Author Archives: ernie

A Relationship Playbook for Couples in Retirement

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A Relationship Playbook for Couples in RetirementIs your relationship with your spouse in good shape? Can it survive your retirement and that of your spouse? Many people are retiring, suddenly finding that they have lots of time. Time with their spouse, which they may have not had in the past. Busy schedules, children to raise, etc., all take time, and suddenly, that is all gone. Now you have all of this time available. You may spend it with your spouse you thought you knew well. Do you need a relationship playbook for couples in retirement?

A Relationship Playbook for Couples in Retirement

Everyone has to figure out what is right for them. It is also different for each person. There can be a lot of emotion. Everything from distress at leaving friends at work to spending time with your spouse who is also dealing with the same issues. Financial affairs can add stress to the relationship. Different objectives can also be an issue. What should couples focus on as they enter their retirement years?

Communication

While you may think you know your spouse well after all the years together, it is still important to communicate well. There are a lot of things changing in both of your lives. Making assumptions about what the other is thinking is just asking for trouble. Take the time to discuss everything, even if it is just to confirm what you believe your spouse is thinking.

Setting Objectives

Set objectives for yourself and your spouse together. Discuss them and adjust them as needed based on input from your spouse. Joint objectives can be powerful, especially when you are both committed. Your objectives can also significantly impact your financial affairs, bringing us to the next section.

Playbook for Couples in Retirement – Setting a Budget

Create a budget together and ensure that you are both committed and supportive. Can you accommodate each other’s objectives, or do you need to adjust your plans? Downsizing, travel, and going back to work are just a few of the assumptions that should be discussed. What about home renovations and maintenance issues that may have to be dealt with?

Hobbies and Friendships

Cultivate new hobbies, pick up on old hobbies, and build new friendships together and separately. These all provide something to discuss with your spouse at the end of the day. It also fills your time, which can be stressful for one or both of you.

Spending Time Together

Many people look forward to spending more time with their spouses. Others are worried because they may not have that much in common other than the kids. Some will schedule a time during the day separately from nine to five so that they can meet up later in the day and discuss their days activities. Figure out what works for each other and discuss it with your spouse. Be prepared to make changes and adjustments as time goes on.

Challenges Are Different for Men and Women

The challenges can be different for men and women for many reasons. From the type of job, they had to how much time they spent at home looking after the kids. Many couples find that if they divide household chores more evenly, pursuing new hobbies and activities can make a difference.

Playbook for Couples in Retirement – Time to Adjust to your New Lifestyle

It could take a few months or even as long as a year to adjust to your new lifestyle. Be prepared to be patient. Focus on communication and making changes to adapt to being retired, especially where your spouse comes in. Remember that both of you are adjusting to having more time off work and spending more time with each other. Your spouse could need more time to adjust than you do.

 

SEO Mistakes to Avoid

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SEO Mistakes to AvoidBuilding a web site and a web page is actually quite a complicated challenge. There are lots of SEO mistakes to avoid. We have listed a few of the major ones to consider as you build your web page for your web site. We also expand on each item further down the page for your interest. If your readers cannot find your site because Google does not rate your page or site your traffic will be low. Whether you are selling something, providing information etc. it will be difficult to achieve your objectives. These items are not in order of priority. They all need to be addressed as you build your pages to help to rank with the search engines. Ranking on the first or second page of the SERP’s can make a huge difference in your results for your web site.

  • Web Page Load Speed
  • Image Size
  • Plugin Impact
  • Caching
  • Wrong Keywords
  • Competition
  • Long Tail Keywords
  • Page Title
  • Meta Information
  • Write Awesome Content
  • Answer Readers Questions
  • Original Content
  • Call to Action – Buy, Refer to Another Page, etc.
  • Write for Mobile

SEO Mistakes to Avoid

Web Page Load Speed – readers are not willing to wait. Use an excellent service provider with high uptime and fast load time results for their servers.

Image Size – reduce image file sizes to as small as makes sense. If an image is part of a large page load, it will really slow your page and cause readers to move on before your page loads.

Plugin Impact – there are lots of great plugins available for content management systems. They all take processing power and affect your load speed. Reduce load speed as much as possible by eliminating plugins or combining plugins.

Caching – your web site can be set up to enable caching for returning customers and readers. Take advantage of this feature to reduce load times for returning readers.

Wrong Keywords – keywords are extremely important. It is tough to compete with popular keywords. Long tail keywords are much more specific and have a smaller search audience. Find the right balance between the two.

