The Truth About Prenups—and Why Money’s Harder to Talk About Than Sex (First’s Libby Leffler)

0:03In case you missed it, you're allowed to be hot, smart, and rich. So let's get into it.

0:14Libby Leffler, are you ready to get Hot Smut Rich? I am ready. I've been ready. I stay ready. I'm so grateful that you're here. Thank you for doing this. Of course. Absolutely. It's really fun to be part of this and to see the community you've built. So cool. Oh, thank you. Well, I know you had a tough time getting down here from San Francisco, but I'm hoping you have some good answers to this because we always start with consumption habits. So what is the last thing that you bought? The last thing I bought was the flight to come here because mine was canceled. The last thing I bought, probably something for my kids.

0:47I don't know if it's that exciting. No, but the answer of like having to buy another flight to get down here is such a founder answer. Yeah, at like 4 a.m. Wait, you flew here at 4 a.m.? I mean, no. I was supposed to fly here at, you know, whatever it was, 6.30 or 7. I know you've been traveling. Yeah. I've been traveling. So we were like, okay, let's link up. Then I wake up and it's like, hey, you're not traveling. But yeah, that's probably the last thing I bought, bought. Okay. I love it. I'm so excited that you're here because we're going to talk all about prenups today. Yes. How comfortable are you talking about prenups after building in this space?

1:23I love talking about prenups. I mean, I think that it's part of that broader conversation about money. And I'm all about, and I've said this for a really long time, I've worked in fintech for many years. And I've always been very fascinated in that conversation about money. Like, I think it's a conversation I've been having around me and in my world since I can remember. Right. You know, my parents have both, they're both self-made, have worked really super hard in the business world, in the real estate industry. And I was like super privileged to grow up in a world where they were talking about business with each other for as long as I can remember.

2:03Like it really was a dinner table conversation. And so I was saying the F word, right? From the very jump, meaning finances. Do you say the F word in front of your kids now? Well, when I say the F word, right, I'm talking about finance, finances. I don't say the F word in front of my kids, or I try not to. I don't say the F word in front of my kids, but they, they hear it different places. That's such a funny thing. I see, I don't even think about finances as a dirty word. Like I'm so open about so much. So I didn't even connect the dots. like the F word was finances. But I think that especially the word prenup is still such a dirty word in society.

2:39Do you think so? Yeah, I do. And it's interesting because even with myself and as I've gone through the prenup process, like we actually don't call it a prenup. We call it a PMA, a premarital agreement. And for me, I think because it has had such a bad connotation, especially like things are changing now. But when I was growing up, it was such a dirty word that changing the language gave permission to think about it in a totally different way. Why do you think that even going back five or 10 years, that word prenup was such a bad word? So there's a total pop culture depiction of what a prenup is and who gets it.

3:16And so I think a lot of it starts there, right? with how the idea of a prenup is depicted in media, in television, in film, and really who a prenup is for, right? That it's meant for some person, probably a guy to protect himself from like some woman. Actually today, like we don't see in our customers, right? We don't see that stigma at all. Half of the prenups that we do at first are initiated by women. So it's very, different. And it's, for me, it's really surprising to see, like, I knew that that stigma had moved away. We're really at the beginning of a generational shift in terms of how people think about premarital agreements.

4:03And I love that you like reframed the name of that agreement and how you think about it. Because it's really all about that conversation. And whatever you need to get that conversation going, in terms of, hey, like, we both have stuff going on. We both have businesses, we're running things, we're doing things. How do we think about this collaboratively for our life together? That's really what it's about. It should be a joining point, not a breaking point. So when we think about prenups, like even going back to that example that you gave, where it's like a super wealthy man that's been depicted by having to protect himself from, let's just use the really stark word of like a gold digger taking his money.

4:42You're telling me that the archetype of who is coming to first to get a prenup is actually a lot of women, forgetting what we think about marriage, why are women coming to first to get a prenup? And for what purpose? So we do free consultation. So we talk to people all the time about every reason that they come to us. The top three reasons that people come to us to get prenuptial agreements are debt, right? They're coming into the marriage with some kind of debt, usually a student loan, but maybe there's something else and they either want to protect themselves or partner, whatever it might be, or they're planning on taking debt in the marriage in the form of often a student loan or a personal loan or whatever it might be.

5:23The second thing that we see most commonly is pets. So people are coming because they have their like beloved pet and they want to be able to carve out what happens to our pet if we don't stay together. People forget that, right? Like your pet. I am shocked. Yes. So pets are a huge deal. It's a huge, it's a huge question on that? Because in a PMA, from my knowledge, you don't actually figure out things like child support or like housing when you're actually doing your PMA. You usually do that when you are going through a divorce. What makes the animals or the pets something that is different than children when you're going through a prenup?

