From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Best Of The Duffys: Are J.Lo & Ben Breaking Up Over Money?

Episode Date: July 27, 2024

On this encore episode, Sean and Rachel revisit their thoughts on speculation that one of Hollywood’s “it” couples J.Lo and Ben Affleck are headed for divorce.   From keeping strict budgets in the early days of marriage to managing expenses with nine kids, Sean and Rachel have learned how to come together when it comes to cash. They share what roles they both take when it comes to finances, how they've been able to reach compromises over the years, and the major mistakes they believe often lead to financial failure. Follow Sean & Rachel on X: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey everybody, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life, and my wife, Rachel Campos. Duffy? Sean, we're back at the kitchen table. I know there's a lot going on in the world, right? A lot. World War III, possibly, you know, war in Ukraine, war in the Middle East. Criminal prosecutions. Yeah, a former president, you know, being prosecuted, verdicts coming down, and elections, and just...

Inflation, open borders. Open borders, Chinese coming into the country, Chinese taking over the Western Hemisphere. It's true. There's just no end of problems. Are we going to talk about that? And then to add to the list, you know, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez look like they're on the rocks. They just got married not long ago.

And now it looks like there may be trouble in paradise. So people have seen them without, you know, different occasions. They've been without their wedding rings. without, you know, different occasions. They've been without their wedding rings. Ben Affleck is staying at an apartment instead of like their $60 million home that they bought after they got married, which I don't know what you would get for $60 million. Nor do I. And I don't know why people live in separate houses when they're married. But things don't look good. Neither of them has confirmed or denied it.

Jennifer was asked about it. She was out of the country promoting something, and she was asked at a press conference. And she told the interviewer who asked her about it, you should know better than to ask those kind of personal questions. So she refuses to answer anything about it. Telltale sign, by the way. That is a telltale sign. refuses to answer anything about it. Telltale sign, by the way. That is a telltale sign. But what's coming out from it, Sean, is that one of the major issues is an issue that they had when they were married last time, which is money. That Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have different

ideas of money. And as you know, Sean, money is one of the number one reasons why people get divorced. It's like number one, number two, you know, one of the top reasons. And so, you know, I thought it was an interesting topic because you and I have had to deal with money issues in a marriage. Anyone who gets married, there's money issues because it's part of being married. And, you know, it doesn't matter if you have $400 million. So this is a think there's a big disparity in the amount of wealth they have so she has 400 million dollars supposedly um to her name and and he has like 1.5 million 150 million i'm sorry 150 million versus 400 million

sorry about that um and so so there's there's some, so she probably, you know, feels like she wants to spend more. She put $20 million down to basically finance this vanity documentary that she just did. So they have different ways of handling money. It's putting a strain on their relationship, but there are people like that all over the country, married couples all over the country. And so I thought it would be interesting to delve into that, like the issues of money and how do you keep money so it doesn't impact your relationships. You can still have this healthy relationship and a healthy attitude towards money. So first, I think that money is not one of the things you normally talk about before you get married. You're just having fun and you're dating and you might have the problems you're trying to

navigate. But you might see some early signs. Is someone messy? Someone clean? Is someone tight with their money? Does your boyfriend want to go Dutch? Because that's a big thing these days. Right. And so this conversation prompted us to do two things. One, look at our relationship and what we do with money. Yeah. But two, then go to an expert, Dave Ramsey, and see what Dave Ramsey says. Well, it's somebody who works for Dave Ramsey. Her name is Rachel Cruz, but she's part of his Dave Ramsey. I believe Rachel's been on the bottom line.

Oh, that's at Fox Business, 6 to 7 p.m. every night. Oh, that's a good plug. Yeah, Rachel has been on the, Rachel Cruz has been on the bottom line. So she has seven tips for a healthy relationship. I thought it would be interesting to go through her tips to see if we can... How we do? Yeah, well

not just how we do, but we might have other, I think we have some other tips that we can add to it um but sort of go through her tips and see what what you think so you know the tip number one and and this is was surprising to me that this happens but as people are getting married later in life um and that's sort of a trend uh they have separate you know they they have their own lives right for, for a long time. And so they get married and they keep separate accounts. And Rachel Cruz says, that's a bad idea. You should have a joint bank account.

