The Key To A Successful Divorce

When you digest the fact that your divorce can destroy your financial future, you will do your homework. That is…if money matters.

Whether you and your spouse have lived in luxury or have barely been able to make ends meet, you need to pay close attention to the costs of various aspects of the divorce process. Money wasted is money lost. Everything is relative.

Think about the following analogy: You are standing on one side of a locked door. Your financial future is on the other side of the locked door. The amount of money on the other side of the door doesn’t matter if you don’t have the key to open the door.

Women who come from financially secure marriages, can tend to waste money on unnecessary legal fees. Often it’s because they have always had bank accounts with bottomless pits.

On the other hand, women who come from marriages with financial difficulties tend to be penny wise and pound foolish. They can’t spend what they don’t have but they must look at the whole picture.

The following are three true stories:

1. This stay at home mom received a settlement that would have been a million dollars and the family home after her divorce. I say would have been because that was not the end result. She had to pay close to five hundred thousand dollars in legal fees.  In addition, she had to pay off the mortgage. She was left with about three hundred thousand dollars.

2. This stay at home mom received a ten thousand dollar settlement after her divorce. When she paid her legal fees, she had six thousand dollars left.

3. This stay at home mom had been on the top end of being financially secure. Her husband was politically connected in her town and with each day of the divorce process, she lost more. To make a very long story short, she gave up and when her divorce was final, she had nothing. NOTHING!

The numbers and situations are different but the results are the same – less or no money and less or no financial security.

The following are just a few of the keys that can help you:

• Do not give up!
• Whenever possible, deal with your attorney’s assistant, paralegal or secretary.
• Do your own research.
• Don’t get caught up in emotionally charged expenses.
• Do your homework on exactly how billable hours are computed. Save your questions until you have enough to fill the billable hour time increment.
• Give attention to detail and be creative.
• Be aware that an attorney with a higher cost per hour might not be the most expensive when everything is said and done.
• Understand that an attorney with a lower cost per billable hour may be more expensive in the long run.

It’s not the financial security that you had prior to your divorce that matters. It’s the financial security you have after divorce that does matter.

How much importance you give to financial security will dictate how diligently you search for the right key to unlock the door.

Photo: william.neuheisel