How Being Child Free Changes Financial Planning - Episode 101
In today's episode, I had an amazing conversation with Dr. Jay Zigmont, a financial planner and author, all about being child free and what it means for your finances and life. Jay shared his thoughts on breaking away from societal norms, planning for a life you truly want, and simplifying money management to focus on what makes you happy. We also discussed his new book, which is full of tips to help you build a life and financial plan that fits your unique goals.
About our guest
Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® is the Founder and CEO of Childfree Wealth®, a life and financial planning firm dedicated to helping Childfree and Permanently Childless people. Childfree Wealth is the first firm dedicated to serving Childfree people.
Dr. Jay is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, Childfree Wealth Specialist, and author of the book “Portraits of Childfree Wealth” and the upcoming book “The Childfree Guide to Life and Money.” Dr Jay is the co-host of the Childfree Wealth podcast. His Ph.D. is in Adult Learning from the University of Connecticut.
He has been featured in Fortune, Forbes, MarketWatch, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Business Insider, CNBC, and many other publications. In 2023, he was named a “Rising Star” by Financial Planning.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema: [00:00:00] Jay Zigmont is the founder and CEO of Child Free Wealth, A life and financial planning firm dedicated to helping child free and permanently childless people. Child free wealth is the first firm dedicated to serving child free people. Dr. Jay is a certified financial
planner, child free wealth specialist and author of the book, Portraits of child free wealth and the upcoming book, the child free guide to life and money.
Dr. Jay is the co host of the child free wealth podcast. His PhD is in adult learning from the University of Connecticut. He's been featured in Forbes, Fortune, Market Watch, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Business Insider, CNBC and many other publications. In 2023, he was named a rising star by financial planning. What's up? My financially intentional people. We have an OG back with us. [00:01:00] Dr. Jay zigmont. Joining us to talk about his new book.
Jay Zigmont: the, the Child free.
guide to life and money.
Naseema: We just wanted to jump into this conversation about being child free about understanding your finances. And before you hit record, I just started talking about, like, how unintentional people are with kids, I never thought I was going to have kids.
And then once I did have kids, I was like, Oh my God, this is a lot. You can go ahead and share your antidote that you have like about the decision to have kids.
Jay Zigmont: So we actually did a study and ask child free folks why they don't have kids. And like most of them have born the one reason, they had some people just didn't want to have kids. Some are financial, medical, environment, politics. And the end result to me is I think child free people put more thought into not having kids than a lot of parents put into having kids.
And that's that default option. You just gotta have kids. versus I'm going to make a conscious choice to do something different than the rest of [00:02:00] the world.
Naseema: And I think because it's a societal norm that you're supposed to have kids, you don't really have the foresight to be like, hold on let's put some thought into this. And, as a labor and delivery nurse, I see how much pain that is. Thought people don't put into having kids like they might plan out the gender reveal and the baby showers But they don't even understand like what hole the baby is gonna come out of like it's
Jay Zigmont: You went there, huh? All right.
Naseema: It's my world, okay, But back to the point like being child free is a really Conscious and thoughtful decision that a lot of people make. And there are people that are child free by choice and some not by choice. There's a distinction there, but there still is a lot more thought that goes into that process.
And so I know a lot of people are just like why don't you want to have kids? That's supposed to be the norm. And I just think like child free should be the norm until you really understand why you want to have kids. That's not how our society is set.[00:03:00]
Jay Zigmont: You're right. And so let's have fun. Let's pick on other people. And so in the book, we have a program we call the eight, no baby steps as opposed to Ramsey, seven baby steps. And the fun thing about the Ramsey program and I use them to get a debt. So I can't hate on completely, but Dave Ramsey flat out has a Financial plan for everything except having kids. He's kids come when kids come, it's between you and God. He's but you gotta plan out buying that car.
Naseema: A car expense versus a child care expense is crazy. And I think, not to go too deep into like politics and all that kind of thing, but the whole pro life movement and about oh yeah, you should have a baby by any means. But what happens when that baby is in this world?
Like, how do you support that baby? Not only just like financially, but mentally, but physically you talked about in your book, like there was somebody that just had chronic illness and wanted [00:04:00] to take their free time just to deal with their chronic illness, like they don't want to have to deal with the kid.
And let me tell you, dealing with children is taxing on every level. After they're in the world, not to mention what, You had to go through to get them into this world. So yeah
Jay Zigmont: and it's interesting, so I will go a little on politics unless you yell at me. But let's be real. On this last politics go round, this childless cat lady stuff came up. And, we left Twitter when Elon Musk said, childless people should not have a vote. And that was like, before the election, that was before all this.
