Shine (21 page)

• You build equity in property, and if you’ve bought in a good neighborhood, chances are excellent you’ll always be able to sell at a profit. It’s a way to build net worth as you make transitions from one home to the next.
  
• Home ownership allows you to go to banks and do many things like borrow to buy more property or send your kids to college or buy that boat.
  
• Very important is the fact that now you have tax breaks: you can deduct mortgage costs, interest and property taxes, and other expenditures on your tax return. If you’ve bought a rental property, you may be able to exclude capital gains taxes when you sell the property.
  
• Here’s the best thing: owning your home protects you against rent increases, which is a huge thing. You feel safe. Ownership gives you
  autonomy. No landlord can tell you, you can’t hang this or install that. No one can tell you to be quiet. You can run naked through your house if you like, and no one can tell you to stop. It’s empowering. Owning a home offers solace and protection to a woman alone.
  
• One caveat: remember that even if a home is in your name alone, once you marry and live in the home with your husband, it belongs to both of you—not just you alone. It has become marital property, in many states and if you divorce, a portion of its worth belongs to your ex-husband as well as to you.
  

• 9. Develop a financial record-keeping plan, and figure out a junk-throwing-away system.
  This is
  big.
  I’m a compulsive neatnik, and it helps me enormously in money management. I keep almost everything because the more documentation you have, the more it serves as your credibility in any situation, whether it’s contesting the IRS or applying for a bank loan. Still, you should be able to discard the now-worthless paper.
       I have an excellent filing system. The best thing I can do for you is to say this: whenever you’re in the grocery store, bookstore, or office supply store, go to the self-help section and for about five to fifteen bucks, pick up a book on budgeting that teaches you what to save and what to throw out, how to create folders, how to create labels, how to line things up in columns—not to mention how to budget your daily expenses. These magical little books help you define what you own, what you owe, what you need and don’t need. They’re organization plans, and these plans are invaluable when you’re creating a financial road map to your future.
       Just to give you an idea, here are some of the things you need to keep and file—sometimes forever:
  

• Records on home purchase and improvement
  
• Documents on stocks, bonds, jewelry, or art and any other assets you own
  
• Business expenses (for tax deductions—business meals, office expenses, bills paid, bills owed)
  
• Personal documents (birth certificates, marriage licenses, wills, deeds, titles, securities)
  
• Bank books, safe deposit records and keys, insurance policies, warranties for appliances, etc.
  

You need a filing system. Probably some sleek filing cabinets, also.

There are many books on the market, to help you organize this filing system. I happen to like
The Wall Street Journal Guide to Understanding Personal Finance,
which is sold in almost every bookstore.

• 10. Ignore the thinking that says you’re a threat to a guy if you have (and keep) your own money.
  It’s a myth and very wrong. Women become a threat to men only if they use their money in a controlling or demanding fashion. And we’re not just talking about rich women—any woman, on any level, who manages her own finances wisely is a boon, not a threat to a smart man. If a guy is put off by your autonomy, he should be history in your life. It’s good you found out how insecure such a man is before you got in too deeply.
  
• 11. Retirement plans.
  If you join a company 401 (k) or other retirement plan, contributing even $100 monthly can make you a millionaire before you know it. If your company matches your contributions, you’ll be a double millionaire—because your company’s investment in you is like getting a freebie every time you put in your own money. To save $200 before Uncle Sam taxes it is a gift your company gives you. At the end of the day you’re only going to see a difference of about $20 from your paycheck. You’re giving up $20 after taxes but receiving $200 before taxes. Figure it out.
      You may be very far from retiring, but being ready for a commitment to another means you’re also prepared to grow older together, comfortably; at sixty-two, it’s no fun to have to scrape for movie money.
  

An Ordered Financial House—
If You Are Married or Planning Marriage

• 1. Bottom line: Stay in control of what’s yours, but share some, if you like.
  Here is some of how Star and I did it.
       Everyone has shortcomings and weaknesses and, as a couple, Star and I decided to put out all our differences on the table and dig through that layer of vulnerability to see if we had a solid foundation underneath. We’d already decided we loved each other deeply; we stood solidly together in terms of our Christian beliefs. The big thing left was communication about how we spent and how we grew our money.
       For starters, I was younger than she, and she was in a more financially stable position. Was that going to have an effect on our relationship? You bet it was. For example, when I traveled, my budget said I stayed in a hotel room.
  One
  hotel room. But Star’s budget and lifestyle said fancy suite of rooms. We had to discuss how we’d handle that situation so both of us would feel comfortable. Deciding, as anyone with a plan has to do, what was to be spent on normal household items went even further and extended to even the simplest things like, what products do you use in your house? I guarantee you, Star doesn’t use plain old Dial soap. I do. If one uses much more expensive products than the other it can cause contention in a relationship. Deal with it. Lay out your differences, and plan how you’re going to deal with all possible expenditures.
  
