Speaker 1: Episode four eighty five, How to Budget if you Don't
Speaker 1: have kids with Jay Zigmont.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity, and live a life. Here your
Speaker 2: hosts Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen,
Speaker 1: my name is Jill, and today we are talking to
Speaker 1: all you danks, all you sinks, all you frugal friends
Speaker 1: out there who do not have children or and mostly
Speaker 1: do not plan to have children at least not in
Speaker 1: the near future. Always have every right to throw them
Speaker 1: a curveball in the story, but right now, don't plan
Speaker 1: to have children.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I talked with Jay on his podcast recently, and
Speaker 3: so now we're having him on ours. To recognize that
Speaker 3: there's a good percentage of the population who this is
Speaker 3: our lifestyle. As you know, Jen has two children, Eric
Speaker 3: and I do not. We're solidly in our thirties. So
Speaker 3: recognizing that this advice needs to be out there, like
Speaker 3: it's not the most common experience for people, but it
Speaker 3: is still an experience for many of us, And to
Speaker 3: recognize that some of the traditional personal finance advice doesn't
Speaker 3: actually fit us. And so Jay is specifically geared towards
Speaker 3: working with people who don't have children and helping them
Speaker 3: to define what their lives can look like, how their
Speaker 3: finances may look different. He also counsels couples, so a
Speaker 3: lot of research and wisdom coming from him. He wrote
Speaker 3: a book on being child free, so we're excited to
Speaker 3: be able to hear from him on this really important topic.
Speaker 1: But first, this episode is brought to you by Beating
Speaker 1: around the Bush. I'm not going to do it. This
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Speaker 1: we send out via email where to find free events,
Speaker 1: free food, what you should be doing to stay on
Speaker 1: top of your spending habits and your finances. And if
Speaker 1: that sounds like something you need, you want that thrice
Speaker 1: weekly reminder, then head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com
Speaker 1: to sign up for free. It's really fun. Always some
Speaker 1: good suggestions and ideas in there, and we're going to
Speaker 1: have Jay's interview LinkedIn there. Jay is a PhD, MBA
Speaker 1: and certified financial planner who works exclusively with couples and
Speaker 1: singles who plan to remain who are and plan to
Speaker 1: remain permanently childless, and he is currently the first and
Speaker 1: only life in financial planning firm dedicated to serving child
Speaker 1: free people. So this was and honestly, there was some
Speaker 1: just really good life advice in this episode. So if
Speaker 1: you cite it fore to.
Speaker 3: Hear listening and you're like, oh, I do have kids,
Speaker 3: maybe should I turn it off, I'd say keep going
Speaker 3: because there's definitely some conversation that we have that I
Speaker 3: think is good for all people. So glad to have
Speaker 3: you here again. Jay's book is called child Free Wealth,
Speaker 3: so let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Jay, Welcome to Frugal Friends. So happy to have you here.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: I had a great time coming on your show and
Speaker 3: we are excited to have you on ours to talk
Speaker 3: about the ways that our money can look different for
Speaker 3: those of us who don't have children. So from your perspective,
Speaker 3: your expertise, Jay, I'm curious to hear what you've seen
Speaker 3: are the biggest differences in money management for people without
Speaker 3: kids compared to those who do have kids.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I use the term child free so just
Speaker 4: for definitions, as people who don't have kids don't plan
Speaker 4: on kids. Ever, it's not like your child free for
Speaker 4: the weekend. So like when I'm talking about biple, don't
Speaker 4: have kids, like it's a lifetime thing versus not yet,
Speaker 4: and you're doing that. The interesting thing is your goals
Speaker 4: are different. So for parents, there's kind of the standard lifecript.
Speaker 4: You go to school, you get married, you have kids.
Speaker 4: It's the American dream, the house of two and a
Speaker 4: half kids, the white pick offense. But for child free people,
Speaker 4: it's a different path, and it's not better or worse,
Speaker 4: it's just different. So, for example, how much money you
Speaker 4: pass on to the next generation is not a priority
Speaker 4: for most child free people. For my wife and I,
Speaker 4: our nephews get well what's left over. But if they
Speaker 4: get ten grand or one hundred grand, that's fine. If
Speaker 4: they get a million dollars, we made a mistake, like
Speaker 4: there actually can be too much money as a child
Speaker 4: free person, and if that's the case, you can actually
Speaker 4: do different things with your money, and having a high
Speaker 4: net worth may not be the goal. To the point
Speaker 4: where I have a lot of child free folks to
Speaker 4: get to kind of mid thirties, mid forties, and I
Speaker 4: tell them, hey, you're going to have a problem. You're
Speaker 4: going to die with too much money, which just sounds
Speaker 4: really weird, but it's true. And if that's the case,
Speaker 4: how do you spend your money either on the people
Speaker 4: you love, the things you want to give on yourself
Speaker 4: and shift your life to match the life you want
Speaker 4: to live.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know what, who you're talking to
Speaker 3: is definitely a minority, but we still exist, we still matter.
Speaker 4: Right, it's twenty it's twenty five percent of the US,
Speaker 4: So yes, it's a minority. But in comparison, the LGBTQ
Speaker 4: plus community is eight percent of the US, and about
Speaker 4: fifty percent of the LGBTQ plus community is child free,
Speaker 4: So we're talking about a huge like one in four Americans.
Speaker 4: So it's not like it's like, you know, three people
Speaker 4: down the street.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it still is a lot of people. But still
Speaker 3: we are ingesting typical personal finance education and advice. And
Speaker 3: I know, even for myself, this is Jill speaking, I
Speaker 3: don't have kids, and all of the traditional advice is
Speaker 3: you know five twenty nine say for kids are tiring,
Speaker 3: like these are part of the steps that you're supposed
Speaker 3: to be taking. And then you know, invest in retirement
Speaker 3: not just for yourselves, but what do you want to
Speaker 3: leave behind? You're saying to kids, And so there is
Speaker 3: quite a bit that can be reoriented for not just
Speaker 3: the long term, but what I'm hearing you describe is
Speaker 3: some of the short term too, with how we're spending
Speaker 3: money now if we don't have some of these more
Speaker 3: longer term goals.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, if you've better on finance for
Speaker 4: long enough, you've probably heard of the seven Baby Steps.
