13. Dr. Jay Zigmont on childfree wealth

Today I sit down with Dr. Jay of Childfree Wealth and the Childfree Wealth Podcast, to discuss ... you guessed it ... childfree wealth! Dr. Jay is a leading figure in the childfree community and a huge childfree advocate; it was an absolute honor to have him on the show. Tune in to hear him put me in the hot seat and discuss my winding road off and then on the STP (standard life plan). We address the myth that all childfree people are automatically dripping with money, and discuss the many biases that childfree individuals face, both in and out of the financial space.

Dr. Jay is an absolute wealth of knowledge (no pun intended), and I'm including some of my favorite of his blog posts below if you're interested in learning more. Happy reading!

Being Childfree may not make you rich, but it may make you happy.
7 Ways Childfree Financial Planning is Different
Choosing the FILE Lifestyle – Financial Independence, Live Early
The Gardener and the Rose

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

For those who can't see the video Laura's got this smile. She's actually literally squirming in the chair. I hate to say this is what it's like working with me. But I asked those questions because what's happening is the stand life plan is saying you cannot leave a job making what you're making, you have to be saving, you have to be squirreling away your money for retirement, you've got to be saving for the wedding, you got to save for this and those don't fit you when you just said hey, if I had a job that I enjoy, I'd do it for life.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Welcome back to another episode of Child Free Me, a show where we examine the choice to be child free and what it's like to navigate that decision in today's world. I am your host, laura Allen, and today's guest is Dr J Zigmont, who runs a wealth management firm called Child Free Wealth and is just a very prominent figure in the child free space as well as a massive child free advocate. I almost fangirled a little bit when he came on. You might be able to hear it in my voice. I was super excited to have him on. He has his own podcast which I've spent hours listening to, so it was just really fun to have the face behind the voice and such an honor to have him on the show and talk about all the work that he does.

Speaker 2: 1:06

This interview was a little different because he actually flips the script and puts me in the hot seat, which was a little terrifying and, honestly, as I was recording it and answering his questions, in my mind I was like no way am I letting this into the final edit. This is way, way too personal. I am mortified, but I actually decided to keep it in because, listening back, I think it's just a really good opportunity to see him in action and the questions he likes to ask his clients, and how he guides individuals who are child free through the various questions and decisions that they have to make. So I'm putting myself out there decided to keep it a little vulnerable this time and there's just a ton of valuable lessons and perspectives that he shares. I encourage anyone who is child free or thinking about being child free to listen to his podcast and check out the services that he provides, because he's very much a pioneer in this space. There's not many others who do child free only wealth management, and it's an important and really underserved community.

Speaker 2: 2:10

So, without further ado, let's jump in. Dr J, it is so exciting to have you here. I feel like you have been mentioned almost everywhere in the child free space, so I'm just gonna list what you have accomplished in what you're doing in the space right now. You have a PhD in adult learning, hence the doctor. You are a certified financial planner and the founder of the financial planning firm Child Free Wealth. You are also the author of a book called Portraits of Child Free Wealth. Is there anything else I'm missing from that list?

Speaker 1: 2:45

And co-host of the Child Free Wealth podcast.

Speaker 2: 2:47

Oh yes, co-host of the podcast that I've been listening to, so I definitely want to dive into your approach to child free wealth management. But I'm first curious about your journey into this space. So prior to being a financial planner, you were in higher education and corporate learning and development. Can you talk a little bit about what your journey's been like into this space?

Speaker 1: 3:08

Yeah. So I come out of healthcare in academia and the fun part of healthcare is, once you get into it you realize it's all about finance. Yeah, you'd think it's about patients, but that's just what I thought when I started and I never mind what I learned as I got there and I really come up my PhD's in the middle of it. I work on kind of the coaching side and I was doing executive coaching, business coaching, life coaching, all that fun stuff, and started doing financial coaching. Financial coaching is kind of a weird land where you have to eventually get your CFP and get registered and, as best advisor, all the legalese. And as I started working through that, I was becoming a certified financial planner and never once was there a mention of being child-free. Like there's nothing in the financial literature, at least, that I read while I was doing all my training that said it. So I was like maybe I'm just weird and maybe it's just me, I don't know. That's what brings me here.

Speaker 2: 3:53

Are you still the only financial advisor that you know that focuses on child-free people?

Speaker 1: 3:58

So I'm the only financial planner dedicated to it. So there's some colleagues. So I have one who everybody has like a niche or a little corner of the world and she works with people with tiny houses and that's what she does. Well, guess what? A lot of her clients are child-free. And I have somebody else who works with LGBTQ plus and a lot of her clients are child-free and a lot of the people with alternative lifestyles oh yeah, by the way, we have a lot of clients that are child-free versus. Yeah, that's what I do, you know. It's that. You know, the only parents we take on as clients right now are parents of our child-free folks. We're taking on their elderly parents.

Speaker 2: 4:30

Okay, this question's a little bit out of left field, but I feel like even when I was trying to find, you know, stats on the population of people who are child-free, there seems to be very little, or I can't really get anything beyond this one study based out of Michigan. That seems to be the one study of like a thousand people in Michigan that is referenced over and over again. What was your research like into your this target demographic? Were you able to find a lot of information?

Speaker 1: 4:57

So prior to that Michigan study, which a lot of folks go by, I mean, probably the interesting thing there is the diff they broke out actually child-free by choice and not, which is really interesting. The other data I found was the US census looked at child-less adults and calling it as childless saying people that have never given biological birth Initially. Not about a third of those folks had stepchildren and it's something like I don't know. 13, 16% of the US over 55 were child-free. The Michigan study is like 25% when you combine childless and child-free and that makes sense. It's kind of like we're seeing it in a younger population.

