4 Financial Steps to Take During Divorce—and the Tools to Help You Do Them

Divorce has always required a financial reset. But right now, that reset can feel particularly daunting. Housing remains expensive, borrowing costs are relatively high, and everyday expenses can make the transition from one household to two harder to absorb.

Recent research also underscores how much financial trajectory matters: Pew found that among working-age Americans, median household wealth was about $98,700 for divorced adults, compared with roughly $327,000 for adults in a first marriage. That doesn’t mean divorce alone caused the difference—income, age, homeownership and other factors also play a role—but it’s a reminder that the financial impact of divorce can extend well beyond the settlement itself.

The good news: you don’t have to figure everything out at once.

There are different financial tasks to tackle at different points in the process. Here’s a practical order to follow—and four My Next Chapter tools that can help you do it.

1. As Soon as Divorce is a Possibility: Get Your Financial Information Organized

USE: Financial Prep Checklist

Before you start making decisions about what you want, make sure you understand what you have.

Start gathering the documents that tell the story of your financial life: tax returns, pay stubs and other income information, bank and investment statements, retirement accounts, mortgage and debt statements, insurance policies, employee benefits and other relevant records.

But don’t just pull the most recent statement.

Look back 12–24 months when you can. Some of the expenses and income that matter most don’t happen every month: bonuses, property taxes, tuition, camps, insurance premiums, home repairs, medical expenses, vacations or estimated tax payments.

A few other things to do now:

• Create one digital folder for financial documents so you can easily share information with your attorney, mediator or financial professional.
• Make note of accounts or financial information you don’t currently have access to.
• Pull your credit report so you understand what debts and accounts are associated with your name.
• Start a simple financial calendar of large annual or irregular expenses.

Why this matters now: When the cost of living is high, overlooking even a handful of recurring or irregular expenses can materially change what your future budget looks like.

2. Before You Start Negotiating: Understand What You Own—and What You Owe

USE: What You Own, What You Owe Worksheet

Once you’ve gathered the documents, create a complete inventory of your financial picture.

Our What You Own, What You Owe worksheet helps you catalog marital assets and liabilities—including your home, mortgage, vehicles and other debts—and calculate marital net worth. It also provides a separate inventory for non-marital assets and liabilities, including things such as inheritances, student loans, credit-card debt and property owned before marriage.

But this is where you should go one step beyond simply writing down dollar values.

For each significant asset, ask:

• Is it liquid? Could you actually access the money if you needed it?
• Does it produce income?
• Could there be taxes associated with selling or withdrawing it?
• Is there debt attached to it?
• What does it cost to maintain?
• What role does it play in your retirement or long-term financial security?

Two assets worth $500,000 on paper may not leave you in the same financial position.

The marital home is a good example. Knowing the equity is important, but so is understanding the mortgage, property taxes, insurance, maintenance and potential financing required to keep it.

The question isn’t simply, “How much is this asset worth?” It’s “What will owning this asset mean for my financial life after divorce?”

3. Before Deciding What You Want in a Settlement: Build Your Future Budget

USE: Budget Worksheet

Knowing what you have is only half the equation. Next, you need to understand what life is likely to cost.

The My Next Chapter Budget Worksheet helps you account for the expenses that can easily get lost in a rough monthly estimate—from housing and food to transportation, personal expenses and child-related costs. The child-related section, for example, includes education, childcare, sports, camps and lessons.

One useful exercise is to create two budgets.

Budget #1: What does our life cost today?

Look at what your household actually spends—not what you think you spend.

Then create:

Budget #2: What is my life likely to cost after divorce?

Adjust for your future housing, utilities, insurance, transportation, childcare, support received or paid and other expenses that may change when you're running a separate household.

Then stress-test it.

What happens if expenses are 10% higher than you expect? Could you handle a significant home repair? What if your income fluctuates? If support eventually changes or ends, what does the budget look like then?

And importantly: After paying for your life, how much will you realistically have left to save?

That last question is easy to overlook during divorce. But being able to make a mortgage payment isn't necessarily the same as being able to afford the house if doing so leaves no room for retirement savings, emergencies or other long-term goals.

4. If You Have Children: Get Specific About How You'll Handle Expenses Going Forward

USE: Shared Children’s Expense Agreement Builder

Parents understandably spend a lot of time negotiating how much each person will contribute to children's expenses.

But the percentage isn't the only thing that matters.

You also need to define what counts as a shared expense, who has to approve it, who pays upfront, how receipts are submitted, when reimbursement is due and how expenses will be tracked.

Our Shared Children’s Expense Agreement Builder is designed to address exactly that—and can be used before mediation, during negotiations or even after divorce to improve an existing system.

It also gets specific about expenses that can become much more significant as children get older: tutoring, SAT/ACT prep, school trips, college applications, laptops, study abroad, travel sports and camps. Teen driving introduces another set of potential expenses, including car insurance, car payments, gas, vehicle purchases and maintenance.

And don't just plan for today's costs.

The tool prompts parents to consider what happens if someone's income changes, health insurance coverage shifts, travel sports become significantly more expensive, a child needs ongoing therapy or reimbursement becomes a recurring problem.

The goal isn't to anticipate every expense your children will ever have. It's to create a clear system for handling the expenses you can't anticipate.

Before You Sign: Know These 6 Numbers

Once you've worked through the four steps above, step back from the individual spreadsheets and look at your overall financial picture.

You should be able to answer:

• What will my actual monthly cash flow be after divorce?
• How much liquid cash will I have available after the settlement?
• How much debt will I be responsible for?
• How much can I realistically save each month or year?
• What are my three biggest likely expenses over the next five years?
• If something changes—income, housing, health or my children's needs—how much financial flexibility will I have?

You don't need to predict your financial future perfectly. And you don't need to become a financial expert before getting divorced.

But you do want to understand the trade-offs you're making.

A simple order to remember:

Get organized → Know what you own and owe → Build your future budget → Plan for ongoing children's expenses → Stress-test the whole picture.

The decisions you make during divorce aren't only about dividing the financial life you've already built. They're also about giving yourself a realistic foundation for whatever you want to build next.