6:04Yeah. So this depends on the law and how pets are determined by the law, which in terms of pets, right, they're real property or animals or whatever you might have. So you can, in your PMA, do you have a pet? No. Okay. Well, we're getting one. Okay. Well, think about your pet and your PMA, but that's one of, that's like the number two reason that people come. Um, and they're always talking about kind of what they're going to do and does someone, can someone have like the right to rehome and, and whatever that looks like. So that's really interesting. I think wasn't surprising. I think we always knew that people wanted to include this in a premarital agreement.

6:44And then the third thing is inheritance, right? We're really on the cusp of a great wealth transfer that we know is about to happen. And millennial women in particular are really going to benefit from this. The women that are coming to us are talking about, hey, I'm totally self-made. I've worked my entire career, right? And I've got retirement and I've got investments and I'm expecting inheritance. Or it might be someone who, you know, maybe they purchased a home on their own and they're thinking about what happens to this real estate that I own? And how do I make sure that it's protected in the event that this marriage doesn't end up working out?

7:20Most of the people that we talk to who reach out to us to learn more about what we do, and again, we don't give legal advice on our consultations, but people just want to talk. They want to talk about what's happening with them and their story, the context of why they're even talking about a prenup. Most of them are just looking for understanding of like how to have the conversation with their partner and realizing that in some way, no matter what they're doing, they're both working towards something and they want to come into it at a point together, um, that helps them keep the marriage stronger.

7:54It's so interesting that you say it in that way, because from your experience, do men or women have a harder time getting on board with a prenup? So when I think about our customers, like they're on board, they're both, they're on board, often doing research, trying to find a great option for themselves. We don't see, like, I can't think of an example where two people, there's someone dragging someone else into like that experience. Interesting. Now we're an online platform, right? So, you know, who self-selects for that? Probably the modern couple looking for a modern experience and they might come to it pretty aligned.

8:38And they're like, hey, we've been interviewing and looking at different processes and geez, it's gonna take five months and how much does it cost? And they're kind of looking for something better, a better way, a better path forward. But I wouldn't say that there's one or the other that like we really say, oh, that person's dragging this person into it. I think what's been amazing is seeing just how open people are and the conversations. Like I said, we do these free consultations And so our team, lots of our team members talk to folks and people will just, you know, it's like, hi, thanks for calling first.

9:09And they're like, here's my life story. And you're like, what? Okay. Like my name's Libby. What's your name? Do you do consultations yourself? I do. I do talk to many of our customers. Yeah. We have a lot of team members that do consultations and folks that are like prenup experts, but I do talk to customers all the time, every day. It's the best part of my job. I have to do it. I have to do it. If you could simplify what the prenups end up looking like when they're said and done, what does it usually look like in terms of the trend that we're moving towards? People are keeping their own bank accounts and separate property, but then they're also doing a common property.

9:42What is the trend that you see happening with women inheriting this great wealth transfer, with them having more education, owning more homes, things of that nature? So I can talk about this in the context of our consultations, because of course, we're not looking at sort of the end product of what people select for their agreements. In consultations, people are often talking about the following things. They're talking about, hey, we really just want something where our premarital property is separate. What we brought is ours and what we create together is, or what we brought is, each of us keeps what we brought and what we create together in the marriage is ours.

10:18And so we often hear about that, right? What's mine is mine. What I brought in is mine. What we create together is ours. And so that's interesting. We do get a lot of people, just depending on the state, that ask about augmenting or waiving alimony and spousal support. What does that mean? So they're just choosing to change or customize for themselves what the terms of spousal support might be or agree upon that rather than revert to default laws. And so we do see a lot of people expressing interest in that. And we can, of course, help people with that because we do have lawyer-reviewed prenuptial agreements.

10:55So those folks enter into an engagement agreement with lawyers that represent them independently on our platform. Those are kind of the common things that we see, right? And then people, of course, wanting to account for their pets, debt, whatever it might be, if they have student loans and they really want to make sure that like, hey, those are my separate loans. I brought them into this partnership and I want to make sure that those stay separate, those stay my property, or maybe their partner wants to make sure that they stay theirs. Tuesday on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozema St. John host the highly anticipated new competition show.

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12:05And they're now like self selecting to choose you guys as the way to actually get that done. Do you think that there has been a shift in that consumer behavior from women that are thinking about prenups in this way of like, this is helpful for me? Because I would say the discourse that I still see is very much like, let's use Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos' wedding as an example, people have been so quick to go online to talk about like what she's getting versus like his first wife. And it's still very much in my feed, at least a conversation that's very much around like women taking and not like contributing to the marriage.

