The Current - What's a divorce registry and why are more people using them?

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Divorce is costly — legally, emotionally, and financially. That’s why more people are using divorce registries – a list of things your friends and families can buy to help you start your post-divorce life. We talk to a woman who turned to friends and family to furnish a new life after splitting with her partner, and hear from the co-founder of a divorce registry helping others do the same. Plus, a certified financial divorce specialist lays out the cost of divorce.

If you want to hear daily news that doesn't hurt your soul and might even be good for your soul, check out As It Happens. I'm Chris Howden. And I'm Nielke Oksal. Every day we reach people at the center of the most extraordinary stories, like the doctor who restored a patient's eyesight with a tooth. Or a musician in an orchestra that plays instruments made out of vegetables. Take the scenic route through the day's news with As It Happens, and you can find us wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current Podcast. When Stacey Slager divorced her husband of 11 years, she needed a little help from her friends. When it came time to move out of my own, I did need like basically an entire apartment or suite worth of furniture and basically all the things I needed to live.

Having people offer me things and also asking me what I needed was extremely important. Stacey lived in Utah at the time and was moving home to Vancouver Island. She only took a few things when she moved out, so she was basically starting from scratch. One of my coworkers in the meeting when I mentioned that I'm getting a divorce, she's like, oh, you need to start a divorce registry. I never had a wedding registry when I got married because my ex-husband and I both had been living on our own and didn't need very much stuff. But when it came time to get divorced, we were separating a household and he got some

things like the vacuum cleaner and I was going to need those kinds of things. What's a divorce registry, you ask? It's just what it sounds like. Same as a wedding registry, except at the other end of a marriage. A list of items you need that you give your friends and family to help you start your new post-divorce life. When she got home to Vancouver Island, Stacey's community jumped in. There's a big tradition on Vancouver Island and maybe elsewhere as well, but when you don't need something, you pass it on to somebody else. So either through

like Facebook Marketplace or thrift stores or whatever. But I had this little group of friends in Victoria. At some point, I created this list on a Google Doc that I shared with all of them of household things that I'm going to need when I move out. And so there were things like a can opener and a cutting board. I got most of the things on my list thanks to everybody giving me their hand-me-downs and then a few things that I didn't have on my list but realized later that yes I did in fact need. A friend's dad also donated furniture. Stacey estimates all these gifts saved her as much as 15,000 bucks, money she didn't have at the time. It wasn't just about the money though.

Having just tremendous support from my friends that were generous and non-judgmental and just absolutely there for me. I couldn't have managed without them all. I had this silly idea that I want to put artist statements on like every object in my house or the story of how it came to me because it really is like I've been supported by a village. You know, the couch and loveseat came from Andrew and Josson

and the dresser came from Burgl's dad and different pieces of art that have entered my home through the generosity of my friends. Divorce is expensive. The legal fees alone can be as much as $20,000. Beyond that, there's the cost of starting over, often on one income. Add to that an affordability crisis and the costs mount. And research shows that costs are often higher for women. So people are turning to divorce registries for help. Olivia Howell is the co-founder of Fresh Start, a divorce registry. She's joining us from Long Island, New York. Good morning, Olivia.

Good morning. What were you thinking as you were listening to Stacey's story? I'm going to be honest with you guys. I was about to start crying. I loved it so much, and it's exactly why we founded Fresh Starts. And what she said at the end about the artist statement is so true. That is such an underappreciated benefit of starting a registry, whether it's a divorce registry or a new home registry. We actually have people make registries for job loss sometimes. And when you can fill your home with the items from the people who love and support you,

it actually helps bolster your confidence and snowball your confidence and make bigger, bolder decisions in life. I want to ask you about this divorce registry and how it all works, but before I do that, you went through a divorce yourself. So, what did starting out look like for you? KB I did. I went through a divorce in 2019. I had, you know, on paper, a very picture-perfect suburban white picket fence life with two little boys and a husband. And then, you know, as marriages, 50% of first marriages do, our marriage ended. And I had the experience where he moved out and I stayed in the marital residence. And I remember distinctly looking around my house and it was like a ghost town, right? He took all of his things

and everything else that was left was from my wedding registry or monogrammed. I was so emotionally moved by that and it was very hard to heal with that emptiness around me. That's when I had this concept, this idea that we celebrate weddings and we celebrate babies with a registry, but I actually needed these things. And so I assumed that a divorce registry was a thing and it wasn't, so we set out to build one.