• 2. The Prenup.
  I think every woman, especially a woman with financial resources of her own, should expect to create a prenuptial agreement with her prospective husband. Certainly, Star and I made a prenup: I insisted upon it.
       The prenup says, in case of death or divorce, whatever you bring to the table is yours and will always be yours. Whatever you owned, whatever you inherited, whatever you saved in your name alone before the marriage can stay yours alone. If you are widowed or divorced and
  have a substantial estate, it’s crucial to have a prenup, not least because you want to preserve your own money for your children of previous marriages. If one partner comes into the marriage with much more financial buildup than the other, he or she should want a prenup for obvious reasons. Remember, though,
  a home you may own yourself and then live in together after the marriage becomes marital property
  (and not yours alone anymore).
       That’s the kit and caboodle—unless you both specify in your prenup that you want something different. And also remember that the prenup agreement covers only money issues, not who vacuums the rug or walks the dog. Each of you, by the way, must have your own lawyer in drawing up a prenup. Be scrupulously honest in declaring what each owns before you sign any agreement: not being straight about finances can make the prenup null and void should one of you decide to contest it.
  
• 3. Straight-talk time.
  Now, before the wedding, discuss what each of you earns, owns, and owes. Discuss what could happen after a baby is born or if one person loses a job. Discuss if you’ll invest together or if each will invest on her or his own. Talk about health and life insurance and what you need. Talk about what financial responsibilities each of you has: does either of you owe money to an institution or a family member—where will it come from? Does one or both of you have ailing parents who require financial help? Does one of you plan to go back to school—and how will that be paid for? Lay it all out on that table.
  
• 4. Brokerage accounts.
  If a woman has created her own accounts from her own money (or money her family has given her as gifts), I believe it should remain her own. Later, if she marries and wishes to add her husband to the account in some way, that can be negotiated, but she still remains in control of the bulk of her assets.
  
• 5. Your own accounts.
  Let’s start with checking accounts, regular interest-bearing checking accounts. Every woman definitely needs a checking account in her own name, as does every man. We’re talking grown-ups here—no one should have to go to anyone else to ask for money for private and personal expenditures or for simple mad
  money. Each fills the private accounts with his or her own earned money. If one partner is a stay-at-home parent and doesn’t earn money, it doesn’t mean she or he should have no private account. The one who is earning the cash for the family puts an equal amount in each of the private checking accounts (it’s only fair), and that amount should be decided upon together.
  
• 6. A shared account.
  If you are married or in a committed relationship, you should also share a checking account for the household. The joint household account is filled by a percentage of each person’s earnings: when earnings are unequal (if he makes $100,000 and she makes $20,000), he donates five times as much as she. Joint checking accounts, by the way, have an added virtue in that each spouse’s spending habits are pretty much out in the open—a good thing.
  
• 7. Who pays what?
  Next, both of you decide in advance who pays the bills. Decide how you’re going to divide expenses. Some people decide that all personal purchases should come out of your own account and all household expenses come out of the shared account. Others think differently. The important thing is to discuss it all and agree.
       If the bill is a household bill, you’ve also decided in advance who actually picks up the pen to pay what from the joint account (it’s a good idea to let just one of you handle the mutual bills). This creates structure in a relationship and, in my mind, is a defined plan. We want to avoid questions like, Why didn’t you pay the phone bill? Why are the credit cards maxed out? Why have we gotten a second notice on the electric bill?
  
• 8. Mention to the other that you’re buying a boat. Or a mink coat.
  It’s a big mistake not to share your major financial decisions with each other—even if the money comes from your personal account. If I bought a boat without telling Star, let me tell you that boat would probably go straight back. Not that she works the same way, to be frank. Once, she came home with a fur coat.
       “Where did that thing come from, baby?” I asked.
       “Oh, it’s just a little something I found on the way home,” she answered.
       
  “Okay, sweetheart,” I sighed.
       Although every guy is not such a doll as I, I can still promise you that nine times out of ten, if you just communicate, talk about the big item purchase before you make it, the other will most likely agree.
  
