Sort out your finances after a job change, move or divorce

After a new job, a move or a separation, do six things in order: confirm when money will really arrive, list what leaves your accounts and from where, fix what points at the wrong place, deal with what the old situation left behind, update your tax withholding, and redo your safe-to-spend number.

This is written for the US and for one person or one household. It can't cover state law, and it isn't legal, tax or financial advice. Where a separation involves property, children or debts you share, a family lawyer is worth the fee.

An example: the gap after a job change

Say your last paycheck lands on the 10th and the first one from your new employer lands on the 24th of the following month. That's about five weeks with no income. Your bank balance after the last paycheck is $2,150, and every autopay carries on as if nothing happened. This is an illustration, so swap in your own dates and amounts.

The balance looked like plenty on the 10th. By the time the new pay arrives it's $336, and that has to cover five weeks of food and fuel. Nothing here is a mistake. It's a normal month with a longer gap in it, which is why you count the bills between now and the first real payday, not the bills due tomorrow.

The order, in six steps

1. Confirm the real dates for income. Ask the new employer for the pay schedule and the date of your first check, because the first one can land later than a normal cycle. Write down each payday you can count on, and leave out any you can't yet.
2. List what leaves your accounts and from which one. Use a monthly bills list, including the bills that are quarterly or annual. Mark every autopay with the account it pulls from.
3. Fix whatever points at the wrong place. That means the direct deposit form for the new job, the autopay account on any bill tied to a closing account, and your address (see the table below). Keep the old account open until the last deposit and the last autopay have cleared.
4. Deal with what the old situation left behind: the old employer's retirement plan and health coverage after a job change, the joint accounts after a separation, the old address after a move.
5. Update your tax withholding. The IRS says to consider filling out a new Form W-4 when your personal or financial situation changes, and a new employer will ask for one anyway.
6. Redo your safe-to-spend number. The old one was built on a shape of money that no longer exists. Here's how to work it out.

What each change usually touches

A starting list, not a full one. Your own accounts decide what belongs here.

After a job change: the old retirement plan and your health coverage

Leaving a job usually leaves a retirement plan account behind. The IRS describes three ways to handle it: leave it where it is, roll it into another plan or an IRA, or take the money out. A direct rollover sends the money from the plan to the new account and doesn't trigger tax withholding. If the plan pays the money to you first, it must withhold 20 percent, and you have 60 days to deposit the payment in another plan or IRA to keep it a rollover. Which one is right depends on your fees, your taxes and your age, and a plan administrator or an adviser can answer that in a phone call.

Health coverage from the old employer normally ends. Under COBRA you can often keep it for a limited time, if the employer has 20 or more employees, but you can be charged up to 102 percent of the plan's cost. The Department of Labor says you have 60 days to enroll, counted from the later of when your coverage ends or when you receive the election notice. Put that date in your calendar the day you see it.

After a move: the address is on more accounts than you'd guess

Bank, card issuers, insurers, your employer's payroll, your retirement plan, subscriptions with a delivery address and anything that mails an annual statement. The statement is the risky one, because an account you've lost track of is easy to leave behind. The IRS has its own form for a change to your home mailing address, Form 8822, so don't assume a forwarding request at the post office has told them.

If you're renting and the lease has just started, what to document when moving into a rental is worth the same afternoon.

After a separation: untangle the joint things on purpose

On a joint credit card, each account holder is responsible for the full balance, according to the CFPB, and a divorce decree doesn't by itself remove your responsibility to the lender if your name is still on the account. The lender decides how a joint holder is removed, so call the issuer and ask for its policy. Paying the card off before closing it is the usual route, and where you can, closing it together avoids a dispute over who is spending on it.

For a joint bank account, the usual first step is to open one in your own name and move your pay to it before you close anything. Any agreement about who keeps what is a legal matter, so this is where a family lawyer earns the fee. Beneficiary forms on retirement accounts and life insurance are easy to leave as they were, and they override your will. Check them once the paperwork settles, using what to update after a life change.

When this goes wrong

• The first paycheck is late. Move your due dates, or call the biller about one, before the gap arrives. If one has already failed, here are the first 48 hours.
• An autopay pulls from an account you closed or emptied. Check each autopay's source before you close anything, and what to check before your bills come out is the two minute version.
• Two people disagree about a joint account. A guide can't settle that, and moving the money by yourself can create a bigger problem. Talk to a lawyer before you move anything you don't own alone.
• Your money is scattered across old and new accounts. Organize your finances from scratch gives a ten minute starting path.

Questions people ask

Where the Companions fit

Personal Finance Companion keeps your accounts, income, bills, subscriptions and debts in one place, so after a change you are editing a picture, not rebuilding one. Its Coming up list shows what's due in the next 14 days, including pay days, and it flags income that hasn't arrived by its expected date and any bill with no due date. It's a month-level estimate of Available Money, not a count down to your first new paycheck, so use the example above for that. You type everything in, and it doesn't connect to your bank.

For the number you need this month, Monthly Money Reset is free and shows a single safe-to-spend figure with every line of the sum, and it lets you correct a starting balance as things move. Personal Life Affairs Companion records every pension you've paid into and who is named to receive it, which is the part of the old job people lose track of.