W hen mother-of-two Jolie Steele split from her now ex-husband in 2022, she was prepared to completely reorganize her professional and personal life. But when she encountered financial challenges she’d never had before, she turned to friends to ask for support – in the form of a divorce registry. Speaking to The Independent , Steele – who’s based in Columbus, Ohio – acknowledged how eye-opening the beginning stages of her divorce were from a financial perspective.
“I realized how quickly your income gets cut in half, and your life expenses pretty much stay the same,” she said. “Everything you’ve built up – all of your assets as the court calls them – gets split. So, I had been talking to friends and they were asking me: ‘What do you need? How can I help?’” Because Steele is the primary caregiver for her children and only worked part-time when she was married, she said she was very financially impacted by her divorce.
Although she admitted it initially felt inappropriate to accept monetary help from her friends, she wrote down everything she needed, then turned to Fresh Starts Registry , where she created an official divorce registry. Following her own divorce in 2019, Olivia Dreizen Howell came up with the idea of a divorce registry out of her own necessity. Speaking to The Independent , Howell, a mother of two, recalled having to say goodbye to what she described as “emotionally charged items” when her ex moved out with his belongings.
“So t.
