In a recent post, I mentioned in passing that it would be easy for me to view my frugality-during-marriage efforts as a waste, given that I paid so many thousands of dollars to get divorced ($36,000, to be precise), and that financial assets got split down the middle.
No matter how well divorce goes, it generally has more of a get-poor-quick flavor than get-rich-quick. 😉 This is especially true once both people lawyer up, because the lawyer bills are coming from the marital pot of money; it’s like drawing down double on your account at the same time.
You watch the hard-earned, hard-saved dollars go up in smoke, poof! And it is easy to wonder….what was the point of all those furniture rehabs, DIY repairs, home-cooked meals, mended clothing, second-hand shopping, and deal-finding?
So, here’s what I tell myself.
Frugality helped prevent debt
Except for the mortgage, there was zero debt to deal with during the divorce. That’s a huge bonus, because a lot of people have to divvy up debt in a marriage settlement.
In my case, even the mortgage debt wasn’t an issue; there was enough equity to split, so he refinanced and paid me my half of the equity.
Speaking of….the frugality also helped build equity because it enabled extra payments on the mortgage.
Frugality built savings
There weren’t really any savings to speak of by the end of the divorce, but if the savings hadn’t been there, the lawyer bills would have created some type of debt.
A depleted savings account is better than a pile of debt.
Frugality taught skills to my kids
They’re all deploying various frugal practices that they picked up as kids; thrifting, shopping at Aldi, using Facebook Marketplace/eBay, cooking meals at home, and so on.
And since they’re all in their twenties, which is not a wealthy time of life, the frugal skills are serving them well.
I needed my frugal skills during my divorce
During the lean years of marital separation, I often joked, “I’ve been practicing for this my whole life!” But it was true; my well-practiced frugal skills came in very handy as I was starting over on a shoestring.
What a shock that would have been had I been living a spendy life before the separation. 😉
Frugality made this blog possible, and this blog sustained me through my divorce
This is probably the largest frugality-related win, honestly! Without my frugal ways, there would be no blog.
Without my blog income, my separation and divorce would have been much harder to navigate, and it would have been far more complicated for me to just up and leave.
It also would have been a big financial challenge for me to get through nursing school.
Plus…I would have missed out on all the support you guys offered me through this life upheaval, and that is priceless.
So. Although a lot of the fruit of my frugal efforts did indeed evaporate in the divorce, there are still lots of reasons I’m grateful I walked the frugal path all of those years!
P.S. I have to add: if a marriage is harmful to you, it is worth every penny that it takes to get out. I wish it hadn’t cost so much to get divorced, but I don’t regret spending the money at all. My freedom was worth it, and I would even have been willing to get into debt to obtain it.
P.P.S. I talked more about the finances of my divorce here.
Source: www.thefrugalgirl.com…