Speaker 4: We actually have a program I put on a new
Speaker 4: book we call the eight No Baby Steps, you know,
Speaker 4: and a lot of the basics like getting out of budget,
Speaker 4: getting out of debt. You know, you have an emergency funt,
Speaker 4: that's all same. But then it's like, what am I
Speaker 4: doing with my money? What's the impact I want to make?
Speaker 4: What brings me joy? And really, a lot of child
Speaker 4: free people kind of that mid thirties mid forties hit
Speaker 4: the child free midlife crisis, which is I've hit my
Speaker 4: personal professional financial goals, and like, now, what what's the
Speaker 4: point of working just to put a bunch of money
Speaker 4: in the bank if I'm not enjoying it. What's the
Speaker 4: point of doing the standard process if it doesn't fit
Speaker 4: my life?
Speaker 1: What is after the basics are mixed, because the basics
Speaker 1: will be the same for child with child versus child free,
Speaker 1: what is that first differentiating step that child free people
Speaker 1: should be making with their money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so our no baby step four is save and
Speaker 4: invest towards your goals. And that's specific because initially enough,
Speaker 4: a lot of child free folks don't want to retire
Speaker 4: or like not the classic retirement. You have a lot
Speaker 4: of clients that are like therapists and they want to
Speaker 4: like cut back from four days of work to two
Speaker 4: of seeing clients something like that. So if retirement is
Speaker 4: not your goal, what do you want to save towards?
Speaker 4: Even things like buying a house are a choice for
Speaker 4: child free people, not a requirement. So what it really
Speaker 4: requires is the way we do it is you have
Speaker 4: to plan for your life first than your finances, Like
Speaker 4: what is it that matters to you? If you're working
Speaker 4: in a couple, Often we'll have couples approach something we
Speaker 4: call the gardener in the rose, where once biding support
Speaker 4: and one's growing, Well, how do we invest in that
Speaker 4: person that's growing, That could be moving, that could be
Speaker 4: you know, going back to school, could be anything. For
Speaker 4: my wife and I, she got offered a job twelve
Speaker 4: hundred miles away. We packed up the dogs and the
Speaker 4: cat and went, I mean the biggest hassle was putting
Speaker 4: two massives in the back of a prius, which is
Speaker 4: hilarious to see, but like, we could invest our money
Speaker 4: in us in the life you want to live rather
Speaker 4: than just like putting it mindlessly into a retirement now,
Speaker 4: which goes against a lot of the basic you know,
Speaker 4: tenets of financial planning.
Speaker 3: Okay, this is a little bit of a side tangent.
Speaker 3: But this gardener and grower piece, is this something you
Speaker 3: talk about a lot with couples, something that you see
Speaker 3: like go and seasonality. Can you say more about this concept?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so originally I didn't come up with it. Like
Speaker 4: you know, I can't take credit for it's called the
Speaker 4: garden of the flower, but I always called the garden
Speaker 4: the rose because my wife is no just any flowers,
Speaker 4: She's a rose. So like what we do is it's
Speaker 4: kind of an interesting thing that happens with couples in
Speaker 4: that it's really hard to find two careers at the
Speaker 4: same level at the same time at the same place.
Speaker 4: So my wife and I were both PhDs. We both
Speaker 4: spend some time in academia, and in academics they always
Speaker 4: have like kind of the position for the tenure track person,
Speaker 4: and then they have this thing called the trailing spouse,
Speaker 4: which to me just sounds terrible. It's like the leftover
Speaker 4: job for somebody, like, Ah, you're not as good as
Speaker 4: your spouse. Here's what we give you. So trying to
Speaker 4: get away from that with the garden in the rose
Speaker 4: is you have a conscious effort to take turns in
Speaker 4: those roles, because I personally don't think it's possible. There's
Speaker 4: a book out of like the eighty percent marriage, like
Speaker 4: you both settle eighty percent of what you want. I
Speaker 4: think that just causes resentment where instead of we're taking turns,
Speaker 4: we both get that opportunity to grow and it doesn't
Speaker 4: have to be career, you know. So for me, when
Speaker 4: i'm the rose, I'm going to get in a boat
Speaker 4: and travel the world. You know that's already planned five
Speaker 4: to seven years down the road from now. That's what
Speaker 4: we're doing. And when we do this with couples, that
Speaker 4: awareness that we're going to take turns goes a long
Speaker 4: way because it allows the rose to be a little
Speaker 4: more selfish because that's intentional because they know the gardener knows, hey,
Speaker 4: they're going to get a turn, and the rose knows
Speaker 4: this is my turn. And when you have that like
Speaker 4: good conversation about it, it gets away from a lot
Speaker 4: of the resentment or you know, the judgments or other things.
Speaker 4: It tends to work out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you're identifying a lot of the fluidity
Speaker 3: that can happen in a life lived of adulthood without
Speaker 3: having children, and some of this negotiation that happens. It's
Speaker 3: I've never put those words to it, but Eric and
Speaker 3: I have experienced this so many times. I've gotten my
Speaker 3: master's degree while married and started a business, and he
Speaker 3: started a business, and there's been different times where we've
Speaker 3: kind of ebbed and flowed in that way, and we've
Speaker 3: appreciated that flexibility. I think a lot of that was
Speaker 3: available to us because we don't have children, and you know,
Speaker 3: some of those typical constraints that can happen with that.
