The Currency of Grief

When your spouse dies abroad, nobody warns you that the paperwork battle might outlast the worst of the grief.   Nikki Sherman was living in the UK with her husband Scott and their daughter when Scott died suddenly at 52 from a pulmonary embolism. Settling an estate after a spouse dies is hard enough. Doing it across two countries, during a pandemic, while raising a teenager, is another thing enti...

Losing a parent at 14 does not just change your childhood. It changes every version of you that comes after.   On The Currency of Grief, host Justin Weidenfeld sits down with Emily Bouchard, family dynamics expert, TEDx speaker, and host of the Wealth Coherence podcast. Emily was 14 when her mother died suddenly at 44 from a brain aneurysm. What followed was decades of grief that kept showing up,...

He was trying to be present for his father’s final weeks while carrying the legal and financial responsibility of what would come next.   That's the reality Vincent Valeri faced in the winter of 2022, and on this episode of The Currency of Grief, host Justin Weidenfeld gives him the space to tell it honestly. When Vincent's father Vincenzo was diagnosed with stage four bile duct cancer in December...

Grief after losing a child doesn't follow a script, and no one knows that better than Richard Wood.   Nearly 20 years ago, Richard's 22-year-old son Spencer died in a sudden unexpected loss that changed everything. There was no warning, no goodbye, and no roadmap for what came next. In this episode of The Currency of Grief, host Justin Weidenfeld sits down with Richard to talk about how a father c...

Estate settlement after death is one of the most overlooked burdens grieving families face, and on this episode of The Currency of Grief, host Justin Weidenfeld sits down with Davis Wilkinson, CEO and founder of Heirloom, to talk about why that burden exists and what it actually costs families to carry it alone.   Davis's story starts with sibling loss and grief. His older brother Adam died of a m...

Most people spend more time planning a vacation than choosing who will manage their estate.   In this solo episode of The Currency of Grief, host Justin Weidenfeld, your grief financial officer, walks through the roles that shape what happens to your estate, your medical and financial decisions, and your family dynamics when life changes without warning. This episode is about the people you put in...

Please note this episode discusses drug use and domestic violence.   Sibling inheritance conflict rarely starts with money. It often begins in the space where grief, silence, and unspoken expectations live. On The Currency of Grief, host Justin Weidenfeld sits down with Peter Johnson to share what unfolded after his mother’s brain cancer loss and how that experience shaped his work at the intersec...

Loss can place unexpected responsibility on someone overnight, especially when legacy and family wealth are part of the story.   Justin Weidenfeld sits down with Kristen Heaney, founder of In3Generations and host of The Family Wealth Edge Podcast, to talk about the reality of navigating grief and inheritance at a young age. When Kristen lost her father during college, she suddenly faced young inhe...

Money and grief have a way of colliding when you are least equipped to handle either. In this episode of The Currency of Grief, Justin Weidenfeld sits down with financial advisor Kay Pfleghardt to unpack what happens when money and grief stretch across years of illness, responsibility, and complicated family dynamics. Kay lived through eleven years of her father’s decline from diabetes, navigating...

Losing a parent is devastating. Being named an executor at 25 meant grief and responsibility arrived at the same time, with no warning.   After the sudden death of her father, Cassidie Bates faced loss and grief as an only child while also carrying full legal responsibility for his estate. With divorced parents and no siblings to share decisions with, she shouldered the weight all alone, making im...

When a parent’s “we have time” suddenly becomes five months, what actually deserves your attention first? The paperwork. The passwords. Or the care conversations that shape every decision that follows?   Angie Ingraham joins Justin Weidenfeld to talk through what it looks like when grief collides with healthcare in real time. An independent patient advocate and trauma surgeon, Angie brings both pr...

When grief enters your life, money often follows close behind, and without financial agency, inheritance and responsibility can quickly become part of the loss.   Justin Weidenfeld sits down with Rebecca Feinglos, founder of Grieve Leave, for a conversation about what happens when grief and money collide. Rebecca shares how losing her mother after a long illness, her father suddenly at the start o...

