How does being childfree impact your finances? - Episode 4

We discuss the realities and common misconceptions of being child-free.  What does financial planning look like for individuals and couples who are child-free? We dive deep into Retirement Planning, Financial Independence Live Early, and Life Insurance. 

About our guest:

Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP®, and his wife are Childfree and live in Water Valley, MS. He has a Ph.D. in Adult Learning from the University of Connecticut and is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and Childfree Wealth, Specialist. He is the founder of Childfree Wealth, a life and financial planning firm specializing in helping Childfree Individuals, and the author of “Portraits of Childfree Wealth”.

He has been featured in Fortune, Forbes, MarketWatch, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Business Insider, CNBC, and many other publications.

Get your 15-day free trial to the Childfree Wealth Self-Directed Financial Planning System

Links mentioned in the episode: MakeMyMove

The couple that agreed to have their financial planning recorded: https://childfreewealth.com/blog/introductory-meeting-cfp

Detailed resource for Long-Term Care: https://childfreewealth.com/2022/03/08/long-term-care-childfree/

Testing out of college: https://modernstates.org

Visit Childfree Wealth at https://childfreewealth.com

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Naseema: What's up? All my financially intentional people. I'm super honored to have Dr. Jay Zigman here joining us, talking about child free wealth. What is up Jay?

[00:00:15] Dr. Jay: Hey, glad to ha be here and you know, this is a fun afternoon for me, at least. .

[00:00:20] Naseema: Yes, yes, yes. And you have an incredible backstory. You have an incredible platform.

So I'm very interested in hopping right in and just kind of understanding like how just like I wanted you to talk about your money story, just like from the beginning, like what was your experience with money and who taught you about money and how that.

[00:00:42] Dr. Jay: So I think I learned what not to do growing up.

You know, I, I grew up broke and I kind of joke about it because, you know, we had money come in, money go out, but it just never really, I, I don't know if we classified as poor or whatever. My father was a bus driver, but my mother was disabled, you know, sick. Most of. Life. So I've actually hung around the healthcare system on the other side way too much and the impact on finances.

So I, I, I think growing up I really didn't learn money. joke, but it's true. The only thing I was ever taught was how to balance a checkbook in high school. Which is a giant waste of time. I mean, when was the last time you vowed your checkbook? .

[00:01:20] Naseema: I remember them teaching that. I remember them teaching that, and I was like, well, doesn't the bank does do that?

Like with a ledger, but I don't know. Yeah. Well, ,

[00:01:28] Dr. Jay: that was back. Okay. I'm a little older than you. That was back when we had the savings books, you know, the, like the little books. You went to the bank and they, yes. That's old school. So I came outta high school and didn't have money to go to college. And it.

Mid nineties and I actually ended up going into this.com world that was pre-internet. Yo know, this is like old's old school and I actually made my first million by the time I was 21 and spent it by the time I was 25. .

[00:01:53] Naseema: Ok. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We have to stop there. We have to stop there because it's just like, okay, make your first million by 21.

Like what? How, please explain. Okay,

[00:02:03] Dr. Jay: so this is, this is the old school internet world. You gotta remember late nineties. This is when all that.com boom. I got lucky. I got, I was working for a company one ipo, 21, and you have a million dollars, by the way. You know what happens when a 21 year old gets a million dollars?

They spend it , .

[00:02:21] Naseema: Surprise, surprise, surprise.

[00:02:24] Dr. Jay: Like, okay, so my, my big expense, my favorite. I bought one of the old school Hummers. This is the Schwar thing. The old school, like military homers. That was my favorite and I paid cash for it. And my mom went for the drive, cuz you know why. And the, the dealer's like, is this dude real?

And she's like, don't talk to me. He's the one with the money. I'm like, , who's this 21 year old bra coming over with cash, just buying? Oh, you know this. It's all the things we wish we learned earlier, but not about you. But I didn't, there was no role models on that.

[00:02:57] Naseema: Right? I mean, but, but most people would be like, like for real?

Like you have a million dollars. Like how do you blow through a million dollars? and well, okay, so suddenly,

[00:03:06] Dr. Jay: yeah, it's not, it's not hard, first of all cause it's, don't forget tax man Comes, comes through . Yeah. Then look, I grew up broke, so I paid for part of my parents' house. I paid for my sister's school.

You know, I did good things with it. And I did okay. But if I had known better how to manage my money from then, I could just be, you know, on a beach somewhere now, like , right? It, it, it's just, it's just one of those things. It's funny, what it did teach me is, you know, everybody says, oh, money doesn't answer everything.

They're right. But you can't know that until you have money. Thank you. You know, , it's just like, and, and, and you really can't, I swear you have to struggle with money to learn about it. Like you have to kind of, you know, you gotta have that day when you're like eating the ramen noodles cause that's all that's left, you know?

And you're like, oh, I'm gonna make a ends meat. That you, you gotta have that to truly understand, okay, this is what a budget really means, , and, and you have to learn it the hard way.

[00:04:09] Naseema: So how long did it take for you to blow through that

[00:04:11] Dr. Jay: million? Oh, four or five years? I don't know. Oh my goodness. I went back to school at that time and you know, I went from no degree to PhD in five and a half years.

So that was quite a stretch and I was working as a medic and, you know, got into healthcare and did all that. Unfortunately, I mean, you and I can share stories all day long. Healthcare's hard and, and it burns people out. You know, I ended up on the executive side and just, Nope. I, I, I, I realized that the healthcare's all about finance.

Yes. And anyone that doesn't believe that has never been in healthcare, , it's just like, thank you.

[00:04:45] Naseema: Thank you. Hundred

[00:04:46] Dr. Jay: percent. Even the people, even the people that are doing good healthcare are still about finance. Yes. And it's like, you know, if I'm gonna be in finance, let me go help people with finance.

Like, you know, my background BBC's an adult learning. I help people learn. I've been coaching and executive coaching and life coaching, financial coaching for over a decade and I'm like, you know what? Maybe I should just open my own thing and help people with their finances. I can show them and mis to take excitement.

You know, people always like when they go to financial advisors like, well, you're gonna judge me. Well, if you get beat, my mistakes go. Like, seriously. Right? .