Speaker 1: 5:32

The interesting thing to me was when I started looking I'm like okay, so what are the financial numbers? You know, like whatever. And the census looked at net worth and they found that single childless women over 55 of the highest net worth, but it's not statistically significant, it is like a couple grand, not a big deal. So I started really researching this and I did that work. That much of it became my book Portrait, child-free Wealth, and I started looking into it and I found, wow, the data doesn't really exist. You know, I'm working on my second book right now. I'm working with a publisher and they asked me okay, give me everything you can on market data for child-free folks and I reached out to Laura Carroll cause.

Speaker 1: 6:07

She's like the person that's doing this forever.

Speaker 2: 6:09

She's on my list.

Speaker 1: 6:10

Yeah, she had one thing and I found one thing and like, but they're all like dated and like nothing, and usually there's a market analysis on every group. So I was working on it. I'm like there's gotta be data and the answer is no, and that's a big problem. You know, I actually recently was at a financial conference and there was a group there that does research on finance and I sat down with them and said, hey, you do all this. They've got millions of dollars, they do huge research and education.

Speaker 1: 6:37

I said, do you ask the question about being child-free? And their answer was, well, we ask about dependence. I'm like, no, no, no, that's not the same thing, having dependence or not is, you know, are they in the house or not? I'm like, do you ask, do you have kids and are you planning on having kids? And we went around and around and around. I actually met with three different people from their research, from the end, and they're like we could start asking them that question. I'm like, yes, you could. And the analogy I made was, you know, they used to just ask do you have dependence or not? But just like they've changed their gender question to just be more than just male, female, or you know, and look at the more inclusive group, they say, hey, do you have kids? Are you planning on having kids? No, are you child-free? And then we can actually start getting some data to see. You know, in big studies, money and number of percentage, but we are way behind.

Speaker 2: 7:22

Yeah, I was truly shocked and I was like I must be doing something wrong. I'm not a professional researcher, I don't have access to the right data, but turns out there's nothing which seems like an opportunity to me.

Speaker 1: 7:32

Well, in my PhD program they taught us if there's a gap in the research, it might be there for a reason, so you don't have to fill it, okay which is one of the problems when I started my firm like there's a huge gap, maybe it's there for a reason. I think it's a good opportunity, but my wife and I she's PhD also we sit around at night working on research studies and she actually has access. She works in electronic medical records and we did a fun little study just to look at background data of the amount of people getting sterilized since Ro was overturned. It went through the roof. Now are those all child-free? No, but if they're getting sterilized at 21, there's a good chance. So that is data we have. But really understanding our group or who we are or how we work, or that's something I work on every day.

Speaker 2: 8:16

Yeah, so to your point around there's a reason, there's a gap, like what would a reason be other than it's a demographic people try to avoid?

Speaker 1: 8:23

Well, I'll give you an example. So I always have stuff out child-free. I mean my company's called Child-Free Wealth. So child-free is everywhere. I joke, I talk about two taboo topics at once child-free and wealth and I get haters. I mean, you would not believe the amount of haters. And people pray for my soul and I'm in Mississippi, so that makes it even more fun, because that is where Ro overturned came from and all this.

Speaker 1: 8:44

And we did a billboard to celebrate International Child-Free Day and we actually had 10 different images and five people we featured on what their child-free life was like. And Cebu was on there and she was talking about just loving the world and she travels everywhere. And then somebody replied on her Instagram. She's like oh, you're part of a globalist conspiracy to depopulate the world and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, ooh, the world are you.

Speaker 1: 9:05

So that gap may just be there because of bias. It may also be there because it's kind of a third rail right now. You know, reproductive rights is a big issue and the hard part with research is like hot button issues are good to research, but they're also harder research, you know. So when I did my book, I actually put it on Reddit and said hey, tell me what your life's like. You gotta fly this hate speech. So if we're just saying the word child-free, so that's all barriers in our way. Now, by the way, there's a lot of good academic research, psychology research, qualitative research, sociology research talking about the life of being child-free, but we can't even figure how many of us there are.

Speaker 2: 9:43

Yeah, we really can't.

Speaker 1: 9:44

It's a lot, that's all.

Speaker 2: 9:45

I know and there's of course and you mentioned this earlier there's the larger population of people who do not have children and then within that there is child-free, childless and different variations. Can you please define what you mean by child-free as it relates to child-free wealth?

Speaker 1: 10:02

So I called my company child-free wealth because if they called it you don't have kids and aren't planning on having kids' wealth. It would just not work. That's just kind of how it works. I had to pick a term and I don't love it but it's the best we got.

Speaker 1: 10:14

So when I say child-free, I'm saying your finances change when you don't have kids and aren't planning on having kids. I don't care how you got there, choice not choice. But if you're on the childless, not by choice side and you're still trying, you should probably follow the standard financial plan, life plan. When you've got a point that you realize, hey, you're living a different life, that's fine. I don't care what term people use for themselves.

Speaker 1: 10:35

The interesting thing is I don't think most people realize to use the term child-free in Google, hey, how do I do planning without kids? And they get like what to do? Empty nest before you have kids, versus actually knowing child-free. And that's why I do a lot of press and I had somebody reach out to me. I did an article in the Wall Street Journal and he calls me up. He says I read this article. This is me. I did not know the term child-free exists and I was like, yes, that's our problem and I don't have a solution for it, so maybe we'll put that on you. You can figure out how to get the term child-free to be embraced by everybody and known by Google.

Speaker 2: 11:06

Sounds good. It's part of my brand, that's. I mean, my podcast is child-free me. So I didn't want to do childless, because in my very preliminary research it very quickly became apparent that the definition of childless is you don't have children due to circumstance versus choice.

Speaker 1: 11:21

Well, it could be both, so you should have on Katie Seppi, who is from Chase and Creation. She worked with me on a lot of work for when we created Child-Free Wealth and some of our courses, and she runs Lighthouse Women, which is a community for childless women. Really, it was beautiful to have a discussion about choice, not by choice, by circumstances. All that, and there's actually a child-free convention and a childless summit, and they're having to be a couple months apart. Last year they both had a discussion about the terms. There's no answer. Katie's the best that I found now, and I think the hard part is the term can be your identity, but it doesn't have to be, and if we're marketing to a group, though, we have to find a term that marketing works, and that's not always the same thing.

