Just from my interviews, I’ve seen that people react to divorce in different ways. For Lorraine, who felt she had lost everything, it meant being proactive, identifying something she could get under control. That something was the money.
***
I’ve always been a very Type A, assertive person so right away I was like I need to get my own bank account. I’d never written a check in my life – my parents put me through college, I married straight out of college and I’d never taken care of our finances. I didn’t even know where our bank accounts were. I didn’t know you had to endorse a check on the back when you got it. My husband used to sign for me. I guess I knew it at some point in my life – I’m not an idiot but I just hadn’t done it in so long. I paid for everything on credit and debit cards and he was a financial genius.
His college major was finance – business finance – and he was into investing. I would get my paycheck direct deposited and he would just say we have x amount of money we can spend this month and I would say OK. Philosophically, we were aligned. We were both don’t spend more than you make, pay yourself first – meaning building our savings and retirement. I was a kept woman and I loved it. I didn’t have to worry about a thing.
My reaction to him leaving was well, I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to do that, I have to sell the house. I couldn’t afford our house: he made more than twice my salary and there was no alimony in Alaska which is where I got divorced. At the time, my divorce counselor said ‘you seem to be more concerned with your finances and figuring those out than you do with your emotions.’ That was because it was something concrete I could get my hands on and deal with whereas my emotions were out there.
My mom came and helped me and I called financial planners. I became the spreadsheet queen, just figuring out I could no longer spend $500 a month on new outfits. If I need new running shoes, that’s my spending money this month. That’s been hard. It has been a drastic change in lifestyle.
I don’t think figuring out the managing money is difficult – it’s simple math – here’s what you have, here are your bill, here’s what’s leftover. But I haven’t taken a real vacation in three years. That’s one of the things I miss most about not being married. I don’t really have anyone to take a vacation with. None of my friends are into scuba diving so they don’t want to do dive vacations. I was supposed to go to Italy with a girlfriend. That was going to cost me an arm and a leg but I said ‘forget it, I’m just going to put it on credit.’ But then she just wanted to go and meet men – she didn’t want to go see any architecture or castles or go hiking. It’s finding that compatible vacation person. Now I don’t even have a job. Now I do day vacations.
***
I had always handled our finances so I didn’t have to learn that. I have however, by choice, made numerous changes to my budget since I’m only working part-time and trying to string out my savings for as long as possible – hopefully until my kids go off to college. I do know what Lorraine is talking about when she says finding a compatible vacation person is difficult – back before I was married I remember wanting to go on vacation and struggling to find like-minded friends. Wonder how long I can convince my kids to keep vacationing with me?
If you are looking for a helpful book on managing your money, check out Your Money or Your Life .
Any other good resources for getting to grips with money? What did you do to cope with your divorce?