[00:05:20] Naseema: That's what I tell people. Listen, I done been through it all, so I have no judgment here. ,

[00:05:25] Dr. Jay: I have some people try hard to, to beat me and some of 'em get close , but you know, it, it's just you realize I can help more people by going out and teaching them the stuff I wish I learned.

And from a personal standpoint, my wife and I are child free. And I started kind of wondering, going, are me and my wife weird? And by the way, we are, we're both PhDs. There's some weird stuff there. Okay. When you get two doctors in the family, it's always weird.

[00:05:51] Naseema: Yeah. It's weird myself, , I have to agree , but in a good way.

I mean, I think, I don't necessarily think weird is bad though. I think weird means that you're, you're oh, oh, like a one percenter. And I've always kind of been in a 1% and I've always been thought of as weird. So I don't necessarily think weird is bad. Weird is quirky. But there are some good things about being weird because you've kind of approached life a little bit differently, especially in the choice that you got, the conscious decision that you guys made to be child free.

And can you speak to like, What made you have that decision? What, what brought you to that decision? Yeah. And then your wife to that decision because, you know, societally it's different for a man, and I don't want no kids, but for a woman whose whole role on this earth is to bear children and be fruitful.

[00:06:42] Dr. Jay: What that decision? Yeah. Don't, don't get me. Sorry. Cause I swear some of this is regional. You know, I've lived across the country and we're right now in Mississippi, which is a really weird discussion. We'll have a separate discussion about that, but, My wife and I when we first date and kind of going through and found out, hey, she's got a 50 50 chance of dying if she gets pregnant.

Mm. Made our choice pretty clear for us. Okay. It, it, you know, there, there's some terms. Childfree tends to be people by choice. Childless tends to be not by choice. There's like childless by choice, not by choice. There's lots of different terms. Bottom line for child free don't have kids not playing on ham, but I don't know, I call ourselves child free.

There really wasn't like a moment where like, oh, we'll have a debate, you know? No, I'm not debating my wife dying. Like just kinda like. Okay, cool. We gotta look at a different life, you know? And, and, and that was it for us. And we're both academic researchy people. And you gotta see one of our dinners, we'll sit around dinner and designing research studies.

You know, it's like I told you, we're a little

[00:07:41] Naseema: weird. I don't think this is necessarily urban based. That inn wasn't large enough.

[00:07:47] Dr. Jay: She's an epidemiologist, she's quantitative. P we're designing. I'm

[00:07:51] Naseema: not joking. I love it. I love it. I would love to sit down with you guys. I would have so much fun.

[00:07:57] Dr. Jay: So for us, I mean, it's been interesting personally.

I lived in the Midwest for a while. My, I had a staff member there stop me in the hall and say, Hey, I've been thinking about you and your wife. You guys are really smart. You really need to have kids. I'm like, who? Of course. Who do you think you are telling me? ,

[00:08:16] Naseema: of course you should proliferate. Of course,

[00:08:20] Dr. Jay: I'm like, so you've been staying up at night thinking about me and my wife's bedroom? You know, I mean, it's.

[00:08:26] Naseema: I mean, but I, I mean, but there's policies around what people do in the bedroom, you know what I'm saying? Like people, that's people's whole mo it's very interesting. Right?

[00:08:39] Dr. Jay: Yeah. I mean, the hard part is what people don't realize.

Uh, We study came outta Michigan and found one in five adults, self-identifies child free. So we're talking about 20% of the us. We're not talking about a small. But yet it's one of the few groups that's still okay to judge. Hmm. Yeah. I was at a financial conference the other day and guy talking about estate planning and by the way, talking about board in conferences, but that's a separate thing, , but he's talking about estate planning and he says, well, people without kids are the worst.

And I'm like, A what? Now? My, what he meant was there's changes to the estate planning, you know, on who gets the stuff, but you can't say a group of people is the worst. And here he is on stage saying it. I'm like, Ugh. . Never wonder why. You know, you're right on the judgment. It's, but it's not just gender. You know, it, it, everybody's getting judged and we're in a post road world, and it's gotten really interesting in

[00:09:39] Naseema: Mississippi.

God, I can't only imagine .

[00:09:44] Dr. Jay: I mean, so my wife and I, we embrace something we call the gardener and the roses. One person's growing, one person's providing. Right now it's her turn to be the rose. She got a great job opportunity to Mississippi. We picked up our car, two dogs and two masters and a cat. You gotta see two masters in the back of a Prius.

That's a, that's a fun picture, . But we just drove 1200 miles and moved to Mississippi. Now this was a year and a half ago, so now I'm running a financial planning firm in the poorest state in the country. Okay, that's a little challenge, but we can do it cuz I serve people from all across the country. It doesn't matter.

And I'm focused on child three folks. That's fine. And then the Dobbs decision comes out and I'm like, uhoh. Mm-hmm. and our governor publicly came out and said, we're not reading your mail or tapping your phone's. Butt

Mm-hmm. . And we're not currently outlawing contraception, but

[00:10:45] Naseema: I'm like, that's a, a long stick . I know, I know. I just remember being in Atlanta, in in Georgia, you know, Georgia AIN in Atlanta, but I was in Georgia when that decision came out and I was just like shook like. This is crazy. What if something were to happen to me out here and ? No. Like I do not wanna be a part of this medical system right now just cause I know how the judgment goes and how, you know, you know, tho those HIPAA laws might not be as protected and I'm like, oh my

[00:11:20] Dr. Jay: God.

Yeah. The privacy issues are insane. Okay. Yes. I mean, let, let's not get too political and talk about, you know, the actual debate. Let. Privacy. It's a huge issue. Yeah. I actually had to rechange, I had to change over my whole company structure design to protect my clients because I gotta be able to protect their information.

I mean, right. And it's like, yeah, I'm a white male. Let's be real on that. Like, well, Roe doesn't impact impact you. Yes, it does. And every one of my clients, like , you know, it, it, it's funny. I. They're sad. I don't know which the right word. In like the same two weeks, wall Street Journal Market Watch and Yahoo did an article on child free finances and the comments section was a dumpster fire.

[00:12:04] Naseema: I know it was. I know it was Ooh. Yeah, I, I chills, like literally chills cuz I know how people come for you in under in normal circumstances. But when things are heated like that and you talking about not bringing life into this world on purpose.