Speaker 2: 12:02

Yeah, I would also say and I think you're similar just based on the conversations I've listened to I didn't even use the word child-free until two months ago. I've known I'm not going to have children for many, many years at this point, but I did not attach myself to that term until I even started to do a little bit of research. It sounds like you were similar.

Speaker 1: 12:20

Absolutely. I didn't even know it until I started going down to Google Home and found the Child Free Reddit. When I was talking with Katie I said okay, we've seen all these discussions about child-free, childless terms and I want to understand it and finally, from my website, say I serve child-free and permanently childless folks. That's the terminology. It's not perfect. What we need is kind of we'll put this on you as either a different term or a whole bunch of letters, but it'd be like ccccccccccc plus cuz it's child free, child free, child less, not by choice, by choice, not choice. They will say it's all the-.

Speaker 2: 12:50

Just a massive acronym but no one can remember. Yeah, but Google doesn't do that.

Speaker 1: 12:54

If you actually look at the number of searches for the term child-free, it's pretty low, which doesn't match 25% of the population.

Speaker 2: 13:02

Yeah, I've put that on my to-do list. We'll make child free a thing. So when I talk to people, most of my friends have children or are planning to have children, and when I told them I was speaking to a financial planner who focuses on individuals who are child-free, everyone was almost to a tee like, oh, so he just helps them spend all their money. Because that is a common misconception, that if you don't have children, you are swimming in money. Can you address that, because I know that's something that you talk about a lot.

Speaker 1: 13:31

So one of the problems is they soon if you become child-free. You know, I saw you, I on the podcast Cody, that's all the other day, and he and I have had this discussion. He says the fairy doesn't come through the drop-off checks on the way by, which is 100% right. Income disparities in the US are a huge problem and it doesn't matter if you have kids. The way I look at it is child-free folks, if they're barely making ends meet, would drown if they had a kid. You know there's something in my book who her big goal was. She had moved from being on an air mattress to being on a mattress. Income disparity is still the same. The data also says net worth is not higher.

Speaker 1: 14:04

So my theory and I don't have perfect data back this up is actually child-free folks don't really care about running up the scoreboard. They're more about choosing the life they want to live. We call it file financial benefits, live early. They're making those choices. Do we have more money to spend? Maybe, but we also don't have to get stuck into a job just to make the money. So in actuality, net worth-wise, everything you own money's everything you owe we're normal. You know we're the same, but what happens is the way we say it is.

Speaker 1: 14:30

Living a life of child-free wealth means you have time, money and freedom to do what you enjoy. That doesn't mean you're rich. That money could be a little, could be a lot, could be whatever it is. But when you have so many options, that can actually mess you up. And that's where I work with clients. I say I start with. First, with what your life is or what you want it to be. Second, your finances. Third, your taxes. The reality check is for parents. Their financial plans are actually very, very similar. The numbers change Like you got two kids, three kids. I got a higher salary, lower salary, retirement numbers, but the plan itself is all the same. Child-free folks know two plans are the same and that's the difference. So if you're out there and you're in the internet and you're Googling financial whatever and you want to know buy 40, what should I have? None of those fit because those all assume you have kids. So yeah, I got some people with a bunch of money. I got people that are broke too.

Speaker 2: 15:15

You mentioned standard life plan. Can you define what that means?

Speaker 1: 15:19

Yeah, so I'll talk about the standard life plan or life script. Same thing. And really that is the one that says you go to school, you get married, you have kids, you buy a house 25 years, you retire, pass on the marriage, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's all the things culture told us we had to do. Those are the voices in our head that say you must, and because you are a child for your permanently childless, you've taken a hard right. Turn off that standard life plan somewhere. And, by the way, if you want to see how much is in our culture, that's the American dream Two and a half kids, the house and the white pick offense. Well, that's not what we're doing. And when you leave that standard life plan, it can mess with your head a bit, because it's like now, what do I do? I ask my clients all the time what do you want to be when you grow up? And it has nothing to do with age. And they're like well, but I don't know. And I'm like well, we don't have a plan, let's make one.

Speaker 1: 16:00

And that's the hard part is you've taken an exit, I mean you've taken an exit off the standard life plan. Is that true, correct?

Speaker 2: 16:07

I mean, it was one of the reasons I started this podcast, because I felt like I had followed the standard life plan up until this point. And now you know, my friends are going like this and I'm doing my own thing, and so so let me pick on you for a second.

Speaker 1: 16:20

I'm going to ask you some questions. You can edit these out if you don't like them, but that's OK. So you said in our pre thing, you said you were getting married. You got a fiance.

Speaker 2: 16:27

I do.

Speaker 1: 16:27

Marriage is part of the standard life plan. Number one reason why I see child free folks get married, besides love and like that type of stuff is health insurance 32.1% of childless folks will never marry, versus 2.5% of parents. So you went back to the standard life plan on the marriage you going to buy a house.

Speaker 2: 16:44

We own a condo together already. It was before we even got engaged. It just felt safer to have us own it 50-50 versus one person own it in totality, since we were still just dating at that point.

Speaker 1: 16:54

So here's the fun part Owning a condo, owning a house, is part of the standard life plan, so you're swerving on and off the plan, yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:01

I'm plan adjacent.

Speaker 1: 17:02

Well, no, you're very normal. What happens is we do these things back and forth, but what happens is you don't realize why you're doing these things. So let's pull apart your condo. So are you going to stay there for seven to 11 years?

Speaker 2: 17:14

Probably not. We'll turn into a rental property. Hold on.

Speaker 1: 17:16

If you're not going to stay there, why would you buy a property?

Speaker 2: 17:19

Because we'll continue to own it and then rent it.

Speaker 1: 17:21

You're going to live in that town? Yes, ok, are you going to manage the property yourself?

Speaker 2: 17:24

Yes.