And it's this hate around people who don't have kids. And it was interesting to me. I was watching the politics stuff and, JD Vance had said a whole bunch of things about childless folks and there's others that have said it, but his wife came out to quote unquote, fix it. And she had this discussion in the press and she said, look, what you're missing is.
J. D. Vance is not talking about people who can't have kids. He's just talking about the crazy ones who choose not to. [00:05:00] And I'm like, did you just think that was gonna make it better?
Naseema: It's insane. It's insane. But where does this hate come from? I'm really trying to understand like, why do people form such negative opinions around people that make conscious decisions about their lives?
Jay Zigmont: well, and, and I'm very much, a libertarian at heart. Like you don't mess with me. I don't mess with you. Like we all live our best life.
Naseema: Yeah.
Jay Zigmont: this thing like, if you don't have kids, people assume like you're rich. All of a sudden you're like, all the money comes out from the sky. It doesn't, by the way, like income disparities are still real.
or that it's just easier. Look, I got child for people that are struggling. All right. It's, it's a different way of life. It's not better or worse. I don't get a vote in you having kids. You don't get a vote in me not having kids. Then that should be the end of the discussion.
Naseema: That's it.
Jay Zigmont: But part of it is the system is built on constant growth.
So I [00:06:00] was on a podcast and somebody said to me if you child free people keep not even kids, social security is going to fall apart. I'm like, social security is broken way before me. Okay. This is not my fault. But the system is based on constant growth and, let's be real. You could fix growth with immigration, which not a popular topic either right now, like the result is you want to have kids and I've even had folks say to me, I had somebody stopped me at work and say, I've been thinking about you and your wife.
You're really smart. You need to have kids and I'm like, hell, do you think you are to be saying that to
Naseema: feel like they get to have an opinion on their procreation?
Jay Zigmont: but there's also unwritten messages. I've had people say we need kids like you. What does that mean?
Naseema: yeah, exactly.
Jay Zigmont: they really mean is white kids. I'm just being honest with that. And I'm like, hold up. Now we're like, Dig in it. There's just so much baggage that comes with it. [00:07:00] And I'm like the part they don't know is my wife has a 50, 50 chance of dying. If she gets pregnant, our choice was made for us. Like it wasn't even like we had a choice and I'll tell people that because they always ask why don't you have kids? And I'm like, now I told you the fact. Are you happy? You know that knowledge and no, I shouldn't
invest in the
Naseema: matter.
Jay Zigmont: I don't know. And it, we're recording this. It's. End of November and I've spent the last two, three weeks working with my clients on like, how do they protect their safety? Some of them are moving across the U. S. Some are moving out of the U. S. Real concerns about their own personal health, mental health, safety, because they're not having kids.
Like, why is that even an issue?
Naseema: I'm just thinking about the landscape of the things that have gone on in the last couple of weeks and just how unsafe people feel in general. And I am one of those people with children because of other things, [00:08:00] But I just think that there is a lot to be said around people controlling who Can grow the population or what kind of population should be growing and what population needs to leave.
I have this post. I don't know if you saw a J and I literally, because this is what happened. I walked outside of my house and I saw that somebody had put a flag in my yard and. I was like shocked because first, like who would put something in my yard without my permission. Second of all, the American flag during certain times, especially during political times to me invokes a lot of threat because it's like.
I'm American, you're not but we're going to put this here to let you know that, you're being watched or something like that, like we see you and so I posted that just because it initially I literally had a visceral reaction when I saw that I jumped oh, why is this in my yard?
Who put this [00:09:00] there? What does this mean? I went further outside and saw that 4th of July. Real estate agents do that in my neighborhood, but for the simple fact that it evoked an emotion in me. I just was I posted it just like to see am I the only one that this happens to? And the most common response I got was If an american flag has that kind of effect on you, you should leave this country Yeah,
Jay Zigmont: And unfortunately, that's where we're living right now. and it's so my aha lately, and by the way, we should probably do some financial stuff in here, but I don't know. It's your podcast, but I'm good with it. But like my aha is I have family and friends who don't consider it all that others might be.
Unsafe or at risk or other things and that came out after the election and I'm like, if you don't even have a concern for anyone, [00:10:00] I don't think I want to spend my time talking to you. I'm cutting people out because it's basic empathy. Look, I'm a straight white male. Okay. I'm not going to probably personally have some of these effects.