[00:12:27] Dr. Jay: So, so I, I, I hired another CFP to help me out and she's an mba, cfp also financial counselor.

I mean, great, well-trained person. And I put an announcement out, Hey, you know, Karen's joined the team and they were like, I'm praying for your childless souls, and then it takes an MBA to take care of. I'm like, we deserve good support just like everybody else. But, and I'm like, wanting to get keyboard warrior, you know, fight.

And I'm like, I can't. It's much ignorance. .

[00:12:55] Naseema: It's too much ignorance and, and. So you said that you had to kind of change the structure to protect the privacy of your clients. Talk to me a little bit about that because I'm interested, like people I feel like are kind of scared to now self-identify as child-free.

[00:13:15] Dr. Jay: Well, so what really started the debate is one of the reporters reached out to me and said, Hey, are people thinking about moving because a Rowe. I'm like, yeah, but then I started thinking about it as I'm talking to the reporter and like some states like Texas, it might be illegal to cross state lines for your reproductive rights.

That's that $10,000 problem. Mm-hmm. . Well, okay, cool. So I have clients in Texas, how do I protect their files? See, I'm on a regulated industry, so I, I'm a registered investment advisor, so everything is like, you know, talking about paperwork and compliance. It's just a diet nightmare. So I actually had to move from being registered in the state of Mississippi to being under the cert, s e c.

So being at the national level, cause the national level, like they don't care about your, you know, they're, they're not gonna be in there looking for your reproductive rights. But the state level, I could see somebody looking at your files going, what they moved, because by the way they moved because of the weather is what I always say.

But like, you know, like we're talking about healthcare decisions that they're now judging

[00:14:20] Naseema: and, and which are

[00:14:21] Dr. Jay: private. Yeah, and HIPAA really doesn't protect you as much as you think it does , because now the states are going, well, you know, it's a reportable issue now, right? Just like, you know, if somebody was stabbed

[00:14:31] Naseema: and I'm like, domestic violence, I was just like up there with that.

Like, okay, no child

[00:14:37] Dr. Jay: abuse, no . I don't know my, my thing is if you are child free, you're permanent child less, you gotta ask your financial planner. Okay, how's that changing my plan? And what are you doing to protect my privacy? Yeah. And if they say, I don't know how it changing your plan, that's a problem

And if they say, oh, it doesn't change anything, let's say even worse, you know, like it's, it's a specialty that we need to be able to serve this pe, these people well in protective privacy at the same time.

[00:15:07] Naseema: So did you see a big gap in the industry with other CFPs as far as being able to consult people who have made the dec conscious decision to not have children?

[00:15:16] Dr. Jay: So, and by the way, just a terminology, it's whether they've decided or not or decide for them, so, you know. Right. Exactly. It doesn't matter how, I don't care how you got there. Yeah. You're now at a point. Don't have kids not playing, haven't mm-hmm. . And when I did my training to become a cfp, never once was there mention of it in the literature, childfree does not exist in the literature.

Hmm. So that means all, or almost all, I, I can never say a hundred percent of the financial rules you follow online, assume you have kids. Any of the rules of thumb for finance, assume you have kids. So if you're part of that 20%, you get getting bad advice

[00:15:57] Naseema: and 20% is not a small portion of the population, by the way.

[00:16:00] Dr. Jay: No. . To give you an example comparison, the LGBTQ plus community is about 5.3% of the us mm-hmm. . Thank you, . I mean, we're talking about giant segments, and by the way, there's a lot of crossover in populations too, but yes, you know, we're talking about giant groups. So I swear I spend half of my time teaching financial planners not to do stupid stuff with child-free folks and the other half teaching child-free folks about their finances.

You know what I, right there, there's, there are two of us right now that focus in on serving the Childfree community. Co-host a podcast with the other one. So, I mean, you know, like, like it's a really small group of people, but there's two of us serving 60 million people , you know? Wow. Wow. It's just one of those things that it hasn't been talked about, you know?

Be like, oh, child free. You mean like, you know, empty nest, like when the kids go to college? No, I mean, like never in the

[00:16:54] Naseema: picture. Yeah. So let's talk about what fam financial planning looks like for people who are child free. How, how is that different? And I know it's a lot different cause that's not even how financial planning is set up currently, but like, let's talk about like the decisions.

Cause I know like, One big question people will ask is like, well, who's gonna take care of me, you know, later in life? And how do we plan for that? Or that's what people on the outside might say, like, well, people will take care of you if you don't have children. I think that's more of an external issue

[00:17:24] Dr. Jay: than any anybody.

Oh no, I'm gonna talk about this question. I hate this question and I love it and I hate it, and like, I hate and love it. Yes. Okay, so when somebody says Who's gonna take care when you're older, we actually, in the child free community, we have a bingo card of all these questions we get. You know, who's gonna take care when you're older?

Are you gonna be happy? Who's gonna, you know, all. And when somebody asks the question, who's gonna take care of you when you're older? The assumption is that in there is that their kids are gonna take care of them. Now that part . Here's what the data says. Census looked at adults over 55 at childless, meaning no biological children, and they found that 2.5% of childless folks had any financial support from their family over 55.

That's pretty low. Now here, here's the interesting. 1.5% of parents got any support. What?

[00:18:16] Naseema: I'm shocked actually. That's what that crazy . These kids don't take care of me.

[00:18:26] Dr. Jay: so, Here's the difference. The difference is we know we have to handle it. You're hoping somebody else helps you. Right? ,

[00:18:33] Naseema: you're living off of hopes and dreams and prayers. Huh? And then it's that 1% chance. So that's, that's like what we call a pipe dream.

Okay? Like a , a 1% chance, and that's crazy. But I think what most people don't understand is most people just don't have the financial means to take care of you. So because there's no planning involved, so now that someone is child free, they, they know that they have to plan for these things. Right? And so , I have, or they should know,

[00:19:07] Dr. Jay: right?

Yeah. I have clients in their thirties asking me how to plan for long-term. Because it's been beat into their head, Hey, who's gonna take care of you? And I'm like, cool. We can do insurance. We can do the i I, my goal is usually by the time you're mid forties to have something in place, but we just addressed it.