Speaker 1: 17:25

OK. So here's what happens. People say, well, I can do rental property. Well, but most child-free folks don't stay in one area at the same time, Unless they have family there or some other reason. If you're going to stay there, yeah it might make sense. If you're not, renting is actually a better choice for most child-free folks.

Speaker 1: 17:39

I just bought my house and I'm renting, not because I can't put forward a house, it's just. When you rent, you buy the ability to move wherever you want. My wife got a great job offer. We moved 1,200 miles to get there. My business we're doing different things. We're going to move to a different state, for that Doesn't matter. Now you bought the condo, so why are you staying in that area?

Speaker 2: 17:54

We don't have family in Chicago, but we have roots in the sense that we have some really good friends.

Speaker 1: 17:59

OK, and if your jobs go somewhere else, would you go with it?

Speaker 2: 18:02

No, I like Chicago. I don't want to leave OK.

Speaker 1: 18:05

So the location is more important than the job to you.

Speaker 2: 18:07

Yeah, ok.

Speaker 1: 18:08

That's all good answers to say buy a house for those reasons rather than being on the standard plan. Right, but what happens with many child-free folks? Hey, if I get a job offer across country, I'll pack up and go. You're saying, hey, the community you've built is more important. Great, Do that. But what happens is buying a house becomes a choice, not a requirement. We're on the standard plan. It's a requirement. You've got to buy the house, you've got to pay it off, you've got to do this blah blah, and that's the difference.

Speaker 2: 18:31

I will say I would have rented forever. I love renting. I would have rented this space forever and they put it on the market and we would have had to move and that was a big thing for us. We didn't want to move. It's not a big property and it felt better and we knew we wanted to stay in Chicago long term. It's in a really nice area of Chicago and we just wanted to stay. So I agree with renting. I would have rented forever. I love it.

Speaker 1: 18:55

Well, and that's where what I'm challenging people to do you did the right thought process, but to think through all that stuff, there's just this thing, like I always ask people whose voice is in your head telling you got to do things?

Speaker 1: 19:04

And a house is just a great example where you've got to buy a house to get ahead in this world. Well, first of all, right now, renting is better option in most metro areas than housing, because housing prices are crazy and mortgage is crazy. But we'll ignore that. But that standard life plan says you've got to buy a house, you've got to save for retirement. So you said you enjoy your job, right. Do you want to retire or you want to cut back on work Long term?

Speaker 2: 19:24

I want to retire in the sense that I can work at a job I love and not worry about the money.

Speaker 1: 19:29

Why can't you do that now?

Speaker 2: 19:30

Because I feel like I need our incomes to support our lifestyle. That's a narrative that's not true, because we actually live below our means, which is nice. But I guess I feel trapped by the fact that I need this 9 to 5 to support what I'm doing on this podcast.

Speaker 1: 19:48

OK, so let me play with this for a second. I don't actually know your numbers. I'm going to make up numbers, ok, so what you're telling me is for $100,000, you're willing to be unhappy at work or whatever your salary is, versus following your joy? Yes, ok, by the way, I trapped you with people all the time.

Speaker 2: 20:01

I know I've listened to you. Do it.

Speaker 1: 20:03

This is the problem. We do these things. That's part of the standard life plan. So if retirement's not your goal, you want to switch to another job. Then saving money to retirement shouldn't be really a goal. And do you and your fiance care how much money you pass on to the next generation? No Cool. Then at some point probably really soon you are saving money for an estate you don't care about, so you're actually working to pass on money to the government.

Speaker 2: 20:23

That is something to think about. So I'm the oldest. My two younger sisters don't have children yet. I'm assuming there will be some sort of niece or nephew. Zach has a nephew and two nieces, so I would assume we would pass on money to them.

Speaker 1: 20:36

But hold on. The government's going to take their cut, depending on what the thing gets, but also keep in mind. So my nephews get what's left over. They get $10,000, $100,000, fine, they get a million. I made a mistake. If you pass a million to your nephews or your nieces, you should have switched jobs now and done what you enjoy.

Speaker 2: 20:50

And if I said then you.

Speaker 1: 20:51

For those who can't see the video, laura's got this smile going.

Speaker 2: 20:54

mm-hmm, it's like a smirk kind of like mm-hmm, it's a nervous smirk, a defensive nervous smirk.

Speaker 1: 21:00

Like I can see it, she's actually literally squirming in the chair. Yeah, no-transcript. This is this. I hate to say this is what it's like working with me, but I asked those questions because what's happening is the Stan Life Plan is saying you cannot leave a job making what you're making. You have to be saving, you have to be squirreling away your money for retirement, you've got to be saving for the wedding, you got to save for this and those don't fit you when you just said, hey, if I had a job that I enjoy, I'd do it for life.

Speaker 2: 21:24

Yeah, the caveats that are bubbling up in my head and creating this mark is this is probably the job I've liked the most. I'm making the most money I've ever made and I've hated my jobs way more than this.

Speaker 1: 21:34

Oh wait, so it's less hate. Is what you're saying? Less hate? Okay, wait, let me ask you a question on that. So you said less hate, which is different, and more joy. Let's just play that out. So this is the job I've hated the least and I make the most. So what you said is there is a number where you're willing to be miserable.

Speaker 2: 21:50

Yes.

Speaker 1: 21:50

By the way, that's true for most people. My question is instead what would you do for free? And then how do we get you paid to do?

Speaker 2: 21:58

it. You've asked these questions before and I did not prep them.

Speaker 1: 22:01

Okay, so everybody is missing. I just turned the tables. I'm just interviewing Laura because why not? But what's happening is, these are the questions I do ask everybody, and they all go uh, because we've never asked the question. We just follow the script. So let's have. I'm going to have a little more fun with Laura on this one. Oh, God.

Speaker 2: 22:17

So what are you going to school for? I got my undergrad in English art history and then I went back and got just a business MBA.

Speaker 1: 22:23

Okay, and what are you doing now?

Speaker 2: 22:24

I am an HR business partner.