Speaker 3: But I think what you're saying here is having even
Speaker 3: the language to put around it can help to define
Speaker 3: it a little bit more, have a little bit more
Speaker 3: of that give and take and reciprocity. And I just
Speaker 3: appreciate kind of the underlying awareness of life can look
Speaker 3: different and that's okay. We can give ourselves permission to
Speaker 3: not just say, well, okay, I won't invest in a
Speaker 3: five twenty nine because I don't have kids. But there's
Speaker 3: a whole other conversation that can be happening here of
Speaker 3: what do we want with life, both now and in
Speaker 3: the future, beyond just thinking we just have to tweak
Speaker 3: a couple of little things here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and even like I have kids and
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here thinking this is such a healthy conversation.
Speaker 1: Like we just launched a book and my husband is
Speaker 1: doing a lot more of the you know, home caregiving,
Speaker 1: and I'm off a lot more doing work stuff. But
Speaker 1: you know, when this all dies down, it can switch
Speaker 1: back and forth and it has before. So like this
Speaker 1: is just healthy advice, no matter whether your child free
Speaker 1: for life, child free for now, or like in a
Speaker 1: you know, a gaggle of children.
Speaker 4: A gaggle, a gaggle. How many is that? Six for two?
Speaker 4: I mean, anything over over zero is a guide it
Speaker 4: to me. But like, so, the one thing I'm going
Speaker 4: to challenge both of you on is having the conversation
Speaker 4: up front of like what are the roles and to
Speaker 4: what time frame? And it's not a hard and fast
Speaker 4: time frame, but it really helps to have that clarity
Speaker 4: versus just falling into it. A lot of folks do
Speaker 4: fall into it, you know, Hey, I'm busy at work
Speaker 4: or whatever. But just that awareness that I'm gonna lean
Speaker 4: on you for a little bit of time and then
Speaker 4: you get to lean on me tends to help the conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish we had had I wish I'd had
Speaker 1: this insight and could have had a clearer conversation with
Speaker 1: my husband before all of this. Like, we still had
Speaker 1: the conversation, but it was I didn't know the words
Speaker 1: to use or like Gardner and Rose, I think that
Speaker 1: would have been really helpful.
Speaker 3: We might be getting at some of this already. But
Speaker 3: what would you say, Jay, are the biggest mistakes that
Speaker 3: child free people can make with their money?
Speaker 4: So I think when you talk about mistakes, I try
Speaker 4: not to like shame people like you did that wrong,
Speaker 4: you know. But what tends to happen with child free
Speaker 4: folks is they've left the standard life script. So they're
Speaker 4: on their own path, they're doing their own thing, but
Speaker 4: then they get pulled back to the standard life script
Speaker 4: for other things. So let's talk about buying a house.
Speaker 4: For example, buying a house if you have kids and
Speaker 4: you're going to stay in the schools system and you
Speaker 4: have family in the area. I get it. If you're
Speaker 4: child free and you're going to move every three to
Speaker 4: five years, renting is a perfectly fine choice. You know,
Speaker 4: my wife and I sold our house and we rent
Speaker 4: and I'm a big fan are renting because it gives
Speaker 4: you flexibility. But the standard life script says the only
Speaker 4: way to get ahead is to buy a house, buy
Speaker 4: real estate, do all the other things, and you end
Speaker 4: up with kind of head trash between the life you
Speaker 4: want to live and what other people are saying you do.
Speaker 4: And to the point I will ask my client, who's
Speaker 4: voice in your head saying you got to do that?
Speaker 4: And it's very rarely there. It's culture, it's religion, it's parents,
Speaker 4: it's and I'm like you, they're not living the same
Speaker 4: life as you. Why are you listening to them? And
Speaker 4: then they'll go, well, but I don't know any other option. Okay, well,
Speaker 4: at least that I can work through. But it's that
Speaker 4: awareness of I'm getting pulled back to this standard script
Speaker 4: that doesn't fit me.
Speaker 1: Yes, that is so much when we talk about spending
Speaker 1: and people are trying to justify what they spend money
Speaker 1: on with like I need this or I deserve this,
Speaker 1: and like hearing like what are the voices in your
Speaker 1: head saying that you need to buy this or that
Speaker 1: this is a problem that you need to solve by
Speaker 1: purchasing something, And it's usually like not theirs, yep.
Speaker 4: And we're talking about house purchase, so we're talking about
Speaker 4: hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I had somebody the
Speaker 4: other day, I'm like, did your hot We always try
Speaker 4: to like balancing and say how do we make your
Speaker 4: finances simple to your life can be amazing. They're gonna
Speaker 4: be a landlord And I said, Okay, that's not going
Speaker 4: to make your finances more simple, and they said, okay, great,
Speaker 4: I said, and nobody's ever totally being a landlord makes
Speaker 4: your life more amazing, like you know, like you're dealing
Speaker 4: with renters, you're dealing with and they're like, you're right,
Speaker 4: But my dad says, I gotta get you know, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, Okay, your dad bought a house in the
Speaker 4: nineteen sixties when it was sixteen thousand dollars. Okay, Like
Speaker 4: it's not the same world and you're not living the
Speaker 4: same life.
Speaker 1: So true, Yeah, I also am a landlord, and I
Speaker 1: can I agree with that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, is it worth it is the question? And like
Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, we can invest you in a real
Speaker 4: estate investment trust and you don't have do any work
Speaker 4: if you really want to act, it's the real estate. Like,
Speaker 4: but you're told you have to do this because that's
Speaker 4: what's expected.
Speaker 1: I am really interested in the difference how you would
Speaker 1: counsel someone who is a single, like child free, because
Speaker 1: they are single and single intentionally versus couples, Like what
Speaker 1: do you what like financial advice do you give to
Speaker 1: the person who is not in a relationship.
Speaker 4: So thirty two percent of childless folks will never marry,
Speaker 4: as opposed to two point five percent of parents, So
Speaker 4: we're talking about the third of our folks are what
Speaker 4: we call soloists, single with no kids. Some people don't
Speaker 4: like this a single term, so we use soloists. And
Speaker 4: it costs between four hundred thousand dollars and a million
Speaker 4: dollars across your lifetime to be single because you can't
Speaker 4: split like the rent, you can't split the electric bill,
Speaker 4: you can't split the groceries. And people don't catch that. Like,
Speaker 4: our society is not made for singles, you know, like
Speaker 4: we really should have some community housing things we can
Speaker 4: share different things, but it just doesn't exist. And what
Speaker 4: happens for our soloists is they have a lot of choices.