I have to agree because that's all I've known. The idea of me having my own account separate from you, it just never entered into my head. I just, I can't imagine. Well, first, that would be a disaster to have Rachel have her own account. I wanted to join with yours because mine was going to go. When we first got married, I was Ben and she was Jen. She had more money than me. I was in law school. I had no money.

Oh, Sean, I had no money. Well, you did have more money than me. I was, I was in law school. I had like, I had no money. Oh, Sean, I had no money. You did have more money than me. Well, I had a little, I had an accident, a car accident. And so I had a little bit of money in an account from that, but it wasn't that much. Um, but a little bit was more than I had. Right. But I wasn't making like, once we got money, I became an at- home mom very quickly after. And you were the moneymaker, which was not a lot of money that I made. So there wasn't a lot of money when we got married. Immediately, we merged our bank accounts. It was interesting. I was at what? Anyway, our banks merged as we got married.

And it was easy to merge our bank accounts into one. She went for it. There wasn't much to merge. And frankly, we still have that first checking account that we opened together with Wells Fargo. and it was easy to merge our bank accounts into one. She went for it. Yeah, there wasn't much to merge. There wasn't much. And frankly, we still have that first checking account that we opened together. It was with Wells Fargo. So I think that having joint accounts together means you're going to be forced to manage and confront money together.

Yes. And how much is being spent, how much is being saved. There's no hiding. Right. Unless someone's going to the extreme levels and getting, you know, credit cards outside of the knowledge of the spouse. But that's really hard to do because you're going to see the credit card payments come out of the checking account. So all the money, all our money goes into our joint accounts and all the money goes out of those joints. And I think that, by the way, I think to do that right when you're married is so important because you start to navigate the issues and the philosophy

around money on day one. Right. Cause it's sort of like avoiding it, right? When you have these separate accounts, it's like, I don't want to deal with, I don't want to have you telling me what to do. And I don't want you to tell me what to do. So you're never negotiating a relationship or philosophy around money. She says separating the money and splitting the bills is a bad idea that only leads to more money and relationship problems down the road. Do not keep separate accounts. Put all of your money together and begin to look at it as a whole. I'm with you, Rachel Cruz, on this.

I think it's good. If you're going to merge your lives, which is what your marriage is doing, you should merge your bank accounts. You should put it all together. It's like, you know what? Your two shall be one also on the bank accounts. All right. Let me ask you this. What if you really love somebody and they're just terrible with money or they're, you know, very, you know, have a very different idea of you than you have, but you love them. You want to be married to them, but you just don't want to get dragged down into their money issues. I think you also have to then go, can you talk about it? Can you navigate? Can you come to some common ground that meets your values of money, but also meets their desires with money as well?

Can you find that happy medium? And if you do, I think that works. But if you don't, I think, happy medium. And if you do, I think that that works. But if you, if you don't, I think again, infidelity and money are the two top reasons why people get divorced. If you can't navigate the money. Um, and if you see that problem before you're married, you should be talking about it, thinking about it, um, strategizing. And some people are committing financial infidelity, right? Like they're, they're lying to their spouse about, which leads to number two. So she says, you need to discuss your lifestyle choices together. And that's why the joint bank account leads to that, those kinds of discussions. So you may have very expensive taste, your spouse may not, and you're going to have to have these conversations together to decide

what can we both handle together? What can we both live with? And so she says, your lifestyle needs to line up with your actual income, not what you wish it was. And so again, forcing these conversations because money is a big issue. And by the way, if so, one person is really frugal, another one is a spendthrift, you got to go, well, how do we, again, you can't just force one into the other's category. There has to be a happy medium between those two. And just for our marriage, again, we didn't have any money for a really long time. And Rachel would accuse me of always being cheap.