But my people are, and I'm going to fight for that, I'm out here doing podcasts and PR and I'm doing a lot of it because some folks, at least in the child for community are really worried about their safety and they can't do it anymore. They can't be out there publicly talking about it because otherwise.
They're getting like you go to whatever country or whatever, forget it. This is not cool.
Naseema: Yeah, it's not, but yeah, let's talk about the financial implications of being child free. Because, of course, just like with anything else, there's stigmas around. If you don't have any kids, of course, you're rich. Of course, you have all this money. Of course, you have all this time. Of course, you have the luxury of X, Y, and Z.
Can we talk about how the myths or the truth behind that?
Jay Zigmont: So the way we say it is living a [00:11:00] life of child free wealth means you have time, money, and freedom to do what you enjoy. Now, notice I didn't say rich and like you do have money. You're just making different choices with it. I got people that are barely making ends meet, but they have flexibility.
Like they could move for another job. It's a different level of freedom. And I'm not saying better or worse. It's just different of being child free. My wife got offered a job 1200 miles away and we packed up the dogs and the cat and went, it wasn't a big deal. Although I do have to say, you have to see two masters in the back of a Prius, really hilarious driving down the road, like just the big old heads looking out at them, but like it's a different life.
And the way we say it is the book is created in the first half. It talks about. What life plan do you want to live? And you have to decide that first, because what happens for parents, there's a standard life plans, go to school, get married, you have kids, you work for 25 years past the money, next generation, like all these expectations.
It's part of the American dream, the house, the white picket [00:12:00] fence, two and F kids, the dog. If you're not following the standard script. You need to figure out what you want to do with your life. And that's really hard because the answer is you just follow the script. I had tried and the publisher wouldn't go for it.
I wanted to originally name the book F the American dream. Cause
Naseema: I like that. And I actually thought about that when I was reading your book. I was like, this is so anti-American Dream. Just because of the systems that we have in place. but I feel like I'm like that too. So I I'm
Jay Zigmont: They said Amazon wouldn't do it in search terms or something. I was like, okay, fine, whatever. But I think what's happening is we go back to that mindfulness, child free. People are like, what do I want to do? For example, let's go to a simple financial thing. Buying a house for a child free person is a choice, not a requirement. If you're going to move every two to five years, Rent. My wife and I sold our house and we rent. Why? Because I don't have to deal with mowing the lawn. And if I don't [00:13:00] like something, all I got to do is call the moving company. Like it's not a big deal. Get another work option or whatever it is.
We can just do it. And that's normal. But the thing is buying a house is such a core component of many of the assumptions around financial planning. Like it breaks people's brains that you're like, no, I'm going to rent forever. You get the, Oh, you're throwing money away, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, do the math.
You're actually, depending on where it is, you might be better off. And if you count in there, you're moving every two to five years, buying a house never makes sense.
Naseema: And it doesn't make sense for most people with kids either, especially the way you have to move with kids. Let's just say that.
Jay Zigmont: But, but these are the assumptions that are built in the system, and what happens is when you're child free, a lot of the core assumptions don't fit. So for example, Most child free people don't care about how much money they pass on to the next generation. My wife and I, our nephews get what's left over.
If they get a hundred grand or, 10 grand, that's fine. If they [00:14:00] get a million dollars, we made a mistake. Because if we're 90 and dying, give them a million dollars. They're going to be 60. They don't need it. Let's be real. We could help them earlier in their life. That's why we have 529s for them, other things.
But if you don't, want to pass on money to the next generation, a lot of core assumptions now don't work. So like the 4 percent rule for financial independence, that assumes you want to keep your principal. Things like Monte Carlo simulations all assume you want your money to constantly go up. And this is where I get cranky at my other financial planners.
And I'm sure you've seen the ad is somewhere Fisher investment says, we do better when you do better. What they're really saying is they make more money as your net worth goes up. Guess what? For shopper people, that's a conflict of interest and that's not their goal. Like the goal is to bring it down.
All my, my, most of my class, like if you can figure out how to bounce the last check, I'm good with it. Okay. And it's these assumptions that are built into the system that people, they're technically [00:15:00] called pronatalist assumptions that we just don't even see and, it just changes everything.
Naseema: But even the way that the are set up are beneficial for people who are on this traditional path, right? Marriage, kids, all of that. But that leaves out a whole portion of the population, right? Like non binary people or, like just a whole lot of people that don't fall, like it's single people, like single by choice, single, not, unmarried, divorced, all of that.
