Posted on

The cost of divorce and its impact on families

In a sea of couple conflict, find stability

The cost of divorce and its impact on families.

We know that divorce – the unsettling reality for one in three marriages – usually has an immense but largely immeasurable emotional impact on couples and their children.

But the financial costs can be quantified. A detailed report by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling for AMP (called Divorce: For Richer, For Poorer) shows a $14 billion cost to “the nation [in] government assistance payments and court costs”.

Closer to home, divorce means financial stress increases for divorced families in almost every area.

“Divorce has a significant impact on families’ financial wellbeing, whether they have children or not, both in the short and medium term,” the report found.

“While most families start to recover economically five years post-divorce, there remains a significant gap [20 per cent] in the financial well-being of divorced and married couples even five years later.”

The report found the median age of divorce for men was 45.3 years and women 42.7 years. It claimed divorce typically occurs during “couples’ prime wealth accumulation and child-rearing years”.

The division of assets caused the greatest financial stress and damage, the report concluded, with retirement looking “bleak” for divorced couples because “super balances for divorced women are 70 per cent less than married women, and 28 per cent lower for divorced men compared with married men.”

“A divorced parent aged less than 45 years has 35 per cent fewer assets than a married respondent of the same age, while a divorced parent aged 45–64 years has assets valued at only 25 per cent of those of a married parent from a similar socio-economic background.”

In the short to medium term, there were big differences in day to day expenses that could conceivably set up problems for years.

Household expenditure changed significantly before and after divorce, with the biggest differences experienced 1 to 4 years out from divorce.

For divorced men and women with dependent children, spending on items such as groceries, utilities, meals eaten out and alcohol and cigarettes increased, while money spent on clothing and footwear, repairs, maintenance and insurance dropped. The changes remained five years and more after divorce, although the disparities had eased.

The proportion of a divorced mother’s total income spent on groceries climbed 27 per cent between 1 and 4 years after a divorce, while the share of their incomes spent on utilities rose nearly 47 per cent. Their spending on health and medicines fell, while five years after divorce they were spending 45 per cent more on alcohol and tobacco.

Divorced fathers with dependent children increased their spending on education by 39 per cent inside the first 4 years of divorce. “This may reflect fathers having been the main income earner in the family and that paying for their children’s education is their main source of child support,” the report found.

But divorced dads’ spending on also alcohol and tobacco by 53 per cent inside the first four years. Their grocery spending rose by nine per cent.

The report found: “Divorced mothers are more likely to experience financial stress than divorced fathers or couple families.

One in five newly divorced mothers report they can’t afford to spend on the kids such as school clothing, leisure activities, or school trips for their children. This compares with only one in 50 newly divorced fathers.”

This may be related to the one area fathers benefited from after divorce: income. “The income of a divorced father is 26 per cent higher than the income of a … married father.

This may reflect increased job mobility in terms of location and type of work as well as an increased ability to accept higher paying work.”

The employment rate is also higher for divorced fathers than married dads five years after the divorce.

The report also claimed education outcomes for children from divorced families are slightly worse than for those families whose parents remained married.

Family breakdown increases a child’s chance of being an early school leaver (i.e. doesn’t complete year 12) by 6 per cent [and] decreases their likelihood of getting a tertiary education also by 6 per cent compared with children whose parents were married when they were 14 years of age.

Posted on

Find stability with Financial Mindfulness

Find stability with Financial Mindfulness

Find stability with Financial Mindfulness.

With a horrible year in 2020, routines have returned back to normal but 2021 hasn’t started well. David, 51 and Lisa, 46 are parents to Joshua (8), Jake (13) and Bella (11).

Josh misses his dad while Bella is angry at her dad and hasn’t seen him for 4 months. She quit her after-school job at a retail chain because she has exams this year. Jake’s behaviour problems at school have worsened since the break-up.

David works as an executive in a chartered accountancy firm and has strong earning capacity but as a divorce seems likely he may have to give the house to Lisa as it’s simpler for the children to spend the school week with her.

Both David and Lisa have been emotionally and physically affected by the separation and are worried about the future. Although each have big financial worries, they have become less careful with money, sometimes spending to numb emotions like anger, grief, loneliness and sadness.

Both David and Lisa would see improvements to their mood, energy and sense of security if they introduced proven mindfulness practices into their lives, especially around how they use money.

In other words, Financial Mindfulness. Mindfulness is not, as some people believe an attitude, but is better described as the regular practice of moment-by-moment awareness.

A ‘financial wellness’ study of PwC employees found 52 per cent stressed about their finances with 45 per cent reporting more financial stress in the last 12 months.

More than half of Australians say personal finance issues are the leading cause of stress in their life, according to the Australian Psychological Society.

Reconciliation after 17 years of marriage seems unlikely for David and Lisa. The couple argued loudly at home for six years before they agreed he would move out.

