Welcome back to Modern Financial Wellness! In this episode, we tackle one of the biggest pain points for couples everywhere: how to work as a team around money. Managing finances together isn’t just about budgeting and spreadsheets—it’s about trust, fairness, teamwork, and building a life that supports both partners’ dreams. Today’s conversation dives deep into the emotional and practical sides of money and relationships, with plenty of stories and actionable advice for anyone sharing their financial life with someone else.

I’m joined by the dynamic husband-wife team, Douglas Boneparth and Heather Boneparth of Bona Fide Wealth. Douglas, a nationally recognized financial advisor based in New York City, frequently shares his insights in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and CNBC. Heather, after a decade in law and insurance, now directs business and legal affairs at their firm and writes about money, relationships, and modern family life for outlets like CNBC and The Skimm. They’re also the co-authors of the fantastic new book Money Together, which offers couples a compassionate roadmap for building solid financial foundations as a team.

Episode Overview: In this episode, we talk about:

• Why so many couples have the wrong money conversations—and what to focus on instead
• The roles of fairness, trust, and teamwork in a healthy financial partnership
• Power dynamics, especially when one partner is more financially savvy or earns more
• Real stories from Douglas Boneparth and Heather Boneparth's marriage and experience working with couples (including some of my own as a financial planner!)
• Compromise, contribution, and redefining roles as careers and family life evolve
• Why time is just as valuable as money—and should be part of the financial conversation
• How to start better money conversations with your partner, with helpful questions to guide the way

5 Key Takeaways:

1. Healthy Money Conversations Start With Self-Awareness and Empathy.
2. Heather and Douglas emphasize that it's crucial to understand your own background and beliefs about money before you can communicate effectively with your partner. Knowing each other’s stories—the “why” behind the numbers—builds empathy and prevents misunderstandings.
3. Power Dynamics and Confidence Matter.
4. Often, one partner feels less confident handling finances, especially when the other is a financial expert or higher earner. Heather shares how easy it is for the less-involved partner to lose confidence and why each person still needs ownership and awareness of the family’s finances, regardless of who does the technical work.
5. Contributions Aren’t Just About Income.
6. Douglas admits falling into the trap of measuring his household contribution by money earned, but both learned—and model for clients—that taking on the invisible load (managing schedules, carpool, emotional labor, etc.) is equally valuable. Healthy partnerships recognize time and effort as key currencies.
7. Your Money System Must Evolve With Your Life.
8. What worked for you as a couple at one stage may not work later. Heather shares her story of shifting from a stable corporate job to joining the family firm and how openly renegotiating roles and responsibilities can save a relationship from resentment as circumstances change.
9. Regular, Compassionate Conversations Are a Game-Changer.
10. The value of Money Together is in the questions it prompts, not a one-size-fits-all solution. Start small: discuss values, dreams, and contributions. The book’s questions at the end of each chapter provide a jumping-off point for honest discussions, opening the door to greater fairness, trust, and progress together.

Resources & Where to Find More:

• Pick up a copy of Money Together—print, digital, or Audible!
• Subscribe to their newsletter at thejointaccount.com
• Learn more about their advisory work at bonafidewealth.com
• Follow
• Heather Boneparth
• on social media @AverageJoelle

Thanks again for joining us—if today’s episode resonated with you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share with a friend. Here’s to more open, compassionate money conversations with your partner!

Everybody. Welcome back to Modern Financial Wellness. Today we're joined by Douglas and Heather Boneparth, the husband and wife team behind Bonafide wealth, and authors of the new book Money Together. Douglas is a nationally recognized financial advisor and founder of Bonafide wealth in New York City. His insights frequently appear in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and cnbc. Heather, after a decade in the legal and insurance world, now serves as director of Business and Legal affairs at Bona Fide Wealth. She's an emerging voice on the intersection of money, relationships and modern family life. With writing featured in CNBC Insider and the Skim Together, Douglas and Heather help couples navigate the emotional and practical sides of money.

Their new book, Money Together, offers a fresh, compassionate framework for building fairness, trust and teamwork in your financial life as a couple. Douglas, Heather Boneparth, thank you so much for taking the time. Welcome to Modern Financial Wellness. How are you guys?

Good.

