My divorce was amicable. Although... it depends somewhat on what you mean by that. To me "amicable" mostly means being able to communicate well enough to be good coparents. My ex and I aren't exactly friendly - there's still too many unaddressed issues related to her affair for that - but we get along well enough to have coffee every once in a while, and attend parent-teacher conferences together.
Ive been told if we can do this without lawyers, that would be best in the end when it comes to money
Bad advice, IMHO. Some of the best money you will ever spend will be on your lawyer early in a divorce process. It may seem like a waste of money, but what you are buying is security and piece of mind that you won't be able to put a price on later.
If you didnt go through a lawyer, how long has it been?
We each had a lawyer. I don't know if my ex really wanted one - she probably would have been fine signing whatever my lawyer served her with, but I insisted she get her own lawyer. I wanted to make absolutely certain we would be good coparents once the dust settled. That meant insuring neither of us had regrets about how things were handled later on. Hence, making sure we both had good counsel advising us independently.
would you have done it that way again if you could?
Absolutely.
It was sort of expensive, but not horrible. I spent ~$5K on my lawyer. My ex probably spent $2K on hers. Plus another $200 for a mediator to help us work through the one major sticking point we had (related to finances).
I strongly advise having a lawyer. If nothing else, have them look over your custody agreement and call out anything you may have missed. Because you will almost certainly fail to think about something, and odds are good whatever you miss will cost you a lot more to deal with later.
Did you have children to worry about?
One kid, just entering elementary school. My ex and I hammered out our custody agreement over pizza one day. 'Took about 45 minutes (pretty standard 50-50 split). :-)
I just dont want to create so much bad blood
Divorce is hard, and the relationship you have with your ex is going to evolve dramatically as you grow apart, start dating, make new lives. There are going to be some emotional pangs and twinges, you'll make missteps that hurt one another... but as long as you're both fundamentally trying to do what's right for your kids, and treating eachother with respect, things will be okay.