Lisa is angry and feels disrespected and that David has been a poor husband, although she accepts, he has mostly been a good provider and done his best as a father. She accepts some contact with their father is good for the children but struggles with any interaction with David.

“How can I trust anything he does now?” she often hears herself saying to friends and family.

Lisa feels resentful with three children to look after and tries to make herself feel better by socialising with friends over dinner, at concerts and art galleries, pampering herself (at health retreats when David has the kids).

She has taken a few short holidays and one extended one to Britain where her sister and her husband live and then through Europe. She also re-joined the gym because she is drinking and eating more and has started smoking again. She is still working in human resources as a consultant but has a rising credit card debt.

David now lives alone in a two-bedroom apartment 30 minutes from the family but still does maintenance on the house he owns with Lisa, though he isn’t welcome to let himself in. He also maintains their investment property.

Since the separation (7 months ago), David drifted into depression and is finding seeing the children for only 3 days each fortnight difficult. He is working longer hours, going out for late dinners, is drinking more and goes on fishing and golfing trips with old friends.

He has also increased his spending on his two collecting hobbies: wine and sports memorabilia but is also gambling too often. He recently lost his driver’s licence for drink-driving.

“I sometimes wonder what the point is to any of this,” David often thinks. “Without the kids there wouldn’t be much to life for me.”

Both David and Lisa are doing individual therapy and meet for family counselling once a month. But growing financial pressure and stress is not helping their coping skills and both find themselves unhappy and snapping at their children sometimes.

In the coming months, separated couples like David and Lisa find it very challenging to manage their finances, can find some respite by empowering themselves with an app that reduces and measures financial stress by Financial Mindfulness.

Financial Mindfulness will bring a completely new element to the world of personal financial behaviour by giving people medically and scientifically-proven tools to make spending decisions that they will be proud of later (instead of regretting).

“Everybody has a need to manage their financial affairs in a complex world. We understand people would like to improve their financial wellness.”

“We can actually help, for the first time people can choose a comprehensive, medically tested personal pathway of actions, to take responsibility in dealing with their financial stresses.

A personal program as an app, also transferrable to your computer.”

“Financial Mindfulness creates a pathway for users from the experience and impact of ‘financial stress’ to one of financial health, wellness and fulfilment.” says Financial Mindfulness Founder & CEO, Andrew Fleming.

“As a result, people like David and Lisa will become more self-aware and take responsibility of their unhealthy financial habits and use the tools of our program to form new healthier behaviours over time.

This improves their self-esteem, their productivity at work and by extension, improve the lives of their children.”

Posted on

Financial stress a perennial reason couples split

In a sea of couple conflict, find stability

Financial stress a perennial reason couples split.

It’s February already and in a lot of relationships that means money worries will be to the fore.

It’s well known amongst lawyers that returning to work after the holidays brings up dissatisfaction amongst couples.

The pressure of being forced together more often, especially with the added burden of home-schooling during the pandemic, has only increased tension for many couples.

The first working Monday of the year is even known as “Divorce Day” by some lawyers because of the increase in enquiries about separation after the stress of Christmas and the New Year.

Dig a little deeper and you’ll see a correlation between that stress and the bills coming in following holiday spending. A lot of it is financial stress.

Money stress has long been a source of relationship pressure.

“Arguments about money is by far the top predictor of divorce,’ said Kansas City associate professor Sonya Britt, from the university’s family studies and human services program, in 2013.

“It’s not children, sex, in-laws or anything else. It’s money – for both men and women,”

Britt, who specialises in “financial conflict within relationships” ran a study of 4500 couples as part of America’s National Survey of Families and Households.

It was published in Family Relations, a journal of applied family studies. The study accounted for income, net worth and debt and found “it didn’t matter how much you made or how much you were worth.

“Arguments about money are the top predictor for divorce because it happens at all levels.”

Britt also found arguments about money took longer to resolve and recover from than other disagreements and used harsher language.

Her research seems to be backed up by people who sought information on relationship therapy in Australia.

An online survey of 2050 people who visited Relationships Australia’s website in late 2015 found nearly 85 per cent thought “financial problems were likely to push couples apart”. More than three quarters of the respondents were women.

This was a big increase on the last time the counselling provider surveyed web visitors on money issues, in 2011. Back then 71 per cent thought money dramas could split couples.

The survey drilled further into why money worries might lead to separation – and the answers were varied. But several of the main causes related to stress; 25 per cent thought financial problems caused “too much stress”, while another 15 per cent answered: “a lot of people can’t cope with the stress”.

Nineteen per cent said money troubles “caused fights” and 12 per cent said such issues “caused blame”.

But the biggest single reason cited in the survey was the more diplomatic “people have different priorities/expectations”, which is another way of saying people disagree about money – presumably how much is enough, as well as how to spend and /or save it.