Thanks for having us.

So, first of all, big congratulations. The book is out. I've gotten to know you a little bit over the past few years. It seems like a lot of work, a lot of research, time, effort, tears, blood, sweat and tears went into putting this together. So first of all, just congratulations that it's. That it's finally out.

I really appreciate that. It has been a labor of love, but a labor indeed. Right, Doug?

Yeah. Yeah. We didn't. We didn't get divorced over it, which is great. And we're still married, which was central to the theme of Money Together. So this is all.

Yeah. I mean, given the topic of the book, the fact that you guys are here and smiling and still loving each other, it's. Yeah, it's good.

What we preach. We really, really do. But even. But even our. Even our own. Our own wisdom is tested when you choose to write a book with somebody else, I bet.

Yeah. And imagine it's tested from time to time when you choose to work with your spouse or partner as well.

You know it.

Yeah. So tell us about the book a little bit. When you started thinking about putting this together, who are you hoping. Pick this up. Who is this for? Why did you want to, you know, put. Put all the effort into putting this. This book out there into the world?

We felt like people were having the wrong conversations about money and people. I mean, couples. It felt like, you know, it's one thing, and Doug said all this all the time in practice, too. You know, there's the side of things that you want to see. There's the dollars and cents, and then there's what's really going on under the surface. And I think between what he has seen in practice and what we had experienced in our own life and our own challenges in different chapters of our lives from starting out, you know, we met back in college, and then we began our adult lives together in our late 20s, had had babies right when the pandemic, you know, pandemic parenting right in the thick of our lives. We've seen how through different chapters of your life, you can really lose the plot around money, around each other, and how easy it is, even for two people who love each other, respect each other, and are educated in finance and money, how even we can really lose our way. So we very humbly thought to ourselves, like, if we can't get it right, who else can get it right? We need to dig into this more.

We need to start talking to couples about the real issues that are underlying their money conflicts. And so that's kind of how this all began. A couple years.

And what were you seeing in your practice, Doug and I, you know, you mentioned professionals who are trained in finance. I would raise my hand. We, my wife and I sat with you guys for the book. And I would just say it publicly here. Talking about money, working on money as a couple is really hard. And we struggled for a long time, even though I was a financial planner, which probably made it worse in a lot of ways. Right. So I'm curious, Doug, what were you seeing in your practice and these couples that you're working with, what were they getting wrong? Or what were those conversations that they were.

They were having about money, which weren't maybe the right ones? What. What do couples think about when they, you know, think about money together?

Yeah, I think it's a lot of giving people the ability to have a voice. The one thing that I would love to remove from all financial advisors and all practices is this instance where you either have only one partner at the table, or if you have both partners at the table, there's only one engaged partner. And it's very easy to see that someone's not engaged and trying to figure out why that is. And when I think about book from a professional standpoint, I know we're going to equip advisors with the prompts, with the conversations, with the stories that are going to allow that room to be created so people feel comfortable. And what that does for the client, because we lead with the client in mind, you know, is it obviously gets them communicating better and on their way to their financial goals, but it deepens value in the relationship that the advisor has with their clients as well. So we really want to again, get to the point where we create better communication, whether that's in our meetings with our clients or what are they going to talk about after that meeting. How can we give them the resources and structure to engage in regular conversations outside of what we do? Because if they're seeing us for financial planning, I would argue that already doing a really good thing and they're already probably further along than most people. But just because you see your financial advisor doesn't necessarily mean both people are communicating.

And you know, in the instances where it's just one, that's where we need to do better.

Right.

I am, I am so glad, Jim, that you mentioned up front that even like when one spouse is a financial adviser, that even like that that is a challenge in itself because even though, like, it could be a niche comment. Right. For like, me and your w life. But at the same time it's not because I think so many people in a more broader sense, find themselves in relationships where one spouse is more financially savvy, they're more tapped in, they're more interested in money and personal finance. And so it's very easy to default on that person for a host of reasons, not just because, one, it feels easier, but two, I will speak from my standpoint, like you, it's so easy for me to lose my confidence in understanding money and talking about money, knowing that my spouse knows so much about it. So putting even being a financial professional aside, how about just being a financial enthusiast and what that does to your spouse and their ability to tap into the conversation in your house?

