After your divorce has come to an end, the period can prove to be one of the most important and defining for you and your family both in the short and long term. While you have gone through a great deal of difficulty in your personal life, you have other concerns to bear in mind as well. Among them, you have to consider your income and what your life will look like after the divorce as far as a household budget is concerned. Many families complete their divorce and don’t know where to turn to this particular subject. Rather than act surprised when you find out your income is different in your post-divorce world, I would recommend beginning to plan for the changes to your income and budget as soon as you can after your divorce has come to a close.
Preferably, he would be able to consider this subject even before your divorce is over with. For instance, many people have problems with adjusting their spending immediately after a divorce. This could be for numerous reasons, chief among them being that the divorce was a traumatic experience for you. This is important given that you may have turned 2 spendings to blunt the pain how the divorce and even perhaps 2 avoid having to deal with the consequences of having gone through such an important and fairly dramatic change in your life like a divorce. While some people will casually refer to retail therapy as a way to shop their way through a difficult stage in their lives, I do not necessarily believe that this is a topic to be shrugged off or not considered as important.
The importance of budgeting in your post-divorce life
At the end of the day, we all know there are two parts to the money equation in our households. The first part is the income part of things. Income is largely determined by the work that we do and our employment. That is what we are going to be discussing in large part today. However, we can also discuss what it means to get control and handle your spending. Spending is such a critical part of our household finances, and it’s something that can get away from you if you are not careful. What I find to be important is understanding your spending and how to approach bad habits and spending for the betterment of you and your family.
This is especially important after an important life event like a divorce. We have already talked about how your divorce may have left you in a not great place mentally or emotionally. As a result, you may need to take a step back and approach your situation with some honesty in terms of how you have been handling this stress is associated with your case and with the changes in your life. Some people tend to that their diet slips during stressful times. They reasoned that it would only be for a short time that their diet is not what it needs to be, and as a result, they may consume excess calories. Or, you may be of the mindset that you deserve to be able to eat what you want during your divorce due to the stresses of your case.
Whatever your circumstances are, you need to be aware of what you trigger are and how you deal with the difficulties of stressful situations like your divorce. Most of us see our lives change dramatically and then deal with those changes in ways that are not always the most healthy. Hopefully, you do not fall into this camp, but I know that most of us have vices and release points for difficult circumstances like this. As a result, you should key in on your releases for difficult problems in your life and then focus on how to keep those impulses in check after your divorce.
One of the ways that I have found that you can keep many of these negative impulses in check after a divorce would be to develop a budget for yourself. Being able to rely upon a budget for your finances is incredibly important 2 your ability to accurately plan for your future while ensuring that you are taking care of your financial life in the present. Budgeting is vital but yet is treated as being rather mundane and boring by most of us. The simple act of coming up with the budget is almost too much to tolerate, given how tedious and cumbersome it can be.
However, that does not take away from the reality that being able to budget well can go a long way towards keeping yourself honest and accountable while ensuring that your focus is on the Wellness of your whole person. For starters, being able to budget well is not a skill that most of us have naturally. Rather, most of us have to be able to work on budgeting through trial and error. I like to tell people that the first three months of budgeting will probably not go well. This is due to incorrect assumptions about either income or spending and then having to get a better feel for anticipating costs in the various areas of our lives.
With that said, however, after three months is when people typically find their groove and budgeting and begin to be able to pretty accurately run through their income and expenses to help plan for costs. Budgeting is an opportunity for you to understand where your money is going and determine your values through spending. If you can get a good idea of what you spend your money on, I can accurately tell you your priorities. I think it is fair to say that you spend money on the most important things to you.
Another aspect of budgeting that I think is very important is that budgeting does not necessarily constrain your spending. This is where I think most people differ from me in terms of how they view budgeting. Rather than assume that budgeting will prevent you from spending your money the way you want it, I would take the opposite approach. Namely, that budgeting permits you to spend. As your life changes, you will have to better approach how you plan to pay for expenses and how your spending impacts the other areas of your life.
Rather than making assumptions or guessing about these important subjects hey, the budget allows you and your family to understand exactly where your money is going and what money is coming in. This is a freeing situation to be in given how many people have money that comes in and they have no idea where it is going at various times to the month. Rather than wondering about the money you spend, I would take the time and effort to begin to budget even before your divorce is over with. You can run a trial budget for yourself based on your income and anticipate the costs associated with your life once the divorce is over.
While no one activity or effort can necessarily change the entire trajectory of your life, I do think that budgeting is a small effort that you can make relative to its impacts on you and your family moving forward. I would not want to be in a situation where I have to learn about new changes to my life without guidance. This will be like jumping from one career to another without having given the circumstances any thought. Rather, the budget will help you to be able to understand where the changes in your life are going to come and how you can best get there.
