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  • Hello, everyone.

  • It is Chelsea Fagan.

  • And I am back with another episode

  • of The Financial Confessions.

  • This time, with an unusual guest, a man,

  • someone we rarely see the show, but also someone

  • who is an incredibly astute and-- dare I

  • say-- even funny expert on money.

  • So he should make for a very interesting conversation.

  • But first, I wanted to give a quick hello

  • to our beloved partners with whom

  • we create every episode of The Financial Confessions.

  • So as you guys almost certainly know by now,

  • we make this show in partnership with Intuit.

  • And if you have not heard of Intuit,

  • you have almost certainly heard of a lot

  • of their amazing products.

  • I am personally someone who has used Mint ever

  • since the very first moment I decided to get good with money.

  • That is a full year before I started

  • at thefinancialdiet.com.

  • And it was the only app that ever allowed

  • me to really confront my money.

  • So I really immediately fell in love with Intuit's products

  • and wanted to learn more about what else they offer.

  • And lo and behold, I ended up filing taxes

  • with TurboTax, which totally simplifies the process.

  • Another great product they make.

  • And I now use QuickBooks every single day

  • to manage my business's finances.

  • And of course, I still use Mint on my personal accounts.

  • Basically, Intuit has become an indispensable part

  • of my financial life.

  • It helps me make my decisions.

  • It helps me manage my goals.

  • And it helps me just get a very clear picture every day

  • of the exact state of my financial health.

  • Intuit basically makes everything

  • you need to do money better.

  • If you can't wait to get started,

  • check them out at the link in our description or our show

  • notes.

  • So as I promised, we have a man in the studio.

  • Who let him in?

  • He is a CFP.

  • In fact, I've heard you maybe even referred to

  • as the millennial CFP.

  • I'll take it.

  • He's a New Yorker.

  • He is someone who loves a good tie.

  • He's an expert on money.

  • He tweets.

  • His name is Douglas Boneparth.

  • Hey.

  • Hi.

  • What's up?

  • Not too much.

  • Welcome to The Financial Diet.

  • Thank you so much for having me.

  • Tell our audience a little bit about you.

  • Sure.

  • Sure.

  • I'm the founder and president of Bone Fide Wealth.

  • It's a wealth management firm that specializes primarily

  • in now older high-achieving millennials.

  • So we don't care how much in assets you have.

  • We care about where you're going and what

  • goals you want to accomplish.

  • And I was one of the first people

  • to go out and say, hey, I'm going to work with millennials.

  • And if you did that seven years ago, you got

  • laughed at in the profession.

  • Right.

  • But look who's laughing now.

  • Is it you?

  • Yes.

  • Are you laughing person?

  • Not.

  • I'm not-- I think my wife's the one laughing really.

  • Mostly at me.

  • Uh.

  • Yeah, yeah.

  • We should have a little counter up for how many times you

  • mention your wife.

  • For those joining us, so Doug is a man who loves his wife.

  • Yes.

  • Mentions her a lot.

  • And so hopefully, we'll hear a lot more about this elusive

  • person.

  • She'll probably come up a lot.

  • A lot of her financial story is our financial story.

  • Oh, how nice.

  • We co-authored a book together.

  • So I guess that's the next part.

  • Look at you guys.

  • We wrote The Millennial Money Fix in the three months

  • she had off after having our first child.

  • Yeah.

  • OK.

  • Yeah.

  • Yeah.

  • We really--

  • I got tired just hearing that.

  • Right.

  • Right.

  • We really-- you know?

  • If we're not going to sleep, then we

  • might as well be productive.

  • So my wife and I wrote this story

  • to pretty much address the massive amount of student loan

  • debt that we've taken out respectively.

  • And we wanted to show you that if you do understand

  • personal finance, you can get organized enough

  • to get out of really precarious situations.

  • Right.

  • Something that was very unique to millennials

  • is the average amount of student loan debt on their heads.

  • And we wanted to show that you can still

  • achieve your great things in life

  • despite these financial realities and obstacles that

  • are kind of unique to our generation.

  • So she's an attorney.

  • Yes.

  • And you're an MBA.

  • Yes.

  • Got it.

  • So how much-- do you ever disclose how much

  • student loan debt you have?

  • Yeah.

  • Yeah.

  • We're very forward about it.

  • It's right in the book.

  • Right now outstanding balance is just shy of $300,000.

  • Woo, buddy.

  • Yeah.

  • Good gracious.

  • It's a lot of money, right?

  • That is a lot of money.

  • Goodness.

  • But if you work hard enough and are

  • deliberate about how you want to build your career

  • and go after your goals, and prioritize them right,

  • you can deal with stuff like that.

  • There's-- you know, humble brag, not really,

  • but you've got to have a lot of income to deal with that

  • expense and still put two kids through daycare,

  • and buy a house, and afford living in that house.

  • So for all the flak that the generation gets

  • around millennials don't own homes,

  • and they can't do x, or start families,

  • settle down, and get married, I'm

  • here to tell you that that's just not true.

  • And there's some real practical things

  • you can do to get on your way.

  • I think there are--

  • I think that's not totally untrue.

  • I think there is some reality to it

  • for a lot of people who maybe have similar levels of debt,

  • but perhaps not the earning potential to go with it.

  • But we can get to that in a bit.

  • I'm curious in your particular situation,

  • so that's quite a significant amount of debt.

  • Is there any element of your education

  • or how you took on the debt, how you went through school,

  • that you regret?

  • For me and my decision to go get an MBA here in New York,

  • I have zero regrets about that decision.

  • I think it was always a goal of mine when I moved to New York.

  • And I think it was necessary to acquire

  • a few things that I would need to continue

  • building my business.

  • It was a very calculated decision,

  • down to how many clients I would need

  • to acquire within graduating to make that student loan payment,

  • you know, a wash.

  • And then how to make money on top of that.

  • And granted, I went to business school

  • after Heather went to law school.