Speaker 1: 22:25

Cool At 18, where you're like, hey, I want to be the HR business partner. No.

Speaker 2: 22:29

At 18,. I just wanted to get straight A's. I was not thinking about the future.

Speaker 1: 22:33

A's for you or A's for somebody else? No, don't answer that one Now. We'll go to thousands of therapy path. I want to be an HR business partner. If, if you could do anything in the world and money didn't matter, what would you do? A podcast, so now, how about we go to your work right now, and we are. We ask for a part time with benefits position and cut back your work, and you work on your podcast near full time.

Speaker 2: 22:51

Hmm, I think what comes to mind when I say that is well, I'm pulling in money, zach is pulling in money and I can't not bring in money because I have to do my part.

Speaker 1: 23:01

Can you two live on one income? We're going to be close.

Speaker 2: 23:04

Yeah, we could do it Okay, especially in this condo.

Speaker 1: 23:06

So we can embrace what we call the gardener in the rose, where one's providing support and the other one's growing. This is your turn as the rose, and he can be the rose in five to seven years.

Speaker 2: 23:13

Can you explain for those who don't know what the gardener in the roses? It's one of my favorites of your terms.

Speaker 1: 23:17

My wife and I embrace the gardener in the rose and you may have seen this as before as the gardener in the flower, but I just call the gardener rose because my wife's not just any flower is kind of how it works in one person's providing support and one person's growing, and part of this is it used to be in couples that there was always a stay at home spouts.

Speaker 1: 23:33

It was gendered at the time, but we're just going to ignore all the weird stuff that happens with that. But much of our society was based around this structure of one person growing and one person providing support and what happens is in dual income no, kid couples, digs, people don't like the term, like it. I don't care what you like or you don't, you can actually make the choice. So Laura's a great example of this. You could cut back on work, yeah, bring your salary down a little bit, but you could live on it while you're growing and building a product that then five, six, seven years down the road he could take his turn Now. Does he need to take a turn now, or do you?

Speaker 2: 24:04

I think we're both in the same place.

Speaker 1: 24:06

I should have had him come on where I'm going with this is most couples. It's pretty obvious who needs a turn. Usually in the fact that Laura didn't jump out and say he needed something immediately probably means Laura needs to do it because the person that needs to be the rose isn't always aware of it, but the gardener knows who the rose is. So I bet you if I asked him, he would say you should go, follow your passion and do it.

Speaker 2: 24:26

I don't know. I think he would love to not work and go golf.

Speaker 1: 24:29

Well, that's a different answer. He can do that when your podcast is monetized and make a whole bunch of money. Yeah, he can't wait. So to your friend who asked okay, so he just handles people who have a whole lot of money. See, the money's the easy part, it's the life, it's the behaviors, it's the you know, getting people to focus in on what brings them joy, getting rid of the stuff that doesn't Marie Kondo in your life and you fell almost directly into it.

Speaker 2: 24:51

So I'm going to ask you a question Did you know that you and your wife are going to be child-free prior to marriage, or is that something that happened after you guys got married?

Speaker 1: 25:00

Yeah, it was just before marriage. She has a 50-50 chance of dying. She has pregnant. I don't know if that makes me child-free, by choice or not. By choice. Like I didn't know, the term existed almost 15 years ago. That made our choice. For us is the way I like to say it. That allows us to go in different directions. You know, we are both PhDs and when you have two PhDs, it's really hard to find two jobs at the same level at the same time. So that's where the Garden of the Rose came out of. There's different things that have just come out of our life, our structure. And, you know, somebody asked me on another podcast well, would you have done it differently? I'm like it's 15 years ago.

Speaker 2: 25:30

I have no clue. Like yeah, and I asked because you made the point where most people who are choosing, for a variety of reasons, not to have children they don't get married, so I was wondering why you ultimately did choose to get married.

Speaker 1: 25:43

It's that love thing you know like and I joke about it. But what happens is getting married provides you legal protections. If you don't, you have to do a paperwork. I've done the same thing. I've bounced on and off the standard plan and at times I realize it, in times I don't. It's just that awareness, because we do a lot of things for a lot of reasons and they're not all our own. You know family pushes you or whatever else. You know my family. I still got family members thinking well, maybe one day I'm like, listen, I run a company called Child Free Wealth it. I'm 45. It's not changing.

Speaker 2: 26:15

Do you consider yourself right now on the standard life plan?

Speaker 1: 26:19

Oh, I'm nowhere near it.

Speaker 2: 26:20

That's not really starting your own business.

Speaker 1: 26:23

So starting your own business is a separate spin off of the life plan. But here's the thing If I were to follow the standard life plan, the correct answer to financial plan is to go work for a firm where you can make a good trillion dollars doing very little. So the standard life plan for a financial planner is you go do assets under management, you charge 1% of fees forever and you make a whole lot of money. You work hard for a couple of years and then you make millions going forward. Starting your own plan, starting your own business serving a underserved population, is something child free folks get to do. A lot of the child free folks have a side business or a business because you'd be a great example. You might be able to do that because your fiance can cover it. Retirement's not my goal, you know. My next turn is the Rose, which will probably be about 10 years from now, is to get on a boat and travel the world.

Speaker 2: 27:04

What kind of boat?

Speaker 1: 27:05

Nordop 51. I've already got picked out. I've got my numbers. It's really expensive, but that's not the standard life plan. I'll probably never truly retire. I'll probably never always be making content, making things and doing things. That's not part of the standard life plan. Yep, we're married. Yep, that's part of the standard life plan. And that's where it ends.

Speaker 2: 27:21

Have you had an instance where a client thought they were not going to have children and then end up having children?

