College Planning for Co-Parents: Financial Strategies to Save for Your Child's Future Education

Join us as we sit down with Certified Financial Planner and College Funding Consultant, Brad Baldridge, to talk through financial strategies that co-parents can employ to save for their child's future higher education. In this interview, Brad discusses the following:

•    Understanding The Real Cost Of Sending Your Children To College
 •    Developing Financial Strategies For Saving For College
 •    Planning Early To Put Your Child On The Path To A Bright Future
 •    How Financial Aid, Scholarships And Loans Fit Into Reducing The Cost Of Going To College
 •    Understanding The Different Types Of Colleges And How To Plan For Each Of Them
 •    Why Your Child Being Undecided About Their College Major Isn’t A Bad Thing
 •    Ways To Increase Your Child’s Chances Of Admission To Their College Of Choice.
 •    Planning To Take The Stress And Uncertainty Out Of College Planning
 •    Understanding The DOs And DON’Ts Of Financial Aid
 •    Avoiding Or Minimizing Student Loans

If you would like to speak with one of our family law attorneys, please call our office at (503) 227-0200, or visit our website at https://www.landerholmlaw.com.

To speak with Brad further about financial strategies to save for your child's college education, you can contact him via his website: https://www.bradbaldridge.com/ or visit his Facebook page: Taming The High Cost of College

Disclaimer: The information provided to you today is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to be specific recommendations or advice. Nothing in this communication is intended to provide legal advice nor does it constitute a client-attorney relationship, therefore you should not interpret the contents as such. Please consult with a qualified professional before acting on any of this material. Investing involves risk. Depending on the types of investments, there may be varying degrees of risk. Investors should be prepared to bear loss, including total loss of principal.

Transcript

Intro: 
Welcome to Modern Family Matters, a podcast devoted to exploring family law topics that matter most to you. Covering a wide range of legal, personal, and family law matters, with expert analysis from skilled attorneys and professional guests, we hope that our podcast provides answers, clarity, and guidance towards a better tomorrow for you and your family. Here's your host, Steve Altishin.

Steve Altishin  0:28  
Hi everyone, I'm Steve Altishin, Director of Client Partnerships here at Pacific Cascade Family Law. Today, I'm here with Brad Baldridge, a college funding specialist to talk about college planning for co-parents, and financial strategies to save for your kids college education. So Brad, how you doing today?

Brad Baldridge  0:53  
I am doing great, thank you.

Steve Altishin  0:55  
Before we start and get into kind of the nuts and bolts of what we're doing, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Brad Baldridge  1:01  
Sure. I've been in the financial industry for most of my career. And about 15 years ago, I started getting involved with some of my clients that are on the college side of things, and I realized that there are a lot of challenges there, and it was just getting more challenging. Because, you know, 50 years ago, college was expensive, and it's gotten a lot worse since then, but that's when those prices started going up. And it started becoming a much bigger deal. And as I was working with families, I realized that there's a lot you can do, but most people don't understand how it works, because there are a lot of moving parts with need based aid and merit aid and that type of thing. And the more I got involved in it, the more I realized that there are a lot of opportunity there. So about 2004, I think, I launched my podcast, and I've got a website, tamingthehighcostofcollege.com, where we have a bunch of resources, and we're building a course. And we're just, again, trying to get the word out that there is help for families. I've been doing it, you know, one on one with families as a an advisor for 15 years. But we're also, like I said, trying to get some free resources and other things out there, just so people have a have a chance, so to speak, because it's an overwhelming proposition for many families now.

Steve Altishin  2:17  
Oh, god, yes. It's so interesting. And you mentioned the rising cost of college. And it makes me think back, my freshman year at Portland State University was $87 a credit. So you don't get that anymore. But let's start with college planning, that kind of concept. That's a tough one for parents. I mean, figuring out how to pay for their kids college, when to start paying, when to start saving, how much to plan for, what needs to be done. And with divorced or co-parents, I imagine there's a whole added layer of difficulty involved. And so I guess the first thing I'm going to ask is, you know, what do you start by telling a co-parent how to get ready for college for their kids?