And I'd get so offended by that. I'm like, I'm not being cheap. It's just that we don't have the money to do it. And she thought I was cheap. And now. It wasn't until we got money. I was like, oh, he's not cheap cheap i really probably didn't have the money but there was an issue like you know it's it's hard and and some things i still went out on it and i feel good about that like there were some

there was a couple trips that you know maybe if we were super super responsible we shouldn't have taken and i have no regrets about taking those trips. Like in retrospect, it was important for our marriage. And so I pushed that and I feel good about that. No regrets. Um, again, this is also the number three, she says, recognize your difference in personality. Um, so again, some people, you know, are very good with money and they're, you know, wonky about money and they like to balance things down to the last, you know, decimal. And another person might be more of a free spirit about life, about money. And so if you truly love each other and you want to have a life together, you've got to find that happy medium and also make some accommodation. So it can't feel like one person's always winning just because they're good with money.

You also have to recognize that people have needs. I've seen men in particular, friends of mine who've had just really stingy, jerky husbands who, you know, just are no fun when it comes to money and are just really controlling. And I don't think that's good either. I think that can really bring a lot of resentment into the marriage. I think to recognize that whether you're the free spirit or you're the numbers guy, you have to make some accommodations for the other person to also not feel like they're being controlled. We'll be right back with much more after this. The housing crisis in the GTA has reached a critical point with more than two in three residents being affected. Reporting that almost nine million Canadians are living in food insecure households.

Over one million people in the GTA now live below the poverty line. We're just out today. Mental health support is the number one reason people are calling 2-1-1 for a... At United Way, we wake up to a different alarm every day. Help us end poverty and build a better GTA any way we can. Donate today at unitedwaygt.org. I think both people also have to be part of the budgeting and the decisions. So you can't just have one person say yes and no to all the spending and the other one is shut out.

Because the other person doesn't even know what's going on. And that was something that we had to work out so when sean was talking about how you know i would say well you're i would accuse him of being cheap one of the ways we resolved that fight was sean going okay you know because i liked i when it comes to money i'm kind of 1950s wife like Like I'm like, just pay the bills and oh, is money tight? Just go make more. You know, like I don't want to, I hate, I hate dealing with money. I hate it.

And I just, I do like spending it. I don't think I'm crazy about spending money. I'm not, I'm not reckless, but I like nice things like every other woman. Um, and so anyway, when we would get into these fights, finally, you were like, listen, the problem is you don't know what you don't see the budget because when he brings up the budget, I get very tired. It literally, it's like taking a sleeping pill, but I had to force myself to see what's going on to go, okay, this is what our debt is. This is the income. This is what's left over.

And actually, that's like pulling out my nails to me. It's like Chinese torture. I hate those times that we have to sit and talk about money. But it actually helped our relationship because when I knew what was happening with the budget, I was less resentful about the kinds of decisions we had to make. And also not putting it just on you to go, no, Rachel, you can't have that. It's like, okay, Rachel, you want to have that? Tell me where it comes out of. You pay the bills. You decide what money we have. You figure out our credit card balances and how we navigate this stuff. But even now, so to this day, Rachel, when we have a, I'll talk about money all day long

and how we budget and manage. You actually kind of like thinking about it. I do enjoy that. And I don't like that at all. So literally she will start to fall asleep. And so now what I've done is almost like I have to put toothpicks in my eyes to open up. So I have, I go, just give me literally one minute. I'll just stay away for one minute. I'm just going to walk through these very simple and I'll do it. And I'll, I'll think about it beforehand and I'll walk through in one minute what's going on. And then she wants more details. She can have all the details. Once in a while, you'll do it. We do a budget and you'll look at and be like, what's going on? Why? And then you'll look at the budget and spend more time.

And by the way, there are things that Sean has wanted to buy and I'm like, that is the dumbest thing that we could do right now. But I can only say that because I need to know what, I have to be in a space that I actually know what's going on with the budget to make that kind of determination. And so there have been things that I've said, I would prefer you not purchase that right now. Like that is not a priority for our family. But I want us to not purchase that right now. Like that is not a priority for our family. But I want us as a priority.

