Banishing Money Monsters: How to Talk Money With Anyone (Partners, Roommates, or Coworkers) SB1754

Summary

The Stacking Benjamins Show

Episode: Banishing Money Monsters: How to Talk Money With Anyone (Partners, Roommates, or Coworkers) SB1754
Release Date: October 29, 2025
Host: Joe Saul-Sehi
Guests: Doug Bonaparte (Certified Financial Planner) & Heather Bonaparte (Attorney and business partner)
Theme: How to overcome the “money monsters” in communication, especially with partners, roommates, and coworkers, so you can handle finances together—and with less drama.

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Episode Overview

This Halloween-themed episode dives into the “horror stories” of money miscommunication and how to banish them for good. Joe, OG, and guest experts Doug & Heather Bonaparte share personal stories and practical solutions on communicating about money with partners, friends, and coworkers. The episode covers how ingrained money beliefs and upbringing shape communication, why honest conversations are challenging (but necessary), and actionable techniques to build financial teamwork. Though full of signature Stacking Benjamins humor, the conversation gets real about tough transitions, fair sharing, vulnerability, and why it’s so easy to blow up over a croissant (literally).

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Communication About Money Is So Hard—Even With Loved Ones

• Personal Case Study: Moving From Corporate to Family Business

  • Heather shares the anxiety of leaving her “corporate girly” law job—and the salary and benefits that came with it—to join Doug’s financial planning business.
  • "I began to question my self-worth deeply in ways that I was not expecting...my value can only be proven through this set amount of money." (Heather, 09:34)
  • Doug points out it was a years-long, emotionally loaded process, not a single conversation.

• Cultural & Upbringing Differences

  • Heather’s drive for financial independence stems from witnessing her parents’ divorce and shifting money scripts growing up.
  • Doug, son of serial entrepreneurs and teachers, was raised with a risk-taking, “bet on yourself” mindset.
  • "We replicated that classic combo: Mom with the steady salary and benefits, Dad building a business." (Doug, 12:30)

2. A Real-Life Money Horror Story: When 50/50 Becomes Toxic

• The “Split Everything Exactly” Couple
  • Guests describe a couple who meticulously split every expense 50/50—even date nights and snacks—motivated at first by fairness and different upbringings.
  • It blew up after years of simmering, culminating in a drunken argument in a Tokyo 7-11 over a croissant.
  • "But instead of talking about it... it all came to a head very late at night after a drunken night out in Tokyo... she said 'this is not fair.'" (Heather, 18:20)
  • Lesson: “You’re communicating about money whether you talk or not. And not doing the work leads to street fights after teppanyaki." (Doug, 19:38)

3. Money Miscommunication Isn’t Just a Couple’s Problem

• Roommates, Friends, and Financial Friction
  • Joe recalls a college roommate’s blow-up over milk, which exposed deeper issues of feeling unseen.
  • There’s a “keeping score” dynamic that often runs beneath the surface, even if one party is oblivious.
  • Doug mentions friendships tense up when there are income differences—like being pressured into expensive meals or trips.
  • Suggestion: Offer alternatives, practice gentle honesty, and set expectations early.

4. Techniques for Productive Money Conversations

• Start With the Positive

  • Begin conversations by celebrating financial “wins” before addressing challenges.
  • "You start with the positive... By the time you get to areas that need improvement, you have momentum." (Doug, 24:02)

• Choose the Right Time and Place

  • Don’t spring big money talks in the middle of chaos (like after work or just before bed); choose a neutral, calm setting.
  • "She would do this to me, too. It'd be 11:30 at night and I'd get, 'Doug, let's talk about this critically important thing...'" (Doug, 25:15)

• Meet Your Partner Where They Are

  • Adapt the conversation style or tool to each person’s needs—some learn visually, some auditorily, others through apps or analog methods.
  • "For one couple, it was getting a whiteboard because that's how one of them learned." (Doug, 27:37)

• Joint Vs. Separate Finances: Research Insights

  • Even when maintaining some separate accounts (“yours, mine, ours”), joint banking fosters more of a teamwork mentality.
  • "When it comes to how we handle our money and where it should be, there is really something to be said about working together from the same pot." (Heather, 29:46)

• Revisit & Revise Regularly

  • Financial “systems” may work—until they don’t. Life changes (kids, jobs, ambitions) require honest reevaluation.

5. Facing Your Personal 'Money Monsters'

• Individual Work is Foundational
  • Confront your own money “demons”—whether it’s shame, fear, self-worth tied to earnings—before expecting your partner/friends to understand.
  • "You are not an enigma that your partner has the onus of figuring out. You need to figure some of that out for yourself first." (Heather, 32:39)
  • Sometimes professional help (therapy, coaching) is necessary, especially if old wounds or shame block communication.

6. Fairness, Power, and Risk as Relationship Superpowers

• Redefining Contribution

  • Move beyond equating contribution with income. Tasks like caregiving are vital, often undervalued work.
  • "We are all caregivers. Caregivers are providers too... Time is the greatest currency." (Heather, 36:11)

• Power: Not Zero-Sum

  • True power in a partnership isn’t about keeping score or winning. It’s collective ambition, supporting each other’s goals, and acting as a team, not rivals.

• Risk & Flexibility

  • Couples frequently differ in risk appetite. The “superpower” is not avoiding risk, but learning to flex, compromise, and adapt as a team.
  • "Being nimble as a couple is a superpower for getting where you want to be, and being happy while doing it." (Heather, 39:52)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

[09:34]
"My value can only be proven through this set amount of money. And when I decided to forgo that money, I began to question my self worth deeply in ways that I was not expecting."
— Heather Bonaparte

[19:38]
"You're communicating around money whether you're saying the thing that needs to be said or not. And it will either break good or poorly. And poorly is when you're not actually doing the work and sitting down and expressing why...you end up fighting on the streets of Japan after some teppanyaki."
— Doug Bonaparte

[24:02]
"Start with the positive...We have this propensity to see what went wrong. Instead, celebrate the win for the week or the month or the quarter...create the momentum."
— Doug Bonaparte

[27:37]
"It's really important to embrace this idea that sometimes you just have to meet your partner where they are...especially with money."
— Heather Bonaparte

[32:39]
"You are not an enigma that your partner has the onus of figuring out. You need to figure some of that out for yourself first...it's incredibly vulnerable. It's incredibly scary and it may require the help of outside professionals."
— Heather Bonaparte

[36:11]
"Time is the greatest currency that we have."
— Heather Bonaparte

[39:52]
"Being nimble as a couple is such a superpower for getting to where you want to be and being happy while doing it and removing friction...Risk in saying, like, I think the greatest risk is not finding out...because you weren't willing to be that curious about your partner or to find another way to get where you wanted to go. I think that's the greatest risk of all."
— Heather Bonaparte

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• 06:55 Introduction of guests Doug & Heather Bonaparte.
• 08:00 Scariest money conversation between Doug & Heather—her transition from law to business.
• 11:44 How upbringing and family shaped their money “scripts.”
• 15:29 Story of the 50/50 couple and the Tokyo croissant blow-up.
• 19:38 Key lesson from that story: communication is constant, even in silence.
• 21:54 Why money friction isn’t limited to couples (roommates, friends).
• 24:02 Practical advice: Start with positives and choose the right time for money conversations.
• 27:26 Meeting your partner/friend where they are in communication style.
• 28:44 Research on joint finances and teamwork outcomes.
• 30:38 Why money talks must be revisited—life changes!
• 32:39 Facing your own “money monsters” before tackling relationship issues.
• 34:12 The juggling act: listening and sharing vulnerabilities.
• 36:11 Rethinking contribution, power, and risk in family money dynamics.
• 39:52 Adapting as life throws curveballs; nimbleness as a superpower.