I bet there are a lot of people listening in quite intently right now because talking about money is hard. And what was it like for you and your divorce and how did it impact your finances? I love this question. Well, I am an entrepreneur, so I owned a marketing agency, but I was not making nearly as much as my ex-husband, who was an engineer. And so I was very worried because we bought that house in a good school district. We had neighbors we loved, and my son was just in kindergarten. And I remember going to his kindergarten graduation

and just weeping because I didn't know if I'd be able to keep the house on my own. And I felt like I was screwing up his whole life and our whole life. And it was just really scary. And I will say that what really helped me through that was finding a mortgage expert who could walk me through everything.

And when he said to me, you're making just enough money to assume the mortgage, I cried the joyful tears. I knew everything would be okay, yeah. But it's also the, I mean, the mortgage is the big thing, but then it's all the little stuff. I mean, we heard Stacey talk about needing a can opener and all that kind of thing. So you have this brain, you know, wave of, I had a wedding registry. What about a divorce registry? Tell us how it works.

Sure. So a divorce registry is like any other registry. The way that it works and the way that we always like to remind people is we aim to eliminate the overwhelm out of starting over again. So when you're going through a divorce or any big life transition, your brain can't function in the same way it normally does. And so you really need the assistance in simplifying everything. So we have a bunch of bundles of items on the website that you can quickly add to your registry. We are powered by Amazon because they will protect your address

and lots of divorces, unfortunately, have domestic violence involved in them. And so we wanna make sure everybody is safe safe and so you can go to the website and we have bundles based on budgets of you know a $500 bundle a $99 bundle and also based on rooms of the house so you can go add everything you need for your kitchen your living room your kids room and then also based on style too. So, you know, modern and eclectic and all sorts of fun things like that. We've had people add all sorts of really fun things to their registry.

Who are using these registries, Olivia? We like to say it's for everybody, but it's mostly women and it's a lot of millennial women and a lot of women have to move or relocate when they're going through a divorce because they could not assume the mortgage or the rent of the current living situation. And so it was really, really important to us that we built everything through their eyes that, you know, we understood, you know, myself, I was a single mom overnight, I wasn't going to be able to build big heavy furniture in a house by myself. So we want to make sure everything that we promote for your registry, in terms of adding

that to your registry, are accessible to one single mom or somebody that can do it on their own. But it's a lot of women who are starting over again. How many monthly visitors are you getting? We get about 50,000 page views a month. And we don't collect user data on people because we want it to be a very, very safe place for them to come. But that being said, I personally meet with people going through divorce every single day. I do free 15-minute consult calls and I help connect you to experts and resources and I can tell you I've been booked up this entire year with people who need support. So we are

very busy. Our social media gets over 10 million views every month. We have over 130 experts so you can come browse our experts. And our experts are amazing people in everything from divorce lawyers to divorce coaches to healers and yoga teachers and parenting experts. So it's your one stop shop for everything you need to move forward. There's still a lot of shame associated with divorce and it's a taboo subject in some ways. How hard is it for people to reach out and say to their friends and family, I need help? It is so taboo and it's still so stigmatized and shamed. The way that we work is we use scripts for a lot of things.

So when you go to build a registry on Fresh Starts, we actually provide for you scripts that you can text or use in phone calls with your family members. And we want to make it easy for people because it is so hard to ask for support. And when I meet with people going through divorce, I'm often the first person that they're telling that they're considering divorce. Nat. You mentioned you got mostly female clients, which makes sense because it often impacts women a divorce. But do you hear from many men, and what's their mood when they come to you?

We do, yeah, actually meet with a good amount of men, and we have some male divorce coaches, and a great amount of men on the expert side as well. You know, men, I think, a lot of men come to me because they really do want to be a great co-parent, and be a great dad. And again, a lot of men are in the same position a lot of women are in. They don't have anything when they start out. But culturally, a lot of men are told to not ask for help or support.

And so, it's very hard for them to come reach out. So, we have a lot of people, a lot of men who come to us because their sister or their, you know, friend told them to reach out and we love to help them too. Yeah, talking about that shame again, I mean, has it been a bit of a hard sell to people to say this is just a standard life transition like anything else and that we should be, you know, having, in the same way when a baby is born, we have a registry that we have a registry when there's a divorce. Kirsten Khire, Ph.D.

It's been an interesting journey. When we started this four years ago, there was a ton of negative feedback all across the internet every time we were on the news. And it's been fascinating to watch that cultural shift really happen before our eyes. And you know, we are all about, like I said, fresh starts moving forward, or not bitter or angry. And by reminding people that divorce happens, right? It just happens. We move on, we deal with it.

