making accusations or assumptions. It could just be like, oh, I notice that you were short this month. I was just curious what you think of that or, you know, we were short by $1,000 or we couldn’t make this payment. What do you think of that? Or do you have any say in what is happening? I do see that a lot of the times with couples, it’s like one person is ready to talk about everything and another person’s hesitant and we need to understand why are you hesitant about it? You know, what’s preventing you from having this open discussion? And again, I do think we need to think about going to a third party for help if we can’t have that discussion openly.

Monem Salam:
And now we come towards maybe kind of the latter end of it. Right. And kids are out of the household now. And and now it’s basically you and your husband that are there alone or maybe where the husband passes away and now you’re left with a lump sum of money and or there’s a divorce involved. And I know those are two separate probably topics we’ll talk about, but we’re getting to the point where now it’s like that towards the end part of it. So do you want to split that up a little bit and talk about divorce versus death separately? Or do you think it can be done together?

Lisa Hashem:
No, I think what we’re seeing within the Muslim community is that we’re not a homogeneous community and we don’t have the same type of households. And in financial advising, too, if we look at the timeline from the twenties to the eighties or nineties, even, there are there are changes that come. And the empty nest stage, it could be you may be a single parent, you may be a widow, you may be retired and you might want to travel the world. There’s so many outcomes and choices you can make, but again, it comes down to knowing where your money is. A lot of people don’t know where their retirement account is, how much is in there, how much they’ve been putting in over the years. They don’t know their log in and password. They’ve never seen a statement. In the later years, you don’t want to be in a situation where you don’t know anything.

Monem Salam:
I’ll add one more thing to that. The beneficiary on your retirement account. So you need to know exactly who that is. That’s a very, very important, especially in cases of divorce and remarriage. The last thing you want is the beneficiary of that IRA or that large lump sum 401(k) to go to an ex-wife.

Lisa Hashem:
You might have a special folder on your laptop or, you know, maybe you’re a paper person, you have a paper file at home. Keep that information. It’s very, very important. Whenever you open an account, you keep that information, have a paper file or something, digital file. So yeah, getting all the documents in order. Even for example, if you’re going through a divorce, you need all the paperwork in order. Because if you don’t have it in order before you go to an attorney, they’re going to have to do all the auditing for you to get all the information. And sometimes it might be court ordered. You know, if someone doesn’t want to give that information or something like that or someone forgets about an account that exists somewhere. So it’s always good to be on top of that paperwork. All the accounts you own, who you owe money to is very, very important. You know, in our faith, when someone passes away, that’s one of the first questions that asks the congregation before they pray. You know, is there anyone out there that has a loan on this person’s name? Let us know because we need to pay that off. Being organized goes a long, long way. And I think the best example of that was the pandemic that really showed us we’re not really prepared for something like this. We don’t have our paperwork in order. We don’t know where the income is going to come from. We can’t actually physically go to work or we’re too sick to work or things like that. We don’t want another catastrophe like that to happen, and we’re just not prepared. Again, being overprepared benefits you in your household. Back to the point in financial advising, in the empty nest age, but there’s some really key points you have to understand. What accounts you have, how you want to live. Is your lifestyle going to change now, now that you’re not working full time, you have a lot more opportunity to travel, to do your hobbies. You know, are the kids okay? Do you have estate planning in place? Do you have a will? Do you have a trust? Do you have the beneficiaries all listed on all your accounts? And then just to enjoy your time. You know, for women, there’s three fundamental things that we really have to be concerned about. We, based on data research and evidence, generally outlive men. So because of that, we need to have a plan in place for medical expenses, where we’re going to live. We want to make sure we’re taken care of. There’s also a gender pay gap. We tend to make less over the lifetime than men as well. So that can affect what we want to do with our lives and the lifestyle we want, especially in that empty nest stage. And then we also take more time off. And if we don’t have, you know, paid time off, then that’s time off we’re taking we’re not getting paid. And our retirement account is not being funded. You know, a savings is not being funded. So we want to recognize that because we take more time off maybe than the men in our household that we need to, again, be prepared.

Scott St. Clair:
I’m curious for women who find themselves in these different situations, whether divorced, your husband passes away or you’re just a young woman who hasn’t had this financial education, you don’t have any financial literacy, what sort of resources can you turn to to gain those skills?

Lisa Hashem:
So I would say really just reading up on it, you know, going to a personal finance coach like myself to help you do a financial audit and get you the best resources. Read, like the financial section of The New York Times, the financial section of The Washington Post, be up to date on what’s going around. For older adults AARP, AARP is a really good resource with a lot of personal finance and business information. Go to your local library and ask the librarian. You know, I’m interested in finance. I’m interested in household budgeting. What are some good books? The latest books, the best sellers, that I can have in my personal library to help me. Where I live locally, we have a small business Muslim woman’s network. You know, you can be the person starts the group. Form your WhatsApp group with your three close sisters and get the ball rolling, share articles, share information, visit the library together to look at books. You know, you can start it’s going to be a book club on a personal finance book. I would say get the ball rolling and you can do it if there isn’t something out there already. But yeah, I do see a trend happening even in the UK where there are Muslim women groups that are about business or personal finance that are starting to form.

Monem Salam:
And as we’re coming to kind of wrapping up this thing, I wanted to ask you, where do you think we are as a community as far as, you know, like when you when you go out there and you talk to people and you’re doing the financial coaching and those type of things, would you see or as a general community, are we pretty okay?

Lisa Hashem:
You know, I’ve lived in several different local Muslim communities and I’m gathering that, you know, education is a really big commitment and it’s a really valuable tool. Everyone is trying their best to get the best education, the best degrees. We’re working to be the best students. So I don’t think there’s a problem in that sense. And we are getting capital in our communities now. We’re building, you know beautiful masjids all over the country. There is definitely capital coming in. It’s just, you know, how to manage the money, how to build generational wealth. We need to really understand what it means when we’re gone, how is our household and our community going to thrive? What are the tools out there that can help me thrive. Even if you don’t want to work outside the home, particularly for Muslim women, there are still lots of opportunity to build capital. In a home based situation. You can have a small business, so really getting those tools and resources to the communities is important, utilizing our traditional beliefs to make the best decisions. You know, our tradition has so many great factors and perspectives. If we utilize, we can realize, hey, this is actually going to bring me wealth. It’s not going to deter me away from it.

Monem Salam:
Great. Well, thank you so much, Lisa. This has been really great. Thank you so much for your time and we look forward to having you on the show again sometime.

Lisa Hashem:
Thank you, Brother Monem. Thank you, Scott. It was a pleasure.

Monem Salam:
Take care.

Lisa Hashem:
Alright, bye bye.

Monem Salam:
Thank you for listening to Halal Money Matters. If you like what you hear, please do rate us on the app stores. And also leave us a review. It helps other people find us a lot easier.

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