Speaker 4: You know, the way we say it is living a
Speaker 4: life of child free Wealthy is means you have more time, money,
Speaker 4: and freedom to do what you enjoy. Doesn't mean you're
Speaker 4: rich and can disparis are still the same. But then
Speaker 4: it's like almost too many choices, Like if you don't
Speaker 4: have a limit to where you can live, what do
Speaker 4: you do? And we talk to two soloists or like
Speaker 4: maybe you need an accountability partner to bounce things off of,
Speaker 4: someone that can work with you on it. And it
Speaker 4: doesn't have to be a professional. It could be a friend,
Speaker 4: could be whatever, but someone that can speak into your
Speaker 4: life to just be a sounding board, which sounds simple,
Speaker 4: but that's actually hard to find somebody you feel comfortable
Speaker 4: talking about your money. You know, when I did my
Speaker 4: first book, I did a whole bunch of interviews and
Speaker 4: I found out people would rather talk about their sex
Speaker 4: life than their money, Like you know, it's like this
Speaker 4: like taboo thing. I'm like no, And then the hardest
Speaker 4: part for single folks may actually be towards the end
Speaker 4: of life of who makes decisions for me when I can't,
Speaker 4: which is often overlooked. You know, if you have kids,
Speaker 4: your next of kin tends to be that default choice.
Speaker 4: If you're in a couple, your spouse might be the
Speaker 4: first choice. But if your child free or single, who
Speaker 4: does that? And if you don't have a will in place,
Speaker 4: you don't power attorney in place. All that the government's
Speaker 4: making the decisions for you. Which I'm not getting political.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't care which side you're on. Nobody
Speaker 4: trusts the government to make decisions for you, and that
Speaker 4: is really hard for single folks, to the point where
Speaker 4: it's something I've been working on for about three years
Speaker 4: now a solution for this, and we hope to have
Speaker 4: a solution coming out from our company later in the
Speaker 4: year on this. But in California, Arizona, you can pay
Speaker 4: a professional to do this, called professional fiduciary. In the
Speaker 4: other states you can't. So if you're in the other
Speaker 4: forty eight states, you're like, hey, I need somebody to
Speaker 4: be my medical power attorney and my finance power attorney,
Speaker 4: my executor. You got to find a friend you like.
Speaker 4: And I had somebody email me the other day. She's
Speaker 4: seventy one, and you can you ever read an email
Speaker 4: You see the panic in the email, like you like,
Speaker 4: this is one of those. And she's like, I'm seventy one,
Speaker 4: I'm single. I've got a little bit of bunny, but
Speaker 4: not a lot. The only family I have is a
Speaker 4: nephew across country that I've never met. How do I
Speaker 4: find somebody to make these decisions for me? And I
Speaker 4: felt back because my answer was like she said, washing it.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't have an answer in Washington right now.
Speaker 4: We're working on trying to solve it, but like you
Speaker 4: can see this panic. And one of the problems is
Speaker 4: if she names her nephew like oh, she was like,
Speaker 4: can I give him the money in my will? You can?
Speaker 4: But if you name him in your will and he's
Speaker 4: also one put me in the home, he might put
Speaker 4: you in the not so good home in order to
Speaker 4: save money so he gets more in the will. Like
Speaker 4: you think those things don't happen, but that abuse does.
Speaker 4: And these are the type of things that solos have
Speaker 4: to deal with, and there's not a solution. Like I
Speaker 4: talked to an exper on this who's been doing this
Speaker 4: for a decade, work with solos only, and she's like,
Speaker 4: my best solution is live in a trailer park where
Speaker 4: everybody has a small community together, or like a Golden
Speaker 4: Girls home, but that doesn't always work, at least not
Speaker 4: for the last friend to live.
Speaker 1: I think my next business is creating Golden Girls homes.
Speaker 1: I think that is what I want to get into.
Speaker 4: So I had a real estate expert reach out to
Speaker 4: me and he was trying to get into work with
Speaker 4: dinks and different things, and that's doing with no kids.
Speaker 4: I said to myself, you're missing the boat. The answer
Speaker 4: is these community homes whatever you want to call them,
Speaker 4: but they have to be fun. Yeah. I was like,
Speaker 4: I had somebody for one of my books. She wants
Speaker 4: to buy a castle and every one of the single
Speaker 4: ladies gets a different room in the castle and they
Speaker 4: all live in a castle for the last days. I
Speaker 4: was like, you know that one actually world also Wow.
Speaker 3: As an elevator, that's right, I know, but I'm like,
Speaker 3: just to make sure it's not too drafty.
Speaker 4: But you know, we have not as a society gotten
Speaker 4: to understand there are so many people out there that
Speaker 4: are living child free lives. But our system is all
Speaker 4: based on still kind of the nuclear family, the American dream,
Speaker 4: all that, and it's just a challenge.
Speaker 1: So what is one thing that if somebody is single
Speaker 1: with no kids is listening right now, what's kind of
Speaker 1: maybe one protection they can put in place, or one
Speaker 1: thing they might you think they might want to change
Speaker 1: about their planning right now.
Speaker 4: So if I had to pick just one thing, I
Speaker 4: would get something on paper for who makes decisions for
Speaker 4: you? Your will, your power attorney. And by the way, you
Speaker 4: can do that cheaply. I mean, there's a website called
Speaker 4: freewill dot com. You can get it for free, like
Speaker 4: besides getting a notary you might have pay whatever ten
Speaker 4: bucks for. But even if you don't have a best
Speaker 4: answer for who makes decisions for you, your friend that
Speaker 4: you kind of think is a better answer is probably
Speaker 4: a better answer than a random government person. And then
Speaker 4: you can specify your will who gets your stuff, because
Speaker 4: if you don't, the government gets it. I was just
Speaker 4: meeting with a banking regulator and I asked them, what's
Speaker 4: your process if somebody dies, you know, don't have kids.
