Splitting one household into two reshapes income, expenses, and savings simultaneously — Cash Compass rebuilds the solo budget from a clean baseline.
Apple-native · No bank logins · iCloud sync
Post-divorce budgets usually start with a different income picture — one paycheck instead of two, or a single paycheck plus support payments. Cash Compass treats the new income as the new baseline rather than carrying forward the household pre-divorce numbers. Categories reset to reflect what you actually pay for now: your rent, your utilities, your share of kid-related costs.
Alimony or child support — incoming or outgoing — needs its own category for budgeting and taxes. For divorces finalized after 2018, alimony is no longer deductible for the payer or taxable for the recipient (post-TCJA), but it still needs to show up on the monthly budget. Cash Compass holds each as a tracked line, and CSV export handles annual reconciliation.
Divorce is one of the times privacy in a budget app actually matters. Cash Compass doesn't connect to your bank accounts, doesn't share data with third parties, and stores everything in your own iCloud account. There's no shared login an ex-partner had access to, no joint app to remove someone from. The data is yours.
Voice, photo of a receipt, or 3-tap manual entry — every method takes under 5 seconds.
Cash Compass picks the category automatically. Override once and it learns your pattern.
Weekly chart shows where money went. Adjust caps before the month is over, not after.
Two main shifts. First, total household income usually drops on each side — one income covering one household instead of two incomes covering one household. Even if combined income is the same, fixed costs duplicate (two rents, two utility setups, two insurance policies) so per-side discretionary income usually drops 20-40%. Second, support payments redistribute cashflow. Child support is calculated by state formulas and typically covers basic needs for the kids; spousal support varies widely. The post-divorce budget needs to be built from scratch — using the pre-divorce budget as a starting point usually overstates affordability. Plan for 3-6 months of higher costs (legal fees, moving, new household setup) before the new baseline stabilizes. Most people overspend in the first 6 months post-separation and underestimate the long-term reduction in margin.
As soon as separation is decided, even before legal filings. The legal process can take 6-18 months in most US states (some longer for contested cases), and during that period your finances are usually in a transitional state — sometimes still combined, sometimes split, sometimes operating from temporary court orders. Starting a personal budget early gives you data for negotiations: knowing your real monthly costs makes alimony and child support calculations more accurate. It also gives you a head start on the post-divorce baseline. Most family law attorneys recommend keeping detailed records of all expenses (especially anything related to children or shared property) from the moment separation begins. Cash Compass's CSV export can produce clean monthly summaries if your attorney needs them.
Eight categories matter most. Housing for the new arrangement (rent or mortgage, utilities, insurance — usually higher per-person than pre-divorce). Legal fees if still ongoing (track these as a separate sinking fund). Child-related expenses if you have kids (schooling, activities, healthcare, clothing, agreed-upon shared costs). Support payments in or out. Insurance changes (health insurance especially — losing spousal coverage is a major shift). Retirement account changes (QDRO transfers, beneficiary updates, contribution adjustments). New solo expenses you didn't previously pay (the partner's car insurance, gym membership, phone bill, etc., now yours). And a 'transition costs' category for moving, furnishing a new place, replacing items that stayed at the old residence.
Most workable splits use one of three approaches. Proportional to income — if you earn 60% of combined income, you cover 60% of shared kid expenses. This is the formula many state child support calculators use. Equal split — each parent covers 50% of shared expenses, regardless of income. This is simpler but creates strain if incomes differ significantly. Category-based — one parent handles specific categories (school costs), the other handles different ones (medical), and they true up at year-end. Whatever split you choose, document it in writing and track in Cash Compass. The biggest source of post-divorce conflict around money is ambiguity: 'who pays for X?' Specific categories with logged transactions remove the ambiguity. CSV export lets you produce monthly statements if needed for ongoing court matters.
Built native for iPhone, iPad, and Mac with iCloud sync. Works offline.
No bank logins, no Plaid, no data sales. All data lives in your iCloud.
Manual entry, charts, category tracking — all free, forever. Premium is optional.
Track new income, new expenses, and support payments in a private iCloud-only app — no bank logins, no shared access.
Download Cash Compass on the App Store