Kristine Hayes

MY FAVORITE DIVORCE quote, if one can have such a thing, comes from comedian Louis C.K.: “No good marriage has ever ended in divorce. If your friend got divorced, it means things were bad. And now, they’re better.”
For myself, these words certainly ring true. But “better” comes at a price: Being a divorced, middle-aged woman means looking at financial matters from a different perspective than my married friends. Since I no longer have a spouse,

A FEW MONTHS AGO, my retirement account hit a milestone—$250,000. I’d been looking forward to achieving “quarter-millionaire” status for a while, so when it finally happened, I decided to announce it on social media. I took a photo of my computer screen, with the value of my account highlighted, and uploaded the photo. Just as I prepared to make the post public, I decided to obscure the actual balance and edit the text to say my account had reached a “new personal record,” instead of revealing the specific amount.

WHEN I CREATE MY monthly budget, I subtract expenses I deem to be “needs” from my take-home pay. What’s left is money I can spend on items I desire—my “wants.” For budgeting purposes, I divide my discretionary income into four equal amounts and budget that amount for each week of the month. Psychologically, I find it easier to keep my budget on track if I can see how much I spend on a weekly basis.

WHEN I DIVORCED a few years ago, I found myself needing a crash course in financial management. My first task: Understanding where my money went—and figuring out where I could cut back.
Today, I create a budget each month. I don’t use any type of program or app—I prefer paper and pen. At the top of a page, I write down my take-home pay. I use take-home pay, rather than my $5,500 monthly gross income,

THE FEDERAL TAX CODE now contains over 10 million words, so it’s no surprise that most Americans score an “F” when it comes to understanding taxes. A few years ago, I would also have flunked.
But following my divorce, I knew I needed to educate myself on financial topics. While I could tell you how much I took home each month, I didn’t have a clue how much I paid in taxes, much less what my marginal tax rate was.

FOUR YEARS AGO, at age 45, I got divorced. These days, divorces are equal-opportunity proceedings. Since our income streams had been roughly the same, and we didn’t have children, our assets were split 50-50. For me, that meant losing half my state pension. Along with that loss came the realization that my retirement dream was just that—a dream.
Following the divorce, my lifestyle underwent a huge upheaval. Living on my own for the first time in my adult life,