Top Apps When Going Through a Divorce

• Author: Ketan Soni
• Pages: 4-5

4 FAMILY ADVOCATE www.shopaba.org

Going through a divorce can be one of the worst

experiences of your life. Getting a great lawyer

is the rst step to making it better. While I

rarely recommend that you should “do it

yourself,” there are tools out there to help you

get through things in a constructive way. Instead of sifting

through the millions of apps in the Apple App Store or

Google Play Store, I’m going to break this down into the

most useful ones.

#1: Our Family Wizard

Communication problems are one of the biggest factors that

lead to divorce—perhaps the biggest factor. When you aren’t

able to eectively communicate with your spouse, there is an

impact on your children. ink about how hard it is to navigate

school, doctors, appointments, sleepovers, soccer, basketball,

medical bills, and homework while you were together! A divorce

can magnify that diculty in an already stressful situation.

Our Family Wizard doesn’t x the issues between you and

your spouse, but it gives you a better way to communicate

about your children. ere is a built-in custody calendar,

holiday schedule, “expenses” exchange, and other features

that will help lower the stress that child custody disputes

cause. e app lets you put all communication in one place

instead of trying to nd old text messages, emails, etc.,

between you. You can give your attorney access to the app so

they can also monitor communications. Our Family Wizard

is constantly improving the app, such as adding a “Tone

Meter” to let you know when your messages need to be

rewritten! From a judge on their website:

So many of the disputes that bring families back to

court time and time again involve communication

breakdowns. OurFamilyWizard.com provides families

Top Apps

When

Going

rough

a Divorce

BY KETAN SONI

with an excellent communication vehicle that when

used regularly, should substantially reduce the need to

come back to court. More important, regular use

should help reduce the level of animosity between

parents that can be so harmful to children. Even

families not involved in court proceedings should

benet from OurFamilyWizard.com. It is an eective

tool that allows parents to plan and implement....”

Check out all the features at

https://www.ourfamilywizard.com/families.

#2: Budgeting Apps

Pick your favorite, but this is a key piece to getting through

divorce and coming out stronger. Many spouses going

through divorce have never dealt with their own nances and

budgets. Now is the time to start, along with getting a good

nancial planner (before the proceedings are over, not after!).

One I use personally is Mint (mint.com and available on

the App Store or Google Play). Mint lets me enter all my

bank, credit card, investment, and retirement accounts and

auto, house, and other loans into one place. It automatically

updates all of these on a daily basis so I can see what money

is coming in and going out of various accounts. is is

important for multiple reasons:

1. You need to start keeping track of your own nances.

2. You don’t need to look at this every day, but having

everything in one place is very helpful.

3. is will give you a snapshot that your lawyer can use to

help you manage your settlement.

4. You can start the budgeting process for your new life and

see how far on- or o-track you are with spending.

5. You can also see where all of your dollars are going.

Published in Family Advocate, Volume 44, Number 1, Summer 2021. © 2021 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof

may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.