And now here's the thing. Truth is, everybody should be putting a plan for it. You know you're, you're in California, Cal, the state of California is trying to pass a, a tax like Washington to help pay for long-term care, which means you're gonna get to start paying part of your income tax to that by, by the way, the coverage is crap.

And I apologize.

[00:19:41] Naseema: And by the way, we don't pay enough income taxes in California as it is.

[00:19:45] Dr. Jay: Yeah. It, so like in Washington it's a 0.58% and it covers a hundred dollars a day for a. Well, women on average will use 3.7 years of care, and it costs more like two 50 to 300 a day. So it covers nothing but it. It's like tens like you're covered.

[00:20:04] Naseema: Oh my God. That's give me stick to my stomach. Actually, just thinking about that, like, so we're just throwing money away because it's not gonna be able to cover anything. Unless they're gonna drop the cost of coverage to support those plans, which, you know that's not gonna happen. ,

[00:20:19] Dr. Jay: we just talked about healthcare being all about finance.

that part. It's cheaper to live on a cruise ship year round than most skilled nursing facilities. Thank

[00:20:28] Naseema: you. It's just, and and oh my God. And let's not talk about the quality of skilled nursing facilities. Talk about vomit inducing, like, okay. Oh my God. The care there, the ratios, everything. It's just not even, don't send your family there,

[00:20:44] Dr. Jay: Yeah. Something like 60% or so, give or take a little of long-term care is all is paid by Medicaid. Mm-hmm. , which means they're getting bottom of dollar. When I worked as a medic, we knew a Medicaid facility cuz your feet stuck to the floor. Like really as you're walking through, that's how disgusting they are.

I mean, let's be real on that. Yeah. The other thing is if you actually talk to staff, there you go. Hey. Grandma's here. How often does she get visitors? Never. Like, you know, Thanksgiving, Christmas, you know, so here's the difference. Child free folks, we just go, we're gonna plan for it and take care of ourselves, but they ask, who's gonna take care of you?

The person I paid to care for me. That's who's gonna take care of you.

[00:21:21] Naseema: Right? Right. This's part of the plan. I love it. I mean, I just, of, of course I try to be intentional about a lot of things, like the kid thing, not so intentional, but, you know , I think that, you know, we have to start making intentional decisions when it comes to this.

And so I'm thinking like, what, like, Usually attracts people to come work with you. Like what is your, your, your demographics or what kind of people do you typically attract?

[00:21:54] Dr. Jay: Yeah, so guess what? They're child free, like .

[00:21:58] Naseema: Well, surprise .

[00:22:00] Dr. Jay: Every once in a while I get a parent who books with me and I'm like, All right.

Did you read the website? But cool, like, you know, I'll help you. But I'm kind of in the weird world, so I'm what's called an advice only, fee only fiduciary. CFP advice only means you pay me for my time. I teach you how to do it. I guide you how to do it. I don't do it for you. Love it. So, so my background's in learning.

So I actually have two sets of products. I have one I call the self-direct directed. I have 15 courses, a hundred videos, group sessions every week. 50 bucks a month. If you can't afford it, well, at 50 bucks a month, most people can afford it. That's here, that's, that's a

[00:22:36] Naseema: streaming service. Freaking, that is freaking crazy,

[00:22:39] Dr. Jay: by the way.

And then I have, yeah, and then I have one-on-one, which is 500 bucks a month. You know, you get the higher level of service, you know, if you wanna dive in deeper. But what happens is, I don't charge for assets or sell products or, so the thing with child-free folks is as a whole, they don't care how much money they have at the end.

they wanna have like their last a hundred bucks on the way out. Well, guess what? If you're going to somebody that's like all about investing that might, they might make a financial plan that doesn't match your goals. Mm-hmm. . So what happens is, the people that reach out to me first, first thing should get is a lot of people don't realize the term child free.

You know? So they don't, they're like, oh, that's me. You know? They just know they don't have kids. And then they go, oh, you're gonna teach me how to do this? Yep. And you know what I tell everybody is, you know, so if you're working one-on-one, 500 bucks a month, they said, Hey, if you're not getting 500 bucks of value, I want you to fire me.

Yes. And, and I don't want you to be my custom forever. You I'd love you to hang around, but when you are stable, you're good. But, but the thing with Childfree folks is being child free means you have the time, money, and freedom to do what you want. I got people that like in a year will be like, oh, I'm gonna go do this job.

Nope. And then I'm gonna move around the country tree. Nope. I'm gonna go follow my passion. I'm gonna go to a different. All in a year. . So their financial planning, I do, it's called ongoing. You know, we do a little bit each month and what ends up happening is it shifts with them. Yeah. Yeah. It matches their life, you know?

Love it. I, no, two of my financial plans look the same. Mm-hmm. because, Child-free life is

[00:24:12] Naseema: different, but also just personal finances is different. It's gonna be different for everyone. And I think like people don't understand that. They think that they, you, they come to you especially as a cfp and they come to me, but especially A C F P and be like, here's what's going on.

Fix my finances, do it all for me, and then I'll be, we, I'll be wealthy and then that'll like solve all my financial. Not understanding that it's so freaking dynamic. Even if you're not moving around and changing jobs every freaking year, things happen in life. And if you don't actually learn how to manage your finances, first of all, you're always gonna be dependent on someone, which is not a great place to be in with your finances.

And second of all, You're probably not gonna be where you wanna be financially because you're gonna keep on making the same mistakes and not understanding why.

[00:25:04] Dr. Jay: Absolutely. So 80% of your success with money is your behaviors with money. Yeah. Your mindset, your behaviors, all that. Cool. So by the way, that's where I spend my time.

The 20% of the numbers actually really I can do the numbers of my sleep. Okay. Most people are not complex enough that it's really. I mean even millions and millions. And by the way, making more money does not fix your behaviors. , let's

[00:25:25] Naseema: say that

[00:25:25] Dr. Jay: again. Okay. , you know, I get peop I, I had somebody the other day I wrote, I was worth working press like some number, I forget it was 54% something.

They have women making over $250,000 a year are still stressed about money. Like paycheck dog, your paycheck. Cause they didn't change their behaviors.

