For those of you who don’t know the financial struggles of divorce, may you never have to find out. For those of you who do, please, carefully, read on. Along with your marriage, your credit may fall apart too. Money runs out all too quickly and during these hard times, you have no idea what to do. Between paying a divorce attorney, taking care of child support, and sorting out your individual debt, you’re overwhelmed.
The first place to start is your credit, the thing that can make or break you. First off, establish it, maintain it, don’t let it go down the drain. If you have debt from before, during, or after the divorce, fix it. Maybe in the times of marriage, you were used to sharing financial responsibilities but now, you’re on your own, separate things. For instance, your assets, claim what’s yours, including cards. If needed (and recommended), seek guidance from a financial planner.
Now dealing with credit, in any situation, not just in divorce, is important. You want to build it up, give yourself some good credit. This is especially important if your way of going about a divorce is living in a new house and driving a new car. You need good credit to get things started. In any case of starting off your new and improved credit score, take out a small loan. Barrow some money, pay it back. This proves that you’re responsible with your money and can pay back loans when needed. However, before you go and barrow some more money, pay off the money you borrowed before that now has dug you into debt. You don’t want to run the risk of making that debt hole any deeper.
There’s this iconic action of shredding credit cards after a divorce, it might be symbolic, it could be what they call a financial solution, or it could just be plain stupid. This will not erase your bad credit or debt. What you need to do is keep a zero balance, spend credit only here and there. You need to plan things out. If you spend X amount, will Y amount increase? How will your spending effect your debt, your credit? Come up with a comparison strategy, just compare the amount you spend to the amount of debt you have and weigh out the pros and cons of what this expense will do. No matter what, do not rely on any money that is not apart of your income (i.e: child support or maintenance). Put your expenses to scale with your income and find out what you’re disposable income would be at the end of each much in case of emergencies that may come up.
Being on your own doesn’t mean you can do whatever your heart desires, remember to keep yourself in check with finances. Otherwise, try not to completely let yourself go.