Competition – do a search for your intended keyword. If there are millions of results, it is going to be really difficult to rank well for that keyword. Find a keyword phrase that generates fewer results to reduce the competition.

More SEO Mistakes to Avoid

Long Tail Keywords – that have a natural search phrase feel to them will generate fewer search results and make it easier to rank on the first page. However, as mentioned earlier a long tail keyword may generate fewer results.

Page Title – This is the first thing readers see when they review the SERP results. Make it interesting and attractive to your readers as well as Google.

Meta Information – provides the first few words about what your page is all about. Content processing systems can auto-generate metadata for you, however, review this data to make sure it conveys exactly what your page is aimed at.

Write Awesome Content – Always write great content that is interesting and compelling. The longer your readers stay on a page the better your chances of them staying on your page longer.

Answer Readers Questions – readers are generally looking to solve a problem of some kind. Your page should help them answer their questions, find a product, solve a problem whatever it is.

Original Content – duplicate and copied content will be penalized by the search engines. Always write original content.

Call to Action – Buy, Refer to Another Page, etc. to help achieve your objectives.

Write for Mobile – mobile browsing is clearly the future and all sites must be able to portray their content in a mobile-friendly manner. There are various strategies for solving this problem from duplicate websites to plugins that detect the device used to read the content. These plugins will automatically present the content in the appropriate format.

Five Retirement Issues

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Five Retirement IssuesEveryone should consider five fundamental retirement issues if they are going to retire anytime soon! Savings, income, expenses, health, and time management. If you have a plan for each that meets your needs in retirement, you are well on the way to a successful and satisfying retirement. Many people only think about retirement once they are heading out the door. Either voluntarily or forced out in a corporate restructuring or downsizing. Don’t wait; develop your plan now!

Five Retirement Issues

Have You Saved Enough

How much income will your savings generate? Post-investment advisors assume 4%. It can be drawn down each year. This number assumes a reasonable probability that your savings will last well into retirement. Will you have enough when you add income from other sources, such as pensions? If not, keep working and beef up your savings.

Verify Your Income

How much income will you have in retirement? Add up the income from your savings, pension, investments etc. How does this number compare to your current income? If not enough should you work longer, save more etc?

Review Your Budget

Review your budget now and how it will change post retirement. What expenses will disappear? Will you have new expenses? Travel, new car, home renovation, upgraded and health issues come to mind.

Time Management

Most people will have up to ten hours every day to fill which were originally filled by work. How will you fill these hours after you retire? Many people find it difficult after all the travel and the Home projects are completed. What is your long term time management plan?

How is Your Health

Your health can play a huge factor in retirement. Not only in terms of enjoyment but also from a budget perspective. Be realistic and plan accordingly.

 

How to Make Sure You Have Enough Money to Retire

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how to make sure you have enough money to retireThe traditional answer to the question, “how to make sure you have enough money to retire”, used to be 4% and 70%! For starters, many planners felt that if you had 70% of your pre-retirement income, you were in good shape. Lower expenses, such as commuting costs, clothing, lunches, etc., meant that you did not need as much income. They also felt that if you withdrew 4% of your assets saved for retirement, you had a better than 90% chance of your money lasting for the rest of your life. Many investment advisers feel that these rules need to change. Demographics are changing.

For example, everyone is living longer; men, on average, now live 19 years after they retire at 65. Women live 23 years on average after 65. Many will also need elder care. In fact, 7 in 10 people will need help and will need the funds to pay for the services they receive. Today, many also carry debt into retirement, which will need to be planned for as part of their retirement years. However, inflation is well under control and has not matched the high teens back in the 80s. Inflation still adds up at two or three percent every year. Then, there is the cost of health care, which is slowly increasing at a rate above the inflation rate.  We believe it is time to save more, and we have five rules to consider.

How to Make Sure You Have Enough Money to Retire

Here are five rules to consider that may be helpful. While it is not fun and exciting, These rules will help answer the question, how to make sure you have enough money to retire.

Track all of your expenses now while you are still working. Identify those that will continue after retirement and make adjustments to your retirement budget accordingly.

Try living as if you are retired now on a 70% budget. You may have to make adjustments to current spending habits and generally adopting a less expensive spending profile.

Increase your savings to a level that can provide you with five or six percent of your annual salary pre-retirement. The more you can save, the better off you will be. Six percent of a million dollars is $60,000 a year. Can you live on that?

Check out your post-retirement income. How much will come from Social Security, and how much will come from your company pension? Knowing these numbers, you may find that your current savings may be in line with what you need to retire.