• 9. Does the person who makes more money get to call the shots?
  Honestly? Most of the time, yes. It’s how people are taught, and it’s one of the toughest things to deal with in any relationship. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. Depending on how easily you communicate with your partner, you can together decide if the good stuff the other brings to the marriage (taking care of the kids, managing the home and arranging the social life, getting educated so you can be a full financial equal) should count as points in any financial decision-making process facing you as a couple. Star and I have a plan that factors out the control issue. If there’s a need in the house, we have to both agree that it has to be taken care of. Then, we both agree on what portion each pays, according to his or her capacity. We treat our financial issues almost like a corporation, and that seems to factor out who’s made more money that year.
  
• 10. Red-flag guys.
  I thought a couple of words would be in order here on red-flag behavior in men—guys you should avoid because they almost definitely do not have their own financial houses in order. Avoid a guy…
  

• who never has any money in his pocket, who can’t even tip the garage guy. Run as fast as possible.
  
• who doesn’t have a credit card. Run.
  
• who answers his own phone and often says, “He doesn’t live here anymore.” You know those are creditors calling. Run.
  
• who never even answers his home phone and tells you not to pick up, either. Run.
  
• who seems to get an inordinate amount of mail from credit card companies. Run.
  

• 11. The passing down.
  You meet someone, you fall in love, you make a commitment to marry, you marry. You are going to be together a long, long time—you hope and pray. You’ve talked about what you hope to
  accomplish in the next two to three years, the next three to seven years, the next ten plus years. It makes great financial sense also to talk about what you hope will be your legacy to children, family, or friends. A discussion about transferring wealth is a way of making your bond even stronger.
       A great way to find out about how to best transfer wealth is to attend your local high school, college, library, or church group seminars on the subject. They’re free and they’re informative and can give you tools (making a will is the easiest one) that will help you connect to future generations. You’ll need a trusts and estates attorney to make your wishes legal.
  

This is me, Star, talking now: thank you, Al.

It filled me with a great sense of security to know that my man cared passionately about our family finances and the financial future of our family.

Approaching the money discussion can be a scary prospect, but
not
discussing it prior to marriage will lead to doing
nothing but
discussing it during marriage. Our plan is in place, all we have to do now is follow it…and I have to remember to check with my husband the next time I want a new fur coat.

S
o, this is how I met a man made of earth and stars—when I was finally ready.

We had a contest on
The View,
and one of the viewers won the “Star Treatment,” which was to get treated like a star while spending the day with me. She got her first-ever massage, facial, manicure, and pedicure, and I took her to her first red carpet event—a fabulous party to celebrate the launch of Alicia Keys’s new album. On November 13, 2003, at a New York studio, during the glitzy launch with my guest, Stephanie Guillen, from Denver, Colorado, right by my side, I saw my friend Anthony (my lawyer’s husband) across the room and went over to hug him hello. After a few words, distracted, I started to leave when a man standing near Anthony reached out, took my arm, and said, “You’re not just going to pass me by.”

I looked up—and was floored. This handsome man with skin the color of
cooked butter, this man with the most beautiful lips I’d ever seen, a Clark Gable jawline, and the deepest brown eyes on the planet softly continued what he’d started to say, which was, “I saw you once at a party five years ago and was too hesitant to approach you, but this time, I’m braver.”

I was charmed out of my wits. I stopped, looked into those chocolate eyes, and I literally heard a bell ring—just like my mother said it would. This time it was a bell of exultation, not warning. Not to be corny…but I
exhaled.

When I walked into that room the day I met Al Scales Reynolds, I didn’t walk in with the intention of meeting someone. I walked in with my mind on feeling good about me. I was prepared. I’d started on getting ready. My relationship with God was strong, my health was getting better by the day, and my weight-loss program had been moving along for months. When that tall, smart, wonderful man took my arm, I was emotionally, physically, and spiritually ready to accept him. I deserved him. And you know what? I wasn’t looking for him—
he
was looking for me.

Not Looking for Temporary

From then on, everything about our relationship has been steeped in romance. On date one, Al presented me with a CD of songs each with the word
star
in them.

But more important was date two.

Picture it.

We’d gone to church together at eight in the morning and had come back to my apartment for a home-cooked meal. Al was sitting on the floor in my living room, having changed into his fraternity sweatpants, the
New York Times
was strewn all over, and football was blaring on the television. I came out of my room, having changed into my own sweats, stood in the doorway looking at the scene, and saw my life as I’d always dreamed it would be.