One finding in particular from the survey showed how mixed up couples are about money: around three quarters of female respondents reported that their male partner managed finances, exactly the reverse of how male respondents answered the question.

In other words, while everybody seems to think they are in charge of the money, nobody seems to be communicating well about finances.

This was backed up by a different set of questions Relationships Australia asked respondents in 2019 – the degree to which couples discussed finances.

Prior to making a commitment to their current of most recent partner, 56% of survey respondents reported they had not discussed how they would manage their couple finances if one of them no longer had an income.

A significant majority of women (74%) and men (69%) reported they had not discussed how they would divide their finances if their relationship ended.

“A mindful approach to money is without doubt a more successful one and a key to living mindfully is being able to accept reality for what it is – good, bad or neutral,” said Andrew Fleming, CEO/Founder of Financial Mindfulness.

It’s not a great leap to see that this can stretch to couples keeping secrets from each other about their finances.

“When we can accept reality, we can admit where we are at with money, not be so intimidated by it and we can discuss financial problems within relationships too.”

“That takes a lot of stress out of relationships, and everyone benefits from that.”

Posted on

Financial stress is widespread

Financial stress is widespread

Financial stress is widespread

Money worries are common. They existed before COVID-19 and now with changes in our employment and society, financial stress has become more widespread.

The Australian Psychological Society reports that financial stress is one of the major causes of stress in adults, and recently published research on the Financial Stress Index (FSI) from Financial Mindfulness, indicates an escalation of financial stress symptoms due to COVID-19 including negative impacts on relationships.

Financial stress is personal and impacts all areas of our lives. It is something we experience regarding our financial situation today or our financial future.

It also involves our thoughts about money and finances and what we do in terms of spending and saving, and how we manage our finances. 

Financial stress can arise during short term specific financial demands such as change in employment, or from a chronic and long-term financial concern, such as increasing debt with interest repayments or difficulty repaying a home mortgage.

The problem with financial stress is that it does not just impact our finances, it can have a significant effect on our wellbeing including our physical and mental health along with our relationships, work, behaviour and potentially our environment.

Some signs that financial stress is affecting your health, work and relationships include arguing with the people closest to you about money, becoming aggressive to others,  difficulty sleeping, feeling downhearted, overwhelmed, angry or fearful, mood swings, tiredness, loss of appetite, and withdrawing from others.

While these reactions affect your overall wellbeing, if they continue for a prolonged period of time, they could turn into serious health issues.  The important thing is to seek appropriate help.

People from all walks of life may experience problems with their finances at some stage in their lives. It is not something to feel embarrassed or ashamed about, especially as those feelings can stop people from getting the assistance they need.

Financial mindfulness means being aware and paying attention to your finances, and that may mean seeking help. The help required will vary from individuals. It may be practical financial support, or learning budgeting skills, or seeking assistance to manage the stress of money worries.

The first step to being financially aware is to determine how stressed you are by your finances. Our unique Financial Stress Index (FSI) designed by a team of Neuropsychologists and financial experts works out your financial stress levels and potential symptoms.

Posted on

Single Women Leading Men in US Home Ownership

financialmindfulness blue Background color

Single Women Leading Men in US Home Ownership.

The latest research into women’s struggles with money, Mary Pilon of Bloomberg notes, can make for dreary news.

“Women earn less than their male counterparts, pay harsher workplace penalties for pursuing parenthood, struggle more with debt, and save less for retirement,” Pilon wrote of the situation in the United States, although she could easily have been writing about Australia.

Crucially, women also lose years from their careers by raising children, they do mountains of unpaid (and often unappreciated) domestic work and to top it all off – when facing financial stress – often give birth to under-weight babies.

Many also still face nagging historical stereotypes that women can’t manage money – despite evidence showing women shoulder more financial decision-making and responsibility in families, marriages and relationships than ever before. Sound like a recipe for financial stress?

Forget ‘dreary’ – the news about women and money can be downright depressing.

But according to new research from the National Association of Realtors, single women in the US are leaving single men in the dust for home ownership compared to single men.

The NAR says 17 per cent of American homebuyers are single women compared to single men, who make up just 7 per cent of the market.

Pilon spoke to “30-something” Michelle Jackson who bought a one bedroom apartment in Denver in 2007 which she plans to renovate and is even considering buying a second property.

“I’m so happy,” Jackson said. “It’s completely changed how I feel connected to the place where I’m living. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done.”

Jackson’s motivation could easily echo the story of many Australian women: “I wanted to have my own place,” she said.

“A lot of people in my circle of friends were women purchasing their homes when they got married, but I still felt like I wanted to build my own wealth and buy.

“If and when I met someone, it’s something that just added to what I bring to the relationship. It didn’t make sense to wait.”