Invest to generate income, diversify, avoid high-risk investments, and stick to blue chips. Avoid reacting to the market’s ups and downs. Focus on equities with a strong history of paying dividends, year after year. They should have a history of increasing those dividends every year. Although not guaranteed, these are automatic raises for you in the future.

Protecting Your Online Privacy from a Practical Viewpoint

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Protecting Your Online PrivacyMost people will just ignore concerns about online privacy until their privacy is personally compromised. When you try to discuss online privacy with the average person, their eyes sometimes glaze over and they just do not get it or want to talk about. There are a few things that every consumer can consider when protecting your online privacy from a practical viewpoint. They are easy and straight forward and should be part of your everyday life. We put together a list that everyone can follow.

Protecting Your Online Privacy from a Practical Viewpoint

Review the Privacy Settings for your Devices – whether it is your cell phone, tablet or computer there is lots of personal information stored on these devices. Everyone should review the privacy settings on all of these devices to avoid personal information being shared across the web. Also, review apps like Facebook etc. and ensure that the only people who can see your personal information and posts are those that you are friends with.

Understand What Information is Already out There – one of the first steps is to understand what is already out there. Check using Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Yahoo, Bing, and so on. Delete whatever you can. Anything else will just have to stay there which is not really a comforting thing.

Always use Secure Passwords – it is difficult enough to remember the various passwords that we are forced to come up with even if they are straightforward. But a common password will just not cut it these days. You have to use secure passwords that involve, letters in upper and lower cases, numbers, and special characters. Use a password manager or write them down and keep them in a safe place. The password on your password manager app should be very secure and difficult to hack. This is the most important one to make the most difficult.

Delete apps, extensions, and services that are not Longer Used – if you do not use them, get rid of them. Remove all of the clutter. This clutter could contain personal information such as passwords and user ids that if found in the wrong hands could result in all of your personal information become available to the wrong people.

Avoid Google

Google tracks everything you do online. If you use Chrome which is the browser produced by Google, switch to another browser. You might use another lesser-known browser to lower your profile even further.  If you are not convinced, perform a quick search using Google for something in one of your emails or a site that you regularly visit. You may be surprised at what you find.

Use Encryption for Your Messages – Whatsapp is probably the only messenger that uses encryption at this time. Everything else is open and every message travels through a server somewhere. Popular iMessage on Apple products sends every message to their servers before sending it to the device you are targeting. Even voice dictation is sent to a server in the cloud, converted to text, and sent back to you for use in whatever app you are using.

These are just a few suggestions for protecting your online privacy.

Retire and then Go Back to Work

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We are vacationing in Palm Springs California for several months and have had the fortunate experience of meeting people from all walks of life. Most are retired, although a few are still working and just spending a week or two here. Several have indicated they will retire and then go back to work. They all are renting condo’s in the property where we are. It is called La Palme, on El Ceilio Road. There are 225 units, 6 pools, 6 hot tubs, 3 tennis courts and lots of above ground parking.  A nice place and very enjoyable, but then I digress. Retire and then Go Back to Work! What? That is what I really want to talk about today in this post.

Retire and then Go Back to Work

One couple we met at the pool retired when he was 51. He had started a company and as it turned out was very successful. The company made a lot of money when he sold out and basically from a financial perspective will never need to work again.

He told me that he did nothing really for the first five years other than investing his cash from the sale of his business. He found that after five years he really missed the challenge, the social element, the technical aspects of his business etc. Most of all he was worried that his mind was getting stale and he was forgetting things.

Many of us focus on exercising our bodies to stay in shape and feel better about ourselves. We forget that our brains are just another muscle and need to be exercised as well. He was worried that if he did not do something he would lose it. This individual also needed the challenge in his life. He wanted to feel that he could still make a contribution in life.

He decided not to go back to work, but he did decide to get involved as a consultant to several companies and he volunteers on several organizations in the community. This approach made him feel worthwhile again and people recognize his contributions as well. This is what worked for him. While it may not be right for everyone, the point is that you cannot just retire and do nothing.

Get involved and support your community, go back to work part time, focus on your investments and retire and then Go Back to Work or do wherever your interests take you. For more thoughts about lifestyle issues in retirement, click here.

A Great List of Concepts to Keep in Mind as We Age

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A Great List of Concepts to Keep in Mind as We AgeMany of us are between 60 and death, i.e. getting old.  Some people enjoy their lives in retirement more than others. Alan S. Bame created this excellent list for aging. This is a great list of concepts to keep in mind as we age and really for all ages.  I think there is some good advice in here to try to incorporate into our thinking! This is a great list of concepts to keep in mind as we age and how to get more out of life.