But one other thing as well as you, as we both wanted to do something, I have more to think of that you wanted to do something. I'm like, no, we come to go like, hey, listen, let's wait. We spent a lot this month. There's been a lot more expenses than we thought we were gonna have. Let's wait till next month.

Let's wait two months before we do that. And you're like, okay, we'll wait a month or two and then we'll just, we'll, we'll, I'll get it then. And that actually has worked out pretty well for us. Yes. And also I think the, the reason why it's like, you know, they say, show me your checkbook and I'll show you your values, you know, or show me your credit card bill and I'll show you your values. And it's really true. And so some of the things that we've, we've made purchases of or gone into debt to achieve, um, we've had to really think hard, like what about our value? So I'll give a good example, the cabin that we have in our boat. And, you know, where I came from in my home, where I grew up, those were just luxuries that never even entered my parents' minds. It wasn't even a debate. Like it just was so like out of the realm of, of anything that they ever thought was worth doing. Um, because it just was

not in there in our, in our family culture. But when I, when I married Sean, when I married you, honey, I realized that you did come from a family that lived near a lake and there was lake life was sort of part of family life, part of family culture. And I actually, as I got to know it, I really started to appreciate it and see that this was really good, clean fun. And so early in our relationship, we tried, we purchased a little cabin and then we, we flipped it and then we purchased another one and we flipped it until eventually we ended up getting a piece of property and tearing it down and building a little cabin for our family on the lake that we actually love that he grew up on and we and we invested in a boat because to us that was an investment in the family

and our kids memories are very attached to that now for for some other family, that might be an RV. It might be about family road trips. It might be like saving money for, you know, that vacation that your family wants to take every year to, you know, somewhere that's special to you. So I think, but the impact that can happen to, to that, to that point is if, if I suggested to the kids that we sell it, Oh, we've brought it up before. Like maybe we should sell it. And they've been like. They lose their minds.

They're like, because it's such a. Oh, we could never sell it. Because they would have rebellion in the family. Because it's such a big part of these family experiences. And there's many memories now. And it's just a wonderful part of our family history. But the reason I bring it up is that there are some reasons to take a risk to maybe go into debt, knowing that you have to pay this off eventually,

because you're building something that you, it's about your values, right? Like, I mean, I didn't take, we didn't take that money and blow it on, you know, a fancy car, right? Right. We blew it on something that we thought we could eventually pay off, that it would be an investment. And that was more importantly, an investment in our family life. And so again, I bring that up just because I think values, what you value and how you spend your money are really imperative.

And I think the more that you can find a way for your money to, to, to overlap with your values, the more as a couple, I think that it's easier. So I don't feel like that expense on the, on the cabin, it's, it's like an investment in the family. And even on this point, like we'll talk now about, I'm like, we're getting older. What does retirement look like? How much are we putting away for retirement? And I drive those conversations as well because it's like that's important to think about. We would be destitute if it was up to me. Okay.

So then she says keep purchases out in the open. So, Sean, I went to a lunch with some friends. And as a funny thing to like, who's going to sit where, right? What they did is they said, they asked different questions. And if you answered yes to these questions, or you raise your hand to one of these questions, then you could get up and go pick your seat at the table for this little luncheon that I went to. It was really funny. And they asked all these different crazy questions. If you had a fight with your husband last week, you know, go, you can go sit down and pick your seat at the table.

One of them was if you've lied to your husband about a purchase in the last month, raise your hand and like almost all the way, which was hilarious. Um, but I think it's really important. I talked earlier about financial infidelity. I don't think that, first of all think it's really important. I talked earlier about financial infidelity. I don't think that, first of all, it's a bad sign if you have to lie about your purchases because you shouldn't feel like that in a relationship. But I do think that that's important to keep purchases out in the open and not feeling you're hiding something from yourself. There's also some purchases. You're like, these are just normal expenses that no one's going to have any objection about.