Speaker 1: 27:26

Um, I have not had that yet so I have on my intake form. It says if you ever change your mind, please let me know. I do have an interesting one that was in the book. There's somebody who's child free, got married and his wife changed her mind. Now that's the interesting. And I asked him a bunch of questions about it and he decided to go ahead and try my fertility issues. It didn't happen and I asked him I'm like what the heck? Dude? You know like he was 100% child free and they. And his answer was he'd rather be miserable and have her happy. So he went with having a kid. He's like I run an office and go work out of that office and I'm like, wow, you know, I've seen some of those which are kind of interesting. If they have kids, they don't come to me.

Speaker 2: 28:03

Yeah, I wasn't sure. Or someone decides to adopt, or there's always the chance that they have to take on someone's children for a variety of reasons. That's a different question.

Speaker 1: 28:12

So child free folks are often expected to take on their elderly parents or family members, and the other way I say this is like oh, you don't have kids, so you can fill in the blank take care of mom, take care of your brother, take care I have those that their parents are expecting them A to take care of and B to take care of special needs siblings. That's an interesting one. That's a lot to put on anyone and I'm not sure I have. I have an answer for that, but it does change the financial plan. We just put a plan around it and I also do have a few clients that are parents from when I first started and they still exist. And I still have the elderly folks who are parents of my child free people.

Speaker 2: 28:45

That episode I just dropped. She has to take care of her brother, and his birth is the reason that she decided not to have children.

Speaker 1: 28:53

Yeah, I asked the question in my survey of why people chose not to be child free. Top reason was just didn't want to have kids. Cool, that makes sense. Then it's finance freedom. Then we get like political environment concerns, medical concerns, family trauma, mental health, like huge reason. I'm reading this stuff because I'm a quality average. I'm like wow, these are really well thought out reasons why they don't not have kids and your story is not that crazy.

Speaker 2: 29:19

So you talked about file. Can you explain what that acronym is? Yep.

Speaker 1: 29:24

So you, if you've been on the internet and looking at financial stuff, you probably seem fire Financial depends, retire early. And the problem is a lot of child free folks I think it's 95% plus don't actually want to retire. Yes, your spouse might and golf, but you're not going to. It's a great example. So we use something called file Financial depends, live early and fire is kind of like an on off switch for it. I'm done, I'm not doing it, and files more of a dimmer switch. And that's what I tend to find with child free folks is like let me find that job I enjoy, I'll do it for everybody. I'm not somebody who's a therapist who's going to cut back her client load, but you know she'll keep working or other things. And the thing is, if you're not going to retire and you're not going to pass money on the next generation, it completely changes your financial plan. And, by the way, that's what I was trying to encourage you. If you cut back work and you can invest in you and what brings you joy, you'd probably be happier.

Speaker 2: 30:11

I don't even think I'm that unhappy, but now maybe you've convinced me.

Speaker 1: 30:14

Well, I didn't say I'm happy.

Speaker 2: 30:15

I said happy you're.

Speaker 1: 30:16

Yeah, yeah. What happens is we've come to the conclusion that we all just need to like kind of not hate our jobs. We're spending one third of our time there. We can shoot for something better than I. Kind of don't hate it.

Speaker 2: 30:27

Yeah, I also think I'd be interested in your perspective. I feel like my job takes on almost a different size in my life because I don't have children. I can allow work to really bleed into every part of my life, since I don't have children to prioritize.

Speaker 1: 30:42

So you were looking for studies. Society for Human Resource Management did one on child free folks and they found child free folks are expected to do overtime, expected to cover the vacation time, expected to work more, expected to move up the ladder, expected to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. By the way, if it's an expectation, that's where I have problems. If you choose to, that's different. But here's the thing. There's this also assumption that if you're child free, you have to make up for it some else in your life, like you have to climb the corporate ladder or you have to do something great. Nope, you don't, you can just be happy. And that's the part the standard of life plan says you got to go up the ladder, you got to. You know they used to call it career woman who went up the ladder because you didn't have kids.

Speaker 1: 31:18

Don't like the term Don't, but that's the concept and what happens? That's all in our head. Well, instead, maybe you could focus in on what matters to you and put all that energy there, because they're getting free work out of you. You know that.

Speaker 2: 31:29

Yeah, Dude, one of my friends who I interviewed for this podcast, she did say. One of the things that she said was you know, if I'm not going to have children, I sure as hell better be good at my job? Is the narrative that she tells herself?

Speaker 1: 31:42

And my answer would then I sure as hell better enjoy my job. That's different than being good at it. So I'm struggling with this myself. My parents I grew up broke and the one thing they taught us was, whatever you are, be the best at it. If you're going to work in McDonald's, you're going to work on the fry cook. You better be the best damn fry cook out there.

Speaker 1: 31:58

And that's where that's kind of like messing with my psyche Cause like, well, if we're going to brace the file, it's not about being the best at it, it's about having that balance. How do you be the best at work life balance? I don't know, but, like you know, how do you? You know, for the A student like you were always wanting to get the gold stars. Well, maybe instead of the goal being going up the ladder or getting better the job, it's in your millionth download or I don't know, or whatever you'll. That's something to enjoy out. I don't think we need to put the pressure on us that we have to be the best at it because we're not worried about capacity on the money in the generation. So if I want to quit my job and go be a boat captain, I can. I can still make it work. The only reason I don't is we have a dog, cat and my wife. You know those don't go on the boat.

Speaker 2: 32:37

Well, they go on the boat in 10 years, when it's your turn. I hope so.

Speaker 1: 32:40

But that's a different discussion. That's when I'm the rose. You know you get to go anywhere, but that's what's happening. Is you have limitations? That's okay, but you don't have to be the best at whatever you're doing. You can just be the happiest.

Speaker 2: 32:52

Yeah, so there's two more bingo items that I want to talk to you about. The first one that we always hear is what is your legacy going to be? How do you work with your clients on that?

Speaker 1: 33:04

My answer is we don't leave a genetic legacy. So, for example, I'm going to take you and you decide to do this podcast thing and you touch a million lives through the podcast. Is that your legacy? Yeah, is that bad?

Speaker 2: 33:14

No.

Speaker 1: 33:15

Awesome, we can make an impact in a different way.