Concepts to Keep in Mind

Our first nine items on our Great List of Concepts to Keep in Mind as We Age are as follows:

1. It’s time to use the money you saved up. Use it and enjoy it.  Don’t just keep it for those who may have no notion of the sacrifices you made to get it. Remember there is nothing more dangerous than a son or daughter-in-law with big ideas for your hard-earned capital. Warning: This is also a bad time for investments, even if it seems wonderful or fool-proof. They only bring problems and worries. This is a time for you to enjoy some peace and quiet.

2. Stop worrying about the financial situation of your children and grandchildren, and don’t feel bad spending your money on yourself. You’ve taken care of them for many years, and you’ve taught them what you could. You gave them an education, food, shelter and support. The responsibility is now theirs to earn their own money.

3. Keep a healthy life, without great physical effort. Do moderate exercise (like walking every day), eat well and get your sleep. It’s easy to become sick, and it gets harder to remain healthy. That is why you need to keep yourself in good shape and be aware of your medical and physical needs. Keep in touch with your doctor, do tests even when you’re feeling well. Stay informed.

4. Always buy the best, most beautiful items for your significant other. The key goal is to enjoy your money with your partner. One day one of you will miss the other, and the money will not provide any comfort then, enjoy it together.

More to Consider

5. Don’t stress over the little things . You’ve already overcome so much in your life. You have good memories and bad ones, but the important thing is the present. Don’t let the past drag you down and don’t let the future frighten you. Feel good in the now. Small issues will soon be forgotten.

6. Regardless of age, always keep love alive. Love your partner, love life, love your family, love your neighbor and remember: “A man is not old as long as he has intelligence and affection.”

7. Be proud, both inside and out. Don’t stop going to your hair salon or barber, do your nails, go to the dermatologist and the dentist, keep your perfumes and creams well stocked. When you are well-maintained on the outside, it seeps in, making you feel proud and strong.

8. Don’t lose sight of fashion trends for your age, but keep your own sense of style . There’s nothing worse than an older person trying to wear the current fashion among youngsters. You’ve developed your own sense of what looks good on you – keep it and be proud of it. It’s part of who you are.

9. ALWAYS stay up-to-date. Read newspapers, watch the news. Go online and read what people are saying. Make sure you have an active email account and try to use some of those social networks. You’ll be surprised what old friends you’ll meet. Keeping in touch with what is going on and with the people you know is important at any age.

More – A Great List of Concepts to Keep in Mind as We Age

10. Respect the younger generation and their opinions. They may not have the same ideals as you, but they are the future, and will take the world in their direction. Give advice, not criticism , and try to remind them that yesterday’s wisdom still applies today.

11. Never use the phrase: “In my time.” Your time is now . As long as you’re alive, you are part of this time. You may have been younger, but you are still you now, having fun and enjoying life.

12. Some people embrace their golden years, while others become bitter and surly. Life is too short to waste your days on the latter. Spend your time with positive, cheerful people, it’ll rub off on you and your days will seem that much better. Spending your time with bitter people will make you older and harder to be around.

13. Do not surrender to the temptation of living with your children or grandchildren (if you have a financial choice, that is). Sure, being surrounded by family sounds great, but we all need our privacy. They need theirs and you need yours. If you’ve lost your partner (our deepest condolences), then find a person to move in with you and help out. Even then, do so only if you feel you really need the help or do not want to live alone.

Additional Areas To Think About

14. Don’t abandon your hobbies. If you don’t have any, make new ones. You can travel, hike, cook, read, dance. Consider adopting a cat or a dog, grow a garden, play cards, checkers, chess, dominoes, golf. You can paint, volunteer or just collect certain items. Find something you like and spend some real time having fun with it.

15. Even if you don’t feel like it, try to accept invitations. Baptisms, graduations, birthdays, weddings, conferences. Try to go. Get out of the house, meet people you haven’t seen in a while, experience something new (or something old). But don’t get upset when you’re not invited. Some events are limited by resources, and not everyone can be hosted. The important thing is to leave the house from time to time. Go to museums, go walk through a field. Get out there.

Chose any or all of these items to help get the most out of life. A Great List of Concepts to Keep in Mind as We Age continues.