Right, Right. You talk about that a little bit in the power section. Right. This understanding about the subject and what that means for the dynamic between a relationship. There's a lot there there.

I think it's really important for people to recognize and I wanted to give those folks, myself included, like, a bit of tough love in the sense that, like, it doesn't matter to me who's actually doing the task of paying the bill or setting up, setting up the spreadsheet or doing anything. But you owe yourself individually, not to your. You owe yourself first that responsibility to know what's going on. To a certain extent, you owe yourself that understanding of your own goals and dreams as an individual. Because if you haven't identified those, what are you bringing to that joint conversation? How can your. How can the relationship make room for you if you're not stating your case for what you want?

Right, right, right. So you start off the book with this section on Beginnings, which is all about understanding where you come from, who you are as a human being. And that was something that I overlooked in my own relationship. When we sat down and started talking about money and struggled with it. I just didn't really understand my partner well enough to make those conversations better. Can you talk to us a little bit about these beginnings? How do we get to know our partner a little bit? And why does that matter? Why is that so important to understand who they are and where they come from?

Absolutely. It's all about perspective, right? Being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes so you can have empathy. But that perspective perspective I mentioned is about making sure you avoid things like having races to the bottom when it comes to who had it worse and creating kind of tit for tat moments, which a lot of people do. But before you could ever. Let's take a step back. Before you could ever, you know, have that perspective, you need to understand yourself, as you said. Right. And I feel like a lot of people are lost in just understanding who they are and where their relationship and scripts with money come from.

Whether it's their culture, their upbringing, their childhood, religion, whatever that may be. These are all the things that have influenced us long, long before you likely have met your partner. And then you need to know, you know, you don't just find someone you love and all of a sudden you guys are communicating perfectly and swimming in harmony when it comes to your money. So gaining that perspective will allow you to start changing behaviors, right? So next time there's that big purchase or that thing you know, makes your partner anxious or that their more prone to risk than maybe you are, it's not going to catch you up as you're just engaging with one another. You can come in with that perspective, shape your conversations better, and have better behavior when it comes to teaming up around money.

I think you also start to see where you're going to have to make compromise when you really understand each other's past. It's not empathy is a big piece of it to understand your partner's behavior. But there's real compromise that needs to take place when you come from different, for an example, socioeconomic backgrounds. We write about privilege and about what it means to come from family wealth. Whether you want to participate as a recipient of family wealth and what that may mean for you in your relationship and your family moving forward. Like these are actual conversations that you can have because expectations and setting them early rather than reacting to the way that they manifest in the day to day of your life, like, that's what sets you up for success. Because identifying your joint values, which you only can really do when you understand these things, gives you that, for lack of a better term, that thesis right in your relationship. Like, these are the things that we hold dear to our collective relationship and our family.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious where you guys started to think about these things in your own relationship. In my own. It was well into marriage. We were having babies and buying houses and making big decisions. That's where all this stuff kind of came to a head. And prior to that, it's no big deal, right? You find a partner, you fall in love, you rent an apartment.

Everything's kind of cool. You're operating separately, together, financially. But then all of a sudden, there's like, this one moment where, like, ooh, maybe I need to take a step back and get to know my spouse a little bit more deeply so that we can move forward together. And I hope that people pick up this book and, you know, maybe start themselves down the journey a little sooner than I did. But I'm curious, like, you know, I'm sure you guys weren't always doing deep, meaningful work together from day one, right? There's always kind of this point where you. You kind of stumble into that.

Yes and no. I think that more people are in your shoes than were in ours. I. I would agree with you, yes. Most people are not doing that. Doug and I have, I think, unique family circumstances that have put us in positions to be having conversations about what our life would look like together. Often, I, you know, I'll just speak on my own behalf that I'm a product of divorce. I'm an only child on both sides.

Sides of my family. Only child and grandchild on both sides of my family. So that has. Has had a massive impact on my understanding of the world of family, of relationships, of my ability to trust people. And so I, I, We. I think to reach a point in our lives where we were even talking about our adult life. We know a lot about each other, but we had to know that much to even really survive. I think, like, our 20s, I, and I, and I.

