Take this as a lesson in how not to manage your money (should you ever acquire millions)...According to The Denver Post, Heather Mills has spent roughly one-third of her divorce settlement from Paul McCartney. Yes, one-third of the $48 million she was awarded in March.

Granted some of this covered a $300,000 public relations bill and a hefty lawyer tab, a New York City apartment, and renovations on her Sussex, England, home. Additional funds covered her pledge of $6 million to charitable organizations. Throw in a few vacations, a lavish divorce party, and a $1 million staff bill, and...hey, where'd all that money go?

In a 1997 divorce in New York, Linda Graev was awarded a $2.5 million settlement, with her husband, Lawrence, paying her maintenance of $120,000 a year. The payments would continue for 12 years — as long as she did not remarry, or cohabit with someone for “60 substantially consecutive days.”

That larger number ($120,000 a year) should have made it easy to keep the smaller number (60 days) firmly in mind. But her husband, Lawrence Graev, a lawyer and, since 2000, the head of a private equity fund, claimed that in 2004 she and a boyfriend lived together for more than 60 days.

He argued that he, therefore, should no longer have to pay her maintenance.

The New York State Supreme Court cited New York case law, or precedent, saying that cohabiting involves not just living with someone but “sharing finances,” thus melding a couple’s lives together. The court decided, therefore, that Linda Graev did not cohabit.

Her husband appealed.

Earlier this week the New York Court of Appeals ruled 4 to 3 that the term “cohabiting” means many “physical, emotional, and material factors ... depending on the parties' intent.” Because the term was “ambiguous,” they said, the case should go back to state supreme court to determine what the couple’s divorce agreement meant by “cohabitation.”

The dissenting opinion was even tougher for the wife. The three dissenting judges said that she and her partner, who lived nearby, may have not commingled their finances, but they had “spent virtually every day and night together for over 60 days from June through August 2004” in her summer home. The dissenting judges held that her husband, therefore, should stop paying spousal support.

By all accounts the Divorce, Separation Support Group of Raleigh, North Carolina, is a terrific bunch of people, both men and women, at least 600 members, who meet once a week to give advice and help each other. The group was betrayed last January by a Fayetteville woman, Margaret Irene Haithcock, 51, who got $6,241 out of them by lying.

She came to the group and announced that she had a triple tragedy that had put her in debt. Her son had been killed in Iraq, she said, and she had cancer, and needed further treatments at Duke. Also, a fire had burned down her house and her letters from her son who was killed in Iraq.

The group, in response, held several fund raisers for her and actually had a memorial service for her son.

But it turned out that none of that was true.

An arrest warrant was issued in June, charging her with obtaining property by false pretenses. The warrant said that the claims of her illness and a dead son were offered only as a way to get money from the group. It took authorities more than two months to find her.

Haithcock, who is also known as Margaret H. Cooke, was arrested last month. According to records at the North Carolina Department of Corrections, she has a history of arrests and convictions dating from 1984 to 1990. She was imprisoned, most recently, for six months in 1990 on forgery charges. Other charges included credit card fraud, credit card theft, attempted forgery, and cheating on property services.

Haithcock/Cooke pleaded guilty on Thursday (October 9) to the charges, and has been ordered to repay the divorce support group. She was given three years of probation, fined $200, and ordered to undergo a mental health assessment.

Finally, she was told not to be in touch with the support group ever again.

What no one has made clear, however, is whether or not Haithcock/Cooke lied about another thing: Was she ever divorced?

The attorneys’ fees were bad enough, but $655 in emergency in-house photocopying! In a 21-page petition filed in the California Superior Court last week, Britney Spears’s lawyers requested the approval of their legal fees. The hearing will be September 25 at 1:30 in Los Angeles County.

Any woman afraid to open an envelope from someone whose name ends in an Esq. will appreciate that this is one time when it’s good to have your dad running your life.

Since February, when Britney went off to a mental hospital for the second time, her father, James P. Spears, has been the Temporary Conservator of her person and a Temporary Conservator of her estate.

Her person seemed to be in fine shape over the weekend when she shined in silver while picking up three Video Music Awards. But her father, along with the lawyer Andrew Wallet, is also responsible for her estate, which means her money and her assets and her bills.