Brad Baldridge  2:23  
Right? Well, yeah, let's start with the very broadest category, which is just parents in general, who need to deal with college. And there are two stages: there's what I call late stage planning, which is when you have a high school student, you know, maybe, ideally, sophomore you can start, or even freshmen. Many families don't start till end of junior year, which I feel is too late. But at some point, you're going to have to visit colleges, figure out how to apply to college, you know, apply for financial aid, negotiate with the schools, and then ultimately, get it started and send your kid off to college. So there's a lot of steps in there that all happen during high school-- that's late stage. Then early stages are, well, I've got a kindergartener, a second grader, you know, maybe we're just pregnant now, whatever it might be, and college is coming someday. So maybe we should save and invest or come up with some sort of college savings. That good, too. But no matter how well you did in the early stage, whether you've saved a big pile of money, or you haven't saved anything at all, you're going to have to do the late stage planning either way. Now, when you add divorce and co-parents in there, now, it's even more complicated because now you've got, essentially, two families or two incomes, and that gets more challenging around need based aid. How do you fill out the forms? Who's going to be the primary parent, that type of thing. There's a little additional politics about who's going to do the work, and you know, who's actually going to pay the bills. And it's a stressful time because a lot of times there's not as much money to go around as you divide into two households. A lot of expenses go up and a lot of times college is one of the things that gets the short shaft, so to speak, in that process. 

Steve Altishin  4:59  
Yeah, we see that all the time. And, you know, one of the things we see is, is parents sometimes--and generally, the parent who may have custody-- not really coming to an agreement or understanding even the cost of college. And I know you talk a lot about the real cost of sending your kids to college. But what does that mean? What does that entail, the real cost?

Brad Baldridge  5:30  
Right? Well, I mean, first of all, there's the big numbers out there, right. So if you looked at tuition, you know, some places just tuition is $50-60,000. And total costs, which is what we typically work with, which is tuition, room and board books, fees, the total cost, the most expensive schools have crossed $85,000 now, and your average state school is about $25,000 right now. So most families, you know, somewhere between 25 and 85, that's the top line price. But to make it a little more complicated, of course, many colleges will offer some form of scholarships or discounts, which means your net cost could be much less than that, or not just depending on if you qualify for the discounts or not. So that's, I think, a big challenge is. It's like shopping for a car where you know you're not going to pay to the price in the window. But in this particular shopping experience, it could be half or a quarter, or it could be full price, you just don't know, until after you've gone through the process. So that's one of the things I help families do is figure out what what's the real price going in, because if you knew flying to that expensive private school, they were gonna be very generous, and their net cost was going to be 25, just like the local state school, then  many parents would say, Oh, great, let's do it. But if you knew it was going to be full price at 72,000, many parents would say no, let's not do it. So figuring that out ahead of time can be done. It's a little bit of work, and our tools are getting better. But that's one step in the process, just understanding, will I get need based aid? Will I qualify for merit aid? What about outside scholarships? How is this all gonna come together and figure it out in enough time where you can actually make decisions?

Steve Altishin  7:20  
Getting down to decision time, let's talk a little bit about it as part of the cost. I guess, in the financial aid part, you've mentioned the term need based aid. And that's a term that I don't know that people necessarily know what that means, and scholarships, loans and all that kind of stuff. I imagine that, like you'd said, that for parents who are married and together and they're in the same household, and they talk every night, it's hard for them. It's gotta be really difficult when you're talking about divorced couples, or even blended families, where there's maybe now a second spouse and some other kids.

Brad Baldridge  8:10  
Yes, exactly. So it can get pretty complicated. I think one of the key issues is there's various levels of cooperation. So sometimes in a divorce situation, one spouse is holding the college bag, I guess, is the way I would say it, where either one, again, sometimes one parent can't or doesn't have the resources or whatever. And they've essentially said, I just can't participate in college, or they maybe could participate, but then you choose not to, and say it's just not my problem. Both of those happen, but then the parent that cares the most is saying, Well, I believe in college, and I guess I have to make it happen by myself. So that's one type of challenge where we have to make college happen despite the other parent not cooperating, and maybe not paying a share or whatever it might be. On the other end of the spectrum, I've seen families that as part of the divorce or after the divorce, they're fully cooperative, and they will do whatever it takes to make sure college is not the thing that takes the impact. Maybe they're willing to continue to live in a house together even though they're divorced, or they're willing to live in small apartment or sell the family vehicles or do whatever it takes in order to just make college happen. And, of course, many places in between, but the more cooperation, obviously, divorce is not a good situation. But at least sometimes it will help in the college realm in that there might be a smaller income and you might qualify for more aid as an example. I've seen that situation quite often where I had a mom who was going back to school herself because of the divorce. So because of that their income was very low for a couple of years and those were the years that one of the students was in college as well. Because the income came in very low, that student qualified for essentially a full ride at a particular school, because they were under a line, I think it was like, it'd be under $56,000 in income, which they were able to do. And they locked in a full ride for their daughter at the local state school. Now, that was a happy coincidence, they didn't plan it that way at the beginning, but once we saw the opportunity, we worked hard at it. 