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Summary Table: Money Conversation Tactics

| Problem | Tactic/Tool | Example/Quote | |-------------------|------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------| | Defensive partner | Start w/ positives, right setting | “Can we have a convo about the trip?” [25:27] | | Different learning styles | Adapt: whiteboard, podcast, app | “For one couple, it was get a whiteboard.” [27:37] | | Unequal incomes/Spending friction | Offer alternatives, set expectations | “We’d be happy to plan a beach trip…” [23:07] | | Contribution seen as income only | Broaden definition | “Caregivers are providers too.” [36:11] | | Different risk appetites | Compromise, discuss openly | “We need to find the compromise…” [39:52] |

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Key Takeaways

• Everyone brings “money monsters” from their past—upbringing, beliefs, family practices—that shape how they show up in financial conversations.
• “Fairness” doesn’t mean “identical”—it means designing systems and attitudes that truly work for both parties and adapting as circumstances change.
• The most toxic conflicts often simmer for years over small things (like milk or a croissant) but are about fairness, feeling seen, and unspoken pain.
• Flexibility, compassion, and a willingness to keep talking (and learning about yourself and others) are what make great financial teams—at home or at work.
• There is no one-size-fits-all for managing money together: regular check-ins and tweaks are a must as life ebbs and flows.

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Further Reading/Resources

• Book: Money Together by Douglas & Heather Bonaparte (available everywhere)
• Link to full episode & show notes: [StackingBenjamins.com]

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Tone & Energy

Lighthearted, approachable, and at times irreverent—keeping financial literacy fun while not shying away from tough, real issues. The hosts and guests balance well-researched advice and academic insights with their own, sometimes hilarious, lived experiences.

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For first-time listeners or anyone needing a roadmap for talking about money—this episode is a stellar place to start.

Transcript

[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Joe Saul Sehi]

When too much work bogs you down.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Asana helps you handle it.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

AI makes it easy to hand off routine tasks and stay focused on important work. That's how work gets handled.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Visit [e-mail] guys on occasion. You know, I just think it would be appropriate for us to fold our hands, bow our heads and start the show with a little prayer.

[Race Announcer]

Heavenly Father, we thank you tonight for all your blessings. You said in all things give thanks. So we want to thank you tonight for these mighty machines that you brought before us. Thank you for the Dodges and the Toyotas. Thank you for the Fords. And most of all, we thank you for Rouse and Yates partnering to give us the power that we see before us tonight. Thank you for GM performance technology and RO7 engines. Thank you for Sunoco racing fuel and Goodyear tires that bring performance and power to the track. Lord, I want to thank you for my smoking hot wife tonight, Lisa, my two children Eli and Emma, or as we like to call on the Little E. Lord, I pray you bless the drivers and use them tonight. May they put on a performance worthy of this group in Jesus name. Boogity boogity boogity. Amen.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Live from Joe's mom's semi haunted basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and you think Halloween week is creepy? Try working next to the hot water heater in the basement of an old house you want even creepier failing to communicate with friends, a spouse or loved ones. Today we're sharing money communication horror stories with two people who've seen them, Doug and Heather Bonaparte. This conversation will be like an exorcism for your communication demons. In our headline segment, you heard our stacker Money Horror Stories. On Monday, one publication shares tales of financial ruin that are just plain trashy. And you know what? What's Halloween week without me slipping some sweet Halloween flavored trivia into your bag? And now two guys who think the best candy is tax deferred growth. I don't even know what that means. It's Joe and oh, Jaja, Jaja G.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Hey, stackers. Happy Wednesday. Happy Halloween week. Hope you got your costume on, you got the candy ready. And you know what? Hope you're ready to have some financial nerdery this week too, because we're bringing it over the next hour. I am Joe Saul Sehi and across the card table from me is the one and only backed by Popular demand.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Og boogity, boogity, boogity.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I actually watched that race on tv. I wasn't there live, but it was, it was a spectacle. I was like, wait, what? What? The whole time is he's just going bigger and bigger and bigger.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Like I like the part where he says thank you for the tires. It was like the ad clip. Yeah, it was like the ad read that bring performance and power to the track. It's like, did you read the tagline.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

General Motors is going to pay X amount of money if you insert this into the prayer.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

The prayer.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yep.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure his wife had a hand in writing that too.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

That was pre chat GPT, folks.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

That, that was, that was, that was a number of years ago. Yeah. You know what, Doug, to your point, his spouse having a hand in writing that, she's like, Lisa. You're just going to say my, my wife Lisa. I think it's your smoking hot wife Lisa.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Right?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I think, I think if you know what's good for you. Mr. Yeah, we got a great, see and that's bad communication right there. People yelling each other.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

I thought that was great communication.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Well, once they finally got over the hump, you know, it was great. But Doug and Heather Bonapart are here. Doug is a certified financial planner. Heather is a longtime attorney who just became Doug's business partner. Talk about people that need to communicate. You work with your spouse, might need, might need to know a little bit about communication. These two know what it's like to be with people that just their money's not going the right way because their communication is not going the right way. Investopedia has listed Doug Bonaparth is one of the top financial planners in the United States as they have our own OG by the way, just little humble brag there. So we get to hear from our own og, our own top financial planner in the United States. We get to hear from him all the time. We're going to hear from Doug and Heather Bonapart here in just a moment. Before we get to that, we got a couple sponsors who make sure that we can keep on keeping on. You don't pay anything for all this Halloween week goodness. So we're going to hear from them and then coming down to mom's basement. Doug and Heather Bonaparte.

[Sponsor Announcer 2]

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[Joe Saul Sehi]

It's Halloween week and you know what that means. Very scary couple coming down to mom's basement. Douglas and Heather are here. How are you guys? We're good.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Hey, Joe, we're feeling spooky.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Yeah. Halloween's my birthday, so we're not messing around here.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Now you have two kids. What do they dress up as? They know their costumes yet?

[Doug Bonaparte]

Oh, yeah.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Well, our younger daughter is wearing the costume of the season. She is being a K pop demon hunter.

[Doug Bonaparte]

She's roomie.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Specifically Rumi, the one with the purple hair. And then our older daughter is Saquon Barclay from the Philadelphia Eagles.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Wow.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Proud mama.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

That's fantastic. And I was going to be a K pop star and she stole mine. So there you go.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Going to be a saja boy.

[Doug Bonaparte]

I'm going to be a saja boy from. You know, one of us actually watched the movie here. You can. You can tell which one. But you know, I'm going to pair up with our younger daughter, be the Sasha boy to her hunt tricks.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

That's fabulous. Well, hey, money wise, most people afraid of ghost and monsters, but the truly terrifying stuff happens, as you guys know, when we try to open a joint checking account, right? Bum, bum, bum.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Yeah.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

What's the scariest money conversation you two have had as a couple?

[Doug Bonaparte]

Oh, that's quite recently, or at least in the last three years. We had to make some big changes in our lives around what wasn't working for us. And what wasn't working for Heather in terms of her ambition. And ultimately it led to her joining our now family business, which was kind of always a family business. But Heather leaving the corporate world in law after a 13 year stint, if you will, to join the family business.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Was foregoing my corporate salary. And our benefits package was a huge.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Deal, huge move, probably the biggest one since buying our house.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I would say, how did you work through that together? Because Heather, I can't imagine going from, I work for myself now, I work with my spouse. Like there's a whole lot of different dynamics going on there.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Look, I was a corporate girly for a long time, which meant like there were benchmarks and you could either meet them or not meet them, right? And you receive feedback. There's a feedback loop. You, you find out every year how you're doing and you either receive a bonus, you receive a raise, or you don't.

[Doug Bonaparte]

They literally give you a review.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Right?