So her father has to paw through all the legal charges associated with her child custody issues as well as business matters. The lawyers fees for the entire divorce and custody battle will surely add up to one of the largest ever in the US. (There is always that case in Connecticut a year ago that ran up $13 million in legal fees. And a Canadian couple recently topped $1 million in legal fees.)

The petition that was just filed in the Spears case lists $248,625 for February through August already paid to the court appointed attorney Samuel D. Ingham.

The Australian government has just committed to spending $17 million on programs to help traumatized children from divorced families, and it's about time.

This new initiative is part of a divorce related spending spree, and the government has agreed to spend nearly $40 million over the next four years. Money will go to programs for the children themselves, as well as programs to teach divorced spouses how to parent after the split.

I'm cautiously optimistic about this. The commitment to spend this kind of money is clearly an indication that the government of Australia is concerned about the welfare of the children involved.

On the other hand, while that's a lot of money, there are a lot of children being affected, and one wonders how far the money's going to go. A parenting class here and there certainly won't hurt, but I hope the money won't be spent for nothing.

The good news is that Australia has had the biggest single year drop in divorce rates this year, down six percent from 2007. Marriages are also on the rise, spurring some commentators to say that the country is experiencing a "marriage renaissance".

Hopefully, between an influx of funding to help children of the divorced and the rates of separation on the way down, the money will end up helping the kids who need it most.

Recent revelations by Heather Mills’s former publicist may make it more difficult for divorcing women everywhere to bring charges of spousal abuse into the courtroom.

The publicist, Michele Elyzabeth, says she launched vicious rumors against Paul McCartney on Mills's orders and now — surprise, surprise — regrets it.

What Elyzabeth also surely regrets is that Mills has stiffed her for her $295,360 payment. Thus her new title “former publicist” and her tendency to call Mills a “pathological liar, a witch, a bitch and gold-digger who married Paul McCartney for his money”.

In The Daily Mail in London, Elyzabeth, who is based in Los Angeles, now says the accusations against McCartney in the divorce battle were all lies. And she also tattled that Mills’s promised contributions to charity have not happened.

Elyzabeth worked for Mills for four years before their relationship unraveled in a screaming phone call.

One admission in the Daily Mail story resonated with me. Mills realized that horrible lies about McCartney — including claiming physical abuse — would eventually wear him down and give her a more favorable settlement.

But hurling the charge of abuse is dangerous. Moreover it is disrespectful to all women who have actually experienced it.

Now that Elyzabeth has revealed it was all a lie, it may make it easier for others to question the validity of claims in future cases.

According to Elyzabeth, Mills claimed of having a video where Sir Paul was abusive and threatened to sell it to a US TV station for a million dollars. But, in fact, the publicist saw it and "all she had was home movie footage, which showed nothing more than normal family life."

Popular socialite Blaine Trump, whose work includes supporting the New York City ballet, will be giving no more charity to her ex-husband Robert Trump.

Although separated for 3 years, she has now hired Robert Cohen, the pitbull lawyer who represented Christie Brinkley in her recent divorce, to get what she deserves.

Trump, the brother of Donald, had been having an affair with a woman he worked with at his real estate office. Despite the affair lasting several years, Blaine still wanted to work it out since the couple had been married for 25 years.

But then Robert moved in with the woman who broke up their marriage. The woman, who left her husband and two kids to be with Robert, decided that she too wants to be in the tony environments of her predecessor. As part of the separation agreement, Blaine kept the Millbrook country house which she considered her sanctuary. As she told Post columnist Cindy Adams, "it is where I consider home."

So what does the homewrecker do? She tells Robert that she wants to move to Millbrook, a town that consists of only several blocks and a post office.

At first, they looked at a house within three minutes of Blaine's treasured home. As friends shared with me, this meant that Blaine couldn't jog her beloved route without worrying about running into her ex and his paramour.

Blaine begged him to move elsewhere. His family told him not to do it either. Blaine had been a devoted loving wife to him who also had married him when he had hardly anything.

It's not as though there are not many other places like Millbrook near New York City.

Football great Michael Strahan has been granted a Giant relief. A New Jersey state appeals court has ruled that he didn't have to pay $18,000 a month in child support of his 3-year-old twin daughters as part of his divorce settlement with his ex-wife, Jean.

