Easy Change

This is a post in a series on divorce. The list of divorce topics  is here.  Understanding this process can be incredibly difficult, I felt compelle to share some of what I have gone through and learned personally. If you'd like to read the first post, click the link above. Once the assets have been divided, it is then time to start living a separate life. For me this meant dealing with a series of issues around money, time, and space. This post talks a little bit about the money aspect of the separation/initial divorce period...this IS a finance-focused blog after all! In the next post, Reclaiming Life, Restarting Goals, I will discuss more about the other aspects, time and space, but for this post, I am focused solely on the money aspect and the impact that living separately has on someone in this situation. Personally, I was fortunate while I divorced to have a good job and to be able to afford my own apartment and living expenses. While this may seem good at first, th...

Reclaiming Life, Restarting Goals is the title I chose for this post, one in a series of posts about coping with the aspects of divorce. Originally I wanted to write these posts because this is mostly a blog about my finances but I also realize that largely this is a blog about life. Reclaiming Life is something that is hard to imagine, but it is an absolutely necessary step if your divorce was tragic and had a profound impact on you. I'd imagine that this is true for most people, but it is worth noting that I am speaking only from my personal experience. Reclaiming is from the verb to reclaim: re·claim rəˈklām/ verb verb: reclaim ; 3rd person present: reclaims ; past tense: reclaimed ; past participle: reclaimed ; gerund or present participle: reclaiming 1 . retrieve or recover (something previously lost, given, or paid); obtain the return of. "he returned three years later to reclaim his title as director of advertising" synonyms: get back, ...

When it comes to making the decision to divorce, unless there is some overarching circumstance, I view it as a mistake to do it rashly. In order to make the decision, dealing with the feelings and emotions involved first made the most sense. Often when things get changed in our lives it is because we have become fed up with the current state in some way or shape. In this case, there is a feeling that the time for Divorce has come. Deal with your Feelings and Emotions first, noticing that there may be some distinction here. For me my emotions are concrete: Happy, Sad, Complacent, and perhaps fearful. Feelings are a bit more nebulous. I might feel trapped. I might feel subservient. I might feel powerful. None of these are truly emotions, but they are intangible, and somewhat subjective. For me, once I felt unhappy in the situation, I tried on various occasions to deal with why I had these unhappy feelings. The feelings, more than the emotions were the primary driver of the change. M...

Wealthtrack remains one of the most fascinating and enjoyable shows out there for financial topics. Consuelo Mack continues to host this show with a variety of guests ranging from the practical experts on retirement like Erin Botsford and Mary Beth Franklin to more bookish and technical guests like Donald Yacktman and Cliff Asness who have 'been there, done that' with respect to investing large sums of money for their clients. This week was interesting because for one of the few times I've seen on the show Consuelo took a personal turn with her guest, Erin Botsford. She described a scenario when Erin was young where she was involved in an accident and was subsequently involved in a lawsuit as a result of a death in the accident. Being very young at the time, this sounded like a terribly challenging event for Erin (it was made clear that she was not at fault during the episode). This tragic story turned to news you can use: get umbrella insurance for your house and your...

This is the third post in a series of posts about divorce, covering a variety of topics and including a series of advice which in hindsight seems obvious, but before going through the process, seems very essential. In deciding what the best way to even the equalities out, I found that I needed to decide first where my feelings were about the other person. In my case, the soon-to-be ex still held a place in my heart, something which has undoubtedly diminished over time. But at the moment in time when the decisions of divorce are taking place it is impossible to know the future. So, I would strongly recommend that you consider your feelings toward this other person and other people affected. Separately, you should examine any morals or principles that you have to honor when you are going through the process. For me, I shared everything, I literally wanted to give my whole life to someone else. And that was something that I cannot even begin to explain in words, so this moral idea se...

This is the third article, but arguably should have been the first, in a series of articles I wrote last year with regard to my divorce. For me, this was an important part of the process to be able to consider the aspects of the topic in a detached, analytical way.  It has been a very long time since I posted anything to this blog, and now with the new year, 2015 in full swing, I will provide some detail about what has been going on for me in my financial life. Finances when it comes to divorce are a difficult proposition to be sure. In this series of articles, I will provide some clear details about what the steps are that I have taken to keep my financial house in order, the steps I've taken that have set me back, and also my ongoing struggles to make sense of all of the various decisions coming for me in the future. I welcome comments and ideas; I am not an expert on these financial topics by any means and I think that it makes a lot of sense to consider carefully what will...

Author's Note: I have recently restarted my blog and I will be posting old posts as a way to show how things have changed in my original thinking versus when I wrote the article. Also, it is a great way to look back. I'll label these posts as "FromTheArchives". This post was originally written in March 2013. Recently, it was a short week at work with the Good Friday holiday. There were only four working days available. Then to make matters worse, I was coming off a few days of vacation. But all of this lamenting makes it important to reflect on the upside of something that I decided to do recently: rebalance. At my current position, I am fortunate to have a 401k match and safe harbor contribution that I will continue to cherish as long as I have it. Additionally, I am working to continue to put myself in a better financial situation each month. One major way in which I do this is to aggressively monitor my retirement accounts. I think this is essential because o...

This is part one of a multi part series of posts related to the process of divorce. In this post, I describe the process of moving out as part of separation. This article is written as a retrospective though, since it was written during the time of the events, but only recently did I decide that I would publish it. I moved out a year ago in late March/early April. I actually wrote about this process back then, but decided to hold off on posting about it. In fact, I have not updated this blog since that point. Now, I think the time has come to write about the experience from a financial perspective and with that, here's my first post: After a very long relationship of nearly 15 years, it is now over. Recognizing it is over is often the most difficult thing to do. And while the emotional stuff was a whole separate set of issues that I won't get into here, the real issues with the financial stuff is where there is definitely some interest and so far, I think that things are ...

This is part two of a multi part series of posts related to the process of divorce. In the previous post, I mentioned how I had moved out a year ago, but I realize now that this was somewhat putting the cart before the horse. However, the principals there describe some very important aspects of maintaining a healthy financial picture while the relationship is still good. And in many ways, that is where good things start: as discussions while the relationship is healthy. But, since this is a financial blog more than a personal account, it makes much more sense to orient on those aspects of the process. However, it has been said many times that the most important financial decision you can make is about who you decide to marry. And I agree wholeheartedly. This was not something that I was keenly aware of many years ago when I began the relationship, however. And regret solves nothing. For me this process was an emotional one, and it evolved naturally through drifting apa...