Caregiving for anyone is an act of love, but that responsibility and unspoken end-of-life plans can linger in grief long after loss.   In this episode, Justin Weidenfeld reflects on caring for his grandmother, Grandy B, and marks the first grief anniversary and birthday following her death. He shares how caregiving gradually became part of his life and how stepping into medical and financial respo...

What happens to your relationship with work, money, and time when losing a parent at 23 forces you to confront death far earlier than expected?   Justin Weidenfeld speaks with Brian Helfman about how early loss reshaped his understanding of success, security, and purpose. Brian shares how his father’s death challenged the belief that life can be postponed and pushed him toward living with intentio...

What would you do if grief forced you to see exactly how little time you might have left?   Ret Taylor joins host Justin Weidenfeld to talk through his mother’s death, the last wishes he never got to ask about, and how that experience led him to take severance seriously as both a vision quest phase and a turning point in how he meets loss, legacy, and money. He shares how walking his mom’s laps un...

Family financial secrets collide with grief in a story that exposes how losing a parent can unravel your sense of safety and force you to rebuild your future from the ground up.   Ariana Cohen joins Justin Weidenfeld to talk about the shock of financial betrayal and the moment she learned her dad had erased their savings while facing a terminal diagnosis. She explains how that discovery created la...

When family secrets, sudden wealth, and loss collide, the truth about inheritance and the myths surrounding it hit closer to home than most people realize.   Justin Weidenfeld talks with Paul Deloughery, the founder of Sudden Wealth Protection, whose story challenges what we think we know about money, grief, and family. After meeting his biological father for the first time just weeks before his d...

When grief and money collide, inheritance can stir up more than financial questions. It can surface old emotions, family patterns, and the deeper stories we carry about what wealth means.   Justin Weidenfeld sits down with Wendy Wright, a financial therapist and wealth transfer communication specialist, to talk about why so many people experience inheritance as a burden and what it takes to shift...

When Sarah Kagan became a mother while losing her own, she stepped into a season defined by both beginnings and endings. Joining Justin Weidenfeld in this episode, she shares the small moments that still echo—crocheting beside her mom until treatment made it impossible, finishing a baby blanket alone, and moving between hospice updates and work calls. Which matters more in the end, the big milesto...

At 24 years old, Olivia Lane lost her mom and was immediately faced with grief and inheritance in equal measure. What set her experience apart was her mother’s detailed planning—an Excel spreadsheet for her memorial service, clearly titled accounts, even a deed transfer designed to make things easier. Those choices lifted some of the logistical burden, but they couldn’t lessen the weight of living...

Margaret Gewirtzman opens up about what it was like to carry the weight of her father’s estate after his death, stepping into the role of executor with little preparation and even less support.    Joining Justin Weidenfeld in this episode, she describes how legal battles, family conflict, and unanswered questions turned what should have been a legacy into a burden that stretched across a decade of...

What does it feel like to lose a parent when you’re 12 years old? How does a grieving teen begin to understand guardianship, money, and the weight of adult responsibilities before high school even starts?   Justin Weidenfeld is joined by his younger brother Jake Weidenfeld to talk about growing up in the shadow of loss and what he’s learned since. Jake shares the reality of being a grieving teen,...

When CJ Infantino lost his wife, the experience reshaped every part of his life and set him on a path to create Unvoiced, a movement that makes space for grief and for the people who carry it. Joining Justin Weidenfeld in this episode, CJ looks back on his years at Facebook, when his wife’s cancer diagnosis revealed a major gap in medical leave policy. That moment pushed him to share his story dir...

Josh Aronoff lost his father and found himself staring down a mountain of financial unknowns - outdated estate documents, scattered accounts, and the crushing pressure to make sense of it all while grieving.   Justin Weidenfeld sits down with Josh to talk about how stepping into fix-it mode became both a coping mechanism and a catalyst for change. As the oldest child and a naturally practical thin...

Trigger Warning: This episode includes discussion of childhood abuse, trauma, and loss. Please listen with care.   Grief isn’t always a single event. It can be a relentless series of losses that force you to rebuild your life from the ground up. That’s exactly what happened to Chris Dale. After losing both parents, a child, and the version of his childhood he believed was true, Chris found himself...