Steve Altishin  10:27  
Obviously cooperation, like you said, is better than not, I mean, in all phases of co-parenting. But, you know, with that kind of big number out there, it seems like it would make sense for people who aren't normally cooperating very much to really dig down and do that. So let's kind of talk a little bit about the financial aid and how that, just in general, works. And what makes people get more or less financial aid, and maybe how co-parents can maximize their ability in that situation to get financial aid? I mean, what is financial aid? I know you hear it, but  does it mean loans? Does it mean scholarships? Does it mean money from the government? You know, it's  a term out there that I think a lot of people use without kind of knowing what exactly it even is.

Brad Baldridge  11:24  
Right. And it's all of the above, it's free money and grants and scholarships. It's work study was another program where you know, the student earns it, it's loans to the student, it's loans of the parent scholarships from the college. So there's all different components to it. And again, a lot of people look at a loan and say, well, that's not as helpful. And that's true alone is that the best option, you might much rather have a scholarship or a grant or something, you don't have to pay back. But the reality is, it's going to be a combination of all those things typically. So the way it works, generally, there's two main categories for aid one is need based and one is merit based. So need based is based on the income and the assets of the family. So it's based on typically income that shows up on your taxes, your AGI is what is used. And you put that, you know, again, when you fill out a financial aid form, that's the purpose, right? You fill out the form so that they get all the data so they can calculate whether or not you need aid. So they're going to look at the student's income and assets, and they're going to look at parents income and assets. Well, a typical student rolling out of high school and go into college, their income and assets are essentially zero or close enough to zero, that they're just not going to matter. So then they look at parents income and assets. So in a typical married situation, that's you have a joint tax return, and you use that, and that's your income. And then the assets. Obviously, both parents own it together, all the assets are considered from a it doesn't matter who owns it. Now, generally, things like retirement plans don't count. And your primary residence doesn't count and a few things like that don't count. And what does count our 529 's and other savings plans for college investments, businesses and real estate, that's not your primary residence. So a few things like that. It's complicated in divorce.

Steve Altishin  13:17  
Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say, the term parents, is it just the physical parents, the biological parents? Let's say you're remarried? And is it household income? I mean, household expenses--can that kind of adjust how this whole thing works?

Brad Baldridge  13:40  
Yes, right. So typical, college is going to use the FAFSA Free Application for Federal Student Aid. And that form requires that they parent where the student has been 50% or more of their time with, that's the primary parent. So now we can, you know, so we could choose that by having the students stay one place or the other. In a typical joint custody situation of one if you're, if you're in different states or something, it would be hard to do that because it would be wherever the Susan's going to school probably would bet parent would probably have to be on it. But a typical co parent, and you might be able to pick which parent, so it'd be their income and their assets, generally, the other parent is not included on the FAFSA. Now, to complicate things about 300 schools also use what's called the CSS Profile, which is an additional financial aid form. And for that form, many of those schools want to know about both parents and all new spouses. So they want to know income and assets for everybody. Now, and I forgot to mention on the FAFSA, too, if that if the primary parent is remarried than the new now we're back to a joint situation and that new parents income or new step parent income and then assets would be included as well. And no matter if there's a prenup or something like that, they don't care. It's not a way to avoid paying for college. Unfortunately, so many parents with college aged kids might delay their second marriage a year or two until college is resolved, so to speak. That would

Steve Altishin  15:19  
That make sense. I mean, that's, again, you're saving a ton of money. You mentioned assets and whose assets may make a difference, and income. How does that fit in the world of divorce and dividing assets, spousal support, those kinds of things? And those things you can work with to actually help the situation?

Brad Baldridge  15:48  
Absolutely. Right. I mean, so if we're, you know, if it's prior just finalizing the divorce, yes, you may say, you know, again, as an example, in a retirement plan may not count, whereas just the mutual fund or a brokerage account, let's say, they have $100,000, in a XYZ mutual fund, and you have $100,000 in an IRA. Well, they may be valued the same as far as the divorce is concerned. But one of them is an asset that's going to impact your age, and one of them's not. So if the primary parent takes the IRA and the other parent takes the non IRA, that may improve your odds of getting aid, as an example.

Steve Altishin  16:31  
There's something I wouldn't have thought of. 

Brad Baldridge  16:32  
Right. And then oftentimes, in a divorce situation, there's college savings. And from a divorce situation, a lot of times, they just say, well, that's really the kids money, that's for college, they kind of ignore it, they don't worry about what happens to it, what as far as it now, which is fine, because if it is spent on college, it doesn't belong in the marital asset decisions. The challenge, though, that isn't discussed, is whoever owns it gets to decide if it's being spent or not often. So occasionally, we see some politics around, well, I don't want to spend this money on that school, I don't like that school. And whoever owns it, they get to make the decision, it's their money, they get to decide. They can also potentially, you know, abscond the money. A lot of times, there's no rule. And again, in the divorce agreement, you might have rules against something like that. But college money can be uncolonized. Jail, if you're married, and just a typical family, you can choose to not use your money for college, if you want. So similar would apply there. But so who has the control? But then the other such part of it is if it's the primary parent that owns it, well, now it's an asset that gets reported on the form and it's counted against you. Whereas if it's the other parent, then it may not count against you. So there might be competing interests there who has control and decisions? And where does it make most sense for as far as aid is concerned? And that's why I'm saying if there's a lot of cooperation, then we can, you know, do the best, as far as working the numbers and coming up with the best scenario, so to speak, for whatever schools is going on, and that kind of thing.

Steve Altishin  18:13  
Yeah, I don't know if I'm wrong, but it seems like if, especially parents, it seems to me, with kids in high school, and they've got money maybe saved but they've got not a lot more time. And they're getting divorced, and that's not an uncommon situation. You're there stepping in, before they sign on the dotted line and the divorce is finalized, whcih would be a lot more valuable than after. Not that it's not valuable after, but I mean, there's a lot of things you can do before you sign that divorce decree.

Brad Baldridge  18:54  
Yes. I mean, certainly you want to avoid the big mistake. You know, sometimes you do something, and it just blows up your income, and then just wipes out your odds of getting aid. But you didn't have to do you just it made sense from a divorce perspective, but you didn't think about the college perspective, like taking a big chunk out of a retirement plan would be a common thing where well, we get to avoid penalties, but it is going to be taxable and battle, you know, that can have a big impact on aid. So you want to avoid certainly something that's very detrimental. And then sometimes if you've got your time in cooperation, it might make sense to say, well, let's divide it differently with financial aid intentions, so to speak, because we're gonna make it better for financial aid. Oh, yeah. The caution there is just because you make it better that it doesn't always result in more aid. That's the other piece of the puzzle, right is you sometimes you go to a college they say, Well, you deserve 10,008. And then you turn your life upside down and do all kinds of different things. And they say, oh, yeah, now you deserve Have 20,008 But we only have 10. So you still only get 10. So you got to make sure that what we're doing is reasonable. The other part of it, of course, is you hide all your money for financial aid, and you don't have anything to pay the bills. So that's the other challenge is you need to have resources available, you know, as part of the divorce transition, potentially buying, you know, redoing real estate. Now, all that kind of stuff takes cash, often. So finding that balance of, you know, having enough to survive and do the other goals and minimizing impact on college as well.

Steve Altishin  20:41  
You talked about merit scholarships as well. Is that something that you plan for? Is that a thing that's also involved in this planning?

Brad Baldridge  20:57  
Yes. Now, it's not as impacted by divorce. Merit is based on the student and whether or not the student's parents are divorced or not, usually, it wasn't going to have much of an impact on whether or not you qualify. But for sure, there's lots of colleges out there that say, if your student looks like this, they get 10,000 off. But if they look like that, they get 20,000 off, though back this, they get 30,000 off. And if you know your student is going to get 30,000 off, that changes the math pretty dramatically at many schools where a $50,000 school is now a $20,000. School, and now it might be a low cost option.

Steve Altishin  21:40  
Are there thing that that the parents can do? Let's say in that kind of, I call it weird, because it was--some of it made sense, and some of it didn't, but it worked--that sort of sophomore, junior, senior year, that parents can kind of cooperate and work together, especially if they're divorced, that can help their kids on either the merit or another kind of scholarship or loan?