[Doug Bonaparte]

Every year.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Working for yourself. Now that I've joined the family practice and Doug's been an entrepreneur his entire career, I mean, like, talk about a mindset shift. So I had this like scary delusion that the only way I would be able to prove my worth at the firm is if I could replace my salary within a year of being there. Which is the most like short sighted, misguided idea ever.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Told you not to do it.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Entrepreneurship, like, that's just not how it works. Like Doug was playing a long, like a decades long game to get where he got in his career. And I thought that I could just like throw a few cards against the wall and within a year I would just be like, you know, right, right there. You know, I've succeeded. But I think worse than that is really like the sentiment underneath of that, which was my value can only be proven through this set amount of money. And when I decided to forego that money, I began to question my self worth deeply in ways that I was not expecting. And you know, part of that was due to my own thinking. But I think a lot of that is societal too. I mean like a lot of people really did not get it. They're like, wait, so you're retiring from being a lawyer or like you're going to help your husband or you're just really staying home, right? Like you're just, you're a stay at home mom now. Like there were really people that did not understand what we were going to.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Do and be family, Family members.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Family, family members did not understand we were going to do. And I did not realize until I left corporate law how much I relied on other people's perception of my career to define my own self worth. And I really had to. So it wasn't one conversation, it was years of conversations that led us to getting where we are right now.

[Doug Bonaparte]

And that has nothing to do with the work that needed to be put in to learn financial things. Right from P and L of the business to even our own reexamination of our financial lives together. That was all just like the feels.

[Heather Bonaparte]

How do we feel like wasn't even.

[Doug Bonaparte]

The how do we cope with these feelings here that clearly are going to have an impact on our relationship, our family and everything around us.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Well, and I'm going to ask you to tell some stories about this type of stuff today from your new project on this very topic. You guys make the point of talking about part of it, and especially in in a relationship, we might know our partner, but we don't know their culture. We don't know their internal talk. And Heather, I got to imagine that for you, it's got to be culturally where you come from. There must be this I got to succeed, I got to drive, I got to like, is that, is that built into your family life as you were growing up?

[Heather Bonaparte]

That was inscribed for me in many different ways. I'm an only child and grandchild on both sides of my family. My parents got divorced right as I entered my teenage years and so the money scripts that I was taught were really flipped upon their head at a very pivotal moment in my life. So I don't know if it's as much what I was taught as to my defense mechanism and my reaction and the way that I came into adulthood saying I need to make as much money as possible so that I can seek my own version of independence from a lot of the pain and things that I was experiencing in those formative years of my life. There was a lot of that. There was definitely a lot of that and a lot of my self worth being tied up in my career had to do with just the way that I came into adulthood for sure.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

How's that different than where you come from culturally?

[Doug Bonaparte]

Doug yeah, I grew up the son and grandson of serial entrepreneurs. I was taught always bet on yourself and build something and was encouraged to do so. My older brother and I ran many businesses as kids, from fixing computers to hawking stuff on ebay when the Internet came around. We were privileged with technology early on, so that obviously carried forward into my adult life when I chose to build the Business for real, to provide for our family and to build a life together with Heather. Of course, there are challenges associated with that. I learned lessons in what overextending yourself or growing too quickly and leverage can do to a family unit, can do to a business, but couldn't create any more stark of a contrast between Heather. I mean, my parents actually got divorced when I was an adult, like when we had our first child together. So, you know, I grew up in sunny South Florida in a stable household where dad was an entrepreneur, mom was an elementary school teacher, you know, learning disabilities teacher. It was like that classic combo of mom had the benefits, had a steady salary, and dad built, you know, a business, and we. We replicated that.

[Sponsor Announcer]

You did.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I was thinking the same thing. You totally had that replicated and you changed it.

[Doug Bonaparte]

It worked. But. And I do this, you know, you see with clients all the time too. It. It does work. It worked.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Until it didn't.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Yeah, until it doesn't.

[Heather Bonaparte]

And I think that that is something that was such an eye opening experience for us in our own relationship. I think it's really easy to believe. You get married, you kind of, like, set up a way of doing something, and you start doing it that way for a long time. Maybe you can reach those, you know, kind of like stereotypical financial benchmarks. Like, it's amazing. It's amazing. We could buy a house, we refinance some student loan debt, and we're able to tackle that together. We had a baby. You kind of convince yourself you're like.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Got it figured out.

[Heather Bonaparte]

This all figured out, right? That is not true. That is not how life works. And I think one of the hardest things for a couple to do is to say, we've been doing something this way for a really long time, and now it no longer works for me. It's not serving me anymore. Not even just not serving us anymore. Yes. But I feel a certain way around this. That is an incredibly hard thing to do. It's like an intimate thing to say.

[Doug Bonaparte]

To someone, a personally intimate thing. You're not this homogeneous blob of a couple. You're still your own person in your relationship. You do a lot of. We do everything together. But Heather's hobbies are not my hobbies. Heather's experience as a child is not my experience as a child, but she has an appreciation for my hob as I do her. More importantly, she has an understanding of my feelings and experience from when I was growing up, the decades of learning scripts around money, specifically. As much as I needed to learn Heather's same scripts so that I could have perspective, just like she could have perspective.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Do you want to share that story that we know about the couple?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

The story I was going to ask you about anyway. Somebody that thought they were getting it right and they had a thing that worked for them until like you said earlier, Heather, for you two, it didn't.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Until it didn't. So we met a couple who for very well intentioned reasons, decided early in their relationship. He ended up. He was living with her family before they were married. They were financially enmeshed in some different ways. Like from a very early stage in their relationship, they decided that the fairest, fairest, which I will put in quote, fairest way to handle this, was that they would split everything 50, 50. And I mean everything, like down to the studs, down to the.

[Doug Bonaparte]

There was a log.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Well, and I would feel like if I was living with Cheryl's family, just with my upbringing and, you know, I just think about my dad and thinking, man, you don't do that. Like you just, okay, fine, I need help at the time, but you're gonna pay for your, your freight. You're gonna pay for your part of the relationship. And that sounds a little bit like why they did this.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Yes, well, and there was also. He had offered this because he said that he didn't want her family that had, you know, she came from a different wealth background. She had. Her family was wealthier than the way that he grew up. And when he had moved into their home, it was kind of a joint decision because at the time her father had actually moved out, her parents were splitting up, and it was mutually beneficial to everyone to have him move into their family home and be like a man in the house.

[Doug Bonaparte]

It filled a gap in a very transitional period.

[Heather Bonaparte]

But at the same time, he wanted to demonstrate to them that he wasn't in it for the money, he wasn't in it for a place to live. Yeah, the intentions were really good. They were benevolent intentions behind this. We're gonna split everything 50. 50 worked for a couple years. Okay. But as time went on, I mean, they were really splitting everything. They were splitting down to the date night dinners. 50, 50. They were reconciling it on a spreadsheet for a very, very long time. Turns out that maybe things weren't feeling quite as fair at 5050 as when they had begun.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Someone was consuming more.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Someone likes to order an appetizer every time they go out to dinner. Somebody gets the second cocktail whenever they, you know, have a plan or go meet Friends at the bar. Turns out 5050 wasn't quite what they had planned. But, but instead of talking about it and kind of saying, you know, hey, I think at a, at a calm and cool time and place, this all came to a head very late at night after like a drunken night out in Tokyo when they went into a 711 and he wanted to get a croissant.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

It's always the best time, by the way, when I'm loaded to solve our, our long running problems in my relationship. The emotions come out, get hammered and have it out. That always works. Well, I think I saw a Dr. Phil episode about how this is the way to solve everything.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Number one psychologist recommended approach to this.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Yeah, get hammered and fight with your spouse at a 711 in Japan. That's 100% the way to go about this. But that was the moment that she just exploded. She lost it. And she said, this is not fair. Okay? We've been doing it this way for a long time and I don't feel like this is fair. And you know something that we started to think like, we're like, well, what is it about that moment? Like, why then? Why the croissant? Of all the moments, right? And then you find out she had some job insecurity. There was a chance that she was going to lose her job and she was reexamining and harboring a lot of anxiety about money and where that money was going to come from moving forward. But they didn't talk about that. They blew up over the croissant. And so in the sober light of day, they were able to reexamine this and kind of move to a new system that felt more reciprocal and I think was also like more romantic and left room for romance and doing something kind for somebody else. And I think one of like the best parts of this story that, that we heard in speaking to this couple on numerous occasions was that kind of like allowing for more fluidity in their finances allowed for more fluidity in other areas of their life as well. Like it allowed them to pick up chores for the other person without being like, well, it's your job to do the trash. So I just let it rot and sit there when you weren't home.