Speaker 4: They said, they post it on their website, And I'm like,
Speaker 4: so I've got to look at all fifty states across
Speaker 4: the country, like I guess every week to see if
Speaker 4: my cousin died, and they're like, well, yeah, people don't
Speaker 4: reach out to us. And then if they don't reach out,
Speaker 4: it just goes to the government's pocket, which is part
Speaker 4: of the reason why the government doesn't look. So if
Speaker 4: you got nothing else you can do, get the paperwork done.
Speaker 4: It's not going to cost you much and you can
Speaker 4: at least get it. You know, you can update it
Speaker 4: whenever you want later, but get your first set. I
Speaker 4: don't care what age you are.
Speaker 3: These long term considerations are so helpful and often not
Speaker 3: on our radar for any of us to be considering
Speaker 3: a will and you know what we want to happen
Speaker 3: for us medically and just assigning beneficiaries like these things
Speaker 3: are a very important And I also like what you're
Speaker 3: describing here of thinking bigger picture, what do I want
Speaker 3: for my life to be able to know it doesn't
Speaker 3: have to look status quo, doesn't have to mean that
Speaker 3: I am buying a house, and it could mean that
Speaker 3: I get to have, as you said, you know, more time, flexibility,
Speaker 3: more freedom, more money in my pocket, as we distill
Speaker 3: that down then for kind of the day to day
Speaker 3: or month to month, like our present moments, how do
Speaker 3: you counsel people in what making a spending plan looks like? Then,
Speaker 3: if we've been able to identify, Okay, I've got this
Speaker 3: vision now for what I want my life to look like,
Speaker 3: how do we then incorporate that into the here and now.
Speaker 4: So we've tracked it with our clients, and we're a
Speaker 4: financial planning firm, so we do a lot of work
Speaker 4: with you know, our focus to child free folks. We
Speaker 4: do a lot of work on investments, all the things.
Speaker 4: We actually spend more time talking about spending money than
Speaker 4: saving money because what happens is if you're good at
Speaker 4: saving like you just like that, it's your habit, and
Speaker 4: it's actually harder to teach you how to spend money.
Speaker 4: So when I'm talking about a spending plan, it's usually
Speaker 4: getting people to spend more, not cut back. And that
Speaker 4: sounds a little different, but I'm trying to make sure
Speaker 4: they're getting to those like, oh, if they don't care
Speaker 4: about how much money they passed on next generation, we
Speaker 4: don't want them die with millions. We want to match them.
Speaker 4: And what tends to happen. Is that first step you're
Speaker 4: talking about, like I have a plan for my life.
Speaker 4: That's the hardest one. Most people don't have that answer,
Speaker 4: that takes forever to figure out. Once we have it,
Speaker 4: we will set goals. So I will set actually minimum
Speaker 4: spending goals on the things that matter to them. For example,
Speaker 4: a lot of our clients are travel enthusiasts. You know,
Speaker 4: they just love travel. Good thing about being a child
Speaker 4: phrase like you can pick a random time of the
Speaker 4: year and travel, and you know you can find the
Speaker 4: cheaper times you can go random places. And what we'll
Speaker 4: often do is we'll say, all right, we want you
Speaker 4: to spend more on travel, and they start getting to
Speaker 4: kind of this guilt thing about like, well can I
Speaker 4: really spend that on me? Is it okay for me
Speaker 4: to spend that much? And what we'll try to do
Speaker 4: is kind of offset it is we'll say, all right,
Speaker 4: how do we do an equal amount of giving to
Speaker 4: you have the charities that matter to you or the
Speaker 4: people that matter to you as we do to travel.
Speaker 4: You know, I have a couple right now we're working on, Hey,
Speaker 4: I want you to travel for one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 4: a year, and give away one hundred thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 4: which sounds crazy, but at the end of the year
Speaker 4: I will ask them, like, which did you get more
Speaker 4: out of the giving or the travel? Most out of
Speaker 4: times it's the giving. So we can find ways to
Speaker 4: shift their mindset around money. It's much like what you've
Speaker 4: gotten in your book of like how does it match
Speaker 4: your values? The impact you want to make, the bigger
Speaker 4: picture stuff. And it's interesting once they get used to it,
Speaker 4: they can start spending a bit more. But I still
Speaker 4: got people with you know, millions and millions of dollars
Speaker 4: cutting coupons. I'm like, first of all, there's ass for
Speaker 4: that now, but like, wow, you don't need to cut
Speaker 4: coupons anymore. Like you're okay, do you really want to
Speaker 4: spend hours cutting coupons? And I did have one clan
Speaker 4: and go I enjoy it. I'm like, okay, fine, you know,
Speaker 4: like that's you enjoy But it's that mindset that becomes
Speaker 4: tough to deal with.
Speaker 3: How do you help child free people identify what is
Speaker 3: excess because like, for someone like me, I still I'm
Speaker 3: going to need money. I'm not imagining that there's going
Speaker 3: to be anyone to care for me. I'll probably outlive
Speaker 3: my husband if it. You know, we just have the
Speaker 3: status quo life expectancy. So I do want to invest,
Speaker 3: but I'm also hearing what you're saying that there's all
Speaker 3: these other demands on money that you know, people with
Speaker 3: kids have that that I don't have. But how will
Speaker 3: I know? But I could spend this, I actually don't
Speaker 3: have to do all of these other things with my money.
Speaker 3: How can I know what that excess is?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the first thing is I really don't truly
Speaker 4: want you dying with zero like, you know, I don't
Speaker 4: want you like at the end, you know, having to
Speaker 4: work at Walmart to pay the bills, Like that's the
Speaker 4: worst outcome. So what we're going to do is we
Speaker 4: create a die with zero safety, that's what we call it,
Speaker 4: where we have a plan for long term care. So
Speaker 4: if you came to me as a client, we'd actually
Speaker 4: figure out whether you put money aside for long term
Speaker 4: care or insurance. Which long term care is really expensive.