But I recognize that is not the situation that most people are in. Most people. Do you meet someone, they're cool, maybe they're hot. Like, they have a. They have a good. You know, you're like, all right, these people check out this. This guy. This girl checks all the boxes in my life.

I think we could have a nice life together and some of these conversations. Yeah. We'll have them when they, when. When they're relevant to us. And they may not be relevant until you need to make a major financial decision together. And I think a lot of people find themselves. One of the financial therapists we spoke to actually said, you tend to know that when you meet someone, you tend to know the facts about their lives, not the stories. And I think that that's true in most people's cases.

Doug and I would say are outliers.

To that I would pick. That's a perfect segue on a point that I wanted to pick up, which is, you know, the conversations you have in the early aughts of your relationship with someone don't always necessarily need. The important ones aren't necessarily the facts and the, excuse me, the figures you know of your financial lives. It's the questions and understanding of that person and the experiences that they have. Heather said it perfect by, you know, echoing an expert in the book, which is, what are those stories? You know, even on first date, third dates, if you're listening to this and just starting a relationship, you're not going to ask someone what their salary is. You're going to ask them what it was like growing up, how many, how many siblings they had, you know, where. Where did they spend time with their families. And those are all great ways to get an idea as to what their financial life was like in the early stages of their lives, why they maybe want to split that bill with you 5050 or whatever the behavior is.

You can gain that understanding and you just need to be aware of when you're learning these stories about that person. It's fodder for understanding and gaining perspective. Should find yourself in a furthered relationship or a more serious one when, guess what, you will be sharing expenses, you will be commingling your finances. And that's really tactical stuff. Not.

See this come up. Yeah. And you know, where you see this come up a lot? Where people diverge is around optimism, Optimism for future opportunities and your ability to withstand change or to take risks. A lot of times your perception of that comes full circle. And, you know, like the last section of our book is about risk, but we bring it back full circle to the beginning, about your beginnings. People are optimistic. It was interesting because I found that people who were willing to take risks fall into two categories on opposite ends of the spectrum. On one hand, there's people who come from immense privilege, and so they always had this existential safety net, and they still do as adults under everything they do.

And, and so they're like, well, yeah, why not take the chance? Or why not invest in yourself? Because they never really knew what it felt like to lose it all, and that was never really a risk to them. Then on the other side of it, there were people who built from nothing, didn't have anything, had to take risks and bet on themselves to get where they are. And they're like, what's the worst that can happen? I've already experienced that, so it's so interesting. But both stem back from your beginning and your childhood and things like that.

It's always really interesting to me as a practitioner. We talk a lot in wealth management about people's unique needs and their, you know, uniqueness of their situation. But on the technical side, everything's pretty straightforward. What to me is always striking is the infinite combinations of people and beginnings and stories. Right? That's where it gets super unique. And I'm just curious, in doing your research, was there anything. Because it sounds like you guys have been doing a lot of this work, maybe sooner than a lot of people get into it. And that served you really, really well as you moved into kind of adulthood and being married and everything.

When you're talking to people about these combinations of stories, did your perspective change? Did you learn anything new? How did your kind of thinking about money as a couple evolve with. With all the work that went into this book, knowing that you. You had been kind of doing a lot of work prior as well?

Well, do you want me to answer it or you want to answer it?

I'll. I'll kick it off here. I mean, and. And I'll be honest and say that I learned a lot about what I wasn't doing, whether that was making space for Heather in her career or in the things that I need to be doing at home to allow her to move on just from having supported me for 13 years to build this business? You know, her ambition not only is a collective one between the two of us, but she has her own ambitions. And, you know, dampening them for my benefit for too long starts to become counterproductive. It creates resentment and it not solving for happiness and fulfillment both in our individual lives and our collective lives, that meant owning more tasks. That meant making sure that what needed to be done both professionally and personally, could be done. So for me, it was a very uncomfortable year in there.

As Heather left the corporate world, joined the firm. We decided to do this project. That's a lot of change. Just on that basis alone, you were going to find yourself uncomfortable if you're Me having grown so accustomed to everything I was doing during that entire time, thought I had it all figured out, thought everything was good. If I wasn't prompted by Heather and we didn't sit down to have a discussion, I'm sure I would have just kept going, doing what I was doing.

