Your Finances: How to Use Your Checklists to Build a Settlement Strategy

Going through divorce often feels like trying to understand an entirely new financial world while your old one is dissolving. You may be drowning in documents, accounts, and expenses — but not sure which numbers matter, or how they come together to shape your future.

This guide brings clarity. You’ll learn how to turn three simple worksheets into a meaningful financial picture:

• Your Financial Prep Checklist
• Your Budget Worksheet
• Your What You Own / What You Owe Worksheet

Together, these tools help you understand not only where you stand today, but what your post-divorce future might realistically look like.

1. Start With Your Financial Prep Checklist

Your checklist is not analysis — it’s information gathering. You don’t need to interpret anything yet. You are simply collecting the data that will later drive the decisions.

This includes:

• Pay stubs, 1099s, and W-2s
• Tax returns
• Bank and credit card statements
• Loans and mortgage/lease
• Retirement and investment accounts
• Insurance premiums
• Child-related costs
• Credit reports

Think of this as laying out the ingredients before cooking. Once everything is in one place, the process becomes far less overwhelming.

2. Turn Those Inputs Into a Post-Divorce Budget

Your Budget Worksheetshows what your financial life will...