Jay Zigmont: To encourage specific behaviors in the citizens. That's what they give discounts for and credits for and all that. Here's some numbers for you. 25 percent of the U. S. are child free or permanently childless.
That's a an estimate based on a study out of Michigan recently. In that same study, they found about 8 percent are LGBTQ So [00:16:00] we're three times the size of that community and people don't even know we exist. And then if you look at the LGBTQ plus community, about half of them are child free. So there's this crossover, 32 percent of childless folks will never marry as opposed to 2. 5 percent of parents. So like we're breaking the system in too many ways. And that's where we actually end up paying more in taxes. I've had some child free people say I want to not pay for the school system. I'm like, no, come on. Like I pay for the fire department and I hope never to use them. I want people to be educated, but if you really start looking at it, the way the tax system is structured, the way benefits are structured, the way all the systems are structured are to support the classic nuclear family, a couple with two and a half kids and work it through.
If you're going to be single across your life, which is, we call them solos, single with no [00:17:00] kids, solos, it costs you between 400, 000 and a million dollars across your lifetime to be single. And the reason is you can't split housing. You can't split utilities. You get the tax and all that. And nobody thinks about that. And their answer right now is let's keep encouraging people to follow the norm. We've looked at countries that have done that. If you look at Japan, 33 percent of their people are child free. And you look at their efforts to increase population, and the answer is, no. Everybody's why?
I'm not doing it. The the fun one for you in Russia, just recently, they made it To talk about being child free
Naseema: What
Jay Zigmont: illegal because that's ruining the values of the country and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Naseema: ruin of values anything like that has to be tied to something monetary because that just doesn't make any sense [00:18:00] Yeah,
Jay Zigmont: to do. And the jaded part of me is like, how long before they start? I got this new book coming out and how long before they ban it? They probably will. By the way, they should, because then I sell more copies. Let's yeah, I went to put an ad on Amazon for the book, pay for people to sign up twice.
The system denied it because of the term child free. And I'm like and by the way, that's just AI, really. That's not people even
yet saying you can't even use the term. I was like, what the world am I in here?
Naseema: but it's just wild to me. But I'm still trying to understand why, which, beliefs and all of that kind of thing is tied into it, there's religious aspects. Like I was blown away to know that you [00:19:00] couldn't even get married at your wife's church because in the Catholic church, she was Catholic, your Methodist that.
They wouldn't even allow you to get married there because of, you not saying that you didn't want to have kids, but she physically, even as a member of that church for her whole life, it's a condition, even if it wasn't in condition. Like, why is that a thing?
Jay Zigmont: Okay. The, and this is me as a white male saying it, it's the patriarchy. It's the romance of marriage. It's religion. It's control. It is women need to be put in their place. I don't have to tell you this. It's, that's the quiet part that nobody's saying, but that is actually what it is. And this is the trad wife movement and all those other things and I'm like, if that's your choice and you want to do that.
Awesome. Let the rest of us pick our life. Seriously.
Naseema: I was just thinking just about something like, There's so [00:20:00] much hate around people that don't want to have kids, but also on the other side, when people do want to have kids, there's so much, there's such a lack of support around even having kids. I see why people intentionally don't want to have kids.
Like the backlash. For choosing to do something for your kids versus just show up to work, is insane. So it's just we live in this crazy world of things that just it's hypocritical.
Jay Zigmont: So let me go the other way. So the society for human resource management looked at child free people at work and they found that we first of all, the benefits policies are all bad for us. Let's be real on that. And we're not trying to take anything away from parents, but there's a whole bunch of benefits we can't take advantage of.
My wife worked at a university. Our kids could get free schooling, but I, as her spouse, couldn't. Like it's things like that just annoy me. They actually found that child free people work about 30 percent more and they're expected to cover vacations, holidays, [00:21:00] others, and are disenfranchised around there using their PTO.
And, I hear this all the time from clients. It's Hey, I put in for the, child free people. We tend to put in for our vacations a little earlier, we're thinking ahead. She said she put in for her vacation months ago. And next thing she has somebody coming to her and saying, Hey that's spring break for my kids.
Can you cover and her manager came to her and said, okay, be a team player and let so and so have this time and you can pass up that time. She's listen, I planned my trip months ago. I got tickets. I got all the manager. If I said, you don't have a family. I was like, hold up. Like we have a family, it just doesn't involve kids.
