Financial Future – Women's Financial Empowerment

Can this Retirement be Saved?

CAN THIS RETIREMENT BE SAVED?

After your DIVORCE, with too little saved? I don’t know about you, but I know about me – after I went through my divorce I was back to ground zero. Everything that we had accumulated during our marriage suddenly disappeared. Since my ex had quit his job we only had my income and it didn’t even cover our living expenses. We went through so many financial situations as a result:

Bankruptcy

Short-sale of our house

Lack of Income due to my ex’s unemployment

Because of all these problems, we went through our entire retirement portfolio along with my inheritance from my mom. It sure wasn’t very much fun.

I’m receiving spousal support now, but only for another 8 years and then all I will have – unless I do something now – will be my Social Security! And that won’t even cover my rent & utilities.

I’m not alone. So many of us are experiencing the same scenarios. Just like Debbie Smith, 61, in this recent article in the AARP Bulletin. She also experienced a divorce which put her in a precarious position. She was unprepared “for the next year, let alone retirement.”

She says, “A divorce is devastating to your finances, especially when you divorce later in life.” “You have less time to recoup that loss.”

Some of the suggestions that are made in the article are:

Plan to work as long as you can

Lower your spending, get used to a more modest lifestyle

Save as much as possible and plug anything you can into your retirement

Delay taking Social Security as long as possible

You can read more about Debbie Smith and 4 others in the AARP article below.

Source: Retirement Issues and Solutions – Social Security, 401k, Divorce – AARP

Today Is the 95th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment’s Ratification

We have gained a lot of equality with the 19th Amendment, but it would seem that we still have a long way to go.

When you are going through a Divorce there isn’t always the same “equality” that we as women know we deserve.

It took decades of tireless effort and hell-raising. The Seneca Falls Convention happened in 1848. The women who pushed and prodded and protested and paraded in the intervening years faced fierce opposition. You can see some of the mocking, unfathomably stupid postcards produced in response to their demands at Collector’s Weekly. This piece from the Library of Congress relates the scene at the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade in D.C., which drew marchers from all over the country. It sounds terrifying, frankly:

Source: Today Is the 95th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment’s Ratification

There are so many things to think about when you are going through or preparing for Divorce. We want to believe that it will work out easily, but that is not always the case.

Be sure that you have someone working on your behalf – a reputable attorney who knows what she is doing…..

Division of property, also known as equitable distribution, is a judicial division of property rights and obligations between spouses during divorce. It may be done by agreement, through a property settlement, or by judicial decree.

When I went through my own divorce in 2013, I was so glad that my attorney was as knowledgeable as she was. One of my concerns was exactly that – how to “fairly” and “equitably” divide things up. We had been married almost 33 years, so I knew that I should receive spousal support. But of course the EX didn’t want to share his income and wanted to fight me tooth and nail. One detail that my attorney shared with me was that he could fight and take me to court – or he could work with me on a settlement. She told me that once I had served my EX with the divorce papers, she would file a stipulation as per the law, (Sargent v. Sargent), which would require HIM to be responsible to pay ALL attorney fees!! And she said that she was being “conservative,” and if we were to continue battling in court it would be a minimum of $25,000. EACH in attorney’s fees, that the EX would have to pay.

It definitely made me feel better to know that I had options — I started to feel more positive — that I would get through this entire process.

Having gone through this and come out on the other side a much stronger and confident woman has shown me that I can do it! And you can too. If you have more questions about preparing for and going through your own divorce, perhaps we can help.

Take a look at our website for more information and resources —

WOMEN’S FINANCIAL EMPOWERMENT

After He’s Gone…..Now What?

Well I made it to almost 33 years of marriage with my junior high school sweetheart. OMG, what happened? Things were up and down in our relationship for a while, perhaps we were just staying together for the kids; but now the kids were adults with children of their own. Then it just got worse after he decided to quit his job and was then unemployed for 4 years! We had to deplete our entire 401K and savings just to survive. It’s sure not that easy when HE decides to give up a salary well over $100K a year. He finally found another job but it required him to move to another state. That made it even more difficult…..no time together at all and when he finally came home for a visit his attitude was,

“Let’s just keep it status quo.”

Really!

That was pretty much the last straw. I knew I had to make a change. So I prayed and thought about the idea of being alone after always being in a relationship. Then I came to the realization that it would be better to be truly alone alone rather than feeling alone when the guy was in the same room with you.

It’s been about a year and a half now and I’m back on my feet both financially and emotionally. And it’s pretty nice. I thought about it and it hadn’t been that easy for me to go through the divorce process even when I was the one that had always handled the finances. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for those of you that didn’t have the experience or understanding of what to do in any of the many financial situations that we go through during our adult lifetime.

That’s when I knew that I wanted to help other ladies go through the processes and gain empowerment in starting over.

Women’s Financial Empowerment came into existence because I wanted to help. Some of the areas I have been working on are —

Budgets

Money Matters

Financial Recovery

If there is any question you have please ask it! If I don’t know the answer, I will find it for you.

I hope that we will have referrals and resources available to help you throughout this uncomfortable time in your life.

Believe me it will get better!! Take care, talk soon, Natalie