What Actually Happens in a CDFA Session (So You're Not Walking In Blind)

I get this question more than any other. Not “what do you charge?” or “how long does this take?” but “what actually happens when I sit down with you?”

It makes sense. Most people have never heard of a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst until they’re in the middle of something painful, Googling at midnight, trying to figure out if their settlement is going to work. The last thing you want is another meeting that leaves you more confused than when you walked in.

So let me walk you through it. From parking lot to follow-up email. No surprises.

Before we ever meet

The real work starts before your appointment. When you book a session, either in person in Spokane or virtually, I send you a short intake form. Nothing complicated. I’m asking about the basics: how long you’ve been married, whether there are kids, what the major assets look like (house, retirement accounts, businesses), and where you are in the process.

I’m not asking because I need a perfect picture. I’m asking because I want to make the most of our time together. If you’ve got a pension and two rental properties, that’s a different conversation than a dual-income couple with a 401(k) and a house.

I also send a document checklist. More on that in a minute, but the short version: bring what you have, don’t stress about what you don’t have yet. I’ve been doing this for 20 years. I can work with incomplete information and tell you exactly what’s missing.

The first ten minutes

When you sit down (or log on, if we’re doing this virtually), I’m not going to jump straight into spreadsheets. We talk first.

I want to know what’s keeping you up at night. Sometimes it’s “I don’t know if I can afford to keep the house.” Sometimes it’s “my spouse handles all the money and I don’t even know what we have.” Sometimes it’s “my attorney says this is fair, but something feels off.”

All of those are good starting points. Each one tells me where to focus.

I’ll also ask about your goals. Not vague goals like “I want to be financially secure.” Specific ones. Do you want to stay in Spokane? Do you need to be close to a particular school district? Are you planning to work full-time, or are you re-entering the workforce after years at home? Is retirement in five years or twenty?

These aren’t small talk questions. They shape every number I run.

What I’m looking at (and why)

Once I understand your situation, we start looking at the financial picture. Here’s what I’m typically reviewing:

Income and expenses

Not just what’s on a pay stub. I’m looking at the full picture. Bonuses, commissions, overtime patterns, side income, rental income. On the expense side, I want to know what your life actually costs, not what your budget spreadsheet says it costs.

This matters because support calculations and settlement structures both depend on realistic numbers. If your monthly expenses are $6,200 but you’ve been telling yourself they’re $4,500, we need to know that now, not after you’ve signed something.

Assets (and what they’re really worth)

This is where I spend most of my time, because this is where the biggest mistakes happen.

A $400,000 retirement account and $400,000 in home equity are not the same thing. I wrote about this in detail in my post on what your attorney won’t tell you about the money, but here’s the quick version: taxes, liquidity, and growth potential make two “equal” assets completely different.

In a session, I’ll walk through each major asset and explain what it’s actually worth to you after taxes, penalties, and time. Not the number on the statement. The number in your pocket.

Debts and liabilities

People tend to focus on assets and forget that debts are divided too. Credit cards, car loans, the HELOC, student loans, that personal loan from three years ago. I want to see all of it, because what you owe affects what you can afford.

Insurance and benefits

Health insurance alone can be a $12,000-to-$18,000-per-year expense if you’re coming off a spouse’s employer plan. If nobody runs those numbers before the settlement, you can end up with a monthly shortfall that doesn’t show up until January.

I also look at life insurance (is there enough to secure support obligations?), disability coverage, and long-term care, especially for clients over 50.

The part where the numbers start talking

Here’s where my job is different from your attorney’s or your accountant’s. I don’t just list the assets and debts. I build projections.

What does your financial life look like in year one after divorce? Year five? Year ten? Can you keep the house on your income alone, and if so, for how long? If you take the retirement accounts instead, when can you access them without penalty? What happens to your cash flow if support ends in five years?

I use professional financial modeling software for this. Not a napkin. Not a basic spreadsheet. Real projections that account for taxes, inflation, investment growth, and changing expenses over time.

Most clients tell me this is the moment things click. It’s one thing to hear “you get $500,000.” It’s another thing to see a 10-year cash flow projection that shows whether that $500,000 actually keeps you afloat.

A real example (names changed, numbers adjusted)

A client came to me last year with a proposed settlement. Her attorney had negotiated what looked like a clean 50/50 split. She’d get the house (worth about $425,000 with $180,000 left on the mortgage) and he’d keep his 401(k) and a brokerage account totaling roughly $245,000 plus his pension.

On paper, they both walked away with similar net values. In practice? She was taking on $1,400 a month in mortgage, taxes, and insurance on a house that would need a new roof within three years. He was keeping a pension worth $2,100 a month for the rest of his life starting at 62, plus investments that would keep growing.

When I modeled it out over 15 years, she was $210,000 behind. Not because the split was malicious. Because nobody had looked at how those assets actually behave over time.

We restructured. She let go of the house, took a larger share of the liquid investments, and negotiated a QDRO on a portion of the pension. Same total dollar value on paper. Completely different financial outcome.

What you leave with

By the end of a session, you’ll have:

• A clear picture of what you own and owe. Not guesses. Actual numbers with context.
• An understanding of what each asset is really worth. After taxes, after penalties, after the real costs of holding it.
• Projections for your post-divorce financial life. What your cash flow looks like under different settlement scenarios.
• A list of what’s missing. Documents I still need, questions for your attorney, things to follow up on.
• A recommendation. Not legal advice. Financial clarity. I’ll tell you what I see, what concerns me, and what I’d want you to think about before signing anything.

I also send a written summary within a few days. Everything we discussed, organized so you can share it with your attorney if you want to.

What people are usually surprised by

After 20 years of doing this in Spokane and across Washington, there are a few things that catch people off guard almost every time.

It’s not as scary as they expected. Most people come in braced for bad news. Usually, the news is more nuanced than “bad” or “good.” It’s “here’s what works, here’s what doesn’t, and here’s what we can fix.”

The numbers are specific. I don’t deal in generalities. When I say your retirement account is worth less than face value, I’ll tell you it’s worth approximately $312,000 after federal and state taxes, not “less.” Specifics are what let you make real decisions.

They feel more in control. This is the one I hear most. “I finally feel like I understand what’s happening.” That’s the whole point. You can’t make good decisions about something you don’t understand.

How long does it take?

A first session typically runs 90 minutes to two hours. Some situations are straightforward and we wrap up in an hour. Complex cases with businesses, multiple properties, or executive compensation can take longer, sometimes spread across two sessions.

The deep-dive analysis is more involved. That’s where I build out the full financial model, run multiple scenarios, and produce a detailed report. That process usually takes one to two weeks after our initial meeting, depending on how quickly we can get all the documents together.

You don’t have to have it all figured out

I want to be clear about something. You don’t need to walk in with a binder of organized financial statements. You don’t need to understand tax law. You don’t even need to know exactly what you want out of the divorce yet.

You just need to show up. I’ll handle the rest.

If you’re in the middle of a divorce, or you’re starting to think about one, and the financial side feels overwhelming, that’s normal. It feels overwhelming because it is complex. But complex doesn’t mean unmanageable. It means you need someone in the room whose only job is the money.

That’s what I do. Tell me about your situation, and I’ll tell you if I can help.