And even if I don't have a family, it's my time
I put in, months ago to do this, I should be able to take Christmas off if I want, even if I don't have kids.
Naseema: Like you're not supposed to enjoy the holidays if you don't have kids Like oh, no, you don't have a family, you don't have [00:22:00] kids like why would you care about being off during spring break?
Jay Zigmont: And I think that's, what's happening is we have a culture that on the surface says, Hey, we support each other and we're trying to be more accepting and all that, but then there's specific groups that we don't. And. The child free community is in the target right now. And we're, we've got this book coming on.
I just met with the publisher today and I said to him, I said, look, we're talking about how to get it in bookstores and independent bookstores tend to be better for topics that are a little more challenging. I said, but the number one place books are actually getting sold right now are places like target, like they have the book section there.
I said to him, I said, listen, getting the child free guide to life and money in target. Might push sales, but it would mean a hell of a lot to the community to walk into target and see something about us. and the publisher's [00:23:00] huh, I never thought of it that way. I'm like, it's more than just the book. It's being acknowledged that we're there and not judged. And then I can walk through Target and pick up a copy. Like,
Naseema: I totally understand that because, I'm a fan of representation matters and getting those voices out there that are often underrepresented. And I know you're in this space, but I don't know a lot of other people that are talking about this publicly. What other people, what other resources are out there besides you talking about being child free?
Jay Zigmont: so there are others and they be in, in niches. So for example, I Zef Geber, who did the book on solo aging and retirement. She works with soloists. Awesome. There are other groups working on some of the policy things. Interestingly enough even like the bigger child free influencers only have a couple hundred thousand filers Which by the way, if that was a mommy blog, a [00:24:00] hundred thousand followers is a failure. No, seriously, in comparison. And we actually, as a company just had a discussion about this after the election. And a lot of the people talking about the child free stuff for their own safety need to stop talking about it for a little bit. being real on that. And allow me, I feel a little weird as the straight white male here, talking about diversity issues, but somebody has to stand up who feels comfortable.
I said to my team, I said, look, I'm gonna go out and take the bullets for you. Hopefully they're not literal bullets. I don't know. And others. They just don't feel comfortable speaking up. And I think that's the worst thing. We had a group this group called the Alliance of Child Free Voters just started.
And their discussion was the first step is for people to know we exist. And they actually did a bunch of work that they got a lot of political history in the group. And they went [00:25:00] out and talked to the parties and their leadership and all that. Neither party. would use the term child free. They would talk about childless people because, they'll eventually have kids, but child free is the third rail they won't touch.
And I'm like, man, is it really that bad out there? And like some days I feel like I'm like just screaming into the wind. And other days, I did a presentation on child free stuff to financial planners and somebody stopped me afterwards and said, I want to applaud you for being so brave. And I'm like, what do you mean?
What am I doing this brain? She's you're willing to talk about it.
Naseema: Yeah,
Jay Zigmont: And I don't think of that as a big thing, but it is.
Naseema: is. It definitely is. It definitely is. And of course, like you present as someone with all the privilege, but yet and still you're highlighting a lot of the things that we [00:26:00] as, people that are underrepresented struggle with. Every day. And that's because you make up this not so sub subsection of society.
There's more child free people than there are black people, in this country statistically. But it's scary. When you were talking about not like literally taking bullets, like who knows, Because this whole, I really feel like this whole ham ace hell era is upon us.
I live around the corner from somebody who thinks it's okay to hang nooses from their house. Like it's
scary.
Jay Zigmont: it, and it's a weird thing. And, so our editor for the book so if you haven't written a book yet, it's one of those interesting things. I had to have the book done 18 months ago. This has been a never ending project. She wrote in the book, I was talking about how do you get ahead with your finances and the other.
And she said, check your privilege. I'm like, what do you mean? And I co host [00:27:00] podcast, Child for Wealth podcast with Brie. And I said to Brie, I said, Brie, help me understand this. I'm having trouble with it. I grew up broke. Yeah, I'm a white male, but I, Sure as hell did not have money handed to me struggled most of my life with finances.
I learned how to do it. And I was like, that bothered me. This is a check your privilege. And my thing was like, how do you talk about getting ahead and doing better and still check your privilege? And in the end, we ended up having good discussions about you acknowledge your privilege, you acknowledge where you're from, you acknowledge everything.
And then say, and here are options.