Speaker 1: 33:18

So there's somebody else in my book he was talking about he's creating a video game and he's telling stories through the video game and actually he's using the video game to help people understand it's okay to take any path you want in life.

Speaker 1: 33:27

And he talked a lot about impact and he's like, look, I'm hoping my writing, my video games, all that make an impact on people's lives. That is my legacy, my personal legacy. I'm working on solving the problem of who takes care of you when you're older and you can't make decisions. You have a Mexican who's going to be your executive, your power of attorney, all that. And I'm actually working now to do some work behind the scenes of a bunch of regulatory and legal stuff to change my company so that the company can actually act in that role and my company will eventually bury me literally in that role and, by the way, a whole lot of other people like, when you can't make decisions for yourself, they'll be able to do that. That's probably my legacy. It's not genetic, that's okay, and I think that's the hard part. What happens is for the people that have been A students forever, like you, if I don't give you a goal for legacy, you feel lost.

Speaker 2: 34:08

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:08

Can you feel that?

Speaker 2: 34:09

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:11

You're not making your legacy as a business partner in.

Speaker 2: 34:13

HR, but I'm really good at it. That's not the question I asked. Yeah, okay, and you touched on the second bingo item that I want to talk about, which is who's going to take care of you when you're older, and long-term care planning, because that is something I'm not worried about who's going to take care of me? But I'm less concerned about planning for retirement and more concerned about making sure we can have that locked in.

Speaker 1: 34:34

So let's go back to that census study. Look at adults over 55 and they found that they found that childless people 2.5% got any financial support from their family. So that's like nobody. Let's just be honest on that. But in the same study in adults over 55 and the US, they found 1.5% of parents got any financial support from their family.

Speaker 2: 34:52

So here's the truth Nobody's getting any help, doesn't matter if you have kids or not.

Speaker 1: 34:57

So I talked to my clients about long-term care. My goal is, by mid-40s, to have a plan for your long-term care. That means either insurance paying out of pocket or Medicaid. The other one that a lot of child-free folks talk about is deaths with dignity or the opting out, which is a choice in some areas but not in all.

Speaker 2: 35:13

Sorry, what is that?

Speaker 1: 35:14

What did you say? Physician assisted suicide? Oh, I'm not judging on. Whatever you want to do, that's your choice. That's one thing. That's the financial thing.

Speaker 1: 35:21

The one that keeps me up at night and the one I've been working on for years and I'm having to do a whole lot of work on right now, is who makes the decision for us? All of the healthcare systems, the government systems, financial system all look for your next of kin. If you don't have a next of kin, they can make decisions for you. I don't know about you, but I don't trust the government making my decisions for when I go into a home or do I need care, or what to do with my estate or any of that. That's the one I'm trying to solve right now and that's my big business crisis working through that. If my wife and I get a car crash today, who's going to make the decisions for us? Who's going to pay our bills? Who's going to let our dog out? That sounds stupid, but from a government and financial and healthcare, there's just legal issues in there that are just huge. By the way, if it's 20% of the US, that's 50 million adults. There's 50 million adults that are trying to figure out this long-term care and all that. The government, by the way, not a great solution on this. Some of the states Washington, California, Pennsylvania, New York are now starting to put laws in trying to cover some of long-term care, but they don't cover much. In Washington one, they give you a 0.58% income tax and they give you $36,000 of benefit for one year. Well, it costs $108,000 a year and women are, on average, will be 3.7 years in care and men 2.2, so it covers nothing. We have a huge, huge problem coming ahead of us.

Speaker 1: 36:36

I don't know that I have the solution. I think the other thing that bothers me about that bingo is when somebody says, well, who's going to take care of one year older? That implies they're expecting someone else to take care of that, which is bull. We have our eight no-baby steps for child-free folks. Number seven is a plan for mom and dad. Because we're expected to do it. We have to both plan for our long-term care and our parents. We become they call it the sandwich generation, taking care of their kids and parents at the same time. We are the open-faced sandwich just taking care of our parents and trying to figure out our own long-term care. That is a hard one it really is. There are solutions. You can work a plan or through it I actually have. You can't get a quote on long-term care until you're 30. It's not cheap.

Speaker 1: 37:16

I think, that's because long-term care is stupidly expensive. You've got a few years left before we have to get your plan in place.

Speaker 2: 37:22

I have a vague I've said this before of just eventually ending up in a really nice nursing home or, I guess, elderly home community.

Speaker 1: 37:30

Yep, they have these continual care retirement communities, ccrc. I'll give you an idea. I just had somebody in Virginia price one it was $600,000 to buy in and then something like $4,000 a month for the nice one Gorgeous, it's just like kind of luxury. This is the place I'd like to stay now because it's that cool. You've got to have that money put aside. That's today's dollar. The cost of long-term care is rising by 5% each year. Compounding It'll probably cost a million dollars a year.

Speaker 2: 37:57

Oh my God, got to make a couple of mill between now and then.

Speaker 1: 38:00

No, you don't. You have to have a plan for it. You can have long-term care. You can have everything. There's ways to do it.

Speaker 2: 38:05

You've mentioned before child-free midlife crisis.

Speaker 1: 38:07

What is that? I feel like I'm in it. You're probably pretty close, it's about that time.

Speaker 1: 38:12

To hit your personal, professional and financial goals, then what? This is where the life plan really messes with your head, because what actually happens for people with better parents is they pass their goals onto their kids. Now I'm not going to say if that's right or wrong, but that's where the pressure on kids of you have to achieve or go to the colleges or whatever. They just kind of shifted it. We don't have that. It's kind of that question of hit my goals. Now what? Usually what happens is most people do something random or just try to figure it out. I actually ended up selling stuff on eBay and Amazon and running a maple syrup farm. Why? Because that's definitely not related to my PhD. It was just kind of like I just needed to go find myself. I guess go to the nature and find. I don't know the correct answer for people, but you have to have that awareness.