12:41And it sounds like what you're saying is a lot of women are coming and being like, I want to protect my husband that he's not inheriting the loans that like, I am obviously going to want to pay off even in my marriage. Do you think that there has been a shift in at least the customer that you're seeing to get to that place? I mean, we're seeing a lot of amazing people, men and women who've worked really, really hard. And it's like they're professionals, they're first responders, they're like all, you know, there's people that they will stay at home or they might already be staying at home and working in the home, taking care of, you know, children that may exist before this couple ends up getting married, or maybe it's a second marriage or whatever it might be.

13:27We are seeing this like interesting phenomenon of people starting side hustles that have become great businesses, creators starting amazing brands and like coming to us going, how do I even think about who owns my social media handle? Interesting. Right? Like literally the social media handle in their agreement and talking to us in the consultations about, hey, I've like developed these three things or I have a patent on this thing. How do I think about the IP? You know, I've worked at a tech company. I'm like a, you know, I have a patent on this technology. How do I think about that? There's all these different permutations of customer and customer archetype and who comes in.

14:08And the thing that really, the common thread among all of them, like no matter what their profession is or what their ambition is or whether they're inheriting something or not. It's not like a lot of people come in and they're like, I think I'll inherit something, but I don't really know. And I've never had the conversation and I don't know to what magnitude. That's not the important thing, right? The important thing is they want to start from a place and a foundation of having this conversation. And that's really where we come at it, which is like, we want this to be amicable and collaborative.

14:40It's not a breaking point. It's an amazing joining point. And so the way that we've built this company is really with the belief in marriage. And we are super pro strong marriage. And what does it mean to have a strong marriage? We think having a strong marriage means that you're starting off on having these conversations early on, people spend hundreds of hours wedding planning and no time talking about money. Money is funny. It is hard to talk about money. Do you think money is harder to talk about than sex in a relationship? Interesting. I do. I think it is harder to talk about. Yeah, I think they both have their own.

15:23I think they both have their own. you know it there's personal things that come up in both but i think that we're ingrained and have been and i love what you're doing and expanding that conversation about money and like asking really tough questions that you know get people talking about and thinking about and sparking that conversation in your community but i do think it's harder to talk about because there's so much There's family history and the things that you learned and the way that you came up and came up talking about money, having it, not having it, what having it did to you, how it changed your ambition or what not having it did to you and how it changes the way you think about it.

16:09And then once you put kids in the mix, too, and that whole dynamic, I mean, that really changes, I think, how people have that conversation. Do you think that having a prenup in place will increase or decrease the likelihood of getting divorced? So there's statistics and studies on this that show that if you have one in place, like those group of people, the cohort of people that have a prenuptial agreement have a lower rate of divorce. The divorce rates in the US have stayed pretty consistent. They're between 45 and 50%. Well, if you look at it by age, like if you take a cohort of people, right, we see some rates dropping, but I'm sure you've seen some of the press more recently around the high cost of millennial divorce, right?

16:52It's really increasingly expensive for people to be able to get divorced. And so, you know, the divorce rates hover. It's like between 45 and 50%. 100 % of people think they're not going to be in the 45 to 50%, right? They're never going to be the ones that are getting divorced. Things happen, right? Things happen. People change, life changes. There's all kinds of circumstances. So we think it's a great path to be able to have these conversations early. Have you ever seen a wedding get canceled because of the prenup process? I mean, I think it's like if you go through the prenup process and there's something fundamentally off, not with a person, but just with the sort of vibe on how you think about money, you know, whatever it might be, now is a better time to figure that out than I think, you know, three, four years into a marriage.

17:49I was about to say, like, I actually have a friend who through the prenup process realized that it actually wasn't the right person for him. And it's really interesting for myself going through it. Like you do talk about things that you would otherwise not. Like you spend a hundred hours planning a wedding, I would say like, we have definitely spent way more time of figuring out what is actually going to be in this PMA because it sets aside what your role and responsibility will be in the marriage and also like what the expectations are. And I think so many people walk into a marriage thinking, oh, I'm going to have amazing wedding day, but they're not thinking down the line of like, what does it look like when I'm in my prime earning years as a woman and like I am having to go and take off time to have a child.

18:36Whether you take off a month, two months, three months in Canada, it's a year long mat leave. It will affect the trajectory of your career. Do you feel like you're also dealing with a lot of women that are having children later in life and are thinking about what that impact will be to their financial opportunity when they do take off time to have children? Well, the thing that we know for sure and that we've seen a lot of demand around, so now we do help facilitate this in people's agreements. We know that there are an increasing number of people coming through that have embryos and have frozen eggs and are making contingency plans for themselves so that they can pursue the things that they want to pursue now and, you know, have the opportunity to start a family whenever they'd like to start a family and have the freedom and flexibility to do that.