[00:25:40] Naseema: Oh. It just, it just inflated with their paycheck.

So

[00:25:44] Dr. Jay: I focus in on, okay, what do we have to change? And by the way, when you get a couple, that becomes interesting cause we got two sets of behaviors coming together.

And I just shared and I'll, I'll share the link afterwards. I have a couple who actually volunteered. To have their session recorded and shared publicly. Mm. Okay. Talk about an interesting one. Yes, so I have their first session up. In the first session, we didn't talk about numbers at all. We talk about goals.

What do you want with your life? What's the meaning of life? Why? I'd say create your life first. Then we'll figure out the finances and people go, wait, wait, wait. What? I'm like, If you want, if you're happier, that's what matters. Not collecting dollar signs. Mm-hmm. and, and people always think like, oh, I talked to a financial planner.

It's just all about numbers. No numbers are the easy part. Mm-hmm. . .

[00:26:33] Naseema: I love it. I love your model. I think it's, first of all to work with a typical fee only fiduciary. C f P you guys is usually about. Five times higher than how much Dr. J is going to you. You got a PhD level? PhD level C F P working with you.

So I think first of all, your services are amazing, but also. From the point of like you are really educating people and those plans are able to adapt to the whims that come along with you living unique but not so unique. If you're 20%, that's a pretty big percentage lifestyle. Right. And so I think that, first of all, I just wanna applaud you on having such an amazing such amazing services cuz I think so many people can benefit from it.

But can you walk me through like, From starting off as a customer, like what that customer journey usually looks like?

[00:27:32] Dr. Jay: Yeah, so there's two different paths. One is the self-directed. They're learning it on their own. They actually doing a full assessment, which then says, these are your priority for now. Cuz by the way, thing with money, you can't fix it all tomorrow.

Like seriously, if you don't have a budget. Yeah. Gotta get a budget first. . And people are like, that's boring. I'm like, like I wanna talk about crypto investing. I'm like, no. Oh my God.

[00:27:54] Naseema: Skipping steps like a mug, like .

[00:27:58] Dr. Jay: So on the self-directed, they get assessment. Here's where you gotta work on. Each month there's a project and you know, we got group sessions on, on the one-on-one.

What we do is if, if you and I are meeting, first thing is the intro meeting, it's free. So you just got, you know, say, Hey, do you want to match? And I encourage everybody to try out two or three financial planners. Cause you gotta find the right fit. So it's like

[00:28:17] Naseema: a therapist or a doctor or anything else.

Yep. Like you don't, you're not gonna jive with everyone. Yeah. And, and by the

[00:28:22] Dr. Jay: way, it's not necessarily the best skills, it's the best fit, you know? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I got a PhD and a cfp. But yeah. So what, it's sometimes just a fit is right or wrong. . But what I do is each month we work on one or two things. So if you're meeting with me, you bring one or two things you wanna talk about.

I bring one or two things we wanna talk about. So a great example of this is nobody wants to talk about taxes or insurance, but I wanna talk about taxes and insurance. Okay? We're here in October, November, it's time for open enrollment. Which benefits should you take? They go, well, I just checked whatever HR told me.

No, seriously, Lord Jesus, like it's a huge choice on what you're doing. Yes. And. Then we get to the end of the year, we're talking about taxes. Okay, what can we do this year, the end of the year, the tax is gonna help us for what we file next year. And how do we, so each month we're making one and two improvements.

The reason I do that is cause that's all you can handle. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. That's a lot. You start where you're at. If we gotta start with budgeting, we start with budgeting. You got budgeting down, you're on a debt, you got savings. Let's work on a. Let's work on long-term care, let's work on insurance. And what happens is I also end up, because it's child free working, a lot of people have small businesses.

Mm-hmm. , which your small business, financial planning and your personal financial planning get mixed together into a nightmare. So we have to pull 'em apart. See you, you're shaking your head. Cause you know what I'm talking about.

[00:29:40] Naseema: Listen, I don't Firsthand, which is all my

[00:29:44] Dr. Jay: Yes. Be sure to read the book Prophet first if you haven't done it.

Yes. That's, that's gotta be on your list. But my point is, we work on it from where people are at and make, make one or two improvements at a time. The one thing that kind of over arches it, what life do you wanna live? I probably spend two, three sessions with people. I'm. . So what do you wanna be when you grow up?

and in the, in the child-free community, we find actually people don't wanna retire. They want, instead, instead of fire, they wanna file what someone we call file financial independence live early. Mm-hmm. . And it's kinda like the dimmer switch of work. I just wanna, like, instead of doing three shifts, I'm gonna do one and I want to move around as I do it, or, Especially with couples, we're talking about, okay, you know, this garden on the rose, you take your turn growing.

You know, you take a sabbatical, you grow your turn, you know, we'll, Those are much harder questions than, what should I invest in? What should I invest? In's easy. That's really easy. I think you can learn investing on your own. The, the goals, tax planning, insurance, the big financial planning. Mm-hmm. , that's where you need help.

[00:30:50] Naseema: I wanna talk about like a life insurance because a lot of people Look at that different like, well, why do I need life insurance if I'm not leaving it to someone? What is your stance on life insurance? I don't know. It's probably individual, but like do you have a general stance on it? Yep.

[00:31:05] Dr. Jay: For child free and childless folks remember the goal of life insurance is to cover your income.

If you're gone, somebody has to rely on your income. If you don't have a next to kin chance, are your spouse is actually gonna be okay. If you're gone, they're gonna be sad that you're gone, but they're gonna be okay financially. Life insurance lesson a priority to the point where with my child free folks, I'm going, prove to me you want, you need life insurance.

You know, like, do you have a debt? Do you have a family member require or like a business or you gotta, like, there's some specific corner cases, but in most cases I go, yeah, let's ignore the life insurance. Do you have disability insurance? And they go, no, I have life insurance. I'm like, well, what happens is more likely you're gonna get disabled , and your costs go up when you're disabled and you're not gonna have an income.

So let's move that money from life insurance to disability insurance.

[00:31:54] Naseema: Why don't people talk about that? Oh my God, I swear. Like if the, you wanna know why they don't talk

[00:31:59] Dr. Jay: about it? Because they make money selling life insurance. , I sell no products. So if I recommend a product, I think it's good for you. Yes.