And we worked through it, but still to this day, it's one of those like that rubs me because I'm like, there are a lot of people out there struggling and suffering. And a lot of it is like meaningless. Like it shouldn't be a struggle to just not have kids.
Naseema: Right. But I think that privileged conversation usually stems around the fact [00:28:00] that systemically you're set up to do well, like the system is built for. White cisgender men, right? And so if for any reason in that you find yourself having struggles, it's your fault. I think that's the narrative around that.
However, you've just proven how the system has worked against you. So again, there's some privilege, but without a system backing it. Then it negates it. Yeah,
Jay Zigmont: I was working this through with my PR team and they're like, listen, the reality check is as a white male, you can say things about the system that others can't. That's interesting. I can rage against the machine, and in the financial world, the joke and it's true is all old white, pale and stale, like all old white men.
It really is like [00:29:00] average age is like dead, the actual stats like 55 is the average age and. I'm over here talking to them about child free stuff and they're like, Oh, I don't know those people. Or they'll be like, Oh, I have three clients like that. I had, I had somebody.
Okay. I got to tell you this story. So somebody comes to me as a prospect. I always tell people, whenever you're looking at planners, ask them how your plan is different because you're child free. And if they say you'll change your mind. Like just walk out. If they say, Oh, it's not different.
Just walk out. And she said, she went to her old planner and said, Hey, how's my plan different? Cause I'm child free. And this is what he said. I have other child free clients. Okay. To me, that's like a racist thing. I have black friends so I'm trying to use my privilege to like rage against that machine and be like representation does matter.
I'm talking about the 25 percent of your clients that you're giving bad advice, conflicted advice, you're mistreating them and I swear, sometimes they think I'm crazy and I might be like, just
[00:30:00] because
Naseema: You're different, and this is weird, crazy, all of those things run, that same common like narrative, right? Whatever.
Jay Zigmont: chapter of my book is, are we weird? To call it out. And I think the absolute, if nobody, if you take nothing else out of the book, nothing else out of the podcast, the answer is you need to have a life and financial plan that reflects you, not everybody else. And that is triply true for child free people because all the plans are cookie cutter for having kids.
If you look at two parents, financial plans are actually very, very similar in structure. The numbers change
my child free people, though, two plans look the same. And I worry that if we decide everybody gets one cookie cutter plan, how much of their life and their goals and their wants and needs is being missed.
Naseema: I mean, that's I think that's what with financial planning in general that we try to make it too dogmatic to cookie [00:31:00] cutter and it can't be but I love the way that you wrote your book and you say it's like a choose your own adventure because not everything is going to apply. It's not linear. And so if I, if you sat up there and was like, These are the steps one, two, three, four, like the, like you said, you're anti you're no baby steps.
It doesn't work like that. Your book is written so that you can take the things that apply to you and leave the rest. Of
Jay Zigmont: is and I had to put some structure because it's a book, and okay, you got to get out of debt first. Okay, look that's just good for everybody. Let's be real. That's probably the one cookie cutter thing I can say for advice for everybody. But then it's what do you want to do next? Is your goal to buy a house or not?
Is your goal to retire or not? Do you want to travel the world whatever it is? And then how do we adjust it? And even like stupid blanket statements like everybody needs life insurance. If you're child free, chances are you can pass up on it. If you're single and child free, [00:32:00] there's almost zero cases where I'm going to say you need life insurance.
People say I need money to bury me. That's burial
insurance, not life insurance.
Life insurance pays out six months later yeah, you'll be long gone. And I think that's the hard part is, everybody, I get clients I'm behind. And I'm like, behind who, what race are you on?
Jay Zigmont: I read online that I need to have X amount of money by YH. I'm like, that's somebody pulling a number out of their behind. Or an average that doesn't reflect you like ignore it.
Naseema: Yeah, I hate that. That is really funny to me. The whole comparison thing because I always get that too. Oh, I'm not where I'm supposed to be by who standards. Who are you comparing yourself to? I did want to touch on this though, because I feel like there are people that do want to be the rich aunties or rich uncles and do want to leave something for [00:33:00] nieces, nephews, extended family, whatever, whoever they feel like.
Kids that they love in their lives. And you're not saying don't do that. You're saying, think about it strategically. And I like how you use the, the die with zero kind of philosophy around that. Can you walk us through what you do for your family?
Jay Zigmont: Each of my nephews has a 529. So my wife and I are PhDs. We believe in education. I don't believe in the cost of education. That's a separate discussion, but we have that intentionally. And what my argument is, is when you're dead, first of all, if you're going to give charities, you get no tax breaks.