A budget can also force you to assess your life when it comes to difficult to stomach realizations. You may have been able to overlook or ignore certain problems in your life due to having multiple incomes for your family during your marriage. However, as your marriage will now be coming to an end, you may be forced to realize that your income is not what you want it to be. This does not mean that you have a permanent situation where your income will be low or not what it needs to be, but to address a problem, you first need to accept that you have an issue in one regard or another.
While it is always a good idea to understand your spending on your daily life and budget, that only solves half of your financial issues. The other side is your income and your career path. Suppose you want to understand where your life is headed from a personal finance situation; you need to get a wrap on your career and income. We will spend the remainder of today’s blog post walking through this subject to better understand just how important it is to plan for your career not only for yourself but also for your family.
Considerations regarding career after your divorce
The career you have is significant from a financial perspective and an emotional, psychological, and self-worth perspective. For one, a stable career allows you to transition from married life to single life with stability and allows you to plan for your immediate future after your divorce. Additionally, your long-term financial planning depends upon your ability to save for retirement and invest now. Having a career that pays well and provides you with security from a financial standpoint can go a long way towards helping ensure that you have the necessary time to prepare for your family’s future and your own.
It would be best if you considered your financial circumstances in light of the job that you hold. For example, if you are in what you consider your long-term career, consider yourself very fortunate. I have read studies and surveys showing that upwards of 2/3 of Americans are not satisfied with their work. With that said, this tells me that there may be a fair degree of job change over the next few years with people changing careers and shifting industries. This upheaval in the job market may provide you with an opportunity to shift your own goals and work in a new career.
You may be curious about developing the skills or even understanding what you need to be ready to switch careers. As with anything, developing a plan to move careers after your divorce is essential. Simply quitting your job hoping that you will land in your desired career field with no plan or way to achieve your goals is foolish. Rather, I recommend assessing the situation with a plan in mind based on some objective criteria period. Let’s walk through those criteria to close out today’s blog post.
The first step that I would take when transitioning careers after your divorce is to understand what it is exactly you want to do. Something having a general idea that you want to begin working in the medical field, the law or engineering is not good enough. You need to establish what type of position you were looking for in the specific field itself. Jumping from career to career is not a good plan for you or others. This means that you need to take the time to sit down and understand what you want to do and develop a plan for achieving that specific career.
Next, you should begin to learn the steps of becoming qualified for this career. This may often mean that you have to go back to school to get a degree of some sort. Other times, you may be surprised to learn that your becoming qualified for the position does not even involve getting a degree of any sort. I think our generation has been convinced that the only way up in terms of career is through education and degrees. If he wanted to become a doctor, he would have to become acclimated and prepare for schooling on a long-term basis. Otherwise, simple certifications may require some online learning but may not require any schooling amount.
After that, you have to begin to execute your plan, whatever it may be. For example, you may need to start attending classes or working extra hours to save up money for school. Would your current employer allow you to change your work schedule so that you can attend school during the day or at night, depending on whatever your situation is? These are the serious questions you need to ask yourself. There may be some complications regarding actually allowing your children to be cared for after a divorce. Remember that one of the nice things about having two parents in the home was that someone was usually available to care for your children. That may not be the case.
This means you may have to talk to your ex-spouse about temporarily modifying visitation and custody orders to allow you to attend schooling or training for a new role. Being honest and deliberate about how you approach this subject is important. Suppose you can be honest with your co-parent about your needs and goals. Sharing these with them is the most direct route to achieving success in this area. To be clear is to be unkind. Clarity with your co-parent can go miles.
Finally, once you have made the career change, it is critical to maintaining your competency level by attending the required minimum education. Take on new challenges at work! Become invaluable. Fill the roles that nobody else is willing to perform. This is how you ingratiate yourself to your new employer. Be sure to pass along any lessons that you have learned in achieving this career goal. Make your post-divorce life one of achievement through personal and professional advancement.
Questions about the material contained in today’s blog post? Contact the Law Office of Bryan Fagan
If you have any questions about the material contained in today’s blog post, please do not hesitate to contact the Law Office of Bryan Fagan. Our licensed family law attorneys offer free of charge consultation six days a week in person, over the phone, and via video. These consultations are a great way for you to learn more about the world of Texas family law and learn more about how your family circumstances may be impacted by the filing of a divorce or child custody case. Thank you so much for being so interested in our law practice, and we hope you will join us again tomorrow as we share more relevant information about the world of Texas family law.
from Texas Bar Today https://ift.tt/2TJCP2O
via Abogado Aly Website
No comments:
Post a Comment