I get nothing from it. Yes. The reason why people tell life insurance is that's where they make their commissions.

[00:32:15] Naseema: Well, there it is. Follow the money.

[00:32:19] Dr. Jay: Disability has very little and commissions for people sell insurance.

[00:32:22] Naseema: So let me just give you like a take on how I feel about life insurance. If you if you're child free I a hundred percent agree.

But you know, I have a special focus on like the African American community, and I just feel like for our community, we have started from zero too many times. Like each generation started from zero or in at a deficit. So I always say like, if you're in a good financial place and you know you have family members that you know you wanna help out, so they don't have to start from zero.

That's where I. Life in for life insurance, however, so I don't know if you know Diana Miriam, she runs the the economy conference and she's child free. And I asked her about her life insurance and she was like, listen, at the end of the day, my net worth is gonna be whatever million and. Why would I pay for life insurance?

I'll just leave that to them if that's what I wanted to do. And so I was like, oh, yeah, that's a different way to look at it too. But that's not always where a lot of people are. And so that's why, that's like my one argument for life insurance for someone who's child free.

[00:33:34] Dr. Jay: Yep. I, I'm, I'm the way the NCA in general on that.

And that's by one of those corner cases, like you're buying it to give it away. Yeah. But, but I'm gonna challenge you a bit on that one and say, Okay, cool. You got family that, that you love and you want to help and you want to help them not to get a zero. You know what would be more impactful than putting life insurance is let's give them that money from the life insurance and invest it in them now.

Mm.

[00:33:57] Naseema: And, , talk to me , how that would work. Yeah.

[00:34:00] Dr. Jay: If you haven't read it yet, great book called Die With Zero. Yes. And the concept is, Hey, I'm gonna spend my money now on experiences in helping people and literally die with zero. Now my child free folks, that's, whether they read the book or not, that's kind of the concept they're trying to get to.

You know, my, my nephews will get whatever's left over for me and my wife, but if they get a hundred bucks, a hundred thousand or a million, I don't care. Like, and here's the thing. They're gonna get that money when they don't need it, because I'm gonna hopefully die when I'm 80. Mm-hmm. , which is gonna make them, you know, 50 sixties, they don't need the money then.

Right. You know when they need the money. Now, now, so here's what my wife and I do. Oh, I hope my nephews aren't listening, but we put money aside into 5 29 every month for their college savings. By the way, it's about the same as we would put on life insurance, but it's growing for them. And it's free. And now, and here's, and I, I put a spin on this, so if you haven't figured out yet great for anyone to go back to school, there's a website called modern states.org you can actually test out of up to two years of college.

They'll train you to take the test and pay for you to take the test. Yep. It's called CLE exams. But here's my rule. My rule is they're gonna get a thousand bucks outta their 5 29 for every CLE exam. They. Because guess what's gonna happen? They're gonna get tested out of two years of college and get money for it.

But here's where I'm going with this. I'm with you on the life insurance and helping family and all that, but there may be better ways. Okay. You really wanna make an impact on your family. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to pay for education for them. Now, I didn't say college. I said education.

Education. So for example, my family, and by the way, I'll tell you right now, I can't teach my family finances, so I have to pay somebody else to do it. Like you can never teach. They joke about it. You can't teach anyone that you either seen you naked or you've seen naked. You can't teach your family anything.

Okay? No,

[00:35:50] Naseema: you sure can't. They will not listen to. ,

[00:35:53] Dr. Jay: but you know what you can do? You can pay for them to go to a financial course or work with a financial planner and learn it. Mm-hmm. . And guess what? If you do that when they're young, they're gonna be better off in life. Mm-hmm. , or, you know what? Maybe I give 'em that five grand they need to start a business that is gonna have more of an impact than them getting a million dollars from the life insurance when I died 20 years from it.

[00:36:13] Naseema: Amen. I agree a hundred percent. Well, but, but

[00:36:17] Dr. Jay: you just said we're gonna buy life insurance to

[00:36:18] Naseema: help 'em, so I'm just No. So for me, I'm thinking about like, you have an uncle that dies when you're in college and you get that 10, $20,000, even if it's just that little bit, that much can change your financial picture.

And that's how I'm looking at it. I'm not talking about later in life, like, so that, that's how I'm looking at it. Like if you all had the, if we all had that auntie, that great auntie that died when we was in college, we'd be a lot better.

[00:36:41] Dr. Jay: So here's the point. You just made the point. It's the great auntie that'll be the right timing.

Mm-hmm. . Exactly. The auntie is not the right timing. Mm-hmm. . So what happens is, if you are buying life insurance now to take care of your nephews or family or others, you might be better off investing that money and then into them now, cuz that's when they need it. Not when you die. You actually, if you're gonna do life insurance, like you said, skip a generat.

Mm-hmm. .

[00:37:07] Naseema: Okay. Yeah. It's a tiny thing. That was awesome. It is, it is. And it makes a lot of sense and it makes a lot of sense and I think it's something that's actionable. But I love the 5 29 idea. I love the, the testing out the two years of college. Like that's genius. Like that's something that I wasn't taught, and I think it's totally underrated.

Like for me, I was taught. You know, go to the best school by enemies necessary, which means I went to U usc, which is was when I went to USC in 19 99, 40 something thousand dollars a year. with no, no way of paying for that. Like I didn't even know what $40,000 looked like. Oh, you know, on paper, you know, for real.

And so I think, Actually teaching kids to understand the cost of their decisions and their choices. Like I think we have this, this focus on like, what are you gonna be when you wanna grow up as a kid? Instead of being like, let's talk about how we're gonna finance your life going forward. I think the conversation needs to shift and I think that the way that you're teaching your nephews is amazing, and I hope they're listening

[00:38:14] Dr. Jay: Well, no, cause they're not gonna ask for enough money, but

But here's, here's the thing, so I'm a, I've got a PhD and I've done a lot of college. I've taught it you big universities. I've done all that. I cannot financially justify going into debt to go to college. It ain't worth it. The return on investment is just, isn't there? It's horrible. My, my thing, I actually did my bachelor's in nine months.