19:20And so, you know, I think we see all kinds of people. It's a really modern couple, right? It's all kinds of people. And that thing they have in common is like, they really want to be able to come together and have that conversation and create an agreement that's theirs. Like, that's why we're called first. This is the first agreement that a couple will ever have. We think you should have a prenup before you have a will. Like this agreement should be something that's foundational to the relationship. And like you said, sets those expectations. Like, what does it mean for me to be a true partner in this relationship and having had that dialogue together?

20:01But it's every kind of thing you can imagine. I mean, this is funny, but one time we had someone call us and he was like, hey, do you have a frequent customer discount? Which is like, you know, but it's funny, right? He obviously was joking, but he was like, look, I've been married before. I didn't have a prenup the first go around. I really want to make sure I have one now. And the frequent customer, that was a first. That was a first and first, the frequent customer discount. Every ambitious woman has a secret weapon. So let yours be the Hot Smart Rich Insights. It's how over 250 ,000 women are owning their worth in business, wealth, and life.

20:42Whether you're building a brand, making moves in your career, or wanting to get control over your finances, the HotSmart Rich newsletter delivers the cultural context and consumer intel to keep you ahead. With only six months left in the year, it's time to make consumer trends, financial hacks, and HSR Insights your best friend instead of mindlessly scrolling on social media. We've built one of the most powerful communities of women at the intersection of consumer, capital, and culture. So join us with the paid version of our newsletter, free, for three months with the link in the show notes to claim your free offer.

21:19When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone, all protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. Do you have any advice for people that are listening that are not yet at the stage of getting engaged, but they feel like they want to start talking about finances in a relationship? What is the right time to start talking about that before you're planning a wedding?

21:59Anytime is the right time. How do you bring it up? Do you think that they should have FICO scores and dating apps? I think this is... So first, I think when you're first... So first of all, I have no dating advice for people. I have stories, experiences. My friends have many experiences. But I think there's never a wrong time to be talking about topics that are going to be fundamental to a relationship, right? And so I think of it akin to the conversation of, would you like to have a family? And so I don't know when people bring up that conversation. But I've had friends that were in great relationships with people and learned late into the relationship that that person did not want children and they knew in their heart they really did and they didn't want, right, they didn't want to end up further down the road.

22:52And so they ultimately, you know, had to make tough decisions because that's just, for them, it was a deal breaker, right? I think this money conversation is something that, you know, it would be interesting to like spark it, whatever it is. Hey, how do you think about spending? What are your spending habits? What do you spend on? What do you say? How do you save? I mean, there's little things I think that can kick off the spark of a conversation and where you can kind of observe is someone really like, do they totally shut down when you try to bring up any of these topics? I don't think you have to ask someone like for their tax return on date one.

23:28I think you can just kind of keep it chill. But yeah, I mean, this is fundamental. It's like career ambition. How do you think about the next 10, 15 years of your life? Like what are your personal goals, right? Money should be folding into all of those conversations. What about the timing for a prenup? Like how long does it take usually? And do you recommend that couples do that before they actually get engaged and there's a ring or after? So I'm not a family law attorney. And so I don't represent clients in that capacity. Therefore, this is not legal advice. She's well trained. But we have people that call us.

24:03I mean, we have couples that are getting married late in 2026 that are like done with their prenuptial agreements that just want to get it going, move forward. Our lawyers often talk to customers about enforceability and considerations when it comes to enforceability. In certain states, there are state waiting periods before you can sign. So we never really want to see someone taking it up to the final minutes before they get married. Now, what we hear from our customers is that a traditional process can take many months. We can do an agreement for someone much faster because we are an online platform, because we take all of the heavy lifting off of our customers and connecting them to great lawyers who practice in their state and who do this full time.

24:53So let's take a step back because we are talking to Sally that's listening to this and is like, I want to get a prenup. I'm getting married. I'm getting married in five months and you guys operate in the state that she lives in. Walk Sally through the difference between a traditional lawyer path to getting a prenup and what she will get with the experience with first. Okay, cool. So Sally comes to us, she purchases her agreement and she and her partner go through our online platform. And the key thing with us is you're getting all of that context upfront. So let's say Sally wants a lawyer reviewed prenuptial agreement.

25:28We offer multiple, right? We offer self-serve prenups that are fast, easy, legally sound agreements, but that forego lawyer representation, which you can do. And that's totally valid. You can also do a lawyer reviewed agreement. So Sally and her partner want a lawyer reviewed agreement. Now it's going to be custom to them. The lawyers are going to review it. They come in, they buy, they go through our questionnaire. It's simple. We cut through the legalese, get all of the disclosure done for them. And basically every key piece of information that their lawyers are going to want to make sure that draft is in great shape and they have all the context.