Cooking The Books

Each week the NZ Herald's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's how to handle a split and the financial fallout. Hosted by Frances Cook.January has a fun nickname in the lawyer world – "splitting season". After being cooped up with each other through the holidays, the stress of Christmas and family expectations, it turns out a bunch of us decide, we've had enough. But of course, like everything else in the last 12 months, Covid-19 is making it worse. Plenty of lawyers have been speaking out, saying there was an increase in demand for their services even before we hit January, because of the lockdowns and stress of this year.Now divorce is obviously very tough, and it's also one of the worst things you can do to your money. Even worse is when through the course of the relationship, one person has simply trusted the other to take care of the financials. When it comes to the split, you're suddenly on the back foot. So how do you handle it to come through this as best you can? F