Brad Baldridge  22:13  
Absolutely. Right. I mean, again, so as you roll into the process, there's just a lot to do. So college planning, yet another way to think about it is there's things that the students do. So they're going to have to fill out their applications, they're going to have to write the essays, they have to figure out what they want to be when they grow up. You know, there's, that's their responsibility. The parents have their responsibility, which is well, how are we going to pay for this and figuring out need based aid is not a typical students not gonna be able to get involved in that real well. So understanding aid, understanding loans, understanding how you're going to pay for it. And then there's things that you do together, which are, you know, you visit the colleges, you do the research together, you hopefully decide together and that type of thing. So that's the process. Now, if you've got two parents, if they can, you know, if they can be cooperative and agree, that makes it easier than if they're using college as one more thing to, you know, beat each other up with the next student stuck in the middle, unfortunately.

Steve Altishin  23:16  
Do parents ever come to you and say, we want to go to this college, we want to go to that college, because maybe they liked the football team, or they like the way it looks. But you know there are colleges out there that have, because, like you said, they all have different sort of evaluation processes. Do you get involved in kind of, you know, well, maybe we should look at this other kind of stuff?

Brad Baldridge  23:43  
Well, right.Yeah. So again, two step process, again, figure out what the net price of colleges are going to be, and then pay for it efficiently if that's the one we pick, right? So we may roll into it and say these are the six colleges, these four are expensive, and these two are lesser, as far as cost. But some parents are gonna say I still like the more expensive one. I mean, if you look at the cars, people drive, you know, some people will spend $100,000 on the car. We know that because we see them on the road, right? So it happens. Now other people look at that say, well, that's a bad, terrible way to spend money, why would you waste your money on an expensive car? But then that person goes on elaborate vacations, you know? So it's not our job really to judge. You know, which ones make sense? Which ones don't, you know, and I always give the example if you're going to give up the lake home to spend crazy money on college. Okay. Now, if you're gonna give up retirement, to spend crazy money on college, that's a different question. Right? And are there other options, right sometimes you're no matter what some families are gonna end up spending, you know, 2025 30,000 no matter where they go, and then they say what the here's a college we like that's 30 2000s really we're talking about an extra 7000? Not. Gs 32,000 is a lot of money is that? Yeah, it is. But our other option was 25. So what we're really talking about is a net seven. But of course that says slippery slope. Well, if 32 is okay, well, what about 35? And 35? Is Okay, what about 38? You know, nine up through the numbers, but yeah, so it is a challenge that I work with a lot of families on of, you know, menu, look, if you've got multiple children, how do you how are you going to be fair? You know, if you spend 30,000, you know, I had a dad a couple of years ago, his oldest of four wanted to go to NYU, she hit it out of the park, as far as scholarships are concerned. So the net cost was going to be 35,000. What at a school that normally is 70 plus. So But dad was looking at going 35,000 times four years is a lot of money. And if I do it for one, do I have to do it for all, so a lot of money times for kids is a really a lot of money. Now, he was a reasonably successful mid management, you know, had decent income, and had already been saving aggressively for retirement. So we figured out that if you want to do he could make it happen. You know, sometimes the math comes in and says, Well, you can do it, but then instead of retiring at 65, you're gonna retire at 75. Yeah. And then that, you know, that's a different question, then it was like, Well, I can retire at 60 Do it. But if I do this, I retire at 64. Which is fine, because I plan on working just 66 anyway. Right? So everybody's case is a little different. And but I think where most people struggle is they make the decisions emotionally, and deal with the aftermath, after the fact.

Steve Altishin  26:45  
Yeah, I was just gonna ask that, I was gonna say, you know, I imagine in terms of the process, getting to know the costs first, before you go try to buy the car or search for the college. At least get you grounded in what you can and can't or maybe won't, or do, watch or look at.

Brad Baldridge  27:12  
Well, exactly. And as an example, if you know, you're doing college on some sort of budget, it's like saying, I'm gonna go car shopping on a budget? Well, you may want to stay off the BMW lot if you know, you can't afford BMWs.

Steve Altishin  27:28  
BMWs doesn't give scholarships.