But then there's a certain price point you get to this. I got to tell you, I'm buying something for this amount of money. This is what we're going to do. Another one is don't let your salaries come between you, the differences in salaries. Yes, and that's important. Because always someone is going to make more than the other. And when you do your money, you don't get more power because you make more money. It's a joint decision. Um, and you'd make the decision together. It's like, this is goes,

it goes into the family pot and you don't have more claim to it because you make more. I think that's a, that's a, that's a big deal right now because there's a lot of people who will, who will look at their salaries and think they have the upper hand and then try to drive all the decisions around the money. You're a partnership. Yeah. Don't let making more money make you a dictator. Well, and I think it's important because some women work as their homemakers,

they're home taking their family, they're stay-at-home moms. I mean, again, going back to, like like what do you value what's more important the person who is staying home and taking care of the kids and cooking the meals and keeping the house going or the or the person who brings home a paycheck the point is you're both valuable you're both working towards this thing and just because somebody in the relationship makes less money should not give them less say over the... So, can I tell you, when I ran for Congress, I'm not going into the IRS, but I got audited by the IRS. I made no money. You made no money.

By the way, that was completely a politically motivated audit. I got audited making no money. You're just going to start making me mad when I think about that. So, I had to bring my receipts in to the guy who was a really nice guy that worked for the IRS to get audited. And literally, I had a box of receipts. And he was like, are you kidding me? I'm like, is there supposed to be another way I'm supposed to give you my receipts? So I went in.

I brought my box of receipts. I didn't make much money. But it was a really painful process. It was horrible, actually. Yeah, it was. And so after that, I got quickens, which I download all my transactions from every account and I record them. And so anytime we want to go, where does money go? I go, you can pull it. It's all right there on the computer. You can look at

it. I can look at it. And so sometimes there'll be transactions that I'm like, what was that for? And I always preface it with, I'm not checking up on your, how you're spending money, but it's that I'm concerned that did someone steal my credit card? Is someone inappropriately putting charges? Only did the kids take the card and do something with it? I stole it. So, but we do that because I know, I know every dollar in transaction matters. That's another great point about like managing your account.

So when you see it's real time exactly when it's in the um when it's in in the the quicken system or whatever program you're using there's a level of transparency right everything goes through there i can see what he's spending money on he can see what i'm spending money on i'm going to tell you i just i i do it almost every morning it takes me five minutes i can't think of anything I would like to do less than check the account. And then I'll go, okay, our budget, we're over in this area. Maybe we should look at trying to refine how we spent. You know, I mock you about it.

I'm so grateful that you do it because it's literally like it's torture for me to look at it. But I'm glad that you keep track of it. You know, early on in our relationship, Sean took $5,000 without telling me and invested it in like some, the stock market. Was that what it was, Sean? The stock market. We ended up losing most of it. But I was like, excuse me, like you don't get to take $5,000 and without telling me, cause I would have had a say in that. And so we've had these fights about money and going, you know, you have to tell, you have to be fully transparent with me and I will be fully transparent with you.

I don't think I've ever lied to you about a purchase ever. Now there have been purchases that have come through and you're like what was that that's not how i would have you know like but never like like major things i think actually i'm really glad we had that fight about that because that's never happened again and and i've never done it obviously i was upset that he had done it i made all the money back plus. Oh, yeah. I always hear about that. Two years later.

Just a quick side note. His losses always come somehow magically, ended up being great. Like, I have no idea. So, also, we probably bought or sold probably eight or ten properties. Yeah. And on one, on one, I think I didn't make any money. I don't even think I lost. If I lost, I lost a little bit of money.

Every one I made money on, all the money I bought and sold. And the one time I lost money, guess what? I hear about it all the time. And I'm like, but I made all the other money on these properties. But when we get in a fight, it's the one property I lost that continues to come up. So then the idea is also about setting your expectations for where you'll be financially in the future. You know, making that realistic.

