Divorce can disrupt your finances for years to come. While you cannot avoid many of the costs involved, you can limit the financial impact by planning ahead and making good decisions.
- Keep the emotion out of your financial decisions: Divorce is emotional, so this one can be difficult. Yet to emerge from your divorce in the best financial health possible, you must set your emotions aside and treat it like a business negotiation.
- Understand your current finances: You need to base any negotiations over divorce settlements on facts and figures.
- Calculate your future needs: The more accurate you work this out, the better you can ensure you leave the marriage with what you need for the future.
- Take your time: Always sleep on things before making decisions. What seems a great idea now may not seem so sensible in the morning.
- Get qualified advice: There is a lot to consider in a divorce. To prevent costly errors, you may want the help of a financial advisor as well as an experienced family law attorney.
- Avoid litigation: When you battle over your divorce, the bills soon add up. There are various forms of alternative dispute resolution for divorce, which save you money and time.
- Update your estate plan: Remember to do this as soon as you can once your divorce is finalized. Divorce will have affected your estate and may have changed who you wish to leave things to.
- Remember retirement accounts: If your retirement accounts are linked, it is wise to separate them.
Divorce is the opportunity for a fresh start in life. Yet, if you get your finances wrong, the end of your marriage can leave you financially crippled for years to come.