16. Be a conversationalist. Talk less and listen more. Some people go on and on about the past, not caring if their listeners are really interested. That’s a great way of reducing their desire to speak with you. Listen first and answer questions, but don’t go off into long stories unless asked to. Speak in courteous tones and try not to complain or criticize too much unless you really need to. Try to accept situations as they are . Everyone is going through the same things, and people have a low tolerance for hearing complaints. Always find some good things to say as well.

Even More

17. Pain and discomfort go hand in hand with getting older. Try not to dwell on them but accept them as a part of the cycle of life we’re all going through. Try to minimize them in your mind. They are not who you are, they are something that life added to you. If they become your entire focus, you lose sight of the person you used to be.

18. If you’ve been offended by someone – forgive them. If you’ve offended someone – apologize. Don’t drag around resentment with you. It only serves to make you sad and bitter. It doesn’t matter who was right. Someone once said: “Holding a grudge is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.” Don’t take that poison. Forgive, forget and move on with your life.

19. If you have a strong belief, savor it. But don’t waste your time trying to convince others. They will make their own choices no matter what you tell them, and it will only bring you frustration. Live your faith and set an example. Live true to your beliefs and let that memory sway them.

* 20. Laugh. Chuckle A LOT. Laugh at everything. Remember, you are one of the lucky ones *. You managed to have a life, a long one. Many never get to this age, never get to experience a full life. But you did. So what’s not to laugh about? Find the humor in your situation.

21. Take no notice of what others say about you and even less notice of what they might be thinking. They’ll do it anyway, and you should have pride in yourself and what you’ve achieved. Let them talk and don’t worry. They have no idea about your history, your memories and the life you’ve lived so far. There’s still much to be written, so get busy writing and don’t waste time thinking about what others might think. Now is the time to be at rest, at peace and as happy as you can be!

AND, REMEMBER: “Life is too short to drink bad wine.”

For more about Lifestyle Decisions to improve our lives in retirement, click here. If you know of additional ideas that we can add to our Great List of Concepts to Keep in Mind as We Age, please leave a comment. We would be happy to add them to the list.

 

High Priority Search Engine Optimization

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high priority search engine optimizationProducing enough quality content is the single largest challenge for any web site owner. You can break down high priority search engine optimization further by looking at the following three factors. Producing quality content, producing enough content, and budgeting to produce content. These three factors according to the graph above account for 77% of the challenge. If you focus on these three areas and get it right, you are well on the way to meeting your SEO goals.

High Priority Search Engine Optimization

We will enlarge on these three topics in more detail to help readers understand what they really need to focus on.

Producing quality content – your readers are looking for information to address whatever question they are trying to answer. The search engines are also trying to make sure they deliver search results that address these questions. make sure your content is focused on the title and the short description provided by the search results. Poor content usually means a lower ranking for starters.

If your page title is bang on the subject, but your content is weak or does not address the question readers are looking for they will quickly move to another page or go back to the search results. This is known as bounce rate. If your bounce rate is high, your ranking will descend further. Low rankings likely mean your page will never be seen by readers on the search engine results pages.

Producing enough content

Posts about your content subject need to be prolific and focused on the products and services that you offer. At the same time, writers need to anticipate what search terms readers will use to conduct searches. Write pages for all the common search terms that readers may use to find your products and services. This may take some research to find all of these terms.

Budgeting to produce content

One of the single largest roadblocks to quality content is budget. If you do not allow sufficient time to write high-quality content, to update it on a regular basis, and to make adjustments as search engines up their game your site will not rank well. Set aside dedicated hours to focus on writing content. Include updating content and improving the technical aspects of your pages on a weekly basis.

For more information about developing your own website strategy, click here.

What Should I Do With My Inheritance?

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This is actually a pretty common question. With many baby boomers aging and leaving their assets to their kids, many children suddenly find themselves with quite a bit of money willed to them from their parents. We are in the midst of one of the largest asset transfers in history as baby boomers grow older and do not spend their savings before passing. The heirs are then faced with the question of what should I do with my inheritance. For many, the answer seems obvious. Pay off bills, go on a trip, update the house, etc. In other words, spend the money!

Having been the recipient of an inheritance several times, the writer can write from personal experience. The first time, my wife and I inherited just enough money to buy a car. We really needed a car. Our existing car was on its last legs, and we decided to spend our money this way. We got a great car, and it lasted for many years, but at the end of its life, we had nothing from the inheritance and had to buy another car. We spent the money on something that depreciated over time and was worthless at the end of its life. What did we have to show for it? Nothing!