Brad Baldridge  27:29  
Exactly. So, you know, that's kind of the analogy, right? And what's where I think parents really get nervous and frustrated is, all right, I decided to buy this car for $50,000. Then I discovered that the competitive car across the street, which is essentially the same car was only 25,000, I just didn't know it was 25,000. Because the sticker said, 50 on both of them. But had I known across the street, I would get a $25,000 discount, whereas here, I didn't, I would have walked across the street and heartbeat, because they're the as far as their equal, right? I think that's where, for some times, you know, and education is an education, they're all equal. Once you do the shopping and compare colleges, now all of a sudden, they don't become equal anymore. You like one more than the other, for whatever reason. But an ideal situation, your low cost option is the one you love. And not always sometimes the one you love is the is more expensive. And you have to decide, is it worth you know, I liked the school because it's, you know, it's got a great football team. Okay, well, is that worth $10,000 a year?

Steve Altishin  28:35  
Plus buying the seats!

Brad Baldridge  28:37  
Right. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't again, I don't know, you know, but it is a decision that's actually an informed decision versus you know, we applied to these five schools. We were denied it to your waitlist at one and the two that accepted us are crazy expensive. Now, what do we do? Well, we don't want to be in that situation. Because that usually by then it's we're really late in the process. And it's hard to do a do over you know, you delay a year, you go ahead and pay the big price. You take a gap year, you know, you find a school, they'll take a really late application, which usually isn't of the same quality sometimes, depending on what's going on. So I get calls like that every year of I'm trying to find all the loans that my student was going to take to pay for school. It's like Well, surprise, students don't have unlimited loans. Parents have unlimited loans, and that kind of stuff.

Steve Altishin  29:33  
Oh my gosh, well, of course we just blew through 30 minutes. This was really good. Before we have to say goodbye, is there anything you might want to say to people out there listening who are either contemplating a divorce, getting ready to get divorced, or in the process of divorce, or even been divorced or maybe remarrying? You know, think about this.

Brad Baldridge  29:59  
Yeah, right, absolutely. So any marital change is going to have an impact. So you may want to figure out if that change is going to have a good impact or bad impact before you, you know, you make commitments one way or the other. The other thing is to start early because, you know, for typical family, I encourage them to start sophomore year and get to work if you're divorced, or separated, or blended or all these other challenges, but just makes it more complicated. So there's, again, there's lots of things you can do that where your student maybe isn't ready, right? It's too soon to visit a school. He's there only a sophomore, they're not mature enough, yet you don't feel. But that doesn't prevent mom and dad from trying to start working it out and understanding what your options are and building those lines of communication and determining, you know how we're going to pay for this if it hasn't been figured out yet.

Steve Altishin  30:50  
So they can come to you, they don't have to wait until their kids start to visit colleges to come see you.

Brad Baldridge  30:56  
That's correct. Right. Often, you know, I had a parent with twin juniors and twin sophomores. I was like, Oh, that's a lot of work. You can start as early as you can. Because visiting. You know, doing for college plans in two years is a lot of work. And there's a lot to do. Chances are they're going in different directions. It just got complicated.

Steve Altishin  31:20  
Oh my god, I can't imagine four schools for four years. It's a lot of fun.

Brad Baldridge  31:29  
Yes, exactly. 

Steve Altishin  31:32  
Well, we're gone, we have to go. Wonderful conversation again, thank you so much for talking about this. And, you know, love to have you back to talk about more stuff, because I imagine we kind of had an overview, and you can really bury into details on various things.

Brad Baldridge  31:50  
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And there's all kinds of free resources at my website for those that just want to jump in and get involved.

Steve Altishin  31:58  
Tell us your website again?

Brad Baldridge  31:58  
It's tamingthehighcostofcollege.com. We've got a podcast, cost of colleges by state scholarship guide for busy parents, free newsletter, all kinds of things that people can take advantage of. And you can just reach out through the website if you need some particular help as well. 

Steve Altishin  32:18  
I love it. Well, again, thank you for being here today.

Brad Baldridge  32:22  
Thank you for having me.

Steve Altishin  32:24  
It was a real pleasure. And thank you everyone else for joining us today. And as always, if anyone has further questions on today's topic, you can post it here and we can get you connected with Brad. And until next time, stay safe. Stay happy, be well.

Outro:
This has been Modern Family Matters, a legal podcast focusing on providing real answers and direction for individuals and families. Our podcast is sponsored by Landerholm Family Law and Pacific Cascade Family Law, serving families in Oregon and Washington. If you are in need of legal counsel or have additional questions about a family law matter important to you, please visit our websites at landerholmlaw.com or pacificcascadefamilylaw.com. You can also call our headquarters at (503) 227-0200 to schedule a case evaluation with one of our seasoned attorneys. Modern Family Matters, advocating for your better tomorrow and offering legal solutions important to the modern family.