About that time when Beanie Babies were crucial assets

In our source article, the Huffington Post found an amazing picture of a couple that was dividing up their assets in a divorce courtroom. That may not sound out of the ordinary to you, but in this case, they were literally splitting up their assets between them in the courtroom. And those assets were Beanie Babies. The 1990s were some crazy time, weren’t they?

You could write numerous posts on the phenomenon that was Beanie Babies back in the 90s, and how their intrinsic financial value inflated to unnatural levels back then. Thus, when this couple divorced in 1999, the Beanie Babies had significant value. So significant, in fact, that they needed a judge to help them equitably divide these assets.

This brings up the topic of property division during divorce, and there are a couple of things to learn from this story. The first is that since Arizona is a community property state, the type of property division disagreement in this story doesn’t usually happen here. Community property can get a little complicated, but if you and your spouse are well represented, you can get through it with your sanity intact.

The other lesson is that even if you have a property or asset dispute with your spouse, it may not necessarily be worth the trouble. Think about this case: Beanie babies don’t have much value anymore, and yet here these two people are arguing over stuffed dolls on the floor of a courtroom — and paying for it to boot.

Source: Huffington Post, “That Time A Divorced Couple Went To Court To Split Their Beanie Babies,” Brittany Wong, Feb. 6, 2015