What should I do with my Inheritance the Next Time?

We learned a tough lesson in the sense that we really had nothing to show from the inheritance. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice gift, and at least we did not blow it on a trip that lasted two weeks or partied. We could have done that and had distant memories of how we spent the money.

Based on this experience, we decided the next time we received an inheritance we would invest the money into the stock market and take the income generated from the stocks in terms of dividends. We had a variety of bills at the time and we also had a mortgage which we could have paid off, but we learned a lesson that it is very easy to spend the money and very difficult to save it.

We invested in blue chip stocks that pay dividends every quarter. They also had a long history of paying these dividends and raising the dividends as well. In other words, we not only received a regular income, we also got a raise every year. We could have reinvested the dividends, but choose to take this income and enjoy this money.

There have been many ups and downs in the markets over the years. At one point we even had less money than what we started with. We did not sell or change our investments. Over the years the market not only recovered it has topped new levels. The end result is that we now have quite a bit more money than what we started with. We have received income every year for the past 18 years.

For us this was a really great success story and was our answer to the question, what should I do with my inheritance. Everyone makes decisions based on their own situation, but just remember once it is gone, it is extremely difficult to save enough money for later in life.

For more details about inheritances, wills etc. click here.

 

 

 

Manage divorce and personal finances after age 65

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Manage divorce and personal financesDivorce is difficult enough at any time in your life. The younger you are when you divorce, the longer you will have to recover financially from the settlement whatever it may be. But when you manage divorce and personal finances after age 65 or after you retire, it can be much more complicated and financially difficult. There is the usual splitting of assets based on age, dependency, support needs and access to the kids. With two people no longer sharing the expenses of running a household, it can become much more expensive for the individuals involved to handle all of the associated expenses. Significant adjustments for all parties are often needed, sometimes with painful financial realities.

A middle aged manager who reported to me who decided that he was going to separate from his wife and move into a place of his own, indicated to me less than six months later that he could not afford to live separately. It was just too expensive. He decided to move back in with his wife and children because it was just too expensive otherwise. Now imagine if you have just retired and are around  65 and have decided to retire. What are the impacts of retirement, divorce and suddenly realizing that you have to split all of your assets and income with your spouse?

Manage divorce and personal finances after age 65

Unless it is way beyond making it work, we suggest that people in this situation find ways to make work for them and recover their relationship. We will not even begin to address what this might mean on an emotional level. It is far too complex and varied to address. We will try to address some of the financial considerations instead. As a couple, you may be financially secure, sharing the expenses and supporting one home, car etc.  We are following this with a list of areas that need to be considered assuming it is a 50 – 50 split which it seldom will be in most situations. Readers can apply this list to their own situation and make adjustments as needed.

Your Home – assume you will either sell your home and split the proceeds or one spouse will buy out the other. Either way you end up with 50% of what you had and all of the expenses. Most people cannot replace their current home with 50% less.

Your Car – if you only have one car, you may have to buy another and split the value of the current vehicle 50 -50. Even if you own two cars, chances are one is worth more than the other.

Your investments

While your investments and pension income may be sufficient to support cohabitating couples, after they are both split 50 -50, will you have sufficient income to live in the manner you have become use to. Not likely and significant adjustments in life style will be needed.

Your debts –  are much the same. If the debts were jointly created then you have 50% ownership. However once divorced your credit rating may fall. Suddenly consumers find themselves unable to find lenders to loan them money to finance their portion of the debt.

Insurance Coverage – do you still need life insurance coverage? Will the insurance costs double because now you need to support two homes etc. Look at all of your insurance coverage to ensure that  affordability is considered, Make sure you have adequate coverage for your needs.

Health coverage and benefits

This can be a huge area especially for consumers in the US. Does one spouse lose coverage after the divorce and do they need to find additional coverage often at considerable expense?

Gifts to the kids – gifts to the kids that were previously shared are now individualized. They may cost more as well when you consider that as a couple you are actually spending more money. Cut backs may be needed in order to survive.

Personal Items – that have significant value are some of the most difficult to deal with. Not only do they have significant sentimental value, it might be difficult for one spouse to buy the other out.

This is a relatively short summary. However the ramifications can be significant for a spouse planning to separate and get a divorce. Especially if it is after they retire after the age of 55. Sometimes it is just much easier to Manage divorce and personal finances after age 65 than it is to actually divorce. Think carefully about what action you want to take before initiating action that cannot be stopped once it begins.

For more on this subject, Manage divorce and personal finances after age 65 , click here.