Achieving a Financial Recovery After a Divorce

Once the dust has cleared on your divorce, it’s time to start looking toward the future. One of the first issues you should address is how you will ensure your long-term financial health.

The following are a few steps to help you achieve a financial recovery after your divorce:

• Start right away. Do not, under any circumstances, put off building your finances back up. The sooner you start, the sooner you will achieve your goals. Credit, for example, takes a rather long time to build up, so there is no better time than the present to begin.
• Have clear goals in mind. Do you want to focus on saving for your retirement? Are you looking to pay off specific debts? List the financial goals you have, and then create clear, specific plans for how you will achieve them.
• Don’t shirk your savings. It might seem impossible to build up a savings when you suddenly have significantly less income at your disposal, but it’s important to make regular savings part of your routine. If you automatically extract a certain amount of money from your income each month, for example, it will be as though you never had it to begin with. This amount can be small to start with while you adjust to your new financial situation, but you should always be putting at least some money into savings or toward your retirement.
• Cut your spending. It’s an unfortunate reality that you will not be able to maintain the same standard of living you had while you were married. Again, you have significantly less income coming in. This means you need to live within your means and be smart about where you’re spending your money.
• Focus on self-improvement. Spending money to invest in yourself can be a great idea, especially if you are getting new training or education to improve your career prospects. This is an investment that will pay big dividends in the long run.

Speak with an experienced divorce attorney for more guidance and advice related to this often-challenging process.