Stuff to Do After Your Divorce

My friend's divorce is winding down to a close (kind of, this is the longest divorce proceedings I have ever seen!). We were talking about all of the things she would need to do after her divorce and we came up with the following list:

• Update her Will and Power of Attorney
• Update her insurance beneficiaries
• Close their joint bank accounts and open a bank account in her own name
• Change her name (she is going to go back to her maiden name) on her: driver's license, passport, social security card, etc.
• Change her tax deduction information (ie: switch from married to single)
• Decide on tax things with the ex (she was going to ask her attorney if this was part of the divorce decree) such as who will claim the kids, who will claim the tax deduction on the house, etc.
• Arrange for health insurance (she is currently covered by her husband's insurance but as soon as they get divorced this will cease)
• Find out about what military benefits she is entitled to (her husband is retired military and there are a bunch of rules depending on length of marriage and time in service to figure out what the ex spouse gets)
• Find out what will happen with her husband's retirement pensions (he has two, one military and once civil service). She is going to ask her attorney about this as we think she will get part of these pensions and that it will be spelled out in the final settlement decree.
• Change her online passwords (her ex-husband knows some of her passwords)
• Get her own safe deposit box since she used to use her husband's box
• Apply for her own credit cards. Even though I am pretty anti-credit card she wants her own cards as she has always been an authorized user on her husband's cards
• Re-key the locks in her home (her ex still has keys to the house)
• Update information at her kid's schools (dad's new address, etc)
• Get her own cell plan (her husband has been paying for her cell on his plan)
• Separate her other accounts (airline mile accounts, Costco membership, etc)

That's all we could think of. Neither one of us has been divorced before but the number of things you need to do to re-orient your life after a divorce is huge!