Death Of A Partner: Dealing With The Financial Hurdles*

*This is a collaborative post*

The death of a loved one is difficult regardless of who they are but when you lose a partner or spouse, things are a lot harder. That one person that you relied on to support you emotionally is gone and there’s a big hole in your life. As well as dealing with the emotional hurdles of losing a partner, you need to be prepared for these financial difficulties.

Preparing The Funeral

In the days and weeks following the death of a loved one, you’ll have to start making preparations for the funeral. Finding a funeral home near you and paying for all of the arrangements is going to be expensive. If your partner has a life insurance policy, the first thing you should do is get in touch with the insurance policy and set the motion in process. It’s probably the last thing you want to be doing right now but it’ll take a lot of the pressure off you when it comes to paying for funeral costs.

Draw Up A Budget

When you lose a partner, you also lose a source of income. It might be a cold way to look at things but the fact is, your bank and your energy providers etc. won’t take your situation into account and you’ll have to carry on paying all of the same bills that you did before. Now that you’re covering all of those costs on your own, things can get difficult. If you’ve got some money from a life insurance policy that will keep you going for a while but you do need to start thinking about how you’re going to organise your finances. Add up all of your expenses and look at your income so you can make a budget. If you’re spending more than you’re bringing in, you’ll have to start making some cutbacks somewhere, otherwise, you’ll end up borrowing money to make ends meet and get yourself into a lot of debt.

When you’re doing this, you’ll need to speak with your partners bank. You need to find out which bills are going out of their account and move them all over to your own. You also need access to any savings etc. that they’ve got in there.

Taking Time Off Work

After the loss of a loved one it’s important that you take the time to grieve properly and come to terms with their death. You’ll have to take some time off work while you deal with all of the emotional and financial hurdles of bereavement but it can make things difficult for you. When you’re already budgeting with a lower income, taking time off work will put extra strain on you. Your employer will give you some paid leave, of course, but that only extends so far. Once your paid leave runs out, you’ll have to start being a lot stricter with your budget so you don’t run into financial trouble.

The loss of a partner or spouse is the worst situation that you can find yourself in and dealing with finances is just another added stress but if you don’t face up to it, things can quickly get out of control.

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