[Doug Bonaparte]

That's such a great example of why their approach does not work. It's not pragmatic, it is not practical, it does not scale whatsoever. And the thing I took away from it was that you're communicating around money whether you're saying the thing that needs to be said or not. And it will either Break good or poorly. And poorly is when you're not actually doing the work and sitting down and expressing why something is the way that it is or why you feel the way that you do. You end up fighting on the streets of Japan after some teppanyaki. It's not, it's not the way you gotta go about it.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

It's so funny for our stackers who might not be in a committed relationship right now. This isn't just about committed relationships. It's also about with your friends. I remember in college my roommate, whose name was also Joe, blew up one day because he had bought milk twice in a row and I just hadn't noticed. But it turned out it wasn't about the milk. It was about I wasn't noticing a lot of what was going on in our apartment as roommates. And he was keeping score, baby. He was keeping every little score and I was keeping no score. And I learned I need to keep a little score because it was important. Obviously it's important to me to make my roommate happy that he's sharing an apartment with me on his side. He still tells me today we're 30 years older than we were then. I talked to him about this like six months ago. He laughed. He goes, I still can't believe I blew up about the milk. He goes, but it taught me so much that my friends aren't as anal about stuff as I am and I just sometimes have to relax like it was. It was a good lesson for us both.

[Doug Bonaparte]

So I think that's an incredibly important part. You saw it worked out in the end. They actually, you know, from the ashes of their late night argument rose, you know, the phoenix of finding a better way to go about it. And unfortunately, all too often it takes these very dramatic moments to come back together. It's a test and a testament to relationships to endure that kind of event and say, hey, let's fix it. The bad news is sometimes those blow ups actually result in the end of relationships. And it underscores why it's so important to take that proactive stance and to do the work. And hopefully we're going to be able to help people identify these things so that they don't have to get to a moment of crisis to sort these things.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Anyone you love or care about, right, not just a spouse.

[Doug Bonaparte]

You also remind me of all the situations with friends where you know, someone who maybe is in a better financial spot, they either make more, they come from money and they go out to the nice meals and you as the roommate or the best friend are constantly being roped into, you know, whether it's a Michelin star restaurant or something that's just a little too expensive. And you see relationships and friendship struggle because they don't know how to pull their friend aside and say, I totally understand, you know, your ability to afford this. I don't want to get in the way of your enjoyment, but can I share with you why this is a little difficult for me? And maybe next time we can pick a restaurant that doesn't have a tasting menu associated.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I remember being a part of that too. All of our friends wanted to do a tasting menu at a Michelin star restaurant in France. Cheryl and I did not want to do it. We weren't in the right mind frame. We didn't care. And we had so much pressure from the other people we were with. Everybody's doing it and they won't do it unless you do it too. And I ended up spending so much money that night that I didn't want to. And by the way, the people that wanted to do it at the end of the meal complained about how bad it was, which made it even worse. Made it even, even worse. But not, not that I'm bitter about it. It didn't happen like seven or eight years ago and I'm still bitter. Not at all. You can't tell.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Yeah, this happens to us with skiing. All of our friends ski but us. And I cannot tell you how many people try and convince us to go ski every single year in like a million different ways. And I just said, I am as clear as day. And, and again. But this is just about setting expectations with your friends, even anyone you care about, being able to say, hey, look, I love nothing more than getting away with your family for a weekend. This is not something that I choose to spend my money on or that I'm really that interested in us doing. We don't really. We're not cold weather people. It's just not how we spend our money. We would be happy to plan a beach long weekend with you or find something else for us to do. But, you know, you don't have to lay it on thick about the skiing. Like, the answer's always going to be no.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Is that the technique? Because we love talking about the tactics and how do you do this stuff? But I noticed in both of your examples that you just gave that you both offer an alternative. Is offering the alternative. Is that the technique.

[Doug Bonaparte]

In a lot of the stuff that we saw, we noticed that it takes just a small adjustment or turning Something upside down. I'll give a few examples of this. When you're talking or wish to talk to your partner about money and you're leading with the criticism, what went wrong? What needs improvement? I can guarantee you no one wants to start conversations with the negative. You start with the positive and particularly around money. We have this propensity to see what went wrong. Instead of celebrate the win for the week or the month or the quarter, what did you do? Right? Build upon that, create the momentum. So by the time you inevitably get to the areas that need improvement, you're able to say, hey, you know, listen good on us. We did some things we needed to do and everyone's motivated now to attack the things that need the improvement. Little shift right there. You want to have a conversation around finances? I say what I used to do. Can we sit down and talk about this? So first time and place, right? I would bombard her with something when the kids had just come home from school or it was time to do.

[Heather Bonaparte]

The dinner stuff because I was running.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Up from a meeting, you know, the last meeting of the day before the meetings of the evening. This is family time. And she would do this to me too. She'll own up to it. It'd be like 11:30 at night when her Sunday scaries or basically any week, any day of the week. Scaries.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Would I have scaries every night?

[Doug Bonaparte]

Yeah. I'd be like, hey, Doug, let's talk about this really critically important thing that's been bothering me. And I'm like tapped out. It's 11:30pm we're trying to. I'm like, why is now the time? So time and place is a big one. And how you start the conversation. I would show up with a net worth table and the numbers and the spreadsheets. That is a quick way to have a very unwelcomed conversation. Why don't we start with something we both want? Honey, remember how we said we want to take the kids away for spring break this year? Can we have a convo about that? She had already poured some hot tea and is sitting at the table to have that conversation. I'm motivated to have it. And guess what we're going to do? We're going to do a little bit door into. Can we look at the numbers to see how we make this happen? Yeah, let's cancel this babysitter. We don't need to see these friends again. We just saw them for someone, someone's birthday party. And before you know it, there's an extra 1200 bucks or whatever for this thing that we really want to do together. And she and I are now aligned with the numbers as well as what the goals are. So again, all we did was either do it backwards, flip it on its head, and logically think through, well, how are we going to meet each other in a place that allows us to facilitate a conversation? We've been too trained to do things the wrong way for a whole host of reasons.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yeah, I don't like this. I don't like that. Not a great way to start. And by the way, I love the idea of time and place and also thinking about it from whoever, whether it's a roommate or a partner. Your spouse, however, think about it from their point of view. I often know that our money geek stackers, you know, we love nothing better than a Camp David Summit. Doug, like you were saying, with spreadsheets, graphs, and all kinds of stuff. And it lasts 17 hours and there's nothing more fun. Nothing would be a horror story for Cheryl, my spouse, than that she wants nothing to do but the 20 minute weekly meeting where we go through Monarch together and we look at our finances over pancakes or wine. Totally fun. Great, great, great time.

[Heather Bonaparte]

It's really important to embrace this idea that sometimes you just have to meet your partner where they are. Yeah, that concept is so important when it comes to money. Like, I mean, it applies to other things too, but I think money in particular.

[Doug Bonaparte]

We spoke to neurodivergent couples, you know, for this project. And the biggest takeaway that I had is, yes, meet them where they are. But for one couple, it was get a whiteboard. Like, it was literally drawing things out because that's how one of the partners learned. So we learn differently.