“This is what it feels like to be ready,” I thought. “Sunday after church, something good-smelling in the kitchen, football on TV, and Al lounging on the floor.” I felt myself grinning at him from the doorway.

He smiled back, stood up, took my hands, and said the words I’ll never forget as long as I may live.

“I’m not looking for temporary,” he said. “And I don’t want short-term. What are you trying to do?”

“What do you mean?” I asked. I was trembling.

“I mean,” he said, “I’m no longer interested in playing around. I want
her
in my life, and if you’re not
her,
we can be friends, but I’m no longer interested in silly relationships that lead nowhere.”

I thought I’d heard myself coming back on myself. Whooooaaaa.

“Well, you have to know I’m also not interested in sport dating,” I answered. From that moment on, we started thinking of ourselves as two parts of a penny—heads and tails—total simpatico. My girlfriend Vanessa said to me, “I know why you moved forward with Al so quickly; it was because you’d been in the game long enough to know what isn’t right.”

She was right-on. When what was good came along and I was ready, it was so obvious—it was like night and day compared to the other relationships I’d had.

And—that romance. We’d talk on the phone till four o’clock in the morning. He asked about my hopes and dreams, and I’d ask about his plans for the future. He said I love you for the first time when he sent flowers to
The View
for me.

I sent flowers to his Wall Street office. He sent me daily love notes by fax. I left singing messages on his voice mail. He covered the floor of my living room with a trail of roses. You want to know why I was giddy with love? It was all his fault.

Within a month of our meeting, we headed to each other’s hometowns, where we met with both families. We needed to see each other’s roots, observe each other’s witnesses. In December, we seriously began discussing marriage and commitment. We told our families about our feelings, and we told my pastor, A. R. Bernard from the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, New York. He began talking to us about love and commitment and fidelity. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t frightened about what was happening.

And it was happening fast. We planned to spend Valentine’s Day at the NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles. Al picked me up at the TV studio, and we headed, I thought, to the airport, but no—it appeared the car was heading back toward my house. He’d forgotten something he needed. The whole way home, I was “flapping those jaws,” as Al likes to say.

Coming into my apartment, I stopped short. The dining room was set with
champagne, hors d’oeuvres, and flowers. I continued talking and fussing as I walked into the living room, and there they were, my whole family—parents, sister, and nephews. Al had brought them all to New York so they could be present at this vital moment in my life. I couldn’t believe it.

He dropped to one knee and promised to love me the rest of my life.

You gotta love a guy like that.

Then, he gave me a promise ring.

What? That didn’t thrill me. The engagement ring was going to come in LA, he said, when he “formally” asked me to marry him. I wanted to know when. He told me I’d have to wait and see.

At the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the buzzer rang out, starting the fourth quarter of the game, and Al again dropped to one knee in front of TV viewers and twenty thousand screaming fans and asked me to be his wife.

I said yes. Actually, I said it six times—“Yesyesyesyesyesyes!”

By the way—you know that day I told you about when Al arranged to have my family in New York when he asked for my hand in marriage? I found out later (from my mother, not from Al) that Al took my parents to breakfast that morning and laid out our future for them. He told them about his finances, his hopes, his dreams, and his plans for us as a couple. He had of course discussed these subjects with me, but to know that he had the strength of character to have the discussion with my parents prior to asking me to be his wife filled me with a wonderful sense of security and love. He’s the real thing—I know it like I know my name.

How Do You Really Know if He’s the One?

I used to date a guy who was wonderful, but he despised sports. He could not sit down and watch a basketball game with me for anything. I could never have married him any more than I could have married a guy with no spirituality in his heart. After Al and I were married, there came one Sunday afternoon during the NBA finals. Al had been traveling; I was coming back from the Hamptons. We met at the door, undressed, and got into our bed and turned on the Pistons and the Spurs and sat there and yelled at the TV. “Baby, what is wrong with him?
What is that kind of shot?” That was Al. And I’m going back at him, “Oh, please, they’re not playing team ball. That’s the problem!” And we’re going back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth. I could not have lived without that back and forth.

Bishop T. D. Jakes of the Potter’s House, a nondenominational church in Dallas, Texas, once gave a sermon in which he was trying to explain to a group of young women how you could pick and choose the man in your life. “How do you know that he’s
the one?”
asked Bishop Jakes.

And then, that great spiritual leader answered his own question.