In Australia single men still lead single women when it comes to applications for mortgage finance, according to Aussie Home Loan data reported by domain.com.au in 2016, but the gap is closing. Aussie Home Loans data said 12.34 of mortgage applicants were single men and 11.22 were single women.

Swinburne University social researcher Andrea Sharam said historical discrimination against Australian women in the loan approval process was shifting.

“It’s appalling to suggest women are more financially illiterate than men,” Sharam told domain.com.au.

“I think younger women in particularly are now thinking about housing as something they do as a part of their life plan … it doesn’t matter if they get a partner or not.”

Posted on

In a sea of couple conflict, find stability

In a sea of couple conflict, find stability

In a sea of couple conflict, find stability with Financial Mindfulness.

David and Lisa were filled with love and optimism when they wed amid colour and song in Hawaii in 1994 but like many couples, they recently separated.

With the holiday season over and the New Year sending them back to work and to their new solo routines, 2017 looks like a tough year ahead for the whole family. David, 51 and Lisa, 46 are parents to Joshua (8), Jake (13) and Bella (11).

Josh misses his dad while Bella is angry at her dad and hasn’t seen him for 4 months. She quit her after-school job at a retail chain because she has exams this year. Jake’s behaviour problems at school have worsened since the break-up.

David works as an executive in a chartered accountancy firm and has strong earning capacity but as a divorce seems likely he may have to give the house to Lisa as it’s simpler for the children to spend the school week with her.

Both David and Lisa have been emotionally and physically affected by the separation and are worried about the future. Although each have big financial worries they have become less careful with money, sometimes spending to numb emotions like anger, grief, loneliness and sadness.

David and Lisa would see improvements to their mood, energy and sense of security if they introduced proven mindfulness practices into their lives, especially around how they use money – in other words, Financial Mindfulness. Mindfulness is not, as some people believe an attitude, but is better described as the regular practice of moment-by-moment awareness.

A ‘financial wellness’ study by PwC, employees found 52 per cent stressed about their finances with 45 per cent reporting more financial stress in the last 12 months.

More than half of Australians say personal finance issues are the leading cause of stress in their life, according to the Australian Psychological Society.

Reconciliation after 23 years of marriage seems unlikely for David and Lisa. The couple argued loudly at home for six years before they agreed he would move out.

Lisa is angry and feels disrespected and that David has been a poor husband, although she accepts he has mostly been a good provider and done his best as a father. She accepts some contact with their father is good for the children but struggles with any interaction with David.

“How can I trust anything he does now?” she often hears herself saying to friends and family.

Lisa feels resentful with three children to look after, and tries to make herself feel better by socialising with friends over dinner, at concerts and art galleries, pampering herself (at health retreats when David has the kids).

She has taken a few short holidays and one extended one to Britain where her sister and her husband live and then through Europe. She also re-joined the gym because she is drinking and eating more and has started smoking again.

She is still working in human resources as a consultant but has a rising credit card debt.

David now lives alone in a two-bedroom apartment 30 minutes from the family but still does maintenance on the house he owns with Lisa, though he isn’t welcome to let himself in. He also maintains their investment property. Since the separation (7 months ago), David drifted into depression and is finding seeing the children for only 3 days each fortnight difficult.

He is working longer hours, going out for late dinners, is drinking more and goes on fishing and golfing trips with old friends.

He has also increased his spending on his two collecting hobbies: wine and sports memorabilia but is also gambling too often. He recently lost his driver’s licence for drink-driving.

“I sometimes wonder what the point is to any of this,” David often thinks. “Without the kids there wouldn’t be much to life for me.”

David and Lisa are doing individual therapy and meet for family counselling once a month. But growing financial pressure and stress is not helping their coping skills and both find themselves unhappy and snapping at their children sometimes.

In the coming months, separated couples like David and Lisa, going through these very normal life changes, can find some respite by empowering themselves with the comprehensive one-of-a-kind personal program to be delivered by Australian start-up company Financial Mindfulness

Financial Mindfulness will bring a completely new element to the world of personal financial behaviour by giving people medically and scientifically-proven tools to make spending decisions that they will be proud of later (instead of regretting).

“Everybody has a need to manage their financial affairs in a complex world. We understand people would like to improve their financial wellness.”

“We can actually help, for the first time people can choose a comprehensive, medically tested personal pathway of actions, to take responsibility in dealing with their financial stresses. A personal program as an app, also transferrable to your computer.”

“Financial Mindfulness creates a pathway for users from the experience and impact of ‘financial stress’ to one of financial health, wellness and fulfilment.” says Financial Mindfulness Founder & CEO, Andrew Fleming.

“As a result people like David and Lisa will become more self aware and take responsibility of their unhealthy financial habits and use the tools of our program to form new healthier behaviours over time.  This improves their self-esteem, their productivity at work and by extension, improve the lives of their children.”

In a sea of couple conflict, find stability
Working together, improving their lives