I cannot tell you how many times I hear clients say, “How is spousal support calculated in Oregon?”
In Oregon, spousal support is a negotiation, not a calculation. Without a spousal support calculator, parties have no idea what is “typical” or what is “fair.”
They hire attorneys to advise them about “fair” and “typical.” Without a spousal support calculation, the attorneys are flying blind, too.
Therein lies the problem. The attorney for the person who is paying support almost always advises a fairly low spousal support amount to their client and the attorney for the person who is receiving support almost always advises a fairly high spousal support amount to their client. They have (intentionally or unintentionally) set-up their clients to fight.
Is the set-up intentional? Many, but not all, attorneys say whatever their client wants to hear because the attorney gets paid the longer the attorney works, and they most definitely work longer when a fight is happening.
Even the attorneys who aren’t intentionally misguiding their clients, don’t know what they don’t know.
Psst! Guess what? I know what spousal support will likely be in Oregon for most given situations.
How do I know? I am not special or omnipotent. I just did the work; the work no one else in Oregon was willing to do. Frankly, knowing what I know now, and how much time and money it cost me to learn what I know, I wish I didn’t know, either. But, since I do…
I want to share the information with everyone for free.
Why am I sharing such valuable information?
This information can save countless families from engaging in unnecessary conflict. I can’t save your marriage, but I can try to save your children from enduring the backlash of conflict between their parents. I take the drama out of divorce. So, I am putting my money where my mouth is.
If you want to understand why I know what I know (and, therefore, trust the bones of the calculator), then keep reading. If you want to cut to the chase, click here for my spousal support calculator.
For five years, I was on a mission to reverse engineer a formula from existing spousal support awards.
I hired a team of law clerks to look at EVERY reliable spousal support award in Oregon. We put the information into a database. Four separate times, I required they start over, from scratch. That’s how serious I was about the accuracy of the data.
I then took the spousal support data and hired math nerds to reverse engineer the spousal support awards into a formula. It cost me over $100,000 to learn this information.
On January 1, 2019, the tax code changed how it treated spousal support and made my database useless. (or as Joey would say on Friends, “It was moo,” because he thought “moo” was “moot.”)
As I was taking some time to lick my $100K wounds, I was also enduring the pain of my own divorce. Then, the pandemic shut-down everything.
Honestly, it took me until early 2023 for me to re-group from the tax code change, my divorce, the amount of money I lost, and the pandemic. Then, I got the itch to finish what I started.
I ran the numbers. Then, I ran more numbers.
l found the secret sauce that made my reverse engineered formula from my former database applicable to the current tax code changes, which means…
I can tell you what most spousal support awards will likely be in Oregon.
But, I didn’t stop there.
After I run the likely spousal support award for my clients, the next question they tend to ask is, “After I pay taxes and (pay or receive) spousal support, what do I have left each month?”
So, I created a second calculator that can estimate what is left in your wallet after paying taxes and (pay or receive) spousal support. I call it the “What’s Left in Our Wallets” calculator.
Ready to see what your spousal support is likely to be and what’s left in your wallet? Click here.
