When you and your New Jersey spouse decide to part ways, your financial future may look quite different. The steps you take while your divorce is ongoing may have a significant impact on your retirement fund, savings accounts and other financial concerns. While taking steps to set yourself up for financial success is important during a divorce, so, too, is avoiding some of the common financial mistakes people navigating divorce often make.
While your divorce is ongoing, avoid making these three common money mistakes.
Mistake 1 – Banking on alimony
Alimony may help you get by after a divorce, and particularly if you stopped working during your marriage to help support your spouse or family. However, New Jersey no longer recognizes permanent alimony. So, the chances of your alimony payments ending in the future is a real one. While securing alimony may be important to you, so, too, should be establishing financial independence.
Mistake 2 – Keeping a house you are unable to afford
Fighting to keep the house even when doing so is not feasible long-term is one of the most common money mistakes made during a divorce. Even if you have an emotional attachment to your home, ask yourself if paying for and maintaining it is realistic on your own.
Mistake 3 – Not adjusting your lifestyle
Going from living on two incomes to living on one may create challenges. Expect that you may have to adjust your lifestyle and standard of living for some time after your divorce.
By making efforts to set yourself up financially while your divorce is ongoing and avoiding these three common errors, you may be able to minimize or even eliminate any financial fallout stemming from your split.