If you're just starting off and you're like, we're going to have a, you know, place in Florida and we're going to have fancy vacations. And like, if your expectations are just unrealistic, you're going to end up feeling unfulfilled and disappointed in your spouse and in your relationship and in your trajectory in life. And so I think, again, these conversations being open, here's how much money is realistic that we can save towards a vacation or towards a retirement fund or towards our children's um you know uh school fund and keeping these things realistic and and achievable so that you feel like you're you're moving forward um but you're not sort of you know i think i think it's important always to look forward we have a tendency to look back but if you look forward and go we're going to set a budget and again if someone is really frugal with clothes, and just as an example, and the other one is like really, you know, they want the fanciest clothes.

Well, if you actually set a budget and you agree on how much is going to be spent where per month, then you actually can keep track of it and you can hold each other accountable for how much goes out the door. Now, your gas prices probably is, I mean, there can be some fluctuation. You don't have any control over Joe Biden, what he's doing on his attack on American oil. There's some things that are out of your control, but there's some things that they're choices on how we spend each month. Budget for it. Plan for it. Make an agreement to how you're going to spend and then stick to it. And again, I have our budget on quickens and it works incredibly well for us to see what we're doing

and are we sticking with the budget. And if you have a spend, like Rachel, this is down, we do, but if Rachel's like, she likes to buy stuff for our house. Yeah, I'm more about interior stuff. And so if that became an issue for us, I'd be like, okay, well, let's set a budget.

What's reasonable for what you spend per month and per year on buying a few things for the house. That's not a problem. So Sean and I had a, we recently celebrated our 25th anniversary. And Sean wanted to do something very nice because when we first got married, we had so little money, he bought me a wedding ring that was so cheap, it actually broke in half. And not very long after we got married, either.

He bought me a cheap ring. It's okay. I don't know. I'm not a jewelry person. So what was interesting is then, like, a few years ago, he bought me a beautiful ring from Tiffany's that I love. And then we recently had our 25th anniversary, and he wanted to buy me a ring to celebrate our 25th anniversary. Which, by the way, I spent a lot of time. Thinking about it.

Thinking, looking, researching. And I had the ring picked out and actually. But he actually was smart enough. And I thank God he did this. He was like, listen, I'm about to buy this ring. It's very expensive. I don't want to just like prop it up on you. Like I want to like, like, you know, show you it, make sure you love it because, you know.

Yeah. And I looked at the ring. It's a big purchase. And I thought it was very beautiful. It was well selected. And then I looked at the price tag and I was like, hell no, you're not buying me that ring. I don't love, I love this ring. I don't love it that much.

I do not want this ring. Please do not buy this ring. It will give me anxiety that I might lose this ring. And I don't need this from, for me that I'm like, save your money and, you know, let's go on a trip someday, um, in the future. But I, I don't. And so again, I think it's important to have these conversations and think about what, what you got, because it was a beautiful gesture. But here's the problem. I just, I couldn't.

I couldn't. I'm kind of cheap sometimes and I can't. Then the point for me was, it's important to get her advice. But in the future, don't ask her. Just buy it. Just give it to her. If you get really, really rich, you can do that. But as long as we have nine kids and we send them to college, then no. We'll have more of this conversation after this. Some things require a lot of work to grow, like plants, hair, babies, or your savings. But when you run a business,

you already have enough on your plate. Scotiabank's Right Size Savings for Business account can help you grow your savings with ease. For a limited time, open a new account and earn up to 4.65% But again, about setting expectations and being real. And then one of the last ones she talks about is about the kids and the kids are a big part of the expenses that go on. And sometimes kids can be very demanding and have their own set of expectations. And she says, don't let the kids run the show. And I could not agree more with Rachel Cruz from Dave Ramsey show on this any more than that. I think, you know, a lot of parents are making decisions that are not wise,