It's not gonna be fun, but it's going to happen, and we're gonna support people who are going through it. It has been such an interesting shift to watch. So while it's still stigmatized and shamed, we are definitely shouting from the rooftops that it's time stigmatized and shamed, we are definitely, you know, shouting from the rooftops that it's time to just take the shame away from it. Last question for you, Olivia. If I'm looking in my email inbox and I get a ping, you know, support my divorce registry, what would you say to someone who says, why should I get

a gift to celebrate someone's divorce? I love this question. Well, it's not about celebrating their divorce. It's about supporting them through a life transition. So we always like to say that we don't call them gifts. We call them physical manifestations of support, right? So just like Stacey said in her story that when she looks around her house and sees the items from the people who loved her, it is like walking around your house and feeling loved and hugged all of the time. So we support people through all different life transitions. And you know, I like to say, you know, giving your

friend a new shower curtain or a new toothbrush holder is going to cost you $12 and it's going to mean the world to them. So, you know, there's so many little ways to support, and there's also a lot of free ways to support people too if you can't afford anything from their divorce registry. A hug if you can't get them a toothbrush holder. Olivia, thank you very much for your time. Thank you so much. Olivia Howell is the co-founder of Fresh Start, a divorce registry strike. If you want to hear daily news that doesn't hurt your soul and might even be good for of Fresh Start, a divorce registry strike. musician in an orchestra that plays instruments made out of vegetables. Take the scenic route through the day's news with As It Happens and you can find us wherever you get your podcasts.

My next guest is Eva Sachs, a divorce financial specialist. She's in our Toronto studio. Good morning, Eva. Good morning. Before I get into the divorce stats, what exactly does a divorce financial specialist do? So I deal, or we deal with the financial issues in separation and divorce. If we know divorce really comes down to kids and money, so it's the money part that I end up dealing with. I talked a little bit earlier in the intro about the cost of divorce. Can you expand on that a little bit? I mean, what's the economic impact of a decoupling? It's high these days.

Certainly clients that come in to see me or walk into any lawyer's office usually start with the conversation, well, our situation is fairly simple. So how much can it possibly cost? Well, our lives are complicated today. We have a house. We may have a cottage. We've got investments. It's said we may have a business.

We've got pensions. So that complexity and unbundling that complexity is expensive. So let's break down some of the minutiae here a little bit. I mean, what are some of the long-term costs of divorce that start to add up? Well certainly in terms of legal fees, of course, but certainly the bigger issues from a financial perspective is trying to understand what the impact of their own income, support, child support, their assets and liabilities, how all of that comes together with their post-divorce budgets. And so looking at dividing a household up, housing is probably the biggest expense, the biggest asset that

people have, and then going forward, the biggest expense that they have. So how are they going to maintain a similar lifestyle, now taking their overall total incomes or household incomes, dividing them up, and then maintaining a household? And as we know, Canadians are very good at, in most, in some cases, doing their expenses or living beyond their means. So you take that into account and now they're dividing all of that up. It's really challenging. I expect, Eva, that there are a lot of people that look at the finances and go, holy cow, dividing this up is going to cut into my cost of living. But how prepared are people really for the realities of the

cost of divorce and their lives after when they come into your office? They're not. It's hard. I mean, they're dealing initially with the emotional elements of splitting up the family. They're certainly, if there's children, dealing with children and their priorities and what they still want to cover up for their own kids. So when we're looking at, and I spend a lot of time with couples looking at their go-forward budgets. So my starting point is always looking at their current budgets, and that's a challenge

because most people don't pay that much attention to it. They certainly understand, yeah, this is mortgage and utilities and rent perhaps if they're doing that. But when they get into the nitty-gritty expenses, how much do they pay for groceries? How much are they spending on other kinds of things? It becomes a bit more of a blur for them. Yeah, well, it does become a blur. So do you have like an overarching kind of theme question that you ask people? Well, I work with numbers and spreadsheets and so on, so I try and give them a general sense of a list of all the possible expenses that they might have, because in most cases

they start with a blank piece of paper, so they can fill in mortgage, those kinds of things, and then the rest is a blur. So I fill in that blur by having a whole list of categories and when they look at that they go, oh yeah, oh yeah, I do have that, oh I do have that subscription, oh yeah, I forgot about that. And it's all those, oh yes, oops, I forgot, that starts to add up and then the reality comes in of, oh, I really am spending this much, this is what my life is costing me, and then setting priorities for them going forward. So, if they have kids, they may end up saying, and in most cases they do,

the kids are a priority, so let's not change anything there, hockey, dance, soccer, all of those kinds of expenses, how we might be sharing those expenses going forward, are we sharing them 50-50, is dad going to pay for hockey, is mom going to pay for dance, or are they sharing it perhaps in another way, dad going to pay for hockey? Is mom going to pay for dance? Or are they sharing it, perhaps in another way, proportionately to their own incomes? And then looking at everything else, and those are tough choices that they have to make to say, if I, whether, if I'm going to stay in the house that I'm in and now I've got a mortgage or perhaps a bigger mortgage and look at all these other expenses, something has to give. And so, I try and present that as gently as I can, because that's hard for people to be

