It’s easy to focus on the future when you think about money during a divorce. But first, you need to get there, and doing so also requires money.
Splitting your financial thinking into three can help you get the outcome you need.
Your current financial situation
What do you own? What does your spouse own? And what do you own together? Understanding those three tenets is crucial to getting a just division of property.
You will need to divide your marital assets according to state law and you may need help to determine which assets count as marital property and which count as separate property. Understanding your individual financial situation is also important if seeking spousal support.
Your expenses during the divorce
The more conflictive things are between you and your spouse the longer settling the divorce is likely to take and the more expensive it will become.
Aside from paying for court fees and legal representation, you may also need to be paying for temporary accommodation. Or, if you continue to coexist under one roof in the meantime, you might be spending more on eating out, just to get away from your spouse for a bit.
If you have children you might need to pay for extra child care if divorce proceedings clash with times when they are not at school. In addition, you might not be able to focus as much on work, which could affect your earnings.
Your new future
You need to know what you are working toward and how much setting up is going to cost. For example, you might need to not only find new accommodation but buy a whole new set of furniture. Or you might need to pay to retrain so that you can earn enough to live on if you sidelined your career during the marriage.
Getting help to understand more about divorce finances is key to getting the outcome you need.