AT 75 YEARS OLD, I find myself living paycheck-to-paycheck. I now understand how that feels and how it can happen. But you can put away the violin: It’s only temporary.
Being fiscally conservative, I don’t like being in debt or having unpaid bills. I even pay credit cards before they are due—or I used to. Until a month ago, I paid all my bills, with considerable money left over at the end of each month.

I HAVE ADVISED MANY clients on divorce and the related tax issues. The vast majority have been women, and they generally fall into three categories.
First, there are those who strive to obtain divorces that will finally end their agony. They ask for advice on things like property transfers, deductibility of legal fees and alimony payments.
Second, there are those who are already divorced. They need guidance on how to compel their former husbands to cough up overdue payments of alimony or child support.

I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN a meticulous record keeper. As a child, my 4-H record book often won top honors at the county fair. As an adult, my career as a laboratory manager requires me to keep detailed records about budgets, lab prep and equipment maintenance. All that recordkeeping has bled over into my personal life as well. I have drawers full of neatly-labeled file folders filled with receipts, tax returns and other personal documents.

AS AN ATTORNEY and author who has written and lectured extensively on the tax aspects of marriage and divorce, I frequently receive questions from couples contemplating marriage. Generally, they come from similar backgrounds: They’re both affluent. They’re both getting married later in life. They’re both aware of trends in divorce rates.
I urge couples considering marriage to ponder the tax consequences beforehand, especially when one or both of them are remarrying. To illustrate how I’d advise them,

THERE ARE CERTAIN hallmarks of financial rectitude: Never carrying a credit card balance. Maxing out the 401(k). Having an emergency fund. But do these habits deserve the sacrosanct status they’ve achieved?
You won’t find me arguing with paying off the credit cards each month or putting at least enough in a 401(k) plan to earn the full matching employer contribution. Both make ample sense. But in the past, I’ve raised questions about how much emergency money people need and how they should handle this money.

IT WAS APRIL 29, 2009. My 12-hour workday had already begun when, at about 4:30 a.m., I received the call from Jonathan, my younger brother. He never calls at that hour. In fact, we never phone without first texting each other to determine the best time to talk. I sensed bad news and sure enough it was. Our father had been killed 36 hours earlier while riding his bicycle. In the months that followed,

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,

WE’RE USED TO SEEING money as one of life’s limiting factors. But if you receive a financial windfall, money may no longer be the limitation it once was. While that might sound liberating, it can also create anxiety. The reality is, constraints serve a useful purpose: They provide structure. Without that structure, you may find yourself feeling rudderless.
I experienced this when I received a windfall several years back. I remember walking into an Apple Store,

ONE DAY BACK IN 2012, I received a life-changing windfall. Contrary to what you might imagine, however, that day was not very different from the day before it, or the day after. It went something like this: Woke up. Went to work. Came home. Thought about ways to splurge. Ultimately gave up and went to bed.
In other words, there was no visit to the Ferrari dealership, no trip to Las Vegas,

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,

WHEN THE AXLE OF MY 2006 Honda broke in the middle of a North Philly thoroughfare in December and I needed $500 to fix it, I knew where to turn: my family’s “life reserve” fund.
Every year, there are articles about how most Americans have little or no emergency money. Whether the unexpected cost is a car bill or an unanticipated job layoff, it’s critical to save for expenses that aren’t accounted for in your normal budget.