So let's get tax breaks. If when you die, you want to leave money to your nieces, nephews, chances are, they're going to be old enough. They don't truly need it. So for example, I have a client, she has a fund called the get the babies to love me fund. It's my favorite naming of an account ever. It's for her niece and nephews, by the way, the actual technical term is nibblings, just like siblings.
Nibblings is nieces and [00:34:00] nephews. And it's purposely not for education. It's for investing in their first business. It is for the backpacking trip through Europe. It is for that once in a lifetime opportunity to change their life. At that kind of 18 to 21, where we probably all could have used somebody to put an arm around us and said, let me set you up for
whatever that is,
And I love that concept.
Here's the thing. She's not going to leave them much money when she dies. Because they won't need it. Like they're shut up up front. I had somebody else. He was from India and he said it, his family said it this way. When people worry about giving money to kids, if the kids are idiots. It doesn't matter.
Like it's just not going to help. And he says, if the kids are geniuses, it's not going to help either because they don't need it.
Naseema: Mm hmm.
Jay Zigmont: He's you're so worried about giving money next generation. The actual worry is, [00:35:00] are my kids doing well? And how do I support them? And I was like, whoa, that's deep. But that's where, as that rich auntie or whatever, you can do those things.
And it's just challenging the way that people make the assumptions. This, I'm just going to give it all to him when I die. Means you haven't put thought into it.
Naseema: Because that's the default, right?
Jay Zigmont: yeah, it's, it's just keep putting it away. And I, I think that's an escape hatch for us of I can keep working because I just going to give this money away to my nephews when I die.
And I'm like, are you happy? And are you going to make a difference in their life? And they're like, no, I'm not happy. Okay. Then quit your job. And really at 60, are they going to need the money? Probably not, 25 grand given to somebody who's 21 just so they can start their first business.
Naseema: Is everything even 10, 000. Let me tell you, like the people underestimate.
Jay Zigmont: a small a small amount, 25 grand in when there's 60, [00:36:00] okay, thank you. Like not going to change a thing. And I think, when people talk about intergenerational wealth, they're really talking about how do I help the next generation do better than I did? And how do I help them get ahead? Not when you die, it's when you're alive, when you can help them. A lot of child free folks, they're very involved in their family's lives. They're helping, they're mentoring, they're doing whatever. And they're very charitably inclined. Charities need the money now, not when you die, you get tax breaks, kids need the money.
You can set up a structure. So I saw my nephew a couple of weeks ago, and he started to look at college and I said to him, I said here's the thing. You can use CLEP exams and test out of courses. You can actually get up to two years free out of there. I set up with that and I said, and every CLEP exam you pass, I'll give you a thousand dollars. Now, what did I just do? I set up him to get two years of school for free [00:37:00] and a scholarship for each credit course. Life changing. He'll come out of college with no loans whatsoever.
Naseema: love that. I love that. Jay, walk us through. Like how your book works, who it's for, and give us an example of how somebody can use that to uplevel their finances.
Jay Zigmont: Yeah. So it's made for child free people as you'd expect. Interestingly enough, we have a chapter in there. A couple chapters on this talk about if you're a soloist as a couple, as a group, but really what it does is it starts with the big question what do you want to be when you grow up?
Which sounds like a silly question, but that's. And I even get to a point where I'm like, if you don't have that answer, just do good things, try not to get in debt. But until you figure out the answer, don't work on your financial plan.
Naseema: [00:38:00] Way.
Jay Zigmont: questions. It's what about this? And what about that? You're not leaving a genetic legacy. What do you want your impact to be? Things like that.
So that's the first half of the book. And what's interesting about that is most financial books start with finance. And then you can retire and enjoy your life. That's the end of the story. I'm like, no, let's figure out how to get more joy. And the tagline of the book and what we're structuring is how do we simplify your finances?
So your life can be amazing. And, once you get fair, where you want to go, yeah, it walks through no baby steps. You don't got a debt saving and investing insurance, interesting, real chapter on planning for your parents. How do you do their financial planning? So it impacts you dying was zero. That works in like the nuts and bolts of the finance.
Really? We're trying to make your finances super simple so you can focus in on what matters. Which is your amazing life. And I, [00:39:00] and people just make things way too complex. And oh, I got to have a fancy double backflip setup and my, portfolio. And I got to buy. Nope, simple, passive, long term investing, just good habits.
