South African celebrities Danny K and Lee-Ann Liebenberg have called off their engagement according to recent reports. Breaking up is never fun and it can also have a large impact on your personal finances. Danny and Lee-Ann were only engaged and not married yet so there would be less of an implication, but if they were married already when they split up then there would be further issues to sort out. So what are the effects of a break up on your money?
- Assets may need to be split
- Single budgets don't go as far
- Joint finances need to be unbundled
With celebrities like Danny and Lee-Ann they more than likely have a whole bunch of lawyers running around sorting this kind of stuff out for them. Lawyers are an expense though that you need to consider if you are thinking about breaking up. Questions like what is going to happen to that house that they showed on Top Billing? Questions like do they have any claims over earnings made by the other one in the six years that they were together? All of these questions would need to be sorted out before they can truly move on.
So if you are contemplating a break up, plan your budget, see exactly what you would stand to lose or gain if there was a break up. Who would take care of your insurance or your medical aid? Would you need to change the kind of homeloan that you have or even sell your property? A break up can be a major decision that everybody dreads but if it can happen to Danny and to Lee-Ann it could happen to you, so be prepared to deal with the personal finance fallout that a break up could cause.