So I've done, I did, I did the testing out in online education when it first started at a state univers, a state college. And I went from no degree to a PhD in five and a half years.

[00:38:47] Naseema: But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I just, cause when I go back to like your origin story, like, well, how did you learn how to do that?

How did you know you can do that?

[00:38:56] Dr. Jay: Okay. This is actually a silly story, but That's okay. I went on a I went out for a night, let's call that for, with a young lady who taught, told me she did her college in three years. And I was like, You did. You can do college in less than four years, . And prior to it being a term, I essentially did what's called hack schooling.

Mm-hmm. . Let's figure out what we can do. You know, I wanted to get my master's at the time. In order to get a master's, you have to have a bachelor's. And by the way, let's be real. Bachelor's degrees are check boxes. That's it. They're, they're now in the minimum to like get a job anywhere? No.

[00:39:32] Naseema: Okay. That's sometimes it's better to not even have a bachelor's degree cuz then you start off way further ahead than your colleagues that have a bachelor's degree.

But that's a whole nother story. .

[00:39:40] Dr. Jay: So I was, I was working as a medic and I said, look, my, I'd rather my life suck for a short period of. . I was working overnights and I would study overnight and then take tests and do all this. So I got my bachelor's in nine months, cost me 8,800 bucks total, and then I got a graduate assistantship for my PhD, so it cost me 8,800 bucks for my entire education from no degree to a PhD in five and a half years.

I say this not to talk about me, but to go. It's possible, like I paid for it out of pocket as a met. It's possible now, by the way. It's not easy.

[00:40:17] Naseema: Well, I mean, I was gonna say, cause I, you know, I totally like, I don't know how I'll let to skip over my brain, but first of all, most people, it takes five years just to do the PhD part.

[00:40:26] Dr. Jay: Yeah.

[00:40:31] Naseema: Yeah. Okay. So let's not downplay that. Like .

[00:40:34] Dr. Jay: Yeah. And, and then people go, when I tell people that story like, well, did you go to decent school? I went to Yukon University of Connecticut. That's a pretty good r That's pretty R one school. I mean, I'm not, yeah. Not a slouch. Right. But what happens is you get to control what you wanna do for education and challenge it.

It's the same with everything I say with finances. Figure out the life you want, then make the rest. I wanted to go out and help people learn that. And there was a PhD program in adult learning at University of Connecticut. Worked great. It was a great program. I had to get into the, as a master's student, so I had to have a bachelor's to get there.

So just check the boxes and go and, and people go, well, but you know, you're, you're saying it's $40,000 a year for college. And I'm like, It didn't cost me that for everything. You know? And that's what happens is we just have this assumption that we gotta do this. You know, I work with people with student loans all the time, and we can have a whole talk on the student loans.

That's another nightmare. And especially if we're talking about nursing and private schools. Okay. Don't get me started on, there's some school names I'm not gonna mention here that really drive me crazy, but please, we're talking about people with hundreds of thousands of dollars loans in their thirties.

Yeah.

[00:41:44] Naseema: Like me, 200,000. Mm-hmm. , you

[00:41:46] Dr. Jay: know, and, and, and the challenge is that's because. You thought that was the only choice you the right thing.

[00:41:53] Naseema: All you knew. That's all you know. And when you sign up for school, that's what they say. They don't say, you know what, there's this option where you can be a, a teacher's assistant and we'll pay part of, they don't put that out there.

That's something you have to dig and scrounge and find around or know somebody or, or they don't say that, you know, you can test out of these things and not have to actually pay for it. What they say is go to financial aid. Max out what you are qualified for. Don't, don't work. Of course you can't work when you're in nursing school, but live off of that, so you make sure you take out the max that you can.

And you know, people are out here, student loan balling, you know, for those years, not understanding the repercussions that this money has to get paid. ,

[00:42:39] Dr. Jay: hold on, let's make it worse. So now we do it at a for-profit school, . And the, the, the, the degrees now are not transferrable. So now we got our BSN and we're hoping to get our msn.

The only choice is to go back to the for-profit school for the msn, cuz nowhere else will accept our bsn. So now we're double dipping. By the way, and for anyone who's went to private school, double check because a lot of the private schools, you get your student loans forgiven because they were fraud.

Fraud. Straight up fraud. There's, there's a list on it. You know, i g t was the, the most recent one, and there's some few others, but double check that one. If you went to a for-profit school, there's a whole list and a whole lot of court cases to go with. .

[00:43:15] Naseema: So these for-profit schools are not cheap. They're like close to a hundred thousand dollars a year, and all they do is specialize in making sure that you like, they, they focus on not your education, but making sure you can pay for it.

Mm-hmm. not getting you into a job. When you get out, all their focus is, is making sure you can pay them. So let's be clear on that. Like when you choose where you wanna go to school, and some people think like, oh, well it's a fast-paced track. It's a fast track to get to where I wanna be. And you know, there's all these wait lists.

Everything has a cost. You need to understand that cost.

[00:43:53] Dr. Jay: And, and here's, here's the bottom line of all of this. Everything we've talked about, if you go on Google and you Google, how do I do blank, you're gonna find answers. And if you go How to go to school, the answer's student loans. If you go on finances, there'll be certain rules.

Here's the thing, none of that fits you . You could actually work with a professional to tell you, Hey, by the way, here's how a plan works for you in your situation. Not, oh, this is what you have to do. Anytime somebody tells you have to do something . Yeah. Oh, there's another way around it. Like, right, there's always some other way.

Let's just do the legal ways. But you know, there's always another. .

[00:44:29] Naseema: Yeah. And um, so speaking of like. Working with people and people telling you what to do. I think that in, in my community and in particular, I feel like a lot of people are oversold into products that they don't need by fake financial advisors as well.

And I'm sure it happens in the child-free community. And, and, and ,

[00:44:52] Dr. Jay: are you, do you really want me to go on this soapbox? Do you really? I'll go there.

[00:44:57] Naseema: I do . Okay. I do cause need to hear it. Cause maybe they'll listen to it. Why you tell them that before they listen to me? Cuz sometimes people don't listen to me cuz I don't know what I'm talking about.