Speaker 4: It's one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars a year. Men
Speaker 4: will spend two point two years in care, women three
Speaker 4: point seven. We're talking about half million dollars today. But
Speaker 4: we'll figure out that plan for long term care. We'll
Speaker 4: put off getting Social Security until seventy with a little
Speaker 4: cash cushion, and then what I'll show you is in
Speaker 4: the system, how much money you're gonna die with? Now,
Speaker 4: this is where we're doing Monte Carlo simulation. Other things
Speaker 4: we're looking at the you know, expected return investments. That's
Speaker 4: all guest mit work. But what tends to happen is
Speaker 4: people realize they hit their goal a long time ago.
Speaker 4: So a lot of folks use kind of like that
Speaker 4: safe withdrawal rate number of four percent. They'll take their
Speaker 4: expenses times twenty five. That's so much I have there
Speaker 4: for retirement. That all assumes you want to pass on
Speaker 4: the money to next generation. Doesn't fit child free people.
Speaker 4: So you know, if you and your husband came set
Speaker 4: down with me, I say, okay, you've got your safety net.
Speaker 4: This is what you need the end, this is what
Speaker 4: you have left. How do we bend the curve on
Speaker 4: your net worth so it stops always going up. The
Speaker 4: problem is if you've got a kind of quote unquote
Speaker 4: standard financial advisor who's charging you a percentage of your
Speaker 4: assets as to under management fee. There's a conflict of
Speaker 4: interest because your advisor always wants to go up because
Speaker 4: that means their salary goes up. So you've got to
Speaker 4: like find somebody that's willing to work with you and go, okay,
Speaker 4: let's make an active effort to bring this down over time.
Speaker 4: And what normally happens is for the people kind of
Speaker 4: thirties and forties, it means giving up that job you
Speaker 4: hate and doing something even joy. It might slow down
Speaker 4: your retirement, but you're okay. Or it might mean going
Speaker 4: back to school. I don't know why. I have a
Speaker 4: lot of folks that want to go back and be
Speaker 4: a librarian. Sounds like a cool job. I don't know,
Speaker 4: love librarians, right, but like, how do you do that?
Speaker 4: And I think what happens is the risk And it
Speaker 4: sounds like you and your husband are getting close to
Speaker 4: this is people get into mindlessly saving like they've just
Speaker 4: always been saving, always put in the retirement, and at
Speaker 4: some point it could be too much.
Speaker 3: I also appreciate how we're not just talking about we're
Speaker 3: talking about numbers, right, and some of the math and
Speaker 3: the strategy to that, but also lifestyle pieces that we
Speaker 3: can also be exploring that there could then be seasons
Speaker 3: where we can step back a little bit. We don't
Speaker 3: have to be hustling so hard, and just that awareness
Speaker 3: for what does the season require of me? What's actually
Speaker 3: enough when it comes to money? And how can I
Speaker 3: reorient and make sure that I'm both enjoying my present
Speaker 3: life and working towards future goals, but that both matter
Speaker 3: in this equation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're not doing yolo. Okay, this is not like
Speaker 4: let me just spend it all and be broken at
Speaker 4: the end. No, it's a definite plan that matches your life.
Speaker 3: Do you know what else as a definite plan that
Speaker 3: matches our life? Our Lives podcast The Bill of the Week.
Speaker 5: That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 5: entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name
Speaker 5: is William. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage. Maybe your
Speaker 5: car died and you're happy to not have to pay
Speaker 5: that bill anymore. Duck bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton. This
Speaker 5: is the bill of the Week.
Speaker 4: Jay.
Speaker 1: Every week we invite our guests and listeners, after yelling
Speaker 1: at them, of course, to share with us their bill
Speaker 1: for the week, and we are excited to hear yours.
Speaker 4: It's okay, I've got a love hate thing with one bill.
Speaker 4: All right, my splurge. It's kind of personal splurges. I've
Speaker 4: got all the streaming services like pretty much except for
Speaker 4: Apple TV A. No, he's the living dlay's out of
Speaker 4: me because it's ten bucks a month. Okay, it's not
Speaker 4: a lot of money, but I run out of shows
Speaker 4: on there almost every time. Yo, I'm getting to the
Speaker 4: last couple episodes of Silo and then this going away.
Speaker 4: But like, I know, I can afford the ten bucks,
Speaker 4: but for some reason, the fact that I'm not gonna
Speaker 4: touch it for a month or two bothers me for
Speaker 4: that one streaming service but not the others.
Speaker 1: It is so interesting because Apple has prioritized quality over quantity,
Speaker 1: but it kind of shoots them in the foot, like
Speaker 1: because you've got this going on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm not my Netflix. I've
Speaker 4: never canceled because there's always something I can find on there.
Speaker 4: Now I'm going to be good say like if there's
Speaker 4: some stuff I watch while I'm doing other work, because
Speaker 4: it's pointless. But like I think, you know, people get
Speaker 4: like there's a lot of stuff on subscriptions and should
Speaker 4: you have a whole bunch whatever? Actually, the best financial
Speaker 4: would be like I watched this for three months, then
Speaker 4: I cancel that and I go another streaming. I'm like,
Speaker 4: that's way too much work, and I don't commit to
Speaker 4: anything like you know this show. This week, I'm watching
Speaker 4: Tulsa King on Paramount cool uh, and then I'm like,
Speaker 4: I might skip that for a little bit and go
Speaker 4: over to Hulu. But Apple TV, You're right, there's something wrong,
Speaker 4: because it just I've canceled it probably half a dozen times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the same issue here, and it's making me realize
Speaker 3: that then sometimes apparently I'm paying ten dollars a month
Speaker 3: just for that one show. And remember when we used
Speaker 3: to be able to buy entire DVD sets of a
Speaker 3: show for ten dollars, and here we are potentially paying
Speaker 3: twenty to thirty to watch it over the course of
Speaker 3: a couple of months.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think this is the double edged sword of being
Speaker 3: aware of our money. Even if you can afford something,
Speaker 3: I think we still value being good stewards of the resource,
Speaker 3: and if we don't feel like we're getting good value
Speaker 3: in return, then yeah, it's gonna it's gonna irk me too.