“I’ll tell you how you know if he’s the one. I want you to close your eyes and think of the very worst day of your life, the day you lower one of your parents into the ground. Doesn’t get any worse than that, does it? Doesn’t get any worse. Your mama, the person who’s always there for you, put into the ground. Now, the guy you’re seeing? Is he the guy who’s standing there next to you with his arm around you? If you can’t see him there on that bad day, he ain’t the one.”

I can honestly tell you from the moment I met Al, I knew that on that bad day when I could not hold myself up, he’d be the one who would hold me up. I could not imagine another person holding me up.

Here are four other ways you can tell if he’s the one:

• 1. Does he keep you company?
  My guy does. This is the silly answer of how I knew he’d keep me company. We’d been dating only two weeks, and I was getting my hair braided in my bedroom by three West African women. They’d brushed all my hair out, and it was in that half-and-half stage—half-braided, half looking crazy, you know—long, flowing, wild.
  I sighed with impatience because if truth be told, my feet hurt. Al was watching a ball game in the living room, but all of a sudden, there he was in my room. And he started massaging my feet while Fifi and the girls braided my hair. The entire time I was getting my hair braided, he lay across the bed, and we laughed, and we watched TV, and he kept me company—and it was a sign of things to come, Al keeping me company when I have a headache, when I’m sad, when I’m tense, and certainly when I’m happy. Don’t worry. I do the same for him.
  
• 2. Does he gentle his criticisms?
  Sometimes, Al has to stand firm when
  I’m in my very bossy mode, but he rarely criticizes me without starting with the words “sweetheart” or “babe.” As in, “Babe, think about it this way.” Or, “Sweetheart, I think there might be another option here.” His sweetness just mellows me out.
  
• 3. Does he push your hot buttons?
  I’m not talking about the ones that make you
  hot,
  I’m talking about the ones that make you mad and always hurt the most. During premarital counseling, we learned about each other’s hot buttons. Al knows the location of each of my buttons, and he chooses not to go there. That’s a big deal. We have no excuses about being accidentally mean to each other because we can’t say, “I didn’t know that would piss you off.” We do know; we know everything about the other. Sometimes, thinking like a lawyer can have its negative side. I am very good at wrangling. My mother once told me I don’t fight fairly because when I’m angry I’ll tend to push the button that will most injure you. But when you love someone, you don’t want to jab deeply because it hurts you to see his pain. I can almost literally see Al’s heart when he’s angry and is tempted to say something to dig me (hey, girl, it happens!), but he always chooses not to go there. That really makes him the one.
  
• 4. Does he love and respect his mom or the women in his life?
  You may disagree with me on this one, but a man who treats other women kindly, especially his mother, is usually a nice person. That’s important.
  

Personal Stuff

The things I’m about to tell you next are really quite intimate and personal, but I’ve decided to do it because they go to the heart of my heart. Ordinarily, I’m pretty close mouthed about my private life, but I want to be totally candid here. I also want to say that although I’m convinced that the way we came to deal with sexuality and morality before our marriage is the most wonderful way, still, it is our way and it may not be yours. That’s fine—we each find our own path. But, oh, how it’s worked for us.

Most of my girlfriends are Christian, and even those who aren’t have a certain spirituality that sustains them through everything. We often talked about the dynamic of dating as adult women and having physical and emotional needs met during this time, but still wanting—and usually failing—to be obedient to God’s word to have sex only within the context of marriage. Back and forth, and back and forth we’ve debated this point. It is true that at many given times, some of us had taken on short periods of celibacy. Maybe we were between boyfriends. Maybe we felt we’d just gotten out of a crappy relationship and needed to take a break. Then, there are some women who just can’t be without a man—I don’t know if it’s physical or emotional. There are a whole lot of reasons.

One of our best reasons, we thought, for
not
being celibate was that most of us were not kids, and we’d arrived at that stage in life where sexuality seemed too easy and too natural to ration it out.

We were wrong. If you really think about it, there should be defined stages to any relationship that’s going to last beyond the “running toward each other in slow motion” phase. The “wham, bam, let’s fall into bed” mentality was easy, but it wasn’t working for most of us. Our relationships were shallow, and the sex wasn’t all that great. One night in Bible study, Pastor Bernard shared a heavy concept with the bible study group that Al and I attended, and a lightbulb went off in my head. Sexual intimacy ought to be earned, we learned; a relationship is better primed to last when friends, not strangers, fall into bed.

The stages Pastor Bernard talked about are described below: when you skip any one stage to jump ahead in the relationship, I think you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Stages of a Lasting Relationship