[Heather Bonaparte]

That's cool.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Yeah, it was super cool. Or the one couple that figured out the kind of content the other one liked to consume, like, dialed into the podcast they would love. Obviously this one, duh, got into which, you know, Instagram accounts really spoke their language, and now they're consuming content that's mutually beneficial around this topic for the household. There's so many opportunities to get into this. It just doesn't need to be the things that, you know, most people find boring or to be a turn off.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Not only did you talk to a lot of different people in a lot of different types of relationships, you spoke to a lot of experts, too. And one thing that this Henry and Chloe situation speaks to was not only did they split everything, but they had the separate checkbooks.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Right.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

And so for me, you know, whenever I hear Dave Ramsey bring this Up. I generally have rolled my eyes and went, oh, God, you know, the most overblown discussion in history. But you actually talked to some people, I think maybe at Indiana University or someplace like that, that were just some researchers that actually looked at shared checkbook and what that does in a relationship.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Joint banking. Right. At least to some extent, even in a yours, mine and ours situation does create that teamwork, that element of success. The more you can find a way to collaborate together, the more you can start to really see things as. Yeah. A. And you see a future together where you're building towards shared goals. And I think that that's like a great place to start. It doesn't have to be everything all at once. And I don't want anyone to get the impression that. That we. Or that Doug, sitting down with his clients would say, there's only one right way to do this, and this is.

[Doug Bonaparte]

The right best practices. But you're individual people. You know, it's personal finance. That first word's personal.

[Heather Bonaparte]

But yes, when it comes to how we handle our money and where it should be, there is some. There is really something to be said about being able to work together as a team from the same pot. Because we're not bean counting. Right? We're not saying, well, these two are yours, this one is mine. Like, we're supposed to be doing this together. It builds trust, it builds intimacy. It builds a shared future together. I don't know if you're gonna get there. And I would even argue, too. Like, you may think you have it all figured out now, but things change. That's a lot harder to keep up when you start sharing children.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Well, that also brings up the fact that this needs to be revisited. Right. I know. Doug, you've been a planner for a long time. They don't call it making a financial plan. It's financial planning because of the fact that what worked yesterday for Chloe and Henry doesn't work tomorrow for them.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Life is fickle. Man plans. God laughs. Just as Heather and I said previously, like, it was all working for us until it wasn't. And here's the thing about, you know, money in your own life or in your household, it is a game that you have to play. You cannot opt out. Weird, you know, get off the grid stuff, I'm sure, but you cannot opt out. And what is so insidious about it is you can't win the game. You only get to keep playing it and at different levels, and perhaps different. Not only different levels, but different levels of difficulty for people who Think, you know, like, hey, we've made it, or are so shocked that everything has changed or maybe a little piece of the thing has changed. That's because it's the rules of the game. That's what you opted in to play. So let's stop pretending to be so surprised and instead focus on the type of communication and pieces you need in place in order to play the game well. So that you don't find yourself, you know, pulling the, you know, Seinfeld scene where they flip the risk board over someone, you know, what's it called? Crashes out and rage quits. Like that's probably the end of your relationship. If you're rage quitting on money together, that's not good. It's the worst thing that could happen.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Rage quitting a relationship with friends is not a. Not a great way to go.

[Doug Bonaparte]

The game.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Do not recommend the video game.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Don't do it.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

You know, I find that you call this book Money Together, but a lot of the monsters that we face are in the mirror. I mean, they're right there in front of us. So it feels like Heather. Like it's a two part game. Like not only are you facing your own demons, but also making sure the person that you're playing this game with knows what you're facing. But it's so hard for us to not just look at those demons, but to tell our partner about that or to tell our friends that this is what I'm fighting against. How do we overcome that fear? Not the fear that they'll reject us, but just the fear of being that vulnerable with the people around us.

[Heather Bonaparte]

It's a really good question. It's really hard. That's the point. I think that a lot of us have not done the self work to even be able. I think that you have to reach a certain level of comfort and humility and vulnerability with your own story, your own past and how that presents itself today before you ask your partner to understand it before, which is why we talk about it as the hardest work. Like you are not an enigma that your partner has the onus of figuring out. You need to figure some of that out for yourself first to know who you are showing up as. Like you. Yes. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to them too. And of course it's incredibly vulnerable. It's incredibly scary and it may require the help of outside professionals. You may need help from a financial therapist, you may need help from. From a couples therapist in order to kind of lay down a safe zone. If you realize that some of these feelings, you know, we touch on feelings like shame. If you are harboring shame from your past around a regrettable financial decision or outcome, and that shame is impacting the way that you treat your money together today, it may not be enough for you to just admit to your partner, yeah, I'm carrying shame about this decision I made from years ago. No, like, we have to start unpacking the way that you can change your own thinking as an individual to show up as the work in progress that you are. It's not easy stuff. If it was, more people would be doing.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Seems like it's so much juggling. I'm juggling what's going on in my head while I'm trying to be quiet enough to listen to what's going on in my partner's head. And the people around me said, it's so difficult. We talked about your beginnings and about how we all have our own beginnings. Certainly the two of you shared. Thank you so much. About your beginnings. We talked about mistakes and about how the croissant is really not about the croissant. You also talk about contributions and about power and about risk. Can you guys talk a little bit about those for just a couple seconds about why those things are so important to this project of having money together?

[Heather Bonaparte]

I think a really important goal, probably the most important goal for us was not just to help couples communicate better around money, but to really create and solidify, calcify that equity in a household, which does require continuous work. And it kind of requires you to reframe the way you think about some things, because we all have a lot of societal scripts, institutional scripts that embed themselves in the way in which we.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Operate in our household over decades, decades.

[Heather Bonaparte]

And, yes, some of that came from the way you grew up, the way you were raised. But a lot of it is just stuff that we consume today, too. We still consume it through social media. We consume it at work. We consume it everywhere we go. So how we create that fairness, that equity at home is what you need to really have a sustainable, loving, happy relationship when it comes to not only money, but each other. So for us, contribution was really the heart of this whole thing.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Right.

[Heather Bonaparte]

How do we view contribution? I think traditionally, people, you'd say, how do you contribute to your family? And I bet more than half the people would say, I earned this amount of money.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Wow.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Yeah.

[Doug Bonaparte]

That's the most classic.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

And it 100 is. I just think that that's. I don't know. I'm 57 years old, and I've Learned over time that that is like, people that aren't watching our video don't know. I'm looking at. That's a minuscule part. Like, contribution is so much more than just the. But that would. If I was 30, it would have been the first thing. I probably would answer.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Absolutely. And I think it is important for us to elevate the status of caregivers so that people understand the people who care, which. We're all caregivers, right? Caregivers for each other, caregivers for our children, for our loved ones. I think more of us are falling into the sandwich generation now. So there is. It is, like, more important than ever to expand our definition of what it means to contribute and that caregivers are providers, too. Too. Because we want to really honor and value each other's time. Better. Time is the greatest currency that we have. So it's incredibly important to reframe that. And when it comes to power, that's another really interesting reframe. When we talk about power in the context of a relationship, you probably think, well, which one of us has more of it? Is it me or is it you? You're thinking about only one person. You have to take from one person for me to get more. But that's just simply not true.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

That could even be toxic, I would think.

[Heather Bonaparte]

But it's really easy to do. Especially like, let's say, for example, like, Doug and I grew up together. Like, we went to college together. So it's very easy to look for competition closest to home.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Yes. Usually the first place you go. I know parents that love competing with their kids. I find myself competing with my older daughter because she wants to compete with me. It must be a thing kids do. But when you're competing with your partner.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Your spouse, and it's not just competing professionally. You could be competing for time.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Yeah.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Energy, resources.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Who gets to do more than whatever it may be? You know, you take a minute, you push back on that, and you realize, wait, wait, wait. You know, this is a team game. We're not the people. We're not the people that should be competing against one another here. Imagine if, you know, two. Two small forwards started playing, you know, against each other. It'd be crazy.

[Heather Bonaparte]

We really want for people to see not only the individual power that they bring to a relationship, but how this idea of collective ambition. There's going to be a time for you, and there's going to be a time for me. And we are more powerful together when we operate this way. That's incredibly important. And I'll let you talk about risk.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

For a sec before you talk about risk. On this topic of power, I got really excited at the end of that because it's just reminiscent of this idea Stephen Covey had about families having a mission statement, which I remember when he said that at first, what blew me away. Like, why would our family have a mission statement? Like, why wouldn't you? You bring home all these things and you're in this group. These are the people closest to you. Why wouldn't your family have some shared value and shared mission? Like, it's so. It's so cool using that power for good.

[Doug Bonaparte]

I forget where I heard it was definitely a show, but it was. Family is your team to help you get through life, to help you deal with the challenges of life. So starting to compete against the very people that help you navigate how fickle, how sad, how challenging life can be. Of course, there's so many beautiful things in it is antithetical to why we're all here in this unit in the first place. And as far as risk is concerned, after you discover yourself and are able to have perspective of your partner's self and you start to think about what you did wrong or maybe what you did right, and you work your way through, you get to plotting your future together and how to make decisions together. Because Heather's appetite for risk might not be my appetite for risk. And that's going to make things a little challenging when you go into the decisions that inevitably need to be made in order to get to the goals that you have for yourself, whether it's buying that house, financial independence, even sending children to college is a conversation that we have where we don't need to be one to one on it. We need to find the compromise in terms of how we feel about what we're willing to do or not willing to do. So risk is extremely important when it comes to moving the ball forward.

[Heather Bonaparte]

And ultimately it's really important to leave everyone with this idea that no one has any idea what tomorrow will bring. We all like to pretend that we know, but that is, again, like the final reframe here is that we can't predict the future, but we can prepare ourselves for as many ways to get to the place we want to get as humanly possible. There are 10, 20 ways to get to the thing that you both want, not just the way that you originally set out. Being nimble as a couple is such a superpower for getting to where you want to be and to being happy while doing it and removing Friction so that we wanted to leave people with that idea of risk, too. Risk in saying, like, I think the greatest risk is not finding out, right? Losing opportunity, regret, and regret. Because you weren't willing to be that nimble. You weren't willing to be that curious about your partner or to find another way to get where you wanted to go. I think that's the greatest risk of all.

[Doug Bonaparte]

When we start to accept the fact that things will not go according to whatever plan you have, as well intended as it may be, you may get to the goal or the end of, you know, whatever it is you were looking for, but your pathway there will 100% not be the way you thought it would be. Putting yourself in a position to adapt is just one of those things that, as Heather said, is the superpower here. So when you are communicating, when you are understanding, when you are reaching for fairness, that is why you say you become an unstoppable financial team. Because things that inevitably hit you or you will face can be conquered, can be handled together because you did the work. And that's what creates happiness. And everyone deserves to be happy. I'm with Heather because she makes me happy. I believe the same is true our children. Hey, our children make us happy.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

She'll let you know.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Yeah, stay tuned. We'll find out after. But that's what it's all about, right? And no one should be able to argue with that.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

The book is called Money Together, and I believe it's available everywhere, correct?

[Heather Bonaparte]

Yes. Anywhere books are sold.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Yeah. You know what to do.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I had one criticism. I wish you guys were passionate about this and educated on this topic. If only you had had those two things.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Listen, maybe two and a half years of ignoring friends and family was not enough.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Well, thank you for helping us get rid of the monsters and the scary things under the bed that really aren't there and helping us clear those up. Happy Halloween, guys.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Hey there, Stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and some people say this Halloween ghost thing is a sham. But some really weird stuff's happened today in mom's basement. First, I don't know what came over me. I accidentally filled the El Camino with.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Oh, God.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Premium gas Scarier. Just before we hit record today, Joe opened mom's budget spreadsheet and saw rows upon rows of divide by zero errors shiver OG screamed louder than when I tried to do my own Roth conversion. I'm telling you, it's bad, man. But there was some good news that happened on today's date. Back in 1692, the governor of Massachusetts dissolved the Special Court of Oyer and Terminer, which was convened for what purpose? I'll be back right after I try to figure out this mystery. You've heard of the black hole, right? I gotta go help Joe's mom find a Home Depot receipt that's been missing since 1998. She swears she put it in her filing system, which is a black hole of paper called the Tupperware bowl labeled miscellaneous. Don't make me go.

[Sponsor Announcer 3]

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[Heather Bonaparte]

This episode is brought to you by. Oops. I've got a box of Cheez It Crackers staring at me, and I just wanted that irresistible Cheesy Crunch. Sorry, that was a total snackcident. Mmm. What was I supposed to be talking about? So salty. So crunchy. So cheesy. Whoops. Lost my train of thought. I've heard of brain freeze, but brain cheese? Mm. I'll just have one more cheese at Cracker, and then I'll get back to it.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

We are the musers on the pod. So far, we've discussed people we love.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I didn't tell you guys. Cuban emailed. What are you wearing? Well, no, that's not. Things we love. Got way into typewriters. How many typewriters do you own? Let's not podcast anymore. Yes.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

To me, it's time to get really down and dirty.

[Race Announcer]

These are great ideas. Start a podcast and then forget to promote it on social media.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

So what is our podcast about? You know, whatever we feel like the Musers. The podcast follow and listen on your favorite platform.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Hey there, stackers. I'm candy corn hater and Guy. You know, I gotta pause there because the. The first two candy corns are good. I mean, I think we can all agree, like, two of them. You're like, hey, these aren't bad. You grab the handful and then you're like, I've made a horrible mistake anyway. And Guy, who's a black hole of financial knowledge, Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Black hole candy corn knowledge.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

I think I'm spitting truth bombs here. I've got good news and bad news. The bad is that I have nothing to report about Joe's. Mom in that Home Depot receipt. The good news is that I just discovered I still have an active AOL Premium subscription and I gotta cancel it. And I've also got MoviePass and something called Beef Jerky of the month. Oh, that explains those little wooden sticks that are piling up over there. Was wondering about that. You were wondering about today's trivia. Answer the question. Was this back on Today's date, in 1692, the governor of Massachusetts dissolved the special court of Oyer and terminer, which was convened for what purpose? Of course, that was for the Salem witch trials. That's what's wrong now. All those witches are running free and signing me up for AOL Premium. Well, I mean, or at least not cancer. Canceling my subscription. Witches. It's probably the witches. And now I gotta get out of here. Take it away, Joe and og.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

There goes Doug running up the stairs. What? What a well trivia you're using.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Running in a loose. In its loosest definition.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Well, the fact that you're still here at the mic is just how slow you run.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Big.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Thanks to Doug and Heather Bonaparte for joining us. You know, communication, Og, is the key. They call it the soft skill. And yet when people are in a relationship and the money's not going the way that they hope that it would, it's generally we're not, we're not talking about it.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Nothing gets better by not talking about it. Whether it's health or fitness or money or relationships or whatever the case may be, burying my head in the sand, that will totally make it better.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

That is a great point. I've never once thought, you know what? I'm going to wait to bring this up with Cheryl later. And it just miraculously got better.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

It just went away. Like, if I just don't address the big elephant in the room, it will get way better. It'll eventually disappear. No, you have to. And being conflict proficient is a skill set too.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Right?

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

It's like a lot of people are conflict avoidant. That's super easy. But being proficient in how to deal with that sort of stuff, you know, it doesn't make it any more fun to send that crappy email or to have that tough conversation or, you know, whatever it may be. But quite often it's. It's a lot easier once you get into it. So don't put it off.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

You know what's funny about communication? You're around people for a long time and there's things that they do that end up being the sandpaper in the relationship. And Cheryl and I were talking about this just a couple weeks ago. Like, what is it?

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

That you're the sandpaper?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Turns out it's been me this whole time.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Who knew?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Who knew? The thing that drives Cheryl crazy that I say is, hey, guess what I did today? She's like, I don't like guessing games. I'm never going to guess. Just tell me what you did. Just. Just. Just tell me. Guess what I did today. For me, the same paper is when Cheryl goes, hey, don't be mad, but. And we were laughing that when she says, don't be mad, I'm instantly mad. I have no idea what I'm mad about. I have no idea. But when Cheryl says, don't be mad. Oh, okay. All right, here comes.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

I don't know that we have any of those in ours, but from our team standpoint, everybody knows this. When people start out with, can I ask you a question? And then I go, no. Yes, because apparently you've already asked it. Oh. Oh, no, you need to ask another question. Oh, okay.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Oh, that's like that joke. The guy goes to see the.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Stop.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Just. Just ask it.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Guy goes to see the lawyer and ask, what do you charge? Lawyer says, $3,000 for three questions. And the guy goes, isn't that a lot of money? Lawyer says, yes, it is. What's your third question? Right there. Good stuff. All right, into our headline. I love Halloween week because I get to say words like this. Phrases like this. Today's headline comes to us from Buzzfeed. How often during the 52 weeks of the year do you get to say, it comes from buzzfeed things People revealed. The headline is people are revealing how money caused shocking drama in their family. And I'm actually speechless. Of course. And number 6 will make you LOL. These are financial horror stories that people shared.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Speaking of lol. Hold on. Speaking of lol, I saw this picture the other day, Meme or whatever that said your brain will automatically translate in your brain wtf, but won't translate lol. Like, when you see wtf, don't you think of the words immediately?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yeah.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

When you see lol, do you think laugh out loud?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

No, I. I just think lol. Yeah, that is weird.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Why is that?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I. I don't know. That's the end of today's show, everybody. Anyway, we can't do better. Do you think BuzzFeed's gonna get better than that? I don't think so.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Made you lol. See, you just think of the letters lol.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I saw this one in this list I'll link to the whole list in our show notes for people that love doing these. These. Speaking of black holes, Doug, these black holes of Buzzfeed, what do you think about this idea of ruling from beyond the grave? You know, putting all these stipulations OG into your estate plan? My grandfather died in the early 1970s, long before I was born. He left $120,000 to be split among his six kids, but with two conditions. One, his second wife was entitled to the interest on the money for the rest of her life. And two, the oldest and youngest kids were entitled to 500 a year for serving as the executors of the estate until it could be dispersed. My God, did this cause drama. The wife lived another 30 years, which substantially diminished the value of the money. No one said they wanted to die earlier, but they sure felt that she could, that she should give up her claim. But most contentious is that my aunt and uncle each collected about $15,000 in fees and 500 installments. Several of their siblings felt they should deduct their riches from their inheritance, which, of course, they refused to do. And finally, there was about $4,000 extra. After all was said and done. My mom suggested donating it to cancer research as both their parents died of it in the early 60s. But nope, it became another six month fight over whether the executor should get a part of it, whether the other four should get a cool thousand bucks each. Just ridiculousness.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Well, the interest to the living spouse, that's a very normal part of a trust.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Incredibly normal. And why do they think, by the way, if she was married to them, that she shouldn't get that? I don't understand their problem.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Maybe a second marriage had to be.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yes, his second wife, but the second one, the fighting with the executors, hey.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Maybe you should have been first or last born and then you could have been an executor.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

You know what, Og? Two executors here, I think, is the problem too. I think just pick somebody. Pick one, don't pick two. These two people are gonna fight. They're gonna fight every time.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

They didn't fight, they got all the money.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

That's true, but they were fighting. That is. That is a touche. That's a good point. Money's torn my in laws apart. My husband's grandfather and his three adult children have been at each other's throats for nearly two decades over his money. My husband wants nothing to do with them or the money. His grandfather isn't rich. He just invested well, and worked hard. Instead of getting the gold years he deserved, he has to watch two daughters disinvite each other from holidays, rip each other on social media and refuse to see each other. The other is always trying to position herself to oversee the will. There have been ruined dinners, physical altercations, people not speaking for years. It's awful. It's so sad what money does to people.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

It happens. That's why you don't tell anybody what you got.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Stealth wealth.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

What was that?

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

It was kind of hard when you show up and you're like, hey, can you pick me up from the airport? Dfw. No, no, no.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

We know the private airport.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Yeah, there's a private hangar around the corner.

[Doug Bonaparte]

You'll see it.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I hitched a ride on this Learjet, remember a few years ago, Speaking of stealth wealth, that guy who had the brilliant idea og he said, I don't want my relatives to know how much money I have. I don't want them to ask me for money.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

I'm gonna ask them for money.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

So every time I go to Thanksgiving, I ask them to borrow money. If I can borrow money.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Yeah.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

So good.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

There you go.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

How about this horror story? Our mom blamed us for her gambling addiction, saying that we abandoned her. How's that for a first sentence? We stopped talking to her only after we found out that she wiped clean all of her and dad's savings and the money entrusted her by her dad's sister. She also blamed our dad for it because she said she knew he was cheating on her. They had to sell all of their property to return the money to our aunt. It took a year to resolve the issue and help everyone to get back on their feet financially and mentally. Only learned that she, quote, borrowed money, invested the money on a farming business with the attention of keeping the gains from a cooperative where she's a member with tasks with keeping the money safe. I've seen this in my own family where you have a relative who, you know, oh, gee, is stealing money, is just stealing money. And what do you do? You know? In fact, in this case, the person that was being stolen from knew they were being stolen from, and another relative said, well, it takes two, you know, why does she get access to the checkbook if you know she's going to steal the cash?

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Yeah, I don't. I don't know what to say about that.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

No. Painful. These are all painful Halloween horror stories. We'll link to these on our show notes@stacking benjamins.com Doug, time for us to mosey out on the back porch. What do we got brewing today?

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

The only thing I was going to bring up is we got a great review very recently regarding episode 1747 from just some Guy. Literally the name of the poster. Just Some Guy nyc. So it's just some guy in New York City. That narrows it down. Thanks. I think we'll find you. And the whole review is just the title and it says OG was insufferable on this show.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Oh, boy.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

I especially appreciated that he. That insufferable was two words in the title. He was insufferable.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I had so many people write to me about episode 1747 and how much they enjoyed it.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

You want to remind everybody what we talked about?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

1747 was the show where our headline was about gold prices hitting all time highs. And so many people told me that that was a show and it was a show. I think, I think we could.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

We could.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Insufferable.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

So we could definitely say that we had a show.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Yeah. I'll tell you what. Just Some Guy. That's maybe one of the best compliments you could have offered. Og. He's got a smile. Ear to ear right now.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yes.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Success. I was insufferable.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Doug poking him again. Yeah. Good stuff. Thank you so much.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

So much better than being sufferable.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Right.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

For the kind driven.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

If you're going to do something, do it really well.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Yes.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Please be intolerable.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

They used to say that about Norm MacDonald, Doug, that, you know, when Norm MacDonald would be doing this set and the joke wasn't going over, he could feel the audience starting to turn because it wasn't going over and he would just lean further into it and just. He's like, oh, you think this is bad? I can make it really, really, really bad.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

And a lot of people try that. Not everybody can turn that from being really bad into funny like Norm MacDonald could. Like we try it all the time. Just leaning in and rarely does it turn that corner to finally being funny for us.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Well, I can't wait to hear in a. In a future backport, Joji, what it's going to be like at Disney this time of year. If it's just if the park's packed or if it's going to be really fun.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

We've been there many times this time of year. This is kind of the time we would normally go with the kids when they were younger and it's going to be great. Yeah. It's also the food and wine festival in Epcot.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

So fabulous. Yeah, those festivals at Epcot. I'll be at Dollywood. They are doing a festival at Dollywood. The Fall Harvest Festival. Which should be fun, too.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

It's not the balloon festival.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Does Dollywood have a blue festival Pivot. Time for us to pivot.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Insufferable.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Doug, quick. Get us out of here, man. What are our top three things we need on our to do list today?

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Well, Joe, first, take some advice from Doug and Heather Bonaparte. While things happen to you, it's the stories you tell yourself that can create a struggle. What horror stories might you be telling yourself? Second, and also from Doug and Heather, how are the people around you thinking about money? I can guarantee it isn't the same way you're looking at it. Take some time and find out. That'll clear up some confusion. But the big lesson, don't even talk to Joe's mom today. Don't even. She'll share the creepiest story of all. She's thinking about starting a podcast about extreme couponing. Thanks to Douglas and Heather Bonaparte for joining us today. You'll find their new book, Money Together, wherever books are sold. We'll also include links in our show notes@stacking benjamin's.com. this show is the property of SB Podcasts, LLC, Copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul Sehive. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You'll find out about our awesome [e-mail] along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Oh, yeah.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I love this newish studio that's out. I've talked about these guys before, angel studios, where they make these. These films that are meant to just bring people together. I really like the one, if you guys remember, about Mother Cabrini and New York City.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Watch it yet? It's nowhere unless I pay for it.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yeah, yeah. And they make you. They do make you pay for it. If you don't catch it in the theater, man, they got this whole.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Yeah.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

System.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

I want to see that. You've. I've remembered you really recommended that highly. And I'm annoyed that I can't. I'm already paying for a streaming service again.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I know and yet another one, the second movie I saw was nearly as good. I didn't like it as much, but I liked it a lot. And it was the young women in Afghanistan, if you remember, who wanted to work on computers and who got into this robotics competition. And that was really a good, feel good movie. The third movie. This movie is not, definitely not a, a feel good movie, but it is every bit as important as those movies. And it's called Truth and Treason.

[Heather Bonaparte]

Hitler's twisting the truth beyond recognition.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Straight off the wire.

[Heather Bonaparte]

We report the truth, not the propaganda.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Spoon fed to you by your leaders. Gestapo terror must not remain unatoned. This concludes our broadcast for this evening. Can you keep a secret?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

So this is a story of a true story of a 16 year old kid and his friends. He is a Mormon in Germany and he watches a friend of his who is Jewish get taken away and he decides that he's going to do something about it as a 16 year old. It's in Hamburg, it's in the early 1940s and it's the story of him deciding that he's going to type out all of these messages after his brother, who was a German soldier, comes home and he has smuggled into Hamburg wireless radio, which is illegal. You're not allowed to hear anything that doesn't come directly from the government. So he gets the wireless radio. What you heard at the beginning was him listening to the BBC and hearing the other side of the story and realizing that they were being lied to. And so he decides to create these flyers and it's his story and the story of the SS officer who is investigating and is trying to find him and is trying to figure out who is creating this act of treason against the Third Reich. It is a pins and needles movie. I looked at my watch three times, not because I wasn't in the movie, but because I didn't know how much I could take. I'm not that interested. I'm not that into just suspenseful edge of your seat realizing this was a true story kind of movie. But it's a movie, it was an important movie. It's a movie I think we all need to see. It was really, really, really very compelling. Yet another Angel Studios movie that I like. So if you get a chance to see Truth and Treason, highly, highly, highly recommend it. You guys have been watching a show that I'm actually ashamed that I've not started watching the show yet. Season three, the Diplomat just came out on Netflix.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

It did. Are you watching it?

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

OG I haven't turned on Season three yet? No. Hopefully I'll get some airplane time here this week.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Yeah, we started watching it. We're, I think, three episodes in, and it's fantastic. It's better than I remember. There was a long break, seemed like a long break between season two and season three. And so the recap was. Usually I skip right past the recaps. I'm like, I need to go back and watch that recap because I forgot some. Some important things. But it was really good. I'm actually. Because thank God it's one of those shows that you can stream all the way through all at once. You can binge. You don't have to wait like a caveman every week for a new episode to come out. I gotta just churn through the rest of it because it's super good.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I either want it all at once, Doug, or I want you to do it week by week. I think the stupid thing Netflix does where they will release the first half the series and then make you wait. Because if I gotta wait and just make it once a week, there's a little bit of a, I don't know, deliciousness to that where I'm like, oh, it's Thursday night. The new thing was coming out.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

It's time for the new shows.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yeah, I like that. But the problem I have, when you release the first half of the season and I binge all those, then I gotta wait like eight weeks. What the hell?

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Oh, if it's that long of a gap, I agree.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

I still haven't watched the last five, whatever it is, five or six episodes of Yellowstone.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Just because they did it that way.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Because it came out like the first half.

[Doug Bonaparte]

It was.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

I think there was a writer strike maybe, or something that happened. And so they didn't intend to do it that way, but they did. And then the contract with Kevin Costner and all that sort of stuff went up. And so you knew what was going to happen. And now I've seen enough clips on YouTube and stuff that I have pieced together. Like, you know, basically, I know what the ending is. I just haven't watched it, but I'm just not invested in it anymore to go back and. And say, you know, exactly how did they piece all this together? I'm sure it was great, but. But there was a year space or 10 months or whatever it was between the first half of season five and the back half of season five. Yeah, whatever. Next.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Last week I loved. Well, last year there was a new series that was out which was Kristen Bell and Adrien Brody. Nobody wants this. And that was a good comedy. I really enjoyed that. She's agnostic and he is a rabbi and nobody wants the two of them together. They get together and it was a. I thought it was a really good first season. That came out last week. There's a bunch of other stuff coming out too. Some of the movies coming out now, of course. Why is it that for I feel like 40 of the weeks of the year there's no really good movie and then all the great ones come out at the same time and you miss half of them because of that.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Yeah.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

I still haven't seen the second half of the last Mission Impossible movie.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yeah.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Very Good Reckoning Part 2.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Enjoyed it.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

Oh, I'm sure. I know Doug has never seen any Mission Impossible movies.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

I haven't.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

It's worth a weekend. You know, you get wintertime and there's nothing going on. Like you can go Friday, Saturday, Sunday and just binge all. What are the 12 of them or something?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yeah, man. Go ahead and start from the beginning.

[Co-host (possibly OG)]

You'll piece it together. There's some crossovers that happen later.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

I really should. I just. I'm sitting there scrolling, looking for the thing to watch. It just never pops into my mind. Oh, we should start on the. The whole series.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I saw a preview while I was in the theater watching the angel movie that I just mentioned, Truth and Treason. And it's for the new Brendan Fraser movie. Have you guys seen the trailer for the new Brendan Fraser film?

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Is it just as uplifting as whale?

[Doug Bonaparte]

It is.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

By that I mean it seems a little uplifting, but still, it's. It's a. It's another. I'm going for the Oscar movie. Definitely that. But he is an out of work actor in Japan and he goes to work for a company where his job is to act like he's a member of the family. He's a rental part of the fan and the movie's called Rental Family. And so it shows him in these different scenes pretending he's a husband, pretending he's a boyfriend, pretending he's a family friend. He goes up to this young girl and says, hi, I'm your dad. And the girl obviously gets mad and like you left us when we were young. He's like, what do I do with this? So rental. It looks. It looks so good. I'm excited about seeing, seeing that, but not if it's as deep as pit of despair as the whale. The. The whale was kind of a bridge too far for me. I remember Doug when, when that came out I was so excited to see the whale. And then I watched it, I got two thirds of the way through and I was like, oh, my. This thing starts off depressing and just gets worse.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Yeah, it's like, like, what was it? Leaving Las Vegas where Nicholas Cage is just basically trying to drink himself to death and you're like, oh, God, just get on with it.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I do remember feeling bad during the Doors movie because, you know, Jim Morrison is going to commit suicide at the end. And I. It's the only movie I've ever walked out of. I'm like, oh, my God, please die.

[Doug Bonaparte]

Just.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

It was horrible.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Wow.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Just because you knew it was coming. Yeah, not good.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Well, that's a fun way to end the week.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yeah, there it is. You know, let's end this on a fun way. What have you seen Stackers? What movies have you seen? What? You know, let's add some stackers to the after show stacking. Benjamin.com. voicemail. What's your review of a movie? That would be awesome.

[Doug (Joe's mom's neighbor)]

Why haven't we done that before? Because look at us, we're not that bright.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

We are not.