And it was good from your standpoint. Like I was holding down a steady corporate job, six figure job, paying for our family's benefits. Doug could take as many risks or as few risks as he wanted. He could grow the business as much or as little as he wanted, and life was good for him.

Yeah, well, the trap is thinking that, you know, what's good for the goose is good for the gander here. Right. Well, you know, we're all. And this is one of the right place.

He's like, my win is your win. Like, this is a team thing, me building this firm and doing whatever. And he wasn't wrong, but.

But, you know, my heart's in the right place. I think all too common, you know, bread earners and folks that are making or. Or the producers of the household mistake their production of income as contribution to their household. When that becomes lopsided and unfair, which is not equal, but unfair, this is where those cracks start to form and the issues start to rear their ugly face.

I don't think he realized that by solely focusing his contribution around the fact when he started earning substantially more money than I was. I don't think he realized that his lack of contribution in the other areas of our life was actually hindering my ability to excel at work. And I think a lot of women find themselves in that position.

And I'm curious, Heather, how long did you hold on to those feelings? Did you kind of feel what was going on for yourself and kind of just muscle through for a period of time? When did you finally.

How long did you hate me, baby?

You know what?

Because I think that people, we get into these routines both as the producer and the breadwinner or the one at home that's carrying that load, right? And we just. It is what it is. We kind of sit there for a long time and we kind of stew in that. That's where resentment builds. So it's like, how do you get comfortable just coming to the table saying, hey, this doesn't work and we need to realign with what's going to work for us as a couple.

Well, this goes back to a lesson that I think is one of the most important in the book, which is something that maybe made sense at one point in time. May no longer make sense now. And those are some of the hardest changes to make. Something that didn't start out as a mistake became a mistake over time. So we are a great example of that, because when I made the decision to go into corporate law and leave private practice, I took a pay cut to go work for a big company because the hours were better. We knew at that time that we were going to maybe start trying to have kids within the next couple years. Doug's firm was taking off, but we needed me to have, like, emotional financial, like, corporate stability for him to go.

Paycheck every two weeks. Health insurance. Yeah.

And I could walk out the door every day by 5 o'. Clock. I traveled a bit, but it was very stable. Like, it was really predictable. And we needed that for us. And it made complete sense because I really didn't like private practice. I was getting, like, they were really taking my pound of flesh for years. And as a lawyer, I hated it.

I really hated it. So I was. I was very happy to kind of, like, make this transition. And that worked for a couple years. But over the course of my corporate law career, we had our second baby. I call those years the Bermuda Triangle of my career. I saw how having children was impacting my ability to excel at work. And I think the way that many women feel, and that is a very, very real truism, is that it's really hard to distinguish between institutional failures, your own failures, and what's going on in your home that doesn't provide the environment to support you to excel at work.

Three things, like, it's not any one thing. Like, was not the. You know, and. And so when we look at that, and I looked at Douglas and I realized that, like, I'm not bl. It wasn't. He wasn't to blame. But I was even telling myself stories about whose time was worth more. And, like, now we're going into the pandemic and, like, light the whole thing on fire during COVID and we're all working from home.

But it was very clear whose time would be worth more. It was his, because by that point, he was earning three times my corporate salary. It was easy to decide who was going to handle the majority of the mental and physical load for our family during that time. But what that did was reinforce something that had already been kind. Like this. This dynamic that had already been kind of building for a couple years before that. And it was just fully unsustainable. Not only was I not growing from a corporate career standpoint, but I was Also expected to help Doug build this firm at night.

Like I was expected to help. So I basically had three jobs and we reached a point where I looked to him towards like the end of COVID Meaning, like when they wanted me back in my office and things were starting to appeal. Appear normal again, whatever that means.

I wish somebody would have come out and said, it's over. That never really happened.

Yeah, that never really happened. And that was a whole thing in itself, like, like the mental burden of trying to figure out what you should and shouldn't do with small children and like your job trying to balance what your job wanted versus what the preschools and the schools wanted. It was very difficult. But, but to make. I'll wrap it up. But like, there came to be a point where I said to him, this is not sustainable. I'm either going to. Either you're going to dial back at work and I'm going to excel in my career and figure out what this next chapter looks like for me, or I'm done with corporate law, I'm joining the firm and we're going to go all in on all the stuff.

