Once your marriage ends, you have to go on with your life, right? Unfortunately, you need money. If you are the lower or non-earning spouse, you are supposed to get spousal support from your former spouse.

If you are like other people going through a divorce, you are most likely wondering how you can get the most alimony, and there is nothing wrong with this, as you want a decent life.

The key to getting high alimony is to work with your spousal support lawyers and proof that you need the money. The objective of most divorce courts is to ensure that you maintain the same lifestyle as you had while you were married.

What is the best way to proof to the court that you need more money? you simply need to focus on your expenses and budget. This calls for you to collect all the necessary documents that will shed light on the standard of living you used to live pre-divorce.

Thankfully, there are plenty of documents you can use to your advantage. These documents include:

Credit card statements

Here you need to make a copy of all the statements. If your credit card company provides year-end statements, use these instead of the monthly statements, as they will be easier to peruse.

Carefully go through the statements with a finance professional and identify the recurring expenses. You should even create codes for them to make them easy to identify.

If there will be changes in your expenses, mark them in the statements. For example, if you owned the house while you were married and now you will have to pay rent, indicate this.

Checking account statements

These are the actual canceled checks or scanned copies of checks. Besides just having copies of checks, also write a description of what the expense was for. Again, if there are recurring expenses, make a note of them and make them easy for anyone to identify.

Explanation of Benefits statements from your insurance company

The purpose of these statements is to help you pin down any unreimbursed medical. By requesting this statement, you can easily quantify how much money you spend out of your pocket on yourself and your kids.

To get a high spousal support amount, submit all the medical claims on time. This calls for you to contact therapists, dentists, doctors, and other relevant professionals and request all invoices.

While at it, pull credit reports for yourself and your spouse. The purpose of doing this is to verify credit score, liabilities, mistakes, and any hidden accounts that might be there.

Tax returns

You need to get the actual filed tax return from the government. The purpose of doing this is to give the courts an idea of the amount of money you make so they can compare it to your expenses.

To ensure that you send all the relevant details, work with an experienced professional who will assess your account and help you compile the relevant data.

Passports

You might be wondering how passports will help you get higher alimony, but they do. When you get the passports, you have proof of travel. If the trips are important for vacation or business, the court will consider this when determining the spousal support amount to award you.

Again, if there are recurring travels, work with your family lawyers Fairfax VA and make it clear that you need to continue making these trips even after parting ways with your spouse.