Speaker 1: I'm with you, Jack, I have been so interested in
Speaker 1: Apple TV shows, but yeah, I've never I've never subscribed,
Speaker 1: so I don't know what they're like, but i've heard great. Thanks, Yes,
Speaker 1: they'll never sponsor us.
Speaker 4: Now I was gonna say, you've gone the wrong direction
Speaker 4: if you want that, but I mean they've got some
Speaker 4: good shows. But like, as soon as I'm done with
Speaker 4: that update, I'm like, I'm gone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, great point. Love that. Well, if you all listening,
Speaker 3: have a bill that you want to submit, if it
Speaker 3: has to do with subscription services, you have a love
Speaker 3: hate relationship with bills, You don't mind paying bills. You
Speaker 3: love paying a person named Bill, whether or not you
Speaker 3: love or hate them. Frugal Friends podcast, dot Com, slash bill.
Speaker 3: We can't wait to hear it. And now it's time
Speaker 3: for the round, all.
Speaker 1: Right now, in our vulnerability round, we're all gonna go
Speaker 1: and our question today is what she's changed. As soon
Speaker 1: as I go to read the question, she has even up.
Speaker 3: Go for it.
Speaker 1: What is your favorite way to spend money?
Speaker 4: Jay? So I already talked about streaming services. That is
Speaker 4: one of but the other one is I'm a video
Speaker 4: game guy, Like I buy a whole bunch of games.
Speaker 4: But I'll tell you my steam collection is a bunch
Speaker 4: of games I haven't played yet. But there's New Civilization
Speaker 4: coming out in a month or so, so that's where
Speaker 4: we spend some money and hopefully get to spend a
Speaker 4: lot of time.
Speaker 3: Do you enjoy the TV shows that are based off
Speaker 3: of games? Are those fun for you?
Speaker 4: They're fifty to fifty So the Fallout show was great? Yeah,
Speaker 4: I do enjoy Fallout a lot of the other ones.
Speaker 4: I'm like, yeah, like they made it too. Can't be
Speaker 4: to gamey, like you miss the show on the way by.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that makes sense. It's not all or nothing. Nice.
Speaker 3: My favorite is travel. I just love to travel. It
Speaker 3: is easy for me to say no to a lot
Speaker 3: of other things, but to be able to get on
Speaker 3: a plane, go places, see new sites, enjoy some beautiful things,
Speaker 3: different cultures. That's my favorite. And I love dropping some
Speaker 3: money on some of the luxury US things, like I
Speaker 3: am not doing hostels anymore. I know I'm a frugal friend,
Speaker 3: but that was from my twenties. These days, it's four
Speaker 3: stars are higher, and yeah, it just brings me so
Speaker 3: much joy.
Speaker 4: Okay, well we're here talking about spending one hundred bucks
Speaker 4: on a game, and you're spending ten grand out of
Speaker 4: the traveler, Like I didn't know where going that level.
Speaker 3: I mean, just what do you love?
Speaker 4: I'm not there.
Speaker 1: You will, Peter, You'll bring I'll bring us back down.
Speaker 1: And I would say mine is food. I love to
Speaker 1: grocery shop. I love to get take out.
Speaker 3: I love grocery shopping.
Speaker 1: I actually do, but I do it on my phone. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's my online shopping.
Speaker 3: That's your video game. That is the game, like you
Speaker 3: put the switch to like, I really love it.
Speaker 1: Hits my like I love going to Costco. I just
Speaker 1: love like buying food and snacks, like I just love it.
Speaker 3: Uh that is is there any particular food lately you're
Speaker 3: loving to buy?
Speaker 1: I love going to Costco because that I do shop
Speaker 1: like in store. So really anything at Costco right now
Speaker 1: or Sam's Club. I just alternate with the membership so
Speaker 1: I can get the new member deal.
Speaker 3: Tell me you have kids? About telling me you have kids?
Speaker 4: Okay, I like my snacks and sod of my wife,
Speaker 4: but like I don't enjoy shopping for them. I just
Speaker 4: enjoy eating them. I like shopping for them.
Speaker 3: Does I do? She likes being in and around food,
Speaker 3: getting food, eating food, talking about food.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, Jay, this has been very fun. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3: If people want to be around you talking about child
Speaker 3: free things, money, where can they get more from you?
Speaker 4: Yeah? So the new books, The Choffree Guide to Life
Speaker 4: and Money out in stores now, child Free Wealth and
Speaker 4: all the socials except for Twitter because he thinks childfree
Speaker 4: people should not vote, and Childfreewealth dot.
Speaker 1: Com nice And we saw it at Barnes and Noble
Speaker 1: when we were going to sign.
Speaker 3: Up books, so it's are sold. Thanks Jay.
Speaker 1: I really loved the idea of the garden and the rose,
Speaker 1: and I think it's definitely something that it's language I
Speaker 1: will use more frequently to define our seasons because we
Speaker 1: talk about honoring your season, and when we have language
Speaker 1: to define our season, it becomes easier to honor it.
Speaker 3: I think it's really illuminating too, to be able to
Speaker 3: say my season might even be a little different from
Speaker 3: this season that I'm sharing a household with, that it's
Speaker 3: not necessarily going to feel or look the same for
Speaker 3: you and your spouse or if you do have kids,
Speaker 3: you and your children, and being able to communicate about
Speaker 3: those things of here's what we both want long term.
Speaker 3: But in order to get there, I'm going to need
Speaker 3: to scale back or go full fours. And here's what
Speaker 3: we need to be able to do for one another.