Just a little black girl from Oakland. So I want you to talk, I want you to talk about it. Here's,

[00:45:09] Dr. Jay: here's the thing you gotta remember. I don't come out of the financial community. I came out of healthcare, I came out of education and then came to finance. So I really don't know how the system's supposed to work.

I just do it the way it's best for my clients. That's the reality. Here's the thing. Anyone in the US can call themselves a financial advisor. There is no law that says you can't, you know, you could just hang a shingle and say you're financial advisor. So what you'll find is people are selling insurance and they go, oh, I'm a financial advisor.

Then we also have, by the way, there's mlm, you know, the pyramid scheme, financial advisors. I'm not calling companies out intentionally here, but there are. There are those. So here's what I say to every. Everyone should be looking for an advice only, fee only fiduciary, certified financial planner doesn't have to be me.

Okay? I, I can't serve everybody. Just beja. There's actually a group Cody Garrett's doing a lot of work that's measured twice planners, actually. He's a great list of advice, only financial planners. You pay 'em for their time. They teach you that or they make you a plan. Here's a bonus to that. The only person that pays me are my clients.

I have nothing in it to give you products. If you go to somebody who says a financial advisor, they're selling insurance products. That's like going to a doctor who's paid per script that they give you, and you aren't gonna go to that doctor. All right. By the way, we can have a whole separate debate on whether or not they're, you know, they get kickbacks or other things, but like it's a reality check.

Yeah. And. What happens is if they're making commission, you'll see the term fee-based, which is a bullet BS term. I mean, it's not it. They're trying to pretend like they're fee only, they're not, but they get money for selling you products that may not fit you. Mm-hmm. . And here's the other problem. Well, some of 'em are your friends and family.

That's problem. I was talking somebody the other day who family made an investment with the uncle, and the uncle didn't do well, and. You know this story? Yeah. Okay. I don't have to put names on it. All the, all the time. This happens. You know, I, I actually saw this. Okay. This drove me crazy. So somebody's niece was did a, did an internship, a summer internship with a financial firm.

And part of the requirement of the internship was to bring, I think it was four family members in mm-hmm. To meetings. Mm-hmm. . I was like, are you frigging kidding? They're doing the internship as a marketing tool that is to drag your family members in and now you're doing a benefit for your, you know, niece, nephew, or whatever.

That's ridiculous.

[00:47:46] Naseema: Sounds illegal, but I just feel like there's so many vera laws, like how can people get away with this? But, .

[00:47:54] Dr. Jay: So keep in mind, go back to it. The term financial advisor is not regulated. Yeah. I'm an investment advisor that is regulated. Mm-hmm. . Okay. Okay. Got it. A financial advisor is not mm-hmm and if you work with a brokerage firm, they can, they follow a standard called best interest where I have to follow a fiduciary standard.

The fiduciary standard. I have to put you ahead. Best interest is I kind of think it's good for you, . I don't, I don't understand the best interest completely. I'll be honest on that. But I'm like, that just doesn't sound like what I want. And that's cause they're selling products. If you're being sold something, you should run away.

[00:48:40] Naseema: Yep. If you don't know how you're paying that person, chances are .

[00:48:46] Dr. Jay: Yeah. If you're getting for free, you are the product

[00:48:48] Naseema: for free. For free .

[00:48:50] Dr. Jay: Okay. So I do, I do a free intro of meeting. Mm-hmm. . But let's be real. I'm doing it cause I want you to become my client. Mm-hmm. , I'm not selling you anything about me except for my time.

I'm transparent. You know, yeah, I gotta pay my bills. Okay, seriously, but I'm not doing the internal meeting to sell you a life insurance policy. Like, yeah, that's, and, and what people go is, well, I'm, I'm in debt. I'm broke. I can't afford a financial planner. My answer is, can you afford your year to look worse than last year?

That part. If you made progress this year and you're happy with your practice, God bless you, you're doing well. If you haven't made progress, what's gonna change next?

[00:49:27] Naseema: Like how, what is it really costing you, not to work with a financial planner? Like what is it really costing you? Like really add that up and compound it over year after year of not taking action or moving in, moving backwards.

What most people are doing, it's very expensive.

[00:49:44] Dr. Jay: Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I'm one of those weirdos, you know, I'm a no debt person, you know, you know, I think that's the only way to go. And we pay off our debt before we do our investing. Why? Because I don't make money off your investing. So paying off your debt's the better return on your investment, you know, so you gotta make sure those are the part of what you're getting.

[00:50:02] Naseema: Yeah. So I know even people who aren't child free who are like, man, Dr. J is spitting some game here, . But I know that there is a large population that is child free that may not know about you yet, even though you've been in all the national publications. But of course, There's some people that just don't know, so how can people like reach out to you, stay in contact with you, and eventually work with you?

[00:50:33] Dr. Jay: Yeah, I freely admit I am not good at social media, so don't look for me there, . So it's childfree wealth.com. You can come take a look. You could actually try out the self-directed product for free for 15 days. You can do an intro mediumly free. You can get the blog and the books and all that fun stuff.

If you are apparent, well, I'm probably not the best answer for you, but you can find an advice only financial planner out there who does the same thing.

[00:50:56] Naseema: So will you just turn away parents? .

[00:51:00] Dr. Jay: The only parents I take right now are parents of my child free clients. So like I'm taking their parents. Mm-hmm.

Because the other thing that we didn't talk about, but Israeli check is a lot of child free folks are taking care of their parents. You know, they, they talk about the sandwich generation where you take care of your parents and your kids at the same time. We're called the open face sandwich. Yeah.

We're just take care of our parents, you know? Mm-hmm. , but yeah, that's, those are the parents. I.

[00:51:24] Naseema: Okay. All right. So I think you've provided a wealth of knowledge and this has been an incredible conversation and I'm so glad to talk about this because this isn't something that people talk about. I've never heard it on any podcasts that I've listened to, and so super honored to have you here, and I'm just just honored to be able to share this with my community, and you're just a wealth of knowledge, just a great person in general.

So I appreciate you, Dr. Jay.

[00:51:50] Dr. Jay: I'm happy to be there and if you ever wanna come back and debate, you know, life insurance or other topics, you call me and I, I, I'll debate you just for the fun of it, .

[00:51:58] Naseema: For sure. For sure. Well, thank you so very much.

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