We spend every night working on one or the other. And I think he, he, he knew, he knew when I had came to him that I was on my last straw.

Yeah.

And Doug, how about you? When you think about contributions, where does your mind go? And how do you think about being supportive in other ways besides, you know, growing your firm and being successful at work?

Yeah. So this is an area of the book that I know is, is very, very near and dear to Heather. And it's a part of the book that has applied to me and probably where I've seen the most change in, in my life. And you know, Heather will be the first to tell you, I'm an all in parent and a full contact dad when it comes to participating in my kid's life. You'll never see me opting out of anything that they do. But there's a difference between. Again, Heather said it like his heart's in a good place. Surely it is.

But when we think about the invisible load, whether that's physical or mental, that's where I was lacking. Right. And it's little things. It's death by a thousand cuts sometimes. And I'll give you a good example of that. Honey, just tell me what to do and I'll do it.

You know, it was a big. That was like his favorite line.

Yeah, I forgot the reference to the book. But that, that brings me back. It's this idea That I will do anything for my wife and be supportive however you want. I just need you to tell me exactly how to do it right. And that in and of itself becomes like a problem.

One more thing that you have now successfully put on the back or in the mind of your companion here, and it's. It's not going to work. You have to literally take ownership over things from beginning to end. It's a reframing of how you behave and taking a look at the things you don't do and where you can participate and ensuring that from start to end, you take ownership over that. It was, for me, the example.

Give the good example.

Becoming swim dad. I wanted to make sure that the only thing Heather needed to do when it came to our older daughter and her swim meets and practices was showing up and cheering her on.

He buys the swimsuit at the beginning of the season. He puts the practices on the schedule. He arranged the carpool he drives every week. It's not just the driving. I think that's what people need to see. It was.

There's payments that need to be made, there's coordination of things. And you can start looking at your life beyond what you do for a living and start thinking about, how can I contribute from start to finish in areas. Because you start doing that, you will reap big rewards and big benefits, not only in the efficiency and time and how your family is being operated, but the. The. The feeling of respect and love and all the good stuff that your spouse can provide you for stepping up and doing that. It is worth getting uncomfortable. It's the second time we talked about, at least me getting uncomfortable. And I can tell you the reason you do it is so that what was once uncomfortable becomes comfortable and it becomes natural.

But also because that's where the growth is, is the growth in every aspect of your life. This one, we're talking about the relationship that you have with your partner. So I'm very interested in having all of that growth and making sure that we continue to grow together and improve. So for me, that was a big change in terms of what I had to do in order to make things better for us.

Yeah, I think that section of the book is really, really powerful and important. And I think it's often overlooked when you start talking about couples. And the power thing is. Is always kind of there, but I think it's often overlooked, especially when you have kids, is like, how are we contributing to make this thing work really efficiently so we all have some space to just enjoy what's going on real quick.

Time is our greatest currency, and I don't think we talk about that enough. I see a lot of. A lot of these books, personal finance books, people talk about time, but they talk about it in an individualistic sense. They talk about time as you get older and that you should enjoy your time and, like, think about how you spend your time. But we're not talking about time as a currency between you and your partner. And that time needs to be part of the money conversation so that everybody's getting what they need so that they can then get what they want.

Right. Right. Doug, were you going to say something?

No, we're good.

You're gone.

Yeah.

So how has the. Have you started to get some feedback from people? What are people saying about the book so far that is either surprising, made you feel good? What do you. What do you. What have you enjoyed hearing so far from people who have been able to check it out?

My mom really loves it. She thinks it's fantastic. Now, Heather, this one's for you because you deserve to talk about how your writing has already created impact and some of the effect that these stories have had on people.

The couples, the couples themselves who are in the book was my primary concern and being sure that they feel as though I've represented them and that they feel moved by my perception of their story.

Well, and you're sharing both of you individually as the authors, but the people that you're putting these stories out are all very vulnerable. I mean, these are. These are pretty deep, personal, personal stories that you put out into the world. And Glad to hear. Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

It really meant it, really. The heaviest weight of this entire project was being sure that I represented not only accurately, but just like, the emotional depth and the weight of how serious some of these topics were. So that was really important, and I feel like I'm doing that. And people are generally happy. I mean, happy is not the right word. They understand the representation of it's really hard. So here's something very that's surprising about not only writing a book, but it's like kind of like a weird, uncomfortable thing. I think people have a certain, like, story that they want to share with you.