And then go travel the world. Like with this politics, I had somebody the other day reach out to me and said, Hey, there's now a cruise that for the next four years, you can buy a seat on for 400, 000. And I was like, all right, let's do it.
Naseema: house.
Jay Zigmont: Because actually when you think about a hundred thousand dollars a year, all my food, my, my room, my like utilities are covered. It's actually not that crazy if you're financially independent,
Naseema: Yeah, I was like, that's cheaper than any house you can buy in California.
Jay Zigmont: this
Naseema: Or rent or rent for four years.
Jay Zigmont: but they're like, that would be an amazing life to just spend four years away from the politics away from the other stuff and just travel the world. [00:40:00] That's what the book is for. It's so that you have the option to be like, yeah, let's do a four year cruise.
Naseema: I love that. It's all about your options. And I love the term simplifying your finances so that you can focus on what really matters, like living your life. And I think people are so afraid to focus on their finances because it means that they're going to have to give up something or they're going to have to face their financial mistakes and all this kind of thing.
But it's not really about that. It's really about setting systems in place that It's going to make you be able or help you be able to live the life that you really want to live. And I think if more people structured it that way, it would be more intriguing for people to work on their finances, but also the simple fact that you takes a lot of time and putting energy into actually having people think about [00:41:00] what their life would really look like or what they want their life to look like.
That psychological part about finance is often like overshadowed by tips and techniques and steps and budgeting and investing and all of these things that only play a minimal role. I think People, would embrace it a little bit more, but I think, just because of the way that the traditional personal finance and investing space has been for so long, people.
Aren't it's not, it's not really approached that way. And so there's a lot of intimidation around it. So I really appreciate your approach. I really appreciate your book. I got a kick out of it. I love it as someone with kids, because I just feel like it applies to everybody. And, and I think that's how personal finance is it's just like losing weight, like there's certain steps that, you have to do.
But everything else around that is about. These like life decisions and what do you want to do? And if you really focus on those [00:42:00] things, those other things will fall into place. Just like you said what, how you do 1 thing if you're really successful in 1 thing you just transfer that into another area of your life and a lot of people, especially in the child free space.
There people are successful in something in their life. They do something really, really, really well. But money is this really intimidating thing. But we all have the wherewithal. We all have the skills to be better financially. And I like that you provide such a sound road map.
Especially for people who are often overlooked in this community. So I love what you're doing. I love the book. So let people know like where they can find the book, where they can learn more about you. You have steps in your book that if they want to work with you further, they can go deeper if they're part of your membership and you also have special discounts in there.
Share all of that. Of
Jay Zigmont: So childfreewealth. com is our website. Child free wealth on all the socials, except for [00:43:00] X. And if you go to child for wealth. com slash book, we've actually got a pre order in there that if you pre order the book we're giving you the first chapter so you can get reading on, are we weird? We're also going to be doing a exclusive webinar with the top questions.
Child free people need answered. So I'll be digging in with you. And all you gotta do is buy the book and submit it. I think I encourage everybody, please, your local independent bookstore needs the love. Like order through them. Like we got links there, bookshop. org, other things.
Like you can actually go do that. And I think it's one of those where you, if you pause and see where we're at as a world, you realize I need stuff that reflects me and my life. And that's what the book can get you
Naseema: I love that. I love being the face for people who have felt spaceless for a long time. And I feel that like that target story really got to me. So I hope that your book gets [00:44:00] in target. That's 1 of my favorite places to shop, but I love the independent
Jay Zigmont: depending on how you like it,
Naseema: Exactly, but I, but again, yeah, also support your local bookstores.
I really would love to see it in all the libraries. That's typically where I consume my books, but yeah, I'll have all the notes and all the places where you can get the book in the show notes. Share this, even if you're not child free, share this with someone, other people in your life. Who you feel can benefit from it.
And listen, like I said, I enjoyed the book, even though I'm not child free. I love learning about different people's perspectives and I love seeing the similarities, but I also like hearing the differences because it teaches me to have. To understand where people are coming from to understand the things that they have gone through that I have the privilege of not having gone through.
So again, I appreciate what you're doing. It's a fantastic book. I always love having you on. I always love talking to you cause you have the best [00:45:00] stories. And I like how you just show up because you could just. Be in the background and live in your life. But you choose to fight for people who don't necessarily have that voice.
So I appreciate you. J. Yeah.
Jay Zigmont: you for having me on. We always have a great conversation. This is always fun for me.
Naseema: And you're always welcome to be on as much as you want.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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