Speaker 3: In kind of that ebb and flow that can happen.
Speaker 3: But I think Jay brought up a good point that
Speaker 3: without talking about it, things can go really awry. And
Speaker 3: I think similarly, just the overarching piece that he was
Speaker 3: laying out for us again that I think is important
Speaker 3: for all people, regardless of whether or not you have children,
Speaker 3: to be looking at what do I want out of life?
Speaker 3: And do I have to does it have to look
Speaker 3: status quo or can I throw a curveball? Can I
Speaker 3: do these other things? Can I experience greater degrees of
Speaker 3: flexibility with the ways that I spend money? I just
Speaker 3: think that these are really important questions to be asking.
Speaker 3: So I'm really glad that he brought these questions to
Speaker 3: the surface. Yeah, so we hope that this was helpful
Speaker 3: for you all. We really appreciate you listening. We also
Speaker 3: really appreciate those of you who are leaving very kind
Speaker 3: reviews of the book. That's right book Buy what you
Speaker 3: Love without going broke. It is now out there, and
Speaker 3: I know that you've heard us talking about our book
Speaker 3: for a very long time, but it's finally released into
Speaker 3: the world and it now is forever and always available
Speaker 3: for purchase, and if you have purchased it, reviews go
Speaker 3: a long way, same as they did do and did
Speaker 3: with the podcast. It's very helpful on a book, So
Speaker 3: we'd love it if you got the book anywhere books
Speaker 3: are bought and left us a review. Wherever you bought
Speaker 3: the book, you can leave one on Amazon. That's where
Speaker 3: this one came from. From K Montgomery five stars. This
Speaker 3: was about buy what you Love without Going Broke. They
Speaker 3: said I wasn't in debt, so I thought I was
Speaker 3: responsible with money, but I wasn't investing. I barely had
Speaker 3: enough to cover an emergency. I was mindlessly spending on
Speaker 3: stuff that didn't matter. By What you Love Without Going
Speaker 3: Broke is a wonderful book that talks about how to
Speaker 3: shift your mindset regarding the money you spend and what
Speaker 3: you want your money to be able to do with you.
Speaker 3: I now think about each purchase and if it's something
Speaker 3: that is in alignment with what I want in life?
Speaker 3: Is this helping me towards my goals? Is this something
Speaker 3: that I value? By what you Love Without Going Broke
Speaker 3: is more of a mindset shift than a how to
Speaker 3: save money book, although it talks about that too. If
Speaker 3: you feel like you have struggled with money and how
Speaker 3: you spend, but you want to get your finances in order,
Speaker 3: this is a great book to read. I also highly
Speaker 3: recommend listening to the Frugal Friends podcast too. Hey Montgomery,
Speaker 3: thank you, Thank you so much. It's such a good
Speaker 3: summary of the book because I think we've described that
Speaker 3: it's not an exact, step by step formulaic approach to finances.
Speaker 3: It is a lot more of that behavioral psychology and
Speaker 3: mindset and under self understanding that gets incorporated and woven
Speaker 3: into money. While there is still tangible takeaways from the
Speaker 3: book and best practices, we dig a little bit deeper,
Speaker 3: so I'm glad that k. Montgomery yeah, is experiencing that.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for reading. If you want to
Speaker 1: check out the book, head to buy what you loovebook
Speaker 1: dot com. With every purchase you will get over two
Speaker 1: hundred dollars worth of free resources at the resources page
Speaker 1: listed in the book. And if you liked the book,
Speaker 1: please leave a review wherever you purchased it or on
Speaker 1: Amazon or Goodreads. It helps us so much. Get the
Speaker 1: book into more hands.
Speaker 3: See you next time.
Speaker 1: Bye. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
Speaker 3: So this is the first podcast episode we're recording in
Speaker 3: the new year, because you all know us, we're a
Speaker 3: month ahead on recording eisodes. Honestly, yeah, so a month
Speaker 3: ahead out of order. But where it lands for us
Speaker 3: is this is the first time in the new year
Speaker 3: that we're recording. And fun fact for you all is
Speaker 3: that we got an office space, so we are no
Speaker 3: longer in our homes. We are downtown Saint Petersburg in
Speaker 3: a studio that we built out in a coworking space,
Speaker 3: and it's been a friggin blast, such a blast.
Speaker 1: I am digging it and it has been a fantastic
Speaker 1: use of our business money.
Speaker 3: I will be posting if I haven't already, on our Instagram,
Speaker 3: just some of the behind the scenes of the buildout
Speaker 3: of our studio and kind of how it's all come together,
Speaker 3: so you all can have a visual because we're also
Speaker 3: planning on doing more YouTube stuff this year, so it's
Speaker 3: all coming together. But this has been very fun, Like
Speaker 3: there's people who are walking by the office. We've got
Speaker 3: a little cute hot pink on air sign so that
Speaker 3: people can know to be a little bit quieter when
Speaker 3: they walk by. But there's just so much more act
Speaker 3: happening as we're recording, and that's been fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it. It will be a fun minimum of
Speaker 1: six months.
Speaker 4: That's how I.
Speaker 3: Can't After six months and we're out of here.
Speaker 1: We will reel when the YouTube videos are up, we
Speaker 1: will really need you guys to stream those, and it
Speaker 1: won't be podcast episodes like this. It's going to be
Speaker 1: very new and very exciting and.
Speaker 3: We're very new.
Speaker 1: It's very new, very new, no one's ever done it before.
Speaker 1: Just kidding, uh, but it is exciting and I think
Speaker 1: you guys will like it. We're not going to bore
Speaker 1: you with the you know, same thing most other podcasts
Speaker 1: are doing, so that is.
Speaker 3: Well teaser will tantalizing teaser.
Speaker 1: We kind of looked at what other podcasts were doing
Speaker 1: and we were like, I don't really care to watch that.
Speaker 3: What I do want to watch standard for what we
Speaker 3: think you want to watch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, bye bye