But what I tried to capture was the story that I heard.

Right, right, right.

And, And. And never was that more true. When a financial advisor and their spouse.

Sat down to speak with us, I'm.

Just kind of laughing to myself because that was me. And pre interview, you know, time frame, I'm thinking to myself, all right, well, how do we frame all this intimate stuff that we're about to share, right. And how is this going to come across rather than maybe just sitting there and telling the story. So I felt that as well as.

Being, yeah, you guys, and you gave me, and you gave us something incredibly important to, to think about. But you know, when I. But in terms of other people who are just reading the book, I think the thing that's most resonant with people are, are the stories. And that's what we were hoping for. So many people have said to me, people have been texting me photos of a paragraph and they're like, oh my God, that's me. And that's what we wanted to have happen.

And that's why I was curious if, you know, being a financial planner, having a spouse that's worked in corporate, they're in your kids ages, everything you guys are dealing with at home, I, I felt very seen when I read the book, but I was kind of curious. I, I would imagine that other people are going to have that same kind of reaction and that in and of itself, just to know that somebody else is out there dealing with the same things, have similar struggles or having to figure this all out, I think is really, really important and impactful. So I'm glad to hear that that, that feedback is, is coming back to you guys.

You know, that's one of the reasons why we wanted to go so Micro with it. 30 short chapters of snippets of eras of little of these issues and these feelings that underlie these broader themes about the way that, you know, whether it's mistakes and the way that we view things we wish went differently, but like, it's not just about spending. Like you see a lot, like when people talk about mistakes, you see a lot about credit card debt. Like, it's not just about that. It's about like these more deep, intimate moments that we really like. I think a lot of people like were looking for the words. They didn't have the words to voice these things to their partner. And that was the goal of the book was like, well, if we put some words to some of these feelings and then we give people questions for them to sit down and maybe start having some of these conversations, then we won.

That's the goal. Open the, open the door for people and help them walk through it. And hey, you're having that convo you'd never had before. If life got a little bit easier, man, you know, the price of admission was well worth it.

Yeah. And I think I love the resources, the questions that you provide at the end of the chapter, I think are so. Can be so helpful for people if they're trying to figure out, all right, I saw myself in this story. I can relate to this. What do I do next? That's a great place. Just pick a couple of those questions and start having a conversation with your spouse or partner. Right. And just get curious about, you know, where they're at, where they're coming from.

You guys do a great job of giving some. Some of those resources and a little bit of a track to at least start your. Your run on. Yeah.

And, you know, we make a point of saying, and I think this is important, that I don't care whether you answer all the questions at once, whether you do it over the course of two years, whether you just start with two questions. It doesn't matter. You're opening the door. That's the point. That this is a practice. I. I'm not promising you 10 steps to financial freedom. That is not what this is.

This is a practice that's going to make your. Make you and your partner more curious and loving and attentive to one another and what your needs are. That there is no one solution for that.

Yeah. Yeah. If I can offer a little bit more praise to Heather. I'm a huge Audible fan, so I love books. I love going to bookstores. I love having a book in my hand. But quite frankly, if I am in a position to read a physical book these days, my eyes are closing and I'm falling asleep. So that's my life.

So I'm in a car, I'm at the gym. I consume all my content through my ears. And for those that are Audible fans, Heather narrated the Audible, which is awesome. Congratulations.

That was crazy.

I mean, I could talk to you. I'm curious about what that experience is, but the one thing that I think is so awesome about it, it is you giggle. You kind of chuckle at the stories as you're reading them. There are some times when it felt like maybe you're holding back tears and getting choked up in those moments. It just made it so authentic and so relatable. It was so well done. So you should be really proud of how that came out. And as somebody, again, who's an Audible.

Nobody'S talked to me about the Audible yet.

The Heather Bonaparth Audible experience is.

Talk to me about the Heather Boneparth Audible experience.

