This week on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast, I’m talking about the 5 ways to ruin your retirement...and all have nothing to do with the economy, the stock market, social security, inflation, or interest rates. 

Today, I’m talking about a rather unpopular topic, especially when it comes to retirement...divorce. When you’re desperate to get out of a marriage, thinking about how that can ruin your retirement isn’t usually top of mind, but I wish couples in troubled marriages would more carefully consider the financial consequences of a divorce before pulling the plug. 

Divorce rates among those 50 & over are skyrocketing. It’s become such a noticeable trend that it even has a name - gray divorce. 

The main financial problem with gray divorce is that the asset split that happens in nearly every divorce cuts your wealth in half. Research from the National Center for Family & Marriage Research found that someone getting divorced after age 50 can expect their wealth to drop by about 50%. And unlike someone who divorces in their 20s and 30s, you’ve nearly run out of time to make up for that lost wealth since you’re so close to retirement. So unless you want to keep working until well into your 70s, it’s going to be very hard to regain your lost ground. 

Someone once told me that the secret to building wealth is: don’t switch cars and don’t switch spouses. 

If you or someone you know is in a troubled marriage, I strongly urge you to work through the financial implications of a divorce and determine how your life might be made more miserable in the long run because of the devastating combination of a divorce and losing half of your assets. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. 

----------

>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

>>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs

>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance