How to Stop Fighting About Money

Afford Anything

Paula Pant | Cumulus Podcast Network

Investing, Business, Entrepreneurship

4.6 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2025

⏱️ 86 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

#654: Fights about money are common, but they're rarely about math. They're about power, shame, vulnerability, and trust. And no amount of data or fancy spreadsheets is going to fix it. What you need is a better system for fairness, more open communication, and a shared ambition. In this candid conversation with Heather and Doug Bonaparte, we explore how two partners rebuilt confidence, handled their six-figure student loans, and designed a rhythm for money talks that actually works. Together they share how early money stories, law school debt, and the Great Recession shaped their dynamic, plus the tools they used to find fairness at home and in their finances Key Takeaways Why 50/50 isn't always fair and how to do it better The small ritual that turned dreaded money talks into something they actually look forward to How borrowing a strategy from the office made household decisions way less stressful The surprising fix for resentment that had nothing to do with chores or budgeting Why tackling six-figure student loans together became a turning point in their relationship The mindset shift that helped them see debt not as a burden but as a shared opportunity Resources and Links Money Together, the book DoMoneyTogether.com, learn more about the book and project The Joint Account, weekly newsletter on joint finances at ReadTheJointAccount.com Fair Play by Eve Rodsky, a framework for dividing household responsibilities Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today's episode is about the invisible financial dynamics that can make or break relationships.
0:05.0	It's the stuff that nobody teaches you before you merge bank accounts together as a couple.
0:11.0	If you've ever found yourself fighting about money at the worst possible moment, or if you feel like you're drowning in financial shame while the other partner is frustratingly confident, or if there's
0:22.8	resentment because one person carries the entire mental load around finances, while today's
0:28.7	conversation tackles these exact challenges. You'll learn how to have productive money
0:34.1	conversations. You'll learn what to do when shame around past financial
0:38.2	decisions starts destroying your confidence. You'll learn why some partners withdraw from financial
0:44.0	decisions entirely and how to rebuild that partnership. And you'll learn about why healing your
0:50.0	relationship with money isn't linear. My guests today, Doug and Heather Bonaparth, have been
0:56.9	through it all, six figures of student loan debt, parenting during COVID. They join me to talk about
1:02.7	what they've learned about managing money as a couple. Doug is the founder of bona fide wealth, a wealth
1:08.7	management firm. He's been recognized as one of the nation's most
1:11.9	influential financial advisors. He's served on advisory councils for Investopedia and CNBC. He's been
1:18.3	featured in the Wall Street Journal, Barron's The New York Times. He's a CFP board ambassador for New York,
1:24.0	and he holds an MBA from NYU's Stern School of Business. Heather is a lawyer with more than a
1:29.2	decade of experience in the insurance industry. She is now the director of business and legal affairs
1:34.0	at Bonafide Wealth, and she's written for CNBC, The Skim, Business Insider, which is now called Insider,
1:40.2	and more. She holds a JD from the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in Manhattan.
1:46.8	They have co-authored a book called Money Together, all about managing finances as a couple.
1:52.2	Here they are, Doug and Heather Bonaparte.
1:56.1	Welcome. Hey there. Thanks so much for having us. Thanks for being on. The two of you met as freshmen in college. How did you meet? Is this like freshman orientation? I'll start by saying I took one look at that hair. And I said, which wasn't quite like that. Do you remember the show Jersey Shore? Yeah, yeah. He was more like Paul E. He had a blowout. It's called a blow a blowout. But he was from Boca Raton, so I called it the Boca blowout. And I took one look. I was like, who's that tall, handsome man with the very tall hair? I have to know him. But I'm not even kidding. Like, he did have very tall hair. He had a big smile. We had a couple mutual friends. My close friend,
2:35.7	who was also from the Philadelphia area, there were very few of us down in college in Florida.
	...

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