But Jean isn't going to be shopping at the Dollar Store any time soon. In their bitter divorce, where nasty accusations flew like fumbling footballs, she caught a $15.3 million settlement, slightly more than what was specified in their prenuptial agreement. Strahan paid around half of that, and they recently settled a dispute over the remaining $6.5 million.

The court sent the child support case back to a lower court in Essex County and ordered it to recalculate the amount. Judge Lorraine Parker, one of the three judges involved in the decision, wrote, “Both parents have a shared obligation to support their children.”

In the decision, Judge Parker said that “as a healthy, educated, 41-year-old, [Jean Strahan] is capable of earning her own income.”

Perhaps Jean Strahan overstepped when she made certain claims for her daughters’ expenses, including $30,000 a year for landscaping, designer handbags, and $22,000 for baby pictures.

The three-judge panel also ruled that Strahan doesn’t need to pay for his wife’s lawyers, nor does he need to get a multi-million dollar disability policy.

Strahan announced yesterday that he has not accepted a request from the Giants to return to the team. Vacationing in Greece, he said he preferred to stay retired. It would have been his 16th season of professional football.

His salary would have been $8 million a year.

Instead he will receive a $2 million salary working for Fox Sports pregame Sunday show covering the National Football League.

Britney Spears is finding, like the rest of us, that divorce can be expensive. Not only emotionally, but financially.

To resolve her custody dispute with ex-husband Kevin Federline, the belly-baring singer had to pay her attorney $466,000 and his lawyers $250,000. Those bills are enough to give anyone a major bellyache.

Federline was granted full custody of their two sons but she does get overnight visits.

Spears and Federline married in 2004 and divorced last July. She is one of a growing number of women who pay "manimony" — Federline gets $20,000 a month from Spears.

But considering her immature antics, irresponsible behavior, and two hospitalizations, most saw Federline as a better alternative to parent.

However, news reports say that Spears is now expected to contest part of the legal bill as being too high.

According to Us Magazine, the largest bill comes from attorney Stacy D. Phillips, who says in court filings that she is owed nearly $407,000 for four months of work. Phillips claims she has written off another $125,000 in fees.

Phillips states in court documents the case was made more complicated because Spears is under the temporary conservatorship of her father, James. He took control of his daughter's personal and financial affairs after a series of high-profile incidents of erratic behavior and two hospitalizations.

Any payments will have to be approved by a Los Angeles court commissioner, and attorneys representing Spears' and her father's interests indicated last week in court they intend to contest Phillips' bill.

Diana Mercer, a California attorney who specializes in mediation, says she is sympathetic to Britney Spears’s lawyer.

Phil Collins isn’t having Another Day in Paradise this week, because he will be paying his third wife, Swiss-born Orianne Cevey, around $47 million in their divorce case, the largest payout ever by a British entertainer.

But at least the 57-year-old singer-songwriter has had a Groovy Kind of Love in the past few years with WCBS-TV anchorwoman Dana Tyler, a divorced woman, 49, who at least is closer to his age.

The two met when Tyler interviewed him in 2005 and they realized there was something In the Air Tonight.

Cevey acknowledged in a later interview that the couple had grown apart in 2005, and were leading Separate Lives. “We really got on well and then we realized our interests were not the same anymore,” said Cevey, 35, who met the singer when she was 22.

But she says, he will always Be in My Heart since she is looking on the “positive side.”

He has agreed that That’s Just the Way It Is, and, frankly, I Don’t Care Anymore.

Collins will keep a home in near Lake Geneva, in Switzerland, near their two young sons, Nicolas, 8, and Matthew, 4, as well as a bachelor pad in New York and a home in England.

But this is shaping up to be a far more amicable divorce than his previous two. Maybe he has learned from experience.

To end his relationship with his second wife, Jill Taverman, after he met Orianne, Collins gave her the heave-ho via fax. Apparently he couldn’t wait One More Night.

(The fax maneuver was worthy of the Artful Dodger.)

However, he still was generous in his divorce settlement, which at the time was more than $34 million for a 14 year relationship. They had a daughter, Lily, together.

Collins also had an earlier marriage to Andrea Bertorelli, which ended in 1980, and produced two children, Simon, 28, and Joelyi, 33.