It's so worthwhile, I think, such a missed opportunity for authors to tell the story in their own voice. And again, when you're sharing some of these vulnerable moments, past experience from your own life or reading somebody else's, you know, to have that authenticity kind of come through your voice. And it's not just a sterile, you know, narrator I. I thought was fantastic.

We were asked. We were asked by a few people because as they read, they want to know whose voice they hear in their head. Certainly friends of people who know our voices. And. And that came up on more than a couple of times now. I will say, whoever read the questions in the odd. In the audiobook, he seemed a little talented. He seems like he's.

He's a professional. Like, this is like a voice actor. Maybe you heard him in a cartoon or something. I don't know.

You should have seen this guy walk in after, like, two and a half days of me just, like, going at it at this recording studio in New York City City walks in like he's Ryan Seacrest, who's like, make I'm here. And he read his questions. It took five minutes. And he's like, that's it? That's all you need me for?

We're like, yeah. Bye. What was so hard about this, Heather? Why did it take you two days to do this?

Yeah. Well, again, well done. Again, people who are fans of Audible, I'd highly recommend picking that version. Version up and. And taking it in because you do a great job. So I want to be respectful of your time. I think everybody should pick up the book, especially those that are in a couple trying to figure this stuff out, have kids. It's messy being a human being and trying to manage all these things.

I think you'll feel seen and be able to relate to. A lot of what you put out are there when you think about couples and money. Are there like a guiding principle, the things that you come back to when things get really, really crazy. Do you, as a couple or individually have kind of like a universal truth that you kind of remind yourself to, to get back to square one? I don't know if that question makes sense, but there's a lot of different ways to kind of go about this. Is there anything that you feel is something you come back to regularly to kind of center yourself when life gets kind of crazy?

I'll give one first, and then he can give one. We'll probably say something different, but that this moment is a season, it is a chapter in your life. There's going to, God willing, there's going to be another one. So even in the hard moments, there will be better moments, and you will find your way through. If you guys both want to.

That's great.

Love that, honey. Minus therapy. Go. No, just kidding. Only half kidding. I think that. And you've heard this before, but you know, this isn't a dress rehearsal life. You get one crack at it and you've made some pretty big decisions to spend it with someone you love, hopefully the person that you'll be loving forever.

And I think you want to give it the best go you possibly can. And you deserve happiness together. Money is an inescapable thing that you'll have to deal with in your relationship, and we want to make sure you're capable of being able to do that kind of work for at least for me, it's so you can be happy.

That's great.

If we can. If we can get you there. Or a little bit happier. Another huge win.

Oh, wait, can I give one more? I'm sorry. So this is so not the point for me to just keep spewing out nuggets, but this one's really important. When it comes to money and couples, I think we need to keep in mind yours, mine and ours. Meaning that the goal is not just to merge every little thing about your life. And this is. This is a metaphor for a lot more than just your bank accounts, is that you are still an individual person. So is your spouse. This is everything from power to identity to values, goals, dreams, money, whatever.

And don't lose that piece of yourself. You don't need to lose that piece of yourself to have an amazing thing together.

It's awesome. Well, again, I appreciate your time. Money together is fantastic. Encourage people to check that out. I would encourage people to subscribe to the join account, which is your blog, which is also fantastic and funny and relatable. You guys are putting out a lot of amazing stuff or anything else. Where should people go to check you out? Check out the firm. Where do you want people to go next?

Here's the list of websites in. In no specific order, no bonafidewealth.com anything firm related. Read thejointaccount.com for the newsletter and do money together to learn more about the book.

And you know, you can find us on social media. I'm at Average Joelle. That's my middle name. Joel.

In a park.

Awesome. Congratulations again. It's fantastic. Hopefully you're very proud of what you put out in the world. You're helping a lot of people along the way. So thank you for your time. Look forward to seeing you guys again soon.

Thanks for everything and thanks for having us.

You got it. See you soon. Thanks as always for checking out this episode. If the content was helpful, you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing or leaving a review. We'd appreciate that and that would help us get the word out to more people and we look forward to talking to you. Seeing you again soon. Take care. Thanks again for listening to this episode.

A quick note, Although I do hope that the information that we talked about was helpful, in no way is anything discussed on the podcast to be taken as specific financial advice. Please consult your own advisors and do your own research when you're making important financial decisions.