Speaker 1: 38:54

Now what usually happens is the career they picked, the gotten there is not the career they want. Going forward, it might be like you they want to start their own business. Not everybody wants to do a podcast, but I want to start their own business or they might want to go do an encore career. I got people going back to school to become a librarian. I got people becoming pilots, I got random, all different types of things. That's all part of what happens. But we have to have the awareness because there's not a book on that, there's no.

Speaker 1: 39:15

Like, hey, what do I do when I hit all my goals? In actuality, somebody like you that got all the A's, you're very goal driven. I'm just going to be honest on that. Right, I have to shift your goal from money or career to something else because I can't stop you from being goal driven. I just got to shift it somewhere else. Laura, I'm going to give you a little bit of advice. It's just one quick statement. You are not your career. By the way, when you get that in your heart, it completely messes everything up because we are taught You're like what do you do? Who are you? What do you do? The question is, what do you do for a career? No, who are you is not what you do.

Speaker 2: 39:45

Who are you? How do you answer that question?

Speaker 1: 39:47

Right now I'm so far into my business that I'm a child pretty well specialist, unfortunately, because I'm so deep in the research. But here's the thing I can do that for a period of time I've gotten sucked in. I live my life as old quote from Zig Zigloo that you can have everything in life you want and just help enough other people get what they want. That's what I'm doing. I have a little bit of a crisis right now in that I see so many people that are child-free getting bad financial advice that it keeps me up at night. This question of who's going to make decisions for you keeps me up at night.

Speaker 1: 40:16

By the way, it's really a passion project it is. It's not about the money, it's about serving the folks. I spend half my time talking to child-free people other finances, the other half talking to financial people about child-free people. I'm hoping 15 more firms open to start serving child-free folks and then I can take a breath. But until that day it's not right. But I feel it on my shoulders of okay, I'm writing articles and books and different things and just to get the message out there.

Speaker 2: 40:43

Do people have to be based in Mississippi in order for you to work with them?

Speaker 1: 40:46

No, I mean we assume I work with anyone in the US. Okay, but they do have to be in the US. It's actually interesting enough the number one town with the most child-free folks that I work with is Austin, texas.

Speaker 2: 40:55

Interesting.

Speaker 1: 40:56

I never would have guessed that.

Speaker 2: 40:57

I thought you were going to say Seattle.

Speaker 1: 40:59

I thought I was going to say San Fran, so I did a. San Fran has a huge child-free population. Now California State actually is the biggest one of my clients. But Austin as a city I don't know. It makes no sense to me. So you're a millennial technically.

Speaker 2: 41:12

Yeah, on the older edge though.

Speaker 1: 41:13

By the way, that technical term is geriatric millennial, oh, geriatric millennial, damn, I was like. But millennials, I think, gen Y, gen Z, the amount of people being child-free is just going through the roof. Now, a lot of people like when I'm on, like, like, oh, they'll change their mind. I'm like no, no, no, you don't understand. They're getting sterilized Like this is not changing their mind and they're like oh, they are 20 something, they don't have a clue.

Speaker 1: 41:38

I'm like, okay, you live in your little world, but I do think it is growing in the younger generation.

Speaker 2: 41:43

Okay, last question what is the most surprising thing that you've uncovered or encountered since joining and getting involved in the child-free community?

Speaker 1: 41:53

First, I actually think the biggest thing was that there is a child-free community.

Speaker 2: 41:57

Okay, like seriously.

Speaker 1: 41:59

I think that's been my biggest surprise. My second biggest surprise is once you see the bias against child-free people, you see it everywhere. So the group working from the new legacy institutes doing a lot of work in this and working on it and working on policy and different things, you see the bias so much. Once your eyes are open, you're like you can't stop it, To the point where I had somebody she in the podcast. Well, we complain too much about not being understood. If you're at work, being child-free impacts it. You're in life, being child-free impacts it. I work with financial planning software and all that has built in their kids. How do I get it out? You don't. That's what you start seeing. You're going to see it too. Since you work in HR, you're going to see all the bias.

Speaker 2: 42:38

I'm part of it. I've recently realized what I've done, that bias is against child-free people.

Speaker 1: 42:44

My favorite. It's happened a couple of times. So I go to a bunch of financial podcasts and talk about child-free folks. It's probably happened in the last three podcasts. They go well when you don't have a family and I'm like, hold on, we don't have kids, we have a family. I'll even stop them in the podcast and they're like I didn't realize what I'm saying. I'll call them out appropriately, we'll have the discussion and they're like oh, I never thought of those things. These are the things I was just doing. Open enrollment, because it's that time of year for a few people.

Speaker 1: 43:08

I still don't understand how it's cheaper to put my five kids on my healthcare plan than it is to put my partner. You eventually see it everywhere. You're in HR so you're going to see it almost every day.

Speaker 2: 43:18

That's a great answer. Just realize I'm part of the problem without even realizing it. Dr Jay, it was so fun to meet you. Thank you for coming on. Like I said, it's like meeting a celebrity, the face behind the voice I've been listening to. Do you want to do just a quick segment on where people can find you?

Speaker 1: 43:33

So childfreewealthcom is our website. I'm still old fashioned. We have a website, childfreewealthcom slash book. You can actually get a free copy of the book electronically. You can purchase the Child Free Wealth. We are Child Free Wealth on all the socials except for Twitter. Because he thinks childless folks should not have a vote, we decided to exit stage left. Elon Musk. Yeah, he publicly came out and said childfree folks, oh sorry, childless. He said childless folks do not have a stake in the future, so they should never vote. How did I not know this? Yeah, and you can all sketch the Child Free Wealth podcast everywhere you get podcasts.

Speaker 2: 44:04

I have linked everything you need to know about Dr Jay and his practice and his podcasts in the show notes, so make sure to check those out. Like I said, I highly encourage anyone who is childfree, or even just exploring the possibility of being childfree, to check out his work, because it is super, super helpful. If you enjoyed today's episode, please don't forget to subscribe or consider leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for joining and I'll see you next week. Bye.