financially speaking, because they think they want their, because they want their kids to fit in with other kids or they want, you know, they maybe have some guilt from their own childhood about not having stuff and they wish that they want their kids to have everything they didn't have. But in the end, things and monetary things aren't really what's going to make kids happy. And I think that getting the family into family debt in order to satisfy a materialistic need in a child is just a bad message. you know, materialistic need in a child is just a bad message. If you look at where Americans are right now, I forget the stat, but like 40% or 50% of Americans don't have, you know, a $400 reserve fund if things go wrong. And again, it's been really hard with this economy. But again, really, sometimes it's hard to make more money. So you have to be

tighter on your budget and figure out where you can cut, where you can, you know, slice and dice and be more frugal in how you spend. And some people are already at the line. But that matters. It's not, as the old saying goes, it's not how much you make, it's how much you save. And that comes down to, again, if you can't afford things for the kids, again, do they have shoes and clothes and food and food and a notebook and a pencil? Like, listen, they're going to be fine. They're going to be fine. They need love. By the way, I think it's interesting to like money issues can tear your relationship apart or they can, it can actually strengthen your relationship. If you have this goal, like you were talking about, Sean, you know, this is where, this is where we're at, honey. And this is where we need to be

at the end of this year or in two years. And this is how much we'll have saved. And we'll be able to retire in this many years, having those goals coming back on a regular basis. Maybe it's a weekly or a monthly basis to discuss your financial goals, to make sure you're back, you're both on the same track. It can actually become like a venture that you're doing together. You know, it can actually bring you closer together instead of what it's doing for so many people, which is tearing their relationships apart. It can build real trust in a relationship and real compromise. And goals and accomplishments, right? And that you do together. And so again, what is, I guess, I think everybody's going to have issues when they get married. And we'll still deal with money issues now and how we're spending, what priorities we have, how much do we save, how much can't we save, what's happened to kids in school.

But I think because of the start, what we first did was have a joint checking account. We started off together. We were a team and this was not intentional. We just, this was what we did. And I think in the end it was smart, but we were a team from the very beginning on this. And again, but I think also that one of the things that I was really glad that I, that I did and that you were receptive to, which is again, going back to the values for 14 years of our life, I was an at-home mom and I, I know myself. I've always kind of had that sense about knowing myself and I am very affected by my environment. I love things that are beautiful. I like an environment that's neat and beautiful to be around. And I was going

to be home, um, most of the day. And you're somebody, especially back then you did not care about any of that. Like you could have lived. I saw the way you lived before we got married. It was like a King disgusting. Um, it was, it was really disgusting and ugly. And that apartment was the most depressing place I'd ever seen. And when we got married and I was going to be home with our children, I said to you, I said, if this is like my office and I am very impacted by my environment. So I know we can't do everything I want to do, but everything we can do to make my space beautiful and livable, I'm asking you to please do that. The other thing I asked you, because we moved to Wisconsin and I'm an Arizona girl, is I said, I never want you to complain

about the heat bill because I don't like to be cold. And you never did complain about the heat bill. You never complained about my phone bill. My house was so small it was not expensive to heat. And back then, before cell phones, my phone bills were very high because my sister was living overseas. My mother lived in Arizona. These were long-distance bills. And I asked you never to complain about my phone bills. I think we did talk about that, though, because that was a variable that was hard to navigate. But my point is this. You recognize that that was hard to navigate. But my point is this.

You recognize that that was important to me. And as little as we had, you tried to make accommodations for that. And I've always been very grateful for that. And then you'd make accommodations. And I'm like, we don't have the money. And you'd be like, we did do that together. And even now, I don't, again, these stools came into our house. I'm like, why do we have these stools?

Or why do we have these stools? What's this little table for? It has no value to me. You know why we needed those stools? Because we would have our family meetings in this one room. We have our families in this one room. And there's always someone fighting about who gets the best seat on the couch. It's kind of a little tight.

We're a big family. So I bought these really cute little like,, they're really, like, not stools, Sean. They're little mini ottomans. No, they're little round. I don't mind the fight. They're little cylindrical ottomans. I don't mind the fight. I was fine having that fight. And I explained to you that was for family meetings.