dealing with. You talk about sharing, of course, lots of divorces. That's a tough word to start throwing around. And so, what advice do you give your clients about avoiding and how to avoid the really expensive option of a contested divorce? When somebody approaches me, certainly a lot of the clients that I have come to me when they're first thinking about separating and divorcing and so some of the, I mean I walk them through different ways of

divorcing, what kinds of things they need to be looking at from a financial perspective, but I really, my overarching message to them is they'll either start the conversation by saying, I just want what's fair. Fair is hard. Fair for me, not fair for you. So getting to fairness is almost impossible. I want, I just want what I'm entitled to. Well, if the law was that straightforward and simple, we wouldn't have contested divorces and lawyers and courts wouldn't have a lot of business. So I try and get them to get into the mindset of what do you need to be okay? And that comes down to what their emotional goals are, but also financial goals.

Does okay mean to you staying in the same neighborhood, staying in the same neighborhood, in the same school catchment area because, you know, having the kids there, the support system that you have there is most important. So if that's the case, if that's what you're saying, that you need that to be okay, then we start looking at not only settlement discussions, but really their go-forward budgets and priorities to say, if that's important, that means, you know, the reality of this is the mortgage I'm going to have, this is the utilities I'm going to have, this is my share of the kids' expenses. What else then am I spending that I might have to cut back on? If they're in your office, Eva, they're pretty, they're starting down the road of thinking

about the divorce. Rewinding a bit here, is there a first thing that someone should really think about financially when considering a divorce? I think they need to think of, you know, are they aware of family finances? Can they put their hands on mortgage statements, on their bank accounts, on do they know anything about their own pension plan, on their spouse's pension plan? You know, so sitting down, I always laugh when I, clients laugh when I say this to them. Even for the spouse that says, my spouse is not sharing any of this information, and the spouse comes home Friday night and says, you know what, honey, let's open up a bottle of wine and I'll walk you through my benefits plan at work or my pension plan at work.

It's not going to happen. And the reality is it should be. There should be those kinds of discussions from time to time to be able to say, let's look at not just investments, because people reviews those, and if they have financial advisors, there's a system of reviewing those, but it's all those other things. You know, whose name is on the utility statements? Whose name, you know, gee, if I'm calling Rogers and now, you know, you're out of the picture and Rogers won't talk to me because your name is on it and mine isn't, you know, so clarifying everything that they have as best they can and having a conversation about that before things go off the rails. You have the nice calm tone of a financial advisor, Eva, but I mean divorce can be really devastating, and the emotions are just so high.

So how do you help clients face their financial realities when they've got all of that emotional stress in there, too? I think a lot of that stress comes from, you know, that moment when they make that decision, and again, clients will come to me, and I'm going to say other divorce professionals, and say things like, we just want to get through this as quickly as we can. Get it done, yeah. And the reality is, A, it does take time, number one, just the process of all of this takes time. But secondly, I think people need the time and space to analyze and think through what in fact, really are their goals. I've had situations where a client has come in to see me and the first thing

they'll say is, no matter what, I want to keep the house. And by the end of six months or nine months or a period of time, as the reality of all of that sinks in, not only from a financial perspective but also from an emotional perspective, they end up with the decision to say, you know what, it's not that important for me to keep the house. I'm actually excited about the opportunities of moving on and starting fresh. And a last question for you as you're talking to clients about planning their new lives. Have you heard about divorce registries? Is this starting to be a thing in your office too?

At first time I've heard about it when you guys connected to me and saying, have you heard about this? I have not, but I think it's an interesting idea. I think the concerns, certainly at the stage when people are seeing me, not a priority, but I think it's important that they think about that. I mean, the one thing that I hear from clients certainly is if somebody is moving someplace else, or a lot of families will do something called nesting, where it's through the process of separating and divorcing until everything is finalized, and for the sake of the children, they'll keep their matrimonial home, they'll rent someplace close by, and they're the ones

that are moving back and forth as opposed to having the kids move back and forth. And so some of that has to be financed, whether it's furniture, some things if they're renting, if they're not getting something through Airbnb or a furnished apartment. So there's those initial costs that may not be forever, but they're there. And so those are, again, the reality discussions that people have to have. And I hopefully I can help them with those discussions. Eva, thanks for sharing your expertise with us. Thank you.

Eva Sachs is a divorce financial specialist based in Toronto. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.