But I didn't care. But with the same token, I bought beehives and bees. And I got really no complaint about my bees. I'm trying to garden. And these will be the most expensive. That's for the apocalypse. When the apocalypse comes, we will survive on honey. Well, and the tomatoes are not cheap this year.

I bought pots. Anyway, but we've been able to now, a little older, Yeah, it's an investment into your garden that hopefully will bear fruit. And I guess, so as we close this podcast out, I do think compromising, joining together, budgeting. Talking about it, being transparent about it. And doing consistent check-ins. And again, work with your spouse. I mean, I do all,

all the bill pay. I like, even if Rachel has to send someone a vent, this happened yesterday. She's like, I got to send a Venmo payment. Here's I'll send you the address. Um, send Venmo. I'll even Venmo for her. And people are like, why in the hell is this guy, Sean Duffy sending me, you know, a hundred, a hundred dollars, which I do for her. But the point is take your spouse where they're at. And like Rachel, I get, I truly get a minute with her. Before I start to doze off on the financial side. There was one time I was like, this happened like three months ago. I did a budget and I did it in like five pages and I had a huge print. I'm like, here we go. This is, this is, you know, option one.

Huge print. See this number here. This is option two. How much you save. This is option one. See this number here? This is option two. How much do you save? I walked through it all. Actually, you did about three minutes on that. I engaged because you actually did a PowerPoint, and I appreciated that. By the way, Sean, will Jen and Ben Affleck get through this? Will J-Lo and Ben Affleck get through this money issue?

I know it's hard when you have a $60 million house and you have $400 million and your spouse only makes $150 million. Are they going to make it? Should we talk to them about their money issues? I think money is probably not the biggest problem they have anymore. Again, if money is a problem and you are worth $400 million as J-Lo or $150 million as the poor boy Ben Affleck. But you know, as you make more money, you end up spending more money. You acquire more expensive taste. That's true.

I can't imagine what J-Lo's beauty bill is. I can't tell you what at this point, I might go, you know what? We both have so much money. Let's actually have separate checking accounts. At that point, maybe I would actually recommend separate accounts. If you were Ben, you would have a separate account. You can buy this stuff. I'll buy another one.

By the way, Ben has to pay child support. He's divorced. I don't know if she does for her kids to Mark Anthony. I don't know what's going on there. But his money is not all his money. He's divorced. But if he's worth $150 million's divorced. So he's got it. But if he's worth 150 million, that's after he's already paid that those,

you know, alimony payments or whatever his child support payments. So we're going to stay on this story. This is breaking up. All the things happen in the world. I'm sad. I'm actually believing that Jen and Ben are actually on, on the rocks here. And I, this is a, this is a relationship that I actually really was rooting for. I was rooting for them. I'm happy to hear that. I hope they figure it out, whether it's money, whether it's…

But I'm rooting for your relationship. Diva-ness, I don't know. Who knows? Who knows? She is Latina. Usually it's not the Latina's fault. Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa. That is actually not true.

Usually the Latininas have bigger tastes than the budget you have to navigate that um all things are bigger with like cut that tweet all right with that um it's been a fun podcast it has been we're all wearing it on the high note um it's like a podcast you can always rate review subscribe wherever you get your podcast find us at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts uh we drop wednesday thursdays fridays subscribe we would love that if you would subscribe um to our podcast share with your uh your friends your family members your neighbors at your summer picnics the the parade you're going to.

Go like, you know what? I listen to this really great podcast, The Kitchen Table. Check it out. We'd appreciate that. Appreciate that. And we're going to keep watching this trial, potential sentencing, poll numbers as we go through the summer and talking about what we're doing for the summer as we go through the podcast. You got it. Until next time.

Bye, everybody. Listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. Jason and the House, the Jason Chaffetz podcast. Dive deeper than the headlines and the party lines as I take on American life, politics and entertainment